Our connexion with the youth at the
Universities is very close and affectionate. The candid undergraduate
is our friend. The pompous old College Don trembles in his common room,
lest we should attack him and show him up as a Snob.
When railroads were threatening to invade the land which they have
since conquered, it may be recollected what a shrieking and outcry the
authorities of Oxford and Eton made, lest the iron abominations should
come near those seats of pure learning, and tempt the British youth
astray. The supplications were in vain; the railroad is in upon them,
and the old-world institutions are doomed. I felt charmed to read in the
papers the other day a most veracious puffing advertisement headed, 'To
College and back for Five Shillings.' 'The College Gardens (it said)
will be thrown open on this occasion; the College youths will perform
a regatta; the Chapel of King's College will have its celebrated
music;'--and all for five shillings! The Goths have got into Rome;
Napoleon Stephenson draws his republican lines round the sacred old
cities and the ecclesiastical big-wigs who garrison them must prepare to
lay down key and crosier before the iron conqueror.
If you consider, dear reader, what profound snobbishness the University
System produced, you will allow that it is time to attack some of those
feudal middle-age superstitions.
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