It is curious to mark the poverty of argument amongst the champions—of all parties—who advocate this nefarious spoliation. “Fellowships and scholarships,” says the Edinburgh Reviewer, “have now become situations of influence and honour; it would be wrong to appoint men to these simply because they are poor.”[16] Let the words go down to posterity as the expression of the sentiments of our self-styled friends of the people: because the poor man’s heritage has increased, it may be his no longer—what has he to do in situations of “honour and influence?” “Because he is poor?” No; but because, being poor, with the many disadvantages which poverty entails, he has proved himself “ad studendum habilis et idoneus”—“proficere volens”—these must be his claims besides poverty; and they may involve at least as high an order of “merit” as any mere examination-test of acquirements. Hear again, in the same strain, Professor Garbett. University emoluments, according to him, are “the intellectual property of the nation.”[17] Now, if this be a mere flower of diction—a _vox artis_—if, being Professor of Poetry, he thought he was nothing if not poetical, we have nothing more to say—it may pass for what it is worth. But if it be put forth as a serious prosaic assertion—if he means to say that the wealth of Oxford is the property of mere intellect, then is Professor Garbett the strongest of all living arguments against professorial teaching. We are then to deify intellect; to this idol we are to sacrifice the rights of the poor, the claims of kindred and of neighbourhood. Does he know who is the impersonation of intellect unsanctified?