THE MODERN UNIVERSITY MOVEMENT 21 
I regret most truly the ugliness of our surroundings, I regret 
that the young people who come to us cannot breathe 
unpolluted air, have their bumping races on the river, and 
wander in the pleasant woods and meadows that should 
surround Kirkstall Abbey. But we cannot have everything— 
at least at present. We have more than many people know 
of, and shall get more than many people expect. 
The question has been raised as to whether our non-collegiate 
system of life (for our halls of residence are in their infancy), 
the absence of the kind of supervision which prevails in 
Oxford and Cambridge, and, above all, the proximity of 
a large city, where vice in many garbs strides flaunting 
through the streets—whether these things do not bring to our 
students risks that are vastly greater than those that attend 
life in the older universities. I cannot pretend to say with 
certainty. The new universities are of course mainly non- 
resident in character, and must long continue to be so. There 
is, however, a continual growth in the number of students 
coming from a distance. In Manchester, two prosperous 
residential halls, not very different in their regime from the 
colleges of the old universities, are already in existence. We 
have three smaller ones in Leeds, and I think there can be no 
doubt that these halls will increase ii number and eventually 
contain a very large section of the student community, 
including, be it said, those who are poor in this world’s goods. 
Of their importance there can be no doubt, and whilst we lack 
them we are defective in what many people will consider 
perhaps the most indispensable component of a university. 
Meanwhile we suffer from the absence of what is of infinite 
value, or what may be of infinite value, in making our 
universities a training ground for character, and we cannot 
pretend that at present the impress made by three or four 
years of our university life is in kind or degree all that we 
could wish. Some merits in this respect we certainly have. 
