have arisen of late in my University are either buildings for
scientific purposes or clerical foundations for ecclesiastical
ends. The vitality of our literary education is slowly fading out
of it. This lack of vitality is not so evident until you go a
little way beneath the surface. Classical proficiency is still
liberally rewarded by scholarships and fellowships; and while the
classical tradition remains in our schools, there are a good many
men, who intend to be teachers, who enter for classical
examinations. But where we fail grievously is in our provision for
average men; they are provided with feeble examinations in
desultory and diffuse subjects, in which a high standard is not
required. It is difficult to imagine a condition of greater vacuity
than that in which a man leaves the University after taking a pass
degree. No one has endeavoured to do anything for him, or to
cultivate his intelligence in any line. And yet these are our
parents in the next generation. And the only way in which we stifle
mental revolt is by leaving our victims in such a condition of
mental abjectness and intellectual humility, that it does not even
occur to them to complain of how unjustly they have been treated.
After all, we have interfered with them so little that they have
contrived to have a good time at the University. They have made
friends, played games, and lived a healthy life enough; they
resolve that their boys shall have a good time too, if possible;
and so the poor educational farce is played on from generation to
generation. It is melancholy to read the sonnet which Tennyson
wrote, more than sixty years ago, a grave and bitter indictment of
Cambridge--


"Because you do profess to teach,