CAMBRIDGE 



4 Our dear Cambridge.' 



COWLEY : 

 1 On the Death of Mr. William Hervey.' 



THE grant of a charter to the Victoria University in 

 1880 marked the beginning of a new era in English 

 education. Not to speak of Scotland and Wales, 

 there are in England to-day six Universities which 

 bring the new learning and the old to the very doors 

 of the vast populations which surround their seats. 

 Birmingham claims the Midlands ; Manchester, Liver- 

 pool, Leeds, and Sheffield instruct the manufacturing 

 and commercial centres of the North ; while the Uni- 

 versity of London, full of new aspirations, does its 

 best for the huge and somewhat apathetic population 

 of the capital. The calculated prodigality of the State 

 endowments of Germany, the individual generosity of 

 the citizens of the United States, the vigour of the 

 young Universities of Canada, have smitten the 

 national conscience, if not with shame, at least with 

 fear. But, while so powerful a lever as the dread of 

 industrial decay may have been necessary to overcome 

 the intellectual inertia of the country, the consequent 

 impetus given to the study of science and (it may be 

 hoped) of letters is not dying away, but rather taking 

 permanent shape ; and it is now impossible to say, as 

 was said in 1903 by one of the members of the Mosely 

 Educational Commission, that * in this country ... we 

 seem to be doing nothing for its own sake, and least 

 of all in education.' 



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