Commons dissolved in 1880, 236, or more than a third out of 658, members
were Oxford or Cambridge men, while about 180 were 'public school
men,'--the 'public schools' being Eton and such high class institutions.
In a previous English Cabinet, the majority were Honor men; Mr.
Gladstone is a double first of Christ Church, Oxford.]

The public schools, collegiate institutes, and universities, apart from
the learned professions, must also every year make larger demands on the
intellectual funds of the Dominion, and as the remuneration of the
masters and professors in the educational institutions of this country
should in the nature of things improve in the future, our young men must
be necessarily stimulated to consider such positions more worthy of a
life's devotion. Under such circumstances, it should be the great object
of all true friends of the sound intellectual development of Canada to
place our system of higher education on a basis equal to the exigencies
of a practical, prescient age, and no longer cling to worn out ideas of
the past. In order to do this, let the people of Ontario determine to
establish a national University which will be worthy of their great
province and of the whole Dominion. Toronto University seems to have in
some measure around it that aroma of learning, that dignity of age, and
that prestige of historic association which are necessary to the
successful establishment of a national seat of learning, and will give
the fullest scope to Canadian talent.




CHAPTER III.

JOURNALISM.