Summary
The world may be divided into the two classes of those who have and those who have not received a University education. With regard to the latter, I can only repeat the remark said to have been originally applied to the small colleges by a member of Trinity College, Cambridge—“They, too, are God's creatures.” I think it is a pity that more rays do not emanate from the great focus of intellectual life in England to clear up some of the dark places of the land. Because—perhaps from no fault of theirs—they have not sat at the feast, is that a reason for grudging them the crumbs that fall from our table? Undignified as it may appear, I would rather invite them to come and be edified. I would lift a corner of the veil which hangs over our venerable courts, and covers from the profane eye the sacred mysteries of the learned. I would admit the outside barbarians, as our Chinese friends call us, at least to the gallery, though they are excluded from the stage where we act our parts in life. Something, I know, has been done. Tom Brown has given us a glimpse of Oxford as seen from the undergraduate's point of view. Cuthbert Bede has set forth in Verdant Green certain caricatures which represent, I suppose, the current popular myths of student life.
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- Sketches from Cambridge by a Don , pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1865