May zealous and clear-headed reformers like Mr. Pattison succeed in
their noble endeavours to shape our universities towards some such ideal
as this, without losing what is valuable and distinctive in their social
tone! But until they have succeeded, a liberal education will be no more
obtainable in our Oxford and Cambridge Universities than in our public
schools.


If I am justified in my conception of the ideal of a liberal education;
and if what I have said about the existing educational institutions of
the country is also true, it is clear that the two have no sort of
relation to one another; that the best of our schools and the most
complete of our university trainings give but a narrow, one-sided, and
essentially illiberal education--while the worst give what is really
next to no education at all. The South London Working-Men's College
could not copy any of these institutions if it would. I am bold enough
to express the conviction that it ought not if it could.

For what is wanted is the reality and not the mere name of a liberal
education; and this College must steadily set before itself the ambition
to be able to give that education sooner or later. At present we are but
beginning, sharpening our educational tools, as it were, and, except a
modicum of physical science, we are not able to offer much more than is
to be found in an ordinary school.

Moral and social science--one of the greatest and most fruitful of our
future classes, I hope--at present lacks only one thing in our
programme, and that is a teacher. A considerable want, no doubt; but it
must be recollected that it is much better to want a teacher than to
want the desire to learn.