connected with the voluntary study of an ancient Bible which belonged to my grandmother.  There were splendid pictures in it, to be sure; but I recollect little or nothing about them save a portrait of the high priest in his vestments.  What come vividly back on my mind are remembrances of my delight in the histories of Joseph and of David; and of my keen appreciation of the chivalrous kindness of Abraham in his dealings with Lot.  Like a sudden flash there returns back upon me, my utter scorn of the pettifogging meanness of Jacob, and my sympathetic grief over the heartbreaking lamentation of the cheated Esau, “Hast thou not a blessing for me also, O my father?” And I see, as in a cloud, pictures of the grand phantasmagoria of the Book of Revelation.

I enumerate, as they issue, the childish impressions which come crowding out of the pigeon-holes in my brain, in which they have lain almost undisturbed for forty years.  I prize them as an evidence that a child of five or six years old, left to his own devices, may be deeply interested in the Bible, and draw sound moral sustenance from it.  And I rejoice that I was left to deal with the Bible alone; for if I had had some theological “explainer” at my side, he might have tried, as such do, to lessen my indignation against Jacob, and thereby have warped my moral sense for ever; while the great apocalyptic spectacle of the ultimate triumph of right and justice might have been turned to the base purposes of a pious lampooner of the Papacy.

And as to the second objection—­costliness—­the reply is, first, that the rate and the Parliamentary grant together ought to be enough, considering that science and art teaching is already provided for; and, secondly, that if they are not, it may be well for the educational parliament to consider what has become of those endowments which were originally intended to be devoted, more or less largely, to the education of the poor.

When the monasteries were spoiled, some of their endowments were applied to the foundation of cathedrals; and in all such cases it was ordered that a certain portion of the endowment should be applied to the purposes of education.  How much is so applied?  Is that which may be so applied given to help the poor, who cannot pay for education, or does it virtually subsidize the comparatively rich, who can?  How are Christ’s Hospital and Alleyn’s foundation securing their right purposes, or how far are they perverted into contrivances for affording relief to the classes who can afford to pay for education?  How—­But this paper is already too long, and, if I begin, I may find it hard to stop asking questions of this kind, which after all are worthy only of the lowest of Radicals.

III.

ON MEDICAL EDUCATION.

(AN ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, MAY 18, 1870, ON THE OCCASION OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES FOR THE SESSION.)