primary elemental school has now been found the equal, or, it must be said, the superior among the candidates for University entrance prizes, gathered from the élite of the most famous public schools. The Universities themselves give a stimulus. New College, Oxford, for instance, has just offered an Exhibition of £60 a year to candidates in the Local Examinations of this year, and in that way" university education" is fitly furthered.

The founding of a College in this last quarter of the nineteenth century, speaks of the nineteenth century, of its ideas and its ways, no less than the founding of this same then "New" College by William of Wykeham, the princely Bishop of Winchester, before Winchester fell on the evil days of Prettyman and Sumner Bishops, spoke the ideas of the fourteenth century, and the ways then of doing things. Bishops nowadays may found a family, but it is five centuries since the episcopal foundation of New College, and it still remains the most recent example of episcopal munificence.* Keble College was founded by subscription. The last founded College in our day, Cavendish College, Cambridge, is founded on the principle of shares, and a company with "limited liability," with a limit, if reached, of £5 per cent. as return to the founders, that is, to the shareholders. None the less does it meet a pressing want and a growing need. The day is come when Board Schools will equal, and sometimes, as we see, surpass, in good education private academies ; not merely such as that of Mr. and Mrs. Squeers, but even that of Dr. Blimber, with Miss Blimber, and their superior, superfine, young

gentlemen; when, moreover, proprietary schools and county schools, and such as Lancing College, tread close on the heels of Harrow and of Eton. With the increase and the improvement of middle-class education arises the need for University teaching, and the claim to the distinction of University degrees as the recognition and the reward of learning. But two things lie in the way, the cost in money and the cost in time. Three years, from eighteen or nineteen, mean more than any other three

years in a man's life who has to make his own way by his own labour. To learn how to do that is the allotted work for most of those three precious years.

The public meeting at the Mansion House, London, and that in the Speaker's Library at the House of Commons, are too recent, and too fully in recollection, to make further mention of Cavendish College needful. We record in our pages, as becomes our name, this addition to Cambridge University. We have no doubt "Cavendish" will make its own way. It holds its own even among "the Boats" and in athletics, as our own Cambridge letter reported last year. We will only add, what should have been mentioned, we think, at the late meetings, that one of its earliest members is the Lieutenant Brereton, whose name we have lately seen as in the Khyber Pass, and who, about two years ago, when not yet twenty-one years of age, on almost the same day, put on his master's gown and received his promotion from a sub-lieutenancy to a lieutenancy in his regiment. We mention this as an example of the early age at which "Cavendish" receives her students

This new

and of its advantage. Mr. Brereton, we understand, completed his sixteenth year during an examination in which he obtained a junior optime, and the rest has followed. Mr. W. E. Barker again, whom we have spoken of as obtaining the Trinity College, Cambridge, Scholarship, is, we believe, not yet seventeen years of age. The moral of all this is obvious, and lies on the surface. Cavendish College has a strong claim on the support of the great middle class; it offers great educational advantages, and it provides them for just that period which is the embarrassment of fathers, and the peril of their sons, the interval between leaving school and entering on the future business of life -the interval when school has done all that school can do, and for which the German University has been hitherto no very desirable resource to Englishmen. Moreover, while eminently unsectarian, religious influence and teaching is secured at Cavendish College without interference with individual convictions. We almost think the name of the University Chancellor is better as an official recognition than "Keble" or Arnold, as not open to misconstruction, and as no badge of opinions.

We have spoken of the commercial aspect of this founding a college. Its principle, however, is neither more nor less than that self-supporting system which is a mark of the day in its enterprises, and consonant to it, and which many consider to be the true basis of national education as it ought to be.

Economical as its plans profess to be, we believe the tutorial staff of Cavendish has been amply cared for-even lavishly in proportion to this its day of beginnings; but, if the College should develope into something of a speciality in pro

viding trained masters for the upper and middle schools, it will be a great public advantage, and no pains or extra expense will be thrown away that may enable it to do so. The training of future schoolmasters is, as yet, in England, strangely deficient, and we can readily understand the great advantages Cavendish College may have to offer in that respect, combining, as it may very well do, technical instruction with liberal training. We understand that something not unlike a modest Fellowship is to be offered to the best students in the shape of free residence for a year, or more, after taking their degrees, on condition of giving a portion of their time to the tuition, under supervision, of the junior members of the College; but the Warden will doubtless, in due time, announce any proposals he and the Council may suggest. Meanwhile, all may rejoice that this youngest of the colleges is taking its place very favourably in the University of which it forms part.

We spoke above of two metropolitan meetings. Even more important are the county meetings, which we observe are being held on the subject of Cavendish College, because they bespeak the countyschool adhesion to the principle of completing education by a University degree, after residence in the University, and to the Cavendish College plan for carrying it out. The meeting held at Bedford on the 15th of May, with the Lord Lieutenant, Earl Cowper, chairman, adopted Lord Fortescue's resolution that "Cavendish College, by giving opportunities for taking an earlier degree, and at a less cost, has effected an important step towards the extension of earlier education;" while the absence of the Duke of Richmond and the Duke of Devonshire gave occasion for reading a letter from the Prince