36 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT. 



such as many a gray-headed veteran, or clergyman, 

 would envy ; and which is larger than the endowment 

 of many Eegius chairs. You do not care to make 

 your University a school of manners for the rich ; of 

 sports for the athletic ; or a hot-bed of high-fed, 

 hypercritical refinement, more destructive to vigour 

 and originality than are starvation and oppression. 

 No ; your little Bursaries of ten and twenty (I believe 

 even fifty) pounds a year, enable any boy who has 

 shown ability in the course of his education in those 

 remarkable primary schools, which have made Scotland 

 the power she is, to obtain the highest culture the 

 country can give him ; and when he is armed and 

 equipped, his Spartan Alma Mater tells him that, so 

 far, he has had his wages for his work, and that he 

 may go and earn the rest. 



When I think of the host of pleasant, monied, well- 

 bredyoung gentlemen, who do a little learning and much 

 boating by Cam and Isis, the vision is a pleasant one ; 

 and, as a patriot, I rejoice that the youth of the upper 

 and richer classes of the nation receive a wholesome and 

 a manly training, however small may be the modicum 

 of knowledge they gather, in the intervals of this, their 

 serious business. I admit, to the full, the social and 

 political value of that training. But, when I proceed 

 to consider that these young men may be said to 

 represent the great bulk of what the Colleges have to 

 show for their enormous wealth, plus, at least, a 

 hundred and fifty pounds a year apiece which each 

 undergraduate costs his parents or guardians, I feel 

 inclined to ask, whether the rate-in-aid of the educa- 



