"Vie 6pectator," ;December 14th, 1850
THE impending fate of the great English Universities illustrates the tendencies of this country towards a new system of govern- ment. Those ancient institutions are in a great measure worn out. Apparently incapacitated by their constitution from keep- ing pace with the advancing spirit of the age, they have lagged behind amidst a generg movement, the result of increased mental activity in individuals, and of the spread of intelligence from hundreds to thousands of Englishmen. They are accord- ingly regarded, by that public opinion whose decrees are necessarily irresistible—the opinion of the classes who virtually command the government and rule iq this country—as a sort of lumber, which, however venerable from their antiquity, how- ever upheld by the prestige of their .former greatness, must needs give place to something of a very different quality.... If a like fate awaits other self-governed Corporations, such as Trinity House, the Bank of England, and East India Company, it will come because they lag behind advancing opinion, and, by declining the task of self-reform, provoke the action of the
general Government. -
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