Bat we cannot say that we feel so convinced as
Sir Stafford Northcote, and Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Lowe, and many others -who have discussed this subject with a very strong bias against the multiplication of Universities, appear to do, that this multiplication —within moderate limits—is not rather a good than an evil. Cer- tainly in Germany it has given rise to a great many valuable types of culture, and there is an obvious difficulty in effectually -confederating colleges hundreds of miles apart, so as to make the confederation a real and organic whole. A University, to be worth anything, must contain in itself a considerable number -of different and equally able teachers of the same subject, in all the great departments of human knowledge. But this being pro- tided for, we do not doubt that variety in the schools of learning, -variety of literary type, is as apt to spring out of the variety of Universities, as is a variety of moral types out of the variety of schools. The new view, that it is so very important to ensure an absolute uniformity of standard for all degrees is, we suspect, -a mistake,—the prejudice of a monotonous and iron age.
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