September 29, 1923] 



NA TURE 



465 



calcareous, and one of the cephalic filaments is usually 

 modified to form an operculum. One of the most 

 interesting features of the family is the remarkable 

 )igmentation of the cephalic filaments, often ver\- 

 mriable in the same species, giving the animal a charm- 

 ing flower-like appearance, a phenomenon which has 

 still to be investigated thoroughly. Among British 

 fspecies the condition is best developed in Pomatocerus 

 triqueier, which, nearly everywhere, whitens the stones 

 and rocks between tidemarks. Other characteristic 

 British forms, amply treated here, are Serpula 

 vermicularis, so often attached to the shells of Pecten 

 in the coralline zone, and Filograna, the coral-like 

 masses of which are frequently taken in the dredge. 



Lastly there is an addendum of no less than seventy- 

 eight species which have been discovered or described 

 as British, too late to appear in their proper places. 

 Of the many co-workers whom the author cites as 

 responsible for these additions to the British fauna, 

 there must be specially mentioned Mr. Southern, of the 

 [Irish Fisheries Department, who, working in the years 

 ijust before the War, at Clare Island and elsewhere, 

 lobtained a plentiful harvest of unsuspected forms, 

 tincluding eighteen entirely new species. " Truly the 

 [riches of the marine fauna of the west coast of Ireland 

 iiare by no means exhausted," Prof. Mcintosh is con- 

 [.strained to exclaim, and we must hope that Mr. Southern 

 lay be able to complete his faunistic work. 

 The wonderful charm of the drawings by the late 

 iMrs. Gunther and Miss Walker, and the success of their 

 Ireproduction, have so often been commented upon by 

 reviewers of earlier parts that we can do no more than 

 Fre-echo their praise. One feature of the volume is, 

 fhowever, almost unique : that is the bibliographical 

 [collation of the parts as issued, compiled with the index 

 by Mr. G. A. Smith. 



Universities and National Life. 



The Older Universities of England : Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge. By Albert Mansbridge. Pp. xxiv -i- 296 -i- 8 

 plates. (London : Longmans, Green and Co., 1923.) 

 75. 6d. net. 



MR. MANSBRIDGE scores with both barrels. He 

 appeals to both of the classes into which (rela- 

 tive to his book) the world is divided — those who have 

 been at a university and those who have not. In any 

 case, although he has the detachment which comes from 

 never having been through the university mill himself, 

 he not only loves and appreciates the university and 

 what it stands for, but also has actually added some- 

 thing to its nature and functions. By his initiation 

 of the Workers' Educational Association, he gave a new 

 and fuller content to the whole extra-mural side of 



NO. 2813, VOL. I 12] 



university activity, and helped to spread the uni- 

 versities' influence more rapidly and more extensively 

 than could have been done in any other way. Add to 

 all this that he was a member of the recent Royal Com- 

 mission on Oxford and Cambridge, and it will be seen 

 that he has advantages that the most learned historian 

 cannot despise. 



For it is as a historian that Mr. Mansbridge, wisely 

 enough, chooses to treat his subject. In his pages we 

 see the genesis of English universities in the ferment 

 of the twelfth century, the beginnings of the college 

 system, its expansion by such men as William of Wyke- 

 ham, Henry VI., and Wolsey, the involvement of the 

 universities in politics, the submergence of their 

 original purpose beneath the flood of wealth and birth 

 in the eighteenth century, the gradual reappearance 

 of that purpose from the middle of the nineteenth 

 century onwards, the adjustment of the curriculum to 

 modern needs, the growth of a new university organ in 

 extra-mural education. . . . 



We are not allowed to forget the continuity and 

 vitality of the current of scholarship and learning, nor 

 to lose sight, under a mass of academic detail, of the 

 university's position in the body politic. Nor is that 

 all ; Mr. Mansbridge, for all his idealism (which may 

 prove almost embarrassing to a certain type of over- 

 worked and matter-of-fact " don "), can appreciate and 

 even be affectionate to the failings of Oxford and 

 Cambridge. The noblemen and gentlemen-commoners, 

 even at their most foppish, amuse him ; he sees through 

 to the human heart below donnishness, and smiles 

 indulgently on port. 



For this alone the book is worth reading — because 

 it is a short and well-written and appreciative history 

 of our two oldest and greatest seats of learning. But 

 it is worth reading for more important reasons. It is 

 worth reading by the university-trained man, partly 

 because Mr. Mansbridge's wistful regret at his own lack 

 of that training helps to fuller realisation of its meaning 

 and values, and partly because his concern for the 

 extension system and the W.E.A.'s fine work puts the 

 university in a new setting for him, relates it to new 

 aspects of national life. It is worth reading also by 

 all those who have not received a university education 

 and yet are concerned in any way with domestic 

 politics, because it will help reveal to them what a 

 university can and should be — ^what an ideal to the 

 individual, what a force in the community. 



Mr. Mansbridge is a rebuke to the diehard (generally 

 Tory, practical, and well-to-do), who exclaims that 

 education is a curse and a burden and higher education 

 in particular an unpractical folly ; and a rebuke no less 

 to those violent spirits of the Left who see in all uni- 

 versities, and especially in Oxford and Cambridge, some 



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