From a College Window | Page 3

anxiety or care.
My college is one of the smallest in the University. Last night in Hall I
sate next a distinguished man, who is, moreover, very accessible and
pleasant. He unfolded to me his desires for the University. He would
like to amalgamate all the small colleges into groups, so as to have
about half-a-dozen colleges in all. He said, and evidently thought, that
little colleges are woefully circumscribed and petty places; that most of
the better men go to the two or three leading colleges, while the little
establishments are like small backwaters out of the main stream. They
elect, he said, their own men to Fellowships; they resist improvements;
much money is wasted in management, and the whole thing is minute
and feeble. I am afraid it is true in a way; but, on the other hand, I think
that a large college has its defects too. There is no real college spirit
there; it is very nice for two or three sets. But the different schools
which supply a big college form each its own set there; and if a man
goes there from a leading public school, he falls into his respective set,
lives under the traditions and in the gossip of his old school, and gets to
know hardly any one from other schools. Then the men who come up
from smaller places just form small inferior sets of their own, and

really get very little good out of the place. Big colleges keep up their
prestige because the best men tend to go to them; but I think they do
very little for the ordinary men who have fewer social advantages to
start with.
The only cure, said my friend, for these smaller places is to throw their
Fellowships open, and try to get public-spirited and liberal- minded
Dons. Then, he added, they ought to specialize in some one branch of
University teaching, so that the men who belonged to a particular
department would tend to go there.
Well, to-day was a wet day, so I did what I particularly enjoy--I went
off for a slow stroll, and poked about among some of the smaller
colleges. I declare that the idea of tying them all together seemed to me
to be a horrible piece of vandalism. These sweet and gentle little places,
with a quiet, dignified history and tradition of their own, are very
attractive and beautiful. I went and explored a little college I am
ashamed to say I had never visited before. It shows a poor plastered
front to the street, but the old place is there behind the plaster. I went
into a tiny, dark chapel, with a high pillared pediment of carved wood
behind the altar, a rich ceiling, and some fine columned alcoves where
the dignitaries sit. Out of the gallery opens a venerable library, with a
regretful air of the past about its faded volumes in their high presses, as
though it sadly said, "I am of yesterday." Then we found ourselves in a
spacious panelled Hall, with a great oriel looking out into a peaceful
garden, embowered in great trees, with smiling lawns. All round the
Hall hung portraits of old worthies-- peers, judges, and bishops, with
some rubicund wigged Masters. I like to think of the obscure and yet
dignified lives that have been lived in these quaint and stately chambers.
I suppose that there used to be a great deal of tippling and low gossip in
the old days of the vinous, idle Fellows, who hung on for life,
forgetting their books, and just trying to dissipate boredom. One tends
to think that it was all like that; and yet, doubtless, there were quiet
lives of study and meditation led here by wise and simple men who
have long since mouldered into dust. And all that dull rioting is happily
over. The whole place is full of activity and happiness. There is, if
anything, among the Dons, too much business, too many meetings, too

much teaching, and the life of mere study is neglected. But it pleases
me to think that even now there are men who live quietly among their
books, unambitious, perhaps unproductive, but forgetting the flight of
time, and looking out into a pleasant garden, with its rustling trees,
among the sound of mellow bells. We are, most of us, too much in a
fuss nowadays to live these gentle, innocent, and beautiful lives; and
yet the University is a place where a poor man, if he be virtuous, may
lead a life of dignity and simplicity, and refined happiness. We make
the mistake of thinking that all can be done by precept, when, as a
matter of fact, example is no less potent a force. To make such quiet
lives possible was