42 UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 



subordination to the University by their founders ; but, 

 in many cases, their endowment, consisting of land, has 

 undergone an "unearned increment," which has given 

 these societies a continually increasing weight and im- 

 portance as against the unendowed, or fixedly endowed, 

 University. In Pharaoh's dream, the seven lean kine 

 eat up the seven fat ones. In the reality of historical 

 fact, the fat Colleges have eaten up the lean Universities. 



Even here in Aberdeen, though the causes at work 

 may have been somewhat different, the effects have been 

 similar ; and you see how much more substantial an 

 entity is the Yery Reverend the Principal, analogue, if 

 not homologue, of the Principals of King's College, than 

 the Rector, lineal representative of the ancient monarchs 

 of the University, though now, little more than a " king 

 of shreds and patches." 



Do not suppose that, in thus briefly tracing the pro- 

 cess of University metamorphosis, I have had any inten- 

 tion of quarrelling with its results. Practically, it seems 

 to me that the broad changes effected in 1858 have given 

 the Scottish Universities a very liberal constitution, with 

 as much real approximation to the primitive state of 

 things as is at all desirable. If your fat kine have eaten 

 the lean, they have not lain down to chew the cud ever 

 since. The Scottish Universities, like the English, have 

 diverged widely enough from their primitive model; 

 but I cannot help thinking that the northern form has 

 remained more faithful to its original, not only in con- 

 stitution, but, what is more to the purpose, in view of 



