· 4 The Kentuckian.
g livered by Mr. Hudson Shaw and others at Oldham.
_ . ` Year after year these Lancashire artisans have been fed
from Oxford on food that is very far from being milk for
2 — babes. Still less does it represent cheap clap-trap, or {
pandering to popular political tastes, or even utilitarian .
bread-and—butter information. It is good, hard, gritty  
"stuif" (as Bacon would have styled it). To transport {
the Oldham mill—hand to mediaeval Italy; to make him " V
read Gibbon and Gregorovius, Bryce and Hallam, .
_ Machiavelli (ofcourse in translation), Villari and Ho-
ratio Brown, to enable him to realize the thoughts and
lives of a. Hildebrand and an Innocent III., of S. Fran- -
cis and Savonarola; to induce him to compare the
I "c0mmercialism" of Manchester and the "commercial-
- ism of Venice; the "democracy" of mediaeval Florence
with that of modern England—this, surely, is no small
achievement, whether for a "superior" don, or a "popu-
lar" lecturer. And when it is remembered that these
lectures have been delivered to audiences of 400, 500,
600, 800, and even 1,000 students, and that some pro-
portion of these prepare themselves with the lecturer’s
aid for the independent examination which follows the
lecture·course, it will be conceded even by the most hos-
tile critic that the system affords anything but the
"cheap smattering masquerade of learning" with which
it is occasionally reproached. The examination is con-
ducted as a rule by a resident "don," who has had large
- A experience of examining in the Final Schools of the
University.
It was such a one—Mr. A. L. Smith, the well-known  
{ Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College—who, with Mr. —  ‘  ·
‘ Hudson Shaw, must be credited with the "discovery" of  
Mr. Joseph Owen. The exceptional ability of his papers 4 *
struck both lecturer and examiner. They resolved to
avert the "tragedy" of an unappreciated Giotto; a fund
was raised among their friends—Mr. Arthur Acland, Mr.
Arthur Sidgwick, Mr. M. E. Sadler, and other well-known
educationists being among the number of contributors
—and it was proposed to Mr. Owen that he should come
g into residence at Oxford as a matriculated member of
4. the University, and should, if possible, proceed to a de-
:*2.....
    91;- I — `