1 86 CAMBRIDGE 



the fellowships, and to endeavour to give the candid 

 inquirer some ground for a judgment on the claims 

 of Cambridge. But we must first discuss what is 

 perhaps the most serious obstacle to the satisfaction 

 of her needs. This obstacle is the belief, appa- 

 rently ineradicable, that the older Universities teach 

 and care for nothing but the ancient languages, 

 theology, and mathematics. For the persistence of 

 this belief the daily press and public speakers are in 

 a great measure to blame. Scarcely a week passes 

 without an allusion which betrays, if not a culpable 

 levity, a most unfortunate ignorance. Cambridge 

 men have listened with amazement to the covert 

 attacks on Cambridge science, and have wondered 

 how long it may be before Cambridge letters are also 

 disparaged. Of late, too, another note has been heard ; 

 and, notwithstanding the just aspiration of the new 

 Universities to a many-sided activity, alike in the 

 literary and scientific fields, an attempt, which must 

 be stigmatized as ungenerous and illiberal, has been 

 made in the press and on the public platform to limit 

 the functions of the ancient Universities, and to drive 

 them back into the grooves of the thirties and forties, 

 from which Cambridge, to say nothing of Oxford, has so 

 completely escaped. Whatever the reason may be, it 

 is at least certain that Cambridge is frequently written 

 and spoken of as if she were still the Cambridge of 1850. 

 It has been suggested, even in responsible journals, 

 that Oxford and Cambridge would do well to keep to 

 the older lines of education, and to leave newer studies 

 to their younger rivals. The obsession of men's 

 minds by an ideal which passed away half a century 

 ago can alone account for the impression that the 

 policy of restriction to the ancient learning is in any 

 way possible, or has been possible for these fifty 

 years. Those who know Cambridge may well be 

 astonished that responsible persons should gravely 



