k-End holiday, and we found the main street
packed with pedestrians, through whom we had to carefully thread our way
for a considerable distance before we came to the University Arms. We
found this hotel one of the most comfortable and best kept of those
whose hospitality we enjoyed during our tour.

Cambridge is distinctly a university town. One who has visited Oxford
and gone the rounds will hardly care to make a like tour of Cambridge
unless he is especially interested in English college affairs. It does
not equal Oxford, either in importance of colleges or number of
students. It is a beautiful place, lying on a river with long stretches
of still water where the students practice rowing and where the famous
boat races are held.

Cambridge is rich in traditions, as any university might be that
numbered Oliver Cromwell among its students. Its present atmosphere and
influences, as well as those of Oxford, are vastly different from those
of the average American school of similar rank; nor do I think that the
practical results attained are comparable to those of our own colleges.
The Rhodes scholarship, so eagerly sought after in America, is not, in
my estimation, of the value that many are inclined to put upon it. Aside
from the fact that caste relegates the winners almost to the level of
charity students--and they told us in Oxford that this is literally
true--it seems to me that the most serious result may be that the
student is likely to get out of touch with American institutions and
American ways of doing things.

XV

THE CROMWELL COUNTRY. COLCHESTER.

A distinguished observer, Prof. Goldwin Smith, expressed it forcibly
when he said that the epitaph of nearly every ruined castle in Britain
might be written, "Destroyed by Cromwell." It takes a tour such as ours
to gain something of a correct conception of the gigantic figure of
Oliver Cromwell in English history. The magnitude and the far-reaching
results of his work are coming to be more and more appreciated by the
English people. For a time he was considered a traitor and regicide, but
with increasing enlightenment and toleration, his real work for human
liberty is being recognized by the great majority of his countrymen. It
was only as far back as 1890 that Parliament voted down a proposition to
place a statue of Cromwell on the grounds of the House of Commons; but
two years later sentiment had advanced so much that justice was done to
the memory of