t so-called Conservative
principles represent something other than right reason, will of course
take that horn of the dilemma which throws the blame on the University
constituencies. For some reason or other, those constituencies which
might be supposed to be more enlightened, more thoughtful and better
informed, than any others are those in which the principles which we
deem to be those of right reason find least favour. Even in the most
Liberal part of the kingdom, the University constituencies are the least
Liberal part of the electoral body. The facts are clear; we must grapple
with them as we can. There is something in education, in culture, in
refinement, or whatever the qualities are which are supposed to
distinguish University electors from the electors of an ordinary county
or borough, which makes University electors less inclined to what we
hold to be the principles of right reason than the electors of an
ordinary county or borough. Education, culture, or whatever it is,
clearly has, in political matters, a weak side to it. There is the fact;
we must look it in the face.

After all perhaps the fact is not very wonderful. There is no need to
infer either that Liberal principles are wrong or that University
education is a bad thing. The _Spectator_ goes philosophically into the
matter. The Universities give--that is, we may suppose, to those who
take, only a common degree--only a moderate education, an average
education, a little knowledge and a little culture springing from it.
And the effect of this little knowledge and little culture is to make
those who have it satisfied with the state of things in which they find
themselves, and to separate themselves from those who have not even that
little knowledge and little culture. "Education," says the _Spectator_,
"to the very moderate extent to which a University degree attests it, is
a Conservative force, because to that extent at all events it does much
more to stimulate the sense of privilege and caste than it does to
enlarge the sympathies and to strengthen the sense of justice." That is,
it would seem, a pass degree tends to make a man a Tory. It does not at
all follow that even the passman's course is mischievous to him on the
whole, even if it does him no good politically. For, if it has the
effect which the _Spectator_ says, the form which that effect takes is,
in most cases, rather to keep a man a Tory than to make him one. And it
may none the less do him