Introduction

Summary

The delay, which has interrupted the progress of the Cambridge University Bill, and which seems for the moment to have placed us in the rear of Oxford, will in all probability be productive of results ultimately, if not immediately, beneficial. Various opinions and expectations will be entertained in regard to the advantages which will, it is hoped, be secured to us, without any mischievous qualification, by the measure which has been delayed only to make it more complete and more generally acceptable. But it seems eminently desirable that the interval, which has thus occurred between the attempt and its consummation, should be employed in the calm and dispassionate consideration of another subject, which has always been freely and openly discussed at Cambridge, which does not immediately invite the restorative interference of the Legislature, and without which the readjustment of our University machinery will not produce its proper effects on the work to be done here. I refer of course to the great question of improved University teaching.

For, after all, the main object in any attempt to reform or restore our system of University government, and to obtain the full development of the University constitution, must be to improve and extend University education, and to connect it more and more with its natural continuations and enlargements into learning, literature, science, and professional training.