and tenderest ties to feed with bread.


If primary and secondary education are in this unsatisfactory state,
what is to be said to the universities? This is an awful subject, and
one I almost fear to touch with my unhallowed hands; but I can tell you
what those say who have authority to speak.

The Rector of Lincoln College, in his lately published, valuable
"Suggestions for Academical Organization with especial reference to
Oxford," tells us (p. 127):--

"The colleges were, in their origin, endowments, not for the elements of
a general liberal education, but for the prolonged study of special and
professional faculties by men of riper age. The universities embraced
both these objects. The colleges, while they incidentally aided in
elementary education, were specially devoted to the highest learning....

"This was the theory of the middle-age university and the design of
collegiate foundations in their origin. Time and circumstances have
brought about a total change. The colleges no longer promote the
researches of science, or direct professional study. Here and there
college walls may shelter an occasional student, but not in larger
proportions than may be found in private life. Elementary teaching of
youths under twenty is now the only function performed by the
university, and almost the only object of college endowments. Colleges
were homes for the life-study of the highest and most abstruse parts of
knowledge. They have become boarding schools in which the elements of
the learned languages are taught to youths."