of the rich.' It is certain that as information slowly finds its way downwards, this simple reasoning must come into vogue. Meanwhile, so far as the figures have been reflected on by the classes at present interested in the universities, the conviction has arisen that there is something wrong here. The expenses of this educational establishment are out of all proportion to the work done. We have not so much fault to find with the teaching, but it is too expensive. 400,000l. a year for 'tuition, prizes, and the use of the globes' is too much. It can be done cheaper.

If this is a true description, first of the actual reasoning of the middle classes, and secondly of the prospective reasoning of the lower classes, it becomes intelligible why a Conservative government should have found it necessary to take the initiative and endeavour to obviate the economic objection to Oxford. The objection of its extravagant cost is not the only objection that can be brought, but it is the only one which is urged with any effect, or which can be adequately apprehended by the middle class of an industrial community with little education and no culture. The sum in arithmetic-divide the pounds by the pupils—that is an argument by which the constituencies' are capable of being moved. It is an act of statesmanship to anticipate this movement, and to deal with the surplus funds' of the colleges, before they are seized by ignorant hands. I offer this as a conjectural history of Lord Salisbury's bill.

Something then had to be done with the money, which could not be spent on teachers, plant, and prizes. What should be done with it? This might have proved an embarrassing problem had it occurred some years earlier. Had the surplus funds' had to be spent in 1866, they might have gone to found commercial schools in the great towns of the provinces; as in 1793, when the French, who never do things by halves, suppressed their universities, and founded lycées,' or grammar schools, in every department. But here came into play that other current of opinion, which I have before described as the opinion of the scientific and literary classes.

2. The opinion of this class in the first half of the present century was unanimous in denouncing the barrenness and inefficiency of Oxford as a place of education. Since 1850 this complaint has gradually died away. The things complained of have been remedied. We have gradually introduced all the reforms in our curriculum which were demanded of us. All the new subjects are taught here, and the old subjects are taught with more system and energy than before. But the quarter of a century which has elapsed since 1850 has been to us pregnant with a new experience. This new experience is just now fermenting in our minds. None of us, perhaps, can speak about it with confidence as yet, or take a side in regard to it. But we all feel that out of this newest phase of our educational experience is arising the question of the day, the question upon which university reorganisation at this moment will

turn. This experience is new to us, but it is old in the history of education.

In ages or countries where methods of education were not matters of study or experiment, the higher education was merely casual, traditional, formal. A certificate or degree, or a certain social status, was obtained by passing through it, and nothing more was thought of. Whenever or wherever the development of the intellect became the object of serious study, and systematic effort, one or other of two methods has been tried. For there are but two methods by which the young intelligence can be stimulated to the prolonged effort which is required in order to grapple successfully with any considerable body of knowledge. Free intelligence as such has an elasticity of its own. The mind in its spring puts itself forth on all sides. It requires no stimulation, but only to be directed. The reason, by its own nature, seeks truth. The young mind desires to know, to explore the unknown, to find out the nature and causes of things. The task of the teacher easy, it is only to satisfy this longing. He has but to guide and aid; he may have to restrain ardour, never to urge reluctance. The stimulus to acquisition is within.

is

This is the only true foundation on which a university can be placed. The hautes études' can only be profitably pursued in this spirit. It is a process of natural selection by which aptitudes find their development. In some ages and countries such ingenuous in

C

telligence, which is the raw material of the higher education, is rare. Again there have been times and places, where there has occurred a general outbreak of intellectual ardour, and the enthusiasm of learning. Such a period was the great speculative outburst of the twelfth century (1150-1250), out of which universities arose. Such again was the Italian renaissance of the fifteenth century; and, in a less marked degree, the philological and philosophical movement which elevated the German universities to the monopoly of learning in Europe, in the period which began with the accession of Frederick the Great (1740-1848). These are extraordinary epochs; overflowings of the human spirit; moments of inspiration, incalculable and irreducible to system. But apart from such crises of exaltation it may be said, that the method known as Humanism was founded upon the average or permanent instincts in the human mind which push it to desire expansion or culture for their own sake. This method is wholly voluntary, it submits to no compulsion from the state, it employs no artificial allurements, but depends entirely upon the attraction which science, letters, and the humanities exert upon the classes possessed of wealth and leisure.

In opposition to this method stands the method of recruitment by bounties. The introduction of the system of emulation, and prizes into the higher studies is historically traceable to the Jesuits. The adoption of the principle of perpetual supervision, of repeated

examinations, of weekly exercises, produced marvellous results in the Jesuit colleges. For a century and a half these establishments carried all before them, and earned the praises of all, even Protestant, observers, who contrasted their energy and zeal with the lifeless routine of the old universities. It was not till the first half of the 18th century that opinion began to turn. It required time for the experiment of external stimulus applied to intellectual development to be fairly tried and judged. It was then found, that, beneath this brilliant show of college exercises and prizes, was concealed a starved and shrivelled understanding. The work done in class was pattern work; but the pupil whom the institution turned out was a washed-out, frivolous, superficial being. Without any hold either on the verities of science, or on the recorded experience of history, he was at the mercy of the opinions and superstitions of the day. All the learning and knowledge, which was in the possession of the civilised communities of Europe, existed outside the Jesuit seminaries, as well as outside the old universities of France and England. The rising tide of progressive opinion first engulfed the Jesuit establishments, and in 1793 swept away the old universities and faculties of France. Education was to be reorganised, from the summit downwards, in the light of the best ideas of the age. Everything was changed and readapted. But amid all these arrangements, which it is not to my present purpose to notice, one thing was adopted into