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 is a Castilian caballero." No doubt there were many people in England—men inspired with a lofty idea of what a University ought to be—who, when they read those words of the German historian, felt in them a severe, though unconscious irony. And yet, if we wish to be quite just to the work which the Universities did for the nation from 1600 to 1850, we are bound to recognise the element of truth which Huber's remark contains. Seats of education, which for centuries have existed in the midst of a vigorous people, can never be colourless embodiments of a desire for knowledge; they are necessarily influenced, in different ways at different periods, by the national genius of that people. And it belongs to the genius of the English people—in modern days at any rate—to value character more than intellect, and ability more than learning. Hence there have long been currents of influence, bearing on the Universities from outside, which have tended to a sort of compromise between the function proper to a University and that function of social education which can also be performed by a good regiment, or by any other society in which young men act and react upon each other under the two-fold sway of a public opinion controlled by themselves and a discipline above them. When allowance has been made for all shortcomings, it must be granted that the English Universities have not only rendered great services to learning and science, but have