It was announced last Sunday that the Fellows of Balliol
College, Oxford, had cleated Mr. A. L. Smith, the well-known History Tutor of the College, to be the new Master. It is a curious proof of the importance attached to the Mastership of Balliol that even in the crisis of a great war, and with the papers full of such events as the Dublin revolt, the news of the election was conveyed in a stop-press telegram in an influential Sunday newspaper. We have not the slightest doubt that Mr. A. L. Smith's old pupils—what lands and
seas are not full of their labours welcome his election with a unanimity hardly known to human society. There were, of course, degrees of feeling in regard to " A. L.," but if he had enemies we have never discovered them. His energy, his optimism, and his perfectly sincere belief that there is nothing in the world like Balliol will make him an invaluable Master in the trying period which is before every College in the University.
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