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It is not recorded anywhere that Catholic missionaries or envoys of the Pope had penetrated into those sanctuaries of Protestant learning—the celebrated universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
The old Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were then directly associated with the State Church, and only gave the stamp of their approval and the right to teach to those who professed the religion established by law.
The authors of these "manuals," of which the most numerous and the most perfect specimens have been composed in our days in the German universities, have no object in view except to draw up minute inventories of the acquisitions made by knowledge, in order that workers may be enabled to assimilate the results of criticism with greater ease and rapidity, and may be furnished with starting-points for new researches.
Henry Adams never professed the smallest faith in universities of any kind, either as boy or man, nor had he the faintest admiration for the university graduate, either in Europe or in America; as a collegian he was only known apart from his fellows by his habit of standing outside the college; and yet the singular fact remained that this commonplace body of young men chose him repeatedly to express his and their commonplaces.
Ruskin and Carlyle tell us that they owe more to it in the way of refinement and culture than to all the other books, plus all the influence of colleges and universities.
The second way lies with both the universities and colleges. Let them give up their unspeakably silly ambition to bespangle their lists of officers with these doctorial titles. Let them look more to substance and less to vanity and sham. The third way lies with the individual student, and with his personal advisers in the faculties.
The life the poet lived, in a popular sense, lacked all that usually attracts the masses, for he was personally little known to his generation, rarely seen among large gatherings of the people, and, great Englishman as he was, was almost a stranger, in his later years at least, in the English metropolis, or, if we except the seats of the universities, in any of the chief towns of the kingdom.
The fellows who stayed in their colleges were probably those who had least ambition, or who had a taste for an easy bachelor's life. The universities, therefore, did not form bodies of learned men interested in intellectual pursuits; but at most, helped such men in their start upon a more prosperous career. The studies flagged in sympathy.
In the capitals are the universities, theatres, galleries, museums, cathedrals, laboratories and conservatories, and the appliances of every art and science, as well as the administration buildings; and beauty as well as use is studied in every edifice.
We do not ask for a denominational college, but remember that the only colleges, Keble and Selwyn, founded in Oxford and Cambridge in the last eighty years are purely denominational. In the last forty years six new universities have been founded in England, and the number of university students has risen from 2,300 to 13,000.
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