Sermons, (Sssags, anb |Uiittixrs [in. 



to tlie worth, or worthlessness, of the author read. It 

 means the learning of innumerable, not always decent, 

 fables in such a shape that the meaning they once had 

 is dried up into utter trash ; and the only impression 

 left upon a boy's mind is, that the people who believed 

 such things must have been the greatest idiots the 

 world ever saw. And it means, finally, that after a 

 dozen years spent at this kind of work, the sufferer 

 shall be incompetent to interpret a passage in an author 

 he has not already got up; that he shall loathe the 

 sight of a Greek or Latin book ; and that he shall 

 never open, or think of, a classical writer again, until, 

 wonderful to relate, he insists upon submitting his 

 sons to the same process. 



These be your gods, Israel ! For the sake of this 

 net result (and respectability) the British father denies 

 his children all the knowledge they might turn to 

 account in life, not merely for the achievement of 

 vulgar success, but for guidance in the great crises of 

 human existence. This is the stone he offers to those 

 whom he is bound by the strongest and tenderest ties 

 to feed with bread. 



If primary and secondary education are in this un- 

 satisfactory state, what is to be said to the universities ? 

 This is an awful subject, and one I almost fear to 

 touch with my unhallowed hands; but I can tell you 

 what those say who have authority to speak. 



The Kector of Lincoln College, in his lately published, 

 valuable " Suggestions for Academical Organization with 

 especial reference to Oxford," tells us (p. 127) : 



"The colleges were, in their origin, endowments, 



not for the elements of a general liberal education, 



ut for the prolonged study of special and professional 



faculties by men of riper age. The universities ein- 



