In protest.

Abstract

Oxford, the Oxford of the past, has many faults; and she has paid he,avily for them in def eat, in isolation, in want of hold upon the modern world. Yet we in Oxford, brought up amidst the beauty and sweetness of that beautiful place, have not failed to seize one truth:-the truth that beauty and sweetness are essential characters of a complete human perfection. When I insist on this, I am all in the faith and tradition of Oxford. I say boldly that this our sentiment for beauty and sweetness, our sentiment ag{linst hideousness and rawness, has been at the bottom of our attachment to so many beaten causes, of our opposition to so many triumplvant movements. And the sentiment is true, and has never been wholly defeated, and has shown its power even in defeat. We have not won our political battles, we have not carried our main points, we have not stopped our adversaries' advance, we Jvave not marched victoriously with the modern world; but we have told silently upon the mind of the country, we have prepared currents of feeling which sap our adversaries' position when it seems gained, we have kept open our own communicaHons with the future . ... It is in this manner that the sentiment of Oxford for beauty and sweetness conquers, and in this manner long may it continue to conquer. (MATTHEW ARNOLD).