In Edinburgh on Thursday Mr. Gladstone, as Rector of the
University, accepted the present of a bust of Prince Alfred, who had been for a time a student of that university, from the Lord Pro- vost. " The bust," said Mr. Gladstone, " represented the Prince in the ingenuousness of his youth, in the liveliness and force of his intel- lectual powers, and in the resemblance that he bears to the illustrious family from which he sprang." Mr. Gladstone went on to praise the practice of sending the British Princes to mix with other lads of their age, that " they might well understand the spirit of the people whom they may have to govern." Would they not be likely to understand that spirit rather better, if they understood a little less of its devotion to rank? How can such a lad learn what other English and Scotch lads are like, if even Universities take so much pains to distinguish the " ingenuousness of youth, the liveliness and force of intellectual powers" in a prince, when in any other lad they would not notice them at all, unless they took the form of great knowledge or brilliant thought?
