Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/146

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EMINENT LIBERALS IN PARLIAMENT.

easy to see that he derived a great deal more than from the Alma Mater of which he is a senior fellow. With respect to the representation of minorities, and the female franchise more particularly, the mantle of the deceased philosopher has fallen on his shoulders. Mill was never at a university; yet it has been his part to fructify the intellects of such distinguished university alumni as Courtney and Fawcett. Without his influence there is no saying what they might not have been.

Oxford and Cambridge are in reality huge forcing-houses for the production of young aristocrats, maintained at scandalous cost, in no sense national institutions, and about the last places in the world where one would dream of going in order to acquire the art of thinking. Such exceptionally intelligent and public-spirited emanations as the members for Hackney and Liskeard are in reality rather a misfortune than otherwise. Their "fellowship" is a snare.

"The name of Cassius honors this corruption,
 And Chastisement doth therefore hide his head."

It is hardly too much to say, that if Oxford and Cambridge were erased from the map of England to-morrow, and the intellect of the country permitted to flow into freer channels, the political and general intelligence of the people would be elevated by the change many degrees.

Besides discharging the duties of the political economy chair at University College, Mr. Courtney has held several other appointments, which have necessarily extended the range of his intellectual vision. He has been an examiner in literature and history for the Indian Civil Service, and examiner in the constitution-