104 A LIBERAL EDUCATION ; IV 



and not representative men. Indeed, upon calm 

 consideration, several circumstances lead me to 

 think that the Rector of Lincoln College and the 

 Commissioners cannot be far wrong. 



I believe there can be no doubt that the 

 foreigner who should wish to become acquainted 

 with the scientific, or the literary, activity of 

 modern England, would simply lose his time and 

 his pains if he visited our universities with that 

 object. 



And, as for works of profound research on any 

 subject, and, above all, in that classical lore for 

 which the universities profess to sacrifice almost 

 everything else, why, a third-rate, poverty-stricken 

 German university turns out more produce of 

 that kind in one year, than our vast and wealthy 

 foundations elaborate in ten. 



Ask the man who is investigating any question, 

 profoundly and thoroughly be it historical, philo- 

 sophical, philological, physical, literary, or theo- 

 logical; who is trying to make himself master of 

 any abstract subject (except, perhaps, political 

 economy and geology, both of which are intensely 

 Anglican sciences), whether he is not compelled 

 to read half a dozen times as many German as 

 English books ? And whether, of these English 

 books, more than one in ten is the work of a 

 fellow of a college, or a professor of an English 

 university ? 



Is this from any lack of power in the English 



