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 'a certain mystery about his own philosophic and other opinions.' He was throwing out suggestions, not imposing opinions; going about like a Socrates cross-examining and dislodging old prejudices with a happy impartiality, not dogmatising or enlisting recruits for any definite party. The college was to be a gymnasium to strengthen the mental fibre, not a place of drilling according to any regulation. What was a defect in a philosopher might be an excellence in a teacher. Of the disciples of Newman, half were permanently enslaved without ever looking at the doctrine from the outside, and the other half, who ultimately rebelled, suffered permanently from the dislocating effect of the revulsion. Jowett's pupils had at least not to lament that their minds had been put into a strait-waistcoat, injurious even if ultimately thrown aside.

In this sense we may understand Jowett's 'influence' as identical with the influence of the college which he did so much to mould. You might not learn anything very definite, but you were subject to a vigorous course of prodding and rousing, which is perhaps the best of training for early years. Jowett is judged from a wrong point of view when we try to regard him as a