The Union was founded in 1823, and was primarily for debating. In fact, it was the only university debating society. Its members were carefully selected for their ability in discoursing on the questions of the day. In its debates Gladstone, Lord Rosebery, the Marquis of Salisbury, and countless other English statesmen of recent times got their first parliamentary training. Its present fame in England is largely based upon this fact; but its character has been metamorphosed. Early in its history it developed social features; and though it was still exclusive in membership, little by little men of all kinds were taken in. At this stage of its development, the Union was not unlike those vast political clubs in London in which any and all principles are subordinated to the kitchen and the wine cellar. The debates, though still of first-rate quality, became more and more an incident; the club was chiefly remarkable as the epitome of all the best elements of Oxford life. The library was filled with men reading or working at special hobbies; the reading and smoking rooms were crowded; the lawn was daily thronged with undergraduates gossiping over a cup of tea; the telegram board, the shrine of embryo politicians watching for the results from a general election, was apt to be profaned by sporting men scanning it for the winners of the Derby or the Ascot. In a word, the Union held the elect of Oxford, intellectual, social, and sporting. This is the Union remembered by the older graduates, and except for a single feature, namely, that it was still exclusive, this is the Union that has inspired the projectors of the Harvard Union. The Oxford man of the later day knows all too well that this Union is no more. Some years ago, responding to a democratic impulse that has been very strong of late at Oxford, the Union threw down all barriers; virtually any man nowadays may join it, and its members number well beyond a thousand. The result is not a social millennium. The very feature of inclusiveness that is to be most prominent in the Union at Harvard destroyed the character of the Oxford Union as a representative body. To the casual observer it still looks much as it did a dozen years ago; but its glory has departed. In any real sense of the word it is a Union no more. The men who used to give it character are to be found in smaller clubs, very much like the clubs of an American university.