UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 33 



thought is free from all fetters ; and in which all sources 

 of knowledge, and all aids to learning, should be acces- 

 sible to all comers, without distinction of creed or coun- 

 try, riches or poverty. 



Do not suppose, however, that I am sanguine enough 

 to expect much to come of any poor efforts of mine. 

 If your annals take any notice of my incumbency, I 

 shall probably go down to posterity as the Rector who 

 was always beaten. But if they add, as I think they 

 will, that my defeats became victories in the hands of 

 my successors, I shall be well content. 



The scenes are shifting in the great theatre of the 

 world. The act which commenced with the Protestant 

 Reformation is nearly played out, and a wider and a 

 deeper change than that effected three centuries ago a 

 reformation, or rather a revolution of thought, the ex- 

 tremes of which are represented by the intellectual heirs 

 of John of Leyden and of Ignatius Loyola, rather than 

 by those of Luther 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 ab- 

 solutely infinite practical importance ; and are drawing 

 off from that sunny country " where it is always after- 

 noon" 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 



