194 UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL vm 



practical problems, meant to deal with these 

 revenues. 



But, Bos locutus est. That mysterious indepen- 

 dent variable of political calculation, Public 

 Opinion which some whisper is, in the present 

 case, very much the same thing as publican's 

 opinion has willed otherwise. The Heads may 

 return to their wonted slumbers at any rate for 

 a space. 



Is the spirit of change, which is working thus 

 vigorously in the South, likely to affect the 

 Northern Universities, and if so, to what extent ? 

 The violence of fermentation depends, not so much 

 on the quantity of the yeast, as on the com- 

 position of the wort, and its richness in fer- 

 mentable material ; and, as a preliminary to the 

 discussion of this question, I venture to call to 

 your minds the essential and fundamental differ- 

 ences between the Scottish and the English type 

 of University. 



Do not charge me with anything worse than 

 official egotism, if I say that these differences 

 appear to be largely symbolised by my own 

 existence. There is no Rector in an English 

 University. Now, the organisation of the mem- 

 bers of a University into Nations, with their 

 elective Rector, is the last relic of the primitive 

 constitution of Universities. The Rectorate was 

 the most important of all offices in that University 

 of Paris, upon the model of which the University 



