received as they merited to have been by the world,
owing, perhaps, to an untoward disposition in other
respects--was of opinion that the calmness and
seclusion of a university were not best adapted for calling
forth the efforts of genius; but that adversity and some
struggling were necessary to bring out greatness of
character. He thought that praise enervated the mind,
and that to bear it required a much greater degree of
fortitude than to withstand censure. The consequence
of this would be, that the honours decreed in a
university must be pernicious to youth. This cannot be
conceded. Sir Egerton's notion may be just in relation to
himself, or to one or two temperaments irregularly constituted;
but a university exists not for the exceptions, but for the
many. How numerous is the list of those who, but for the
fostering care of Oxford or Cambridge, would have never been
known as the ornament and delight of their fellow-men!
How much more numerous is the list of those, whose abilities
not rising beyond the circle of social usefulness have lived
"obscure to fame," yet owe the pleasure they imparted
to their friends, and the beguilement of many troubles
inseparable from mortality, to the fruits of their university
studies, and to a partial unrolling before them of that
map of knowledge, which before those of loftier claims
and some hold upon fame had been more amply displayed!
In this view of the matter, the justness of
which cannot be contested, the utility of such foundations
is boundless. The effect upon the social body.--
I do not speak of polemics, but of the sound instruction
thus made available--cannot be estimated. In the midst