Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/323

Rh to draw the line between the differing influences which were fostered within its boundaries, for though Education was its aim, yet there was too much fomenting and seething within the Province in which it was placed to keep that aim undisturbed; and many matters may have taken form that do not appear on record, which left their sting behind to bear fruit in the uncertain and harassing times of mid-revolution, in which perhaps institutions were made the victims of mistrust and suspicion in order to strike at individuals.

That the mixing of politics in college life was not due to colonial influences in this case, but rather in the inborn taste of the average Englishman, whether in home or colonial life, for politics generally, is borne out by the consideration of their influence in the universities at home. Mr. Wordsworth in his Social Life at the English Universities, quoting Hartley Coleridge, "Everything in England takes the shape and hue of politics," proceeds to say:

If this was true of the country in the earlier half of the present century, it was so preeminently at the Universities in the Eighteenth, * * * It might at first sight appear that politics could have very little to do with the Life and Studies of a University. But this is far from being the real state of the case. After three such revolutions as the country had experienced within half a century, it was impossible that the interest of the country should not be fixed upon public affairs. The taste for Pamphlets which had arisen in the days of Charles I. had now increased a thousandfold. * * * If we take up a chance volume containing 18th century tracts relating to either of the Universities, it will be no extraordinary thing if there are one or more bearing directly upon the politics of the day: very few we shall find, if we have the time or the patience to read them through are totally unconnected with party dissensions. * * * Politics usurped the place of Christian doctrine in the pulpit; politics lurked in the Coffee houses and the taverns her spirit was not expelled even from the ' Triposes ' and Tripos-speeches. At Oxford the Act (or Commemoration) was full of