THE MODERN UNIVERSITY MOVEMENT 19 



Cambridge in term time, and has had a glimpse of the life 

 that may be lived in those surroundings, can fail to understand 

 what is to be prized above all else in the ancient universities. 

 The beauty of the place, the noble buildings, the traditions 

 that they breathe, the great names of the past (and occasionally 

 of the present) that stir the imagination ; and then the daily 

 life, at work, at play, the meals in stately halls, the quaint 

 and ancient customs, the crowd of kindred spirits, the seeming 

 religious background to it all. I have lived as a temporary don 

 for a fortnight in a Cambridge college. It was not long, but 

 quite long enough to enable me to understand partly and 

 forgive wholly the exuberance of praise to which I have been 

 compelled to listen all my life from my many friends who were 

 educated at Oxford or Cambridge. I have been in Cambridge 

 in May week more than once and seen the very flower of 

 England's youth assembled there for wholesome pleasure - 

 making. There is, I believe, nothing like it to be seen in the 

 world, unless, of course, at Oxford. No one can wonder at the 

 impress such communities make upon those who dwell within 

 them, and no one can wonder at those who think that we 

 have nothing like this to offer and never can have. 



But, after all, Oxford and Cambridge had a beginning and 

 so have we, and I for one am content to work for the future. 

 I should not be content unless I could do so with good and 

 well-founded hope. It is almost thirty years since I went as 

 a student to Owens College, Manchester, and lived in lodgings 

 in that great city. I cannot say that my sense of the beautiful 

 was much exalted by my surroundings, though I think my 

 sense of the need of beauty was very much sharpened. 

 There was good music to be heard, perhaps the best 

 in England ; there were good plays to be seen, and there 

 was some art ; but altogether it was not what is called an 

 * atmosphere '. There was something of a corporate life 

 outside the class rooms; there were games and societies, 



