A meeting promoted by a committee of the Four Oxford
Settlements was held at Oxford yesterday week. Lord Selborne in a lively speech dwelt on the lack of enterprise shown by the best men at Oxford to-day as compared with thirty years ago. That they should make choice of the Home instead of the Indian Civil Service filled him with dismay and even disgust. " The difference is as between the life of a con- scientious mangold-wurzel and a benevolent eagle." This is a picturesque but exaggerated statement—Lord Selborne overlooks the effect of combining examinations which were formerly separate—but we cordially approve of his warning against the dangers of class ignorance. If, he added, they wanted to do anything for Englishmen who did not belong to their own social or intellectual circle, they must know something about them, and that was why he wanted them to go to the University Settlements. Sir John Simon spoke eloquently on the charm of Oxford and the true way in which her alumni should repay their debt ; but the speech of the meeting was that of Mr. Paterson, the author of "Across the Bridges," who from his own experience insisted that it was not a duty, but a privilege and pleasure, to take part in Settlement work.
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