will therefore know how to account for the following questions and answers, with some few digressions and miscellaneous observations which I do not scruple to insert, because they tend to give a complete view of the positions of all parties, and will be no less useful than entertaining.

"The first consideration, Mr. Paxton, is, whether you intend to send your son to Oxford or to Cambridge."

"To say the truth, I have scarcely given Cambridge a thought I am prepossessed in favour of Oxford:all my friends were there; besides, I would not have Frederic continually passing through London, as he must do, to go from my county to Cambridge. But pray can there be any real difference?"

"So much difference, that our friend Batson believes he would have had no high honours had he gone to Cambridge, nor would Woodley have been so distinguished had he entered at Oxford. There was a man of Skimmery (St. Mary Hall) who had been previously at Cambridge, where, as I heard from a Fellow of his College, he was so thoroughly beaten in classics at a scholarship examination, that had he remained he would have had no chance of the First Class he gained at Oxford. Then again the pupils of Dr. Butler at Shrewsbury gained far more classical honours at Cambridge than at Oxford. As to Fellowships again, some, like those of Exeter, Queen's, or Jesus College, Oxford, are sometimes gained with little competition by natives of the counties to which they are respectively limited, whereas the same men

PUBLIC OPINION.

might have no preference in any Cambridge."

27

Foundations at

"But here you presume that my son should compete for honours as a matter of course is that necessary?"

"I think you will say so if I tell you that all the reading requisite to obtain a common degree at either university would not occupy most men an hour a day. The times are past in which men went to college to spend money in high society; public opinion now has happily decided that a man who wastes his time at the university is too contemptible to be countenanced by men of sense. Since useful knowledge and a smattering of Latin and Greek forms the education of nearly every tradesman's son in the country, a gentleman who would receive the respect to which his position entitles him must now do something more. Corbett and I in our daily conversations express pity, it is true, for the disadvantages under which many of our contemporaries laboured, from having no sensible persons of maturer years to look after and direct them; but at the same time you must have observed that we speak scarcely with common patience of men who boast of the same idle freaks which, a few years since, used to pass current for sterling sense. I would refer you to a late paper in the Quarterly Review, No. 145., of which one passage runs thus:

"Perhaps the worst symptom of the state of collegiate feeling that we know, is, that it has been possible for one man to tread the walks of the city of

colleges, and pass through the usual routine of her exercises, without bringing away in his heart one pious feeling of reverence and regard which every affectionate son must cherish for the very stonework of her halls and cloisters. His must be a poor spirit indeed who can look back upon the earnest and hopeful days that opened life and the world to him, amid buildings and studies and associations that spoke rather of a world gone by, and of a life to come, and could find in them nothing but a theme of vulgar debauchery and senseless riot. A good man has other retrospections.'

"Since, then, to compete for honours of some kind is a necessary part of university study, by all means choose that university in which your son's peculiar taste will give him most chance of success, and, consequently, most encouragement to compete."

" But I hear there are both classical and mathematical honours awarded at Oxford as well as Cambridge-how am I to understand that a youth who would succeed in one will not succeed in the other?"

"First, as to mathematics, they are more generally rewarded at Cambridge; for at Oxford there is no other encouragement than the mathematical scholarships and classes, which are not in so high estimation as classical honours. Besides, mathematics are not the principal subject of the college lectures as at Cambridge. Secondly, as to classics, at Oxford, more attention is paid to the literature and subject-matter of the books than to the language; at Cambridge,

SCHOLARSHIPS AND FELLOWSHIPS.

29

versification and critical accuracy will secure that rank which at Oxford is given for essays, showing deep research and mature reflection. The versification of the Shrewsbury men does not go for much here,' remarked a distinguished Oxford tutor, and I rarely found one of them who had even learned to think." "But what do you say about scholarships and fellowships?"

"This resolves itself into two questions; the first question is, ought your son to accept of a scholarship if he can get one? Now scholarships were intended for poor scholars those who can well afford to pay for a university education should leave such charities (for such they are) to the proper objects. I allow this is not the common opinion, certainly not the common practice; and it is fair that men wholly dependant on their parents should accept a foundation to relieve them of the burden; but when, as we sometimes see, the son of a county gentleman, of large estate, hold a fellowship, I maintain it is an abuse of charity, and a thing to be disdained by a father who justly thinks that a sentiment of honour and high feeling is the best part of a liberal education. As to the second question, where the natives of a given county have most chance of election to a Foundation, this will be learnt from the university calendars.

"I would remark, that there has of late years sprung up a large class of men who go to Oxford and Cambridge, as men of business flock to London, to make a fortune; not as the founders of colleges intended,

to cultivate their minds, with a view to the purer intellectual pleasures, and, as Bacon says of the use of learning, for the glory of their Creator and the relief of man's estate,' but who go to deal in Latin and Greek as in any other commodity, and who regard a scholarship which pays half their expenses as a charity ticket for cheap coals or clothing; and purchasing the same, not for their own use, but literally buying wholesale to sell retail. Thus almost every man who remains either in Oxford or Cambridge after his degree takes pupils.

"To such extent is this carried, that lately, when it was complained that the public examiners had pupils, the answer was, that few men willing and competent to be examiners were without pupils, or thought it worth their while to give them up.' Of this tutorial profession, I have only to say it may be followed from necessity by many men who have studied in a generous spirit, wooing the Muses for their beauty, not their fortune; but all such cases I regard as accidental, and unfit to enter into the consideration of any man whose means enable him to enter a university as a place of liberal education.

"You recommend, therefore, Cambridge for mathematics, and Oxford for classics; but I am not quite clear about the distinction between the classical examinations at the two universities."

"Let me give you instances: the very distinguished principal of College told his pupil, a mutual friend, now at Oriel, that when he obtained the highest Cambridge classical honours, he had very