Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/593

 ; and when Oxford students migrated to Stamford, they were peremptorily recalled by Edward III. In the days of the Commonwealth, the Master of Caius College, William Dell, proposed that the studies of Oxford and Cambridge should be established also in the large towns of the west and north: the scheme was rejected, however, for a reason which, though valid at the time, was precisely opposite to that which in our own day has recommended University Extension; it was held that such a measure would tend to diminish the influence of the Universities. The modern developments of railway travelling were necessary to render Extension, as we understand it, even possible; but, before the opportunity could be used, something more vital was required,—the rise of a new spirit.

And this suggests that it may be not uninteresting to consider how far, and in what sense, that spirit is new; what, in the past, has been the attitude of the Universities towards the nation; and how far, at different periods, they have performed a national work. This is the subject with which I shall attempt, however slightly and imperfectly, to deal. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the sketch must be confined to salient points.

The Universities of Europe sprang from a spontaneous and enthusiastic desire for knowledge. During the dark ages, from the fall of the Western Empire to the eleventh century, such education as existed was given in the schools attached to monasteries and cathedrals. Though some outlines of