VHI UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 191 



of his own, but of other countries, which is his 

 honourable characteristic among statesmen. I 

 have already done my best, and, as long as I hold 

 my office, I shall continue my endeavours, to follow 

 in the path which he trod ; to do what in me lies, 

 to bring this University nearer to the ideal alas, 

 that I should be obliged to say ideal of all 

 Universities ; which, as I conceive, should be places 

 in which thought is free from all fetters ; and in 

 which all sources of knowledge, and all aids to 

 learning, should be accessible to all comers, with- 

 out distinction of creed or country, riches or 

 poverty. 



Do not suppose, however, that I am sanguine 

 enough to expect much to come of any poor efforts 

 of mine. If your annals take any notice of my 

 incumbency, I shall probably go down to posterity 

 as the Kector who was always beaten. But if they 

 add as I think they will, that my defeats became 

 victories in the hands of my successors, I shall be 

 well content. 



The scenes are shifting in the great theatre of the 

 world. The act which commenced with the Protest- 

 ant Reformation is nearly played out, and a wider 

 and deeper change than that effected three cen- 

 turies ago a reformation, or rather a revolution of 

 thought, the extremes of which are represented by 

 the intellectual heirs of John of Leyden and of 

 Ignatius Loyola, rather than by those of Luther 



