trialists,--forming, for the most part, the stout main body of
Philistinism,--are sacrificed to it. In the same way, the result of all
the games and sports which occupy the passing generation of boys and
young men may be the establishment of a better and sounder physical type
for the future to work with. Culture does not set itself against the
games and sports; it congratulates the future, and hopes it will make a
good use of its improved physical basis; but it points out that our
passing generation of boys and young men is, meantime, sacrificed.
Puritanism was perhaps necessary to develop the moral fibre of the
English race, Nonconformity to break the yoke of ecclesiastical
domination over men's minds and to prepare the way for freedom of
thought in the distant future; still, culture points out that the
harmonious perfection of generations of Puritans and Nonconformists has
been, in consequence, sacrificed. Freedom of speech may be necessary for
the society of the future, but the young lions[408] of the _Daily
Telegraph_ in the meanwhile are sacrificed. A voice for every man in his
country's government may be necessary for the society of the future, but
meanwhile Mr. Beales[409]and Mr. Bradlaugh[410] are sacrificed.

Oxford, the Oxford of the past, has many faults; and she has heavily
paid for them in defeat, 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 against hideousness and rawness, has been at
the bottom of our attachment to so many beaten causes, of our opposition
to so many triumphant movements. And the sentiment is true, and has
never been wholly defeated, and has shown its power even in its defeat.
We have not won our political battles, we have not carried our main
points, we have not stopped our adversaries' advance, we have 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 up our
own communications with the future. Look at the course of the great
movement which shook Oxford to its centre