OPPOSITION 39 



' Out of twenty-four heads of houses, only four at 

 Oxford to receive the Association ! But it will go 

 off the better by the absence of the lukewarm or the 

 hostile/ 1 It is no matter for wonder that Oxford, 

 not only at the time of Lyell's comment, but both 

 before and after, should have contained notable 

 elements of disaffection. The deeper causes of this 

 were appropriately summarised by the Marquis of 

 Salisbury from the chair when the Association met, 

 again at Oxford, in 1894 ; he said : 



' I have the consolation of feeling that I am free 

 from some of the anxieties which have fallen to those 

 who have preceded me as presidents in this city. 

 The relations of the Association and the University 

 are those of entire sympathy and good will, as 

 becomes common workers in the sacred cause of 

 diffusing enlightenment and knowledge. But we 

 must admit that it was not always so. A curious 

 record of a very different state of feeling came to light 

 last year in the interesting biography of Dr. Pusey, 

 which is the posthumous work of Canon Liddon. In 

 it is related the first visit of the Association to Oxford 

 in 1832. Mr. Keble, at that time a leader of Univer- 

 sity thought, writes indignantly to his friend to 

 complain that the honorary degree of D.C.L. had been 

 bestowed upon some of the most distinguished 

 members of the Association : " The Oxford Doctors/' 

 he says, " have truckled sadly to the spirit of the times 

 in receiving the hodge-podge of philosophers as they 

 did/' It is amusing at this distance of time to note 



1 As recording an interesting incident which finds no place in the 

 general history of the Association, two further sentences from the 

 same letter may be quoted : * I was glad at Oxford to see more of 

 Ruskin, who is secretary of our Geological Section. I like him very 

 much.' 



