4 3 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



their faces half averted and their eyes half closed at the contemplation 

 of such enormity. No wonder that our established clergy raised their 

 smoothly-shaven chins in meek abhorrence of such impiety, and dis- 

 played their white neckcloths, the emblems of the pure sentiments 

 which surged beneath. Perhaps the strangest thing in the whole 

 of this history — and it shows that there must be something radically 

 wrong in the constitution of the universe — is that this wicked en- 

 terprise weathered the storm, and that the parent institution is by 

 far the most important educational establishment for adults in the 

 metropolis, while its progeny may be found thriving in almost every 

 provincial town of any size throughout Great Britain. Tell it not in 

 Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon. Here is an educa- 

 tional institution which, without any help from nobleman or priest — 

 save that which they conferred by staying away — is not only suc- 

 ceeding, but getting over the " religious " difficulty by leaving the- 

 ology to be taught elsewhere, and solving the problem of female 

 education by simply opening its doors on equal terms to men and 

 women. This "godless" college is now educating 2,712 students of 

 both sexes; its curriculum is as wide and its teaching as thorough 

 as that of any institution with which we are acquainted ; and so 

 completely have the bogies which frighten the outside educational 

 world been exorcised, that even a thought of them never seems to 

 cross the minds of the students who, after their day's toil, come down 

 to instruct themselves in literature, science, and art, and to take part 

 in the management of their alma mater. 



How was it that Lord Carnarvon cast his benignant smile on 

 such an institution? Times, it is said, change; and we change with 

 them. Has the leopard of obscurantism, then, changed his spots ? 

 His lordship's speech furnishes a complete answer to this. It shows 

 that the Tory oligarchs are as thoroughly opposed as ever they were 

 to the work of education. They are acting over again the old fable 

 of the sun and the wind. Force has failed, and they are trying to 

 gain the same end by persuasion. The difference is purely one of 

 engineering. They have tried the granite wall of direct resistance 

 only to find it shattered by the heavy artillery of the democracy, 

 and their hope is now in the yielding earthwork of patronage. Lord 

 Carnarvon and his compeers love popular education as the Due 

 de Broglie loves parliamentary government. They will resist giving 

 it at all as long as possible ; and, when this cannot be done, they will 

 push themselves to the front and undertake the supply of the article, 

 taking care to do as fraudulent tradesmen do with their milk, skim- 

 ming as much of the cream off; and adding as much water, as they 

 can without being detected. 



The whole gist of Lord Carnarvon's address was an attack on sci- 

 entific education. Not that he objects to science if kept within 

 proper bounds. He does not find fault with " those like the late Mr. 



