9 JULY 1892, Page 42

Early Papers and Some Memories. By Henry Morley, L.LD (Routledge

and Sons.)—Some twenty odd pages of autobiography, containing reminiscences of medical and literary life—for Pro- fessor Morley began life as a doctor—are remarkably interesting. The papers for which they form a preface, reprinted from the Examiner, Household Words, &b., we are glad to see republished. Sometimes they are a little crude in their judgments ; but then, they belong to a time when the writer had not yet reached the miffs sapientia of age. Our only complaint is that a word to caution the reader against accepting en bloc all the statements and opinions of an eager youth has not been added. It is possible that the date may not be observed, and that the reader may fancy that Oxford of Professor Morley's "Ignorance at the Universities" is still a fact. Probably it never was, at least never within the memory of man. When the paper was written (1851), it was teaching something besides "theology and antiquities." Mark Pattison thought that its training in philosophy and history was worth something. Oriel and Balliol are not the only Colleges with "really open fellowships." As for the contention that such founders as William of Waynflete and. Archbishop Chicheley meant their endowments for the "poor," it is true in a sense quite different from the impression that the words give. The education of the poor—i.e., the class which receive primary education—had not been so much as imagined when these founders lived. To speak plainly, "Ignorance at the Universities" would have been better left out. Some might even say that it might be entitled "Ignorance about the Universities."