42 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



this view. So I hope that some choice will be offered 

 us. The professorship is worth about 700 a year, without 

 any necessary deductions ; everything in the way of apparatus 

 and assistance for the purposes of the chair being found by 

 the University. The post is eminently suited to anyone who 

 wishes to give himself a good deal to research, as the duties, 

 although unfortunately now rather too much for me, are by no 

 means onerous. It is not for me to offer advice in this matter, 

 but I hope you will let the facts of the case be known and 

 consider them yourself. 



Ever sincerely yours, 



B. C. BRODIE. 



December i$tk, 1872. 

 BROCKHAM WARREN, REIGATE. 

 MY DEAR ROSCOE, 



I very much hope that you and other friends of science 

 at Manchester will join the association of which I enclose to 

 you a programme. With our object you cannot but concur, 

 for it essentially is to restore to science, learning, and educa- 

 tion the great endowments of the colleges which are now of 

 no manner of use, but are wasted upon a nonsensical system 

 of sinecure prizes. We ask you to come forward and say this 

 ought to be done, and also to tell us how, and in what way, 

 you think it may best be done. 



We cannot expect the Fellows of colleges to perform at 

 once "the happy despatch," and the system of fellowships 

 will never be abolished without a great struggle. It is the 

 main support, not only of clerical education at Oxford, but of 

 classical education also, which will soon find its true level 

 when it has ceased to be bolstered up by the system of prizes. 

 If all studies were equally weighted the advantages of classical 

 learning would appear in a very different light to that in which 

 they are now regarded. All this is very well known, although 

 it is not said, and consequently we are met at once by all 

 sorts of opposition and misrepresentation, even from those 

 who should know better. 



As to any diversion elsewhere of the funds of the colleges 

 for similar purposes to those which we advocate as our objects 

 are not at all local, we certainly are not opposed in any way 

 to such an appropriation. Indeed, why should we not have 

 " Institutes of Scientific Research " connected with Owens 

 College or the University of Edinburgh, as well as with 



