But they do not lower the tone of the University; the tone of
the University raises them. Wherever there is intellectual power, good
manners are easily acquired; the public opinion of young men expresses
itself so freely, and possibly coarsely, that priggishness and forwardness
(the faults to which a clever National School pupil would be most prone)
are soon hammered out of any Cambridge man; and the result is, that some of
the most distinguished and most popular men in Cambridge, are men who have
"risen from the ranks." All honour to them for having done so. But if they
have succeeded so well, may there not be hundreds more in England who would
succeed equally? and would it not be as just to the many, as useful to the
University, in binding her to the people and the people to her, to invent
some method for giving those hundreds a fair chance?
I earnestly press this suggestion (especially at the present time of
agitation among Churchmen on the subject of education) upon the attention,
not of the University itself, but of those wealthy men who wish well both
to the University and to the people.
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