and Archibald MacLaren, assistant professor of Greek in the Glasgow University—and, I think, R.F. Muirhead, M.A., all three members of our branch, whom I had invited to join us at midday dinner. In the conversation at table Morris asked about the attitude of the Glasgow professors towards Socialism. He was told that only Edward Caird, of the Moral Philosophy chair, showed any sympathy with Socialist ideas or indeed with democratic politics of any kind. Professor John Nichol of the Literature chair, who had formerly been a strong Radical and friend of Mazzini, was now an embittered Unionist, while Lord Kelvin and the Science and Medical men were almost without exception Tory and reactionary.
'It is a rum state of affairs, don't you think?' said Morris. 'But it's the same all round. The intellectuals are on the wrong side on almost every question that affects the right understanding of life. They are the priesthood of the mumbo-jumboism of modern civilisation—Edward Carpenter is quite right about that. Were I had up for any sort of crime touching property or political freedom, I should prefer to take my chance with a jury of dukes and sporting squires, rather than one of professors and college dons.'
Reference was made to the fact that the Scottish Universities had, without exception, at recent parliamentary and Lord Rectorship elections, elected Unionist politicians who had no distinction whatever in science or literature.
'That just shows you,' said Morris, 'that your intellectuals, dull dogs as they mostly are, have some scent of what's in the wind, and that when it comes to the pinch they are more concerned about the preservation of their rotten class privileges than about the interests of literature and art. Matthew Arnold was right about the Philistines, being himself a good bit of that kidney. We'll have to mend or end what we call education, or it will play the devil with us. Fancy a Carlylean aristocracy of talent, the country under the benevolent rule of Senior Wranglers and LL.D's!
