192 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL vill 



and of Leo is waiting to come on, nay, visible 

 behind the scenes to those who have good eyes 

 Men are beginning, once more, to awake to the 

 fact that matters of belief and of speculation are of 

 absolutely infinite practical importance ; and are 

 drawing off from that sunny country " where it is 

 always afternoon" the sleepy hollow of broad 

 indifferentism to range themselves under their 

 natural banners. Change is in the air. It is 

 whirling feather-heads into all sorts of eccentric 

 orbits, and filling the steadiest with a sense of in- 

 security. It insists on reopening all questions and 

 asking all institutions, however venerable, by what 

 right they exist, and whether they are, or are not, 

 in harmony with the real or supposed wants of 

 mankind. And it is remarkable that these search- 

 ing inquiries are not so much forced on institu- 

 tions from without, as developed from within. 

 Consummate scholars question the value of learn- 

 ing ; priests contemn dogma ; and women turn 

 "their backs upon man's ideal of perfect woman- 

 hood, and seek satisfaction in apocalyptic visions 

 of some, as yet, unrealised epicene reality. 



If there be a type of stability in this world, one 

 would be inclined to look for it in the old Univer- 

 sities of England. But it has been my business 

 of late to hear a good deal about what is going on 

 in these famous corporations; and I have been 

 filled with astonishment by the evidences of inter- 

 nal fermentation which they exhibit. If Gibbon 



