viii UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 103 



could revisit the ancient seat of learning of which 

 he has written so cavalierly, assuredly he would 

 no longer speak of " the monks of Oxford sunk in 

 prejudice and port." There, as elsewhere, port 

 has gone out of fashion, and so has prejudice- at 

 least that particular fine, old, crusted sort of pre- 

 judice to which the great historian alludes. 



Indeed, things are moving so fast in Oxford and 

 Cambridge, that, for my part, I rejoiced when the 

 Royal Commission, of which I am a member, had 

 finished and presented the Report which related 

 to these Universities ; for we should have looked 

 like mere plagiarists, if, in consequence of a little 

 longer delay in issuing it, all the measures of 

 reform we proposed had been anticipated by the 

 spontaneous action of the Universities them- 

 selves. 



A month ago I should have gone on to say that 

 one might speedily expect changes of another 

 kind in Oxford and Cambridge. A Commission 

 has been inquiring into the revenues of the many 

 wealthy societies, in more or less direct connection 

 with the Universities, resident in those towns. It 

 is said that the Commission has reported, and 

 that, for the first time in recorded history, the 

 nation, and perhaps the Colleges themselves, will 

 know what they are worth. And it was announced 

 that a statesman, who, whatever his other merits 

 or defects, has aims above the level of mere party 

 fighting, and a clear vision into the most complex 



