Our conception of a university has changed. University education is no longer regarded as a luxury of the rich which concerns only those who can afford to pay heavily for it. The Prime Minister in a recent speech, while properly pointing out that the collective effect of our public and secondary schools upon British character can not be overrated, frankly acknowledged that the boys of seventeen or eighteen who have to be educated in them 'do not care a farthing about the world they live in except in so far as it concerns the cricket-field or the football-field or the river.' On this ground they are not to be taught science, and hence, when they proceed to the university, their curriculum is limited to subjects which were better taught before the modern world existed, or even Galileo was born. But the science which these young gentlemen neglect, with the full approval of their teachers, on their way through the school and the university to politics, the civil service or the management of commercial concerns, is now one of the great necessities of a nation, and our universities must become as much the insurers of the future progress as battleships are the insurers of the present power of states. In other words, university competition between states is now as potent as competition in building battleships, and it is on this ground that our university conditions become of the highest national concern and, therefore, have to be referred to here, and all the more because our industries are not alone in question.
Chief among the causes which have brought us to the terrible condition of inferiority as compared with other nations in which we find ourselves are our carelessness in the matter of education and our false notions of the limitations of state functions in relation to the conditions of modern civilization.
Time was when the navy was largely a matter of private and local effort. William the Conqueror gave privileges to the Cinque Ports on the condition that they furnished fifty-two ships when wanted. In the time of Edward III., of 730 sail engaged in the siege of Calais, 705 were 'people's ships.' All this has passed away; for our first line of defense we no longer depend on private and local effort.
Time was when not a penny was spent by the state on elementary education. Again, we no longer depend upon private and local effort. The navy and primary education are now recognized as properly calling upon the public for the necessary financial support. But when we pass from primary to university education, instead of state endow-
