Whewell came up to Cambridge at the beginning of the Michaelmas Term, 1812. Those who are familiar with the exciting spectacle presented by the splendid intellectual activity of the Cambridge of to-day—accommodating itself with flexibility and readiness to requirements the most diverse, appointing new teachers in departments of study the most unusual and the most remote on the bare chance of their services being required, flinging open its doors to all comers, regardless of sex, creed, or nationality, and thronged with students whose numbers are increasing year by year, eager to take advantage of the instruction which their elders are equally eager to supply them with—will find it difficult, if not impossible, to imagine the totally different state of things which existed at that time. Were we asked to express its characteristic by a single word, we should answer, dulness. It must be remembered that communication in those days was slow; news did not arrive until it was stale; travelling, especially for passengers, was expensive, so that, at least for the shorter vacations, many persons did not leave Cambridge at all; and some remained there during the whole year—we might say, in some cases, during their whole lives. For the same reasons strangers rarely visited the University. The same people dined and supped together day after day, with no novelty to diversify their lives or their conversation. No wonder that they became narrow, prejudiced, eccentric, or that their habits were tainted with the grosser vices which there was no public opinion to repudiate. The undergraduates, most of whom came from the upper classes, were few. In the fifteen years between 1800 and 1815 the yearly average of those who matriculated did not exceed 205: less than one-fourth of those who now present themselves[2]. The only road to the Honour Degree was through the Mathematical Tripos. The amusements were as little varied as the studies. There was riding for those who could afford it; and a few boated and played cricket or tennis; but the majority contented themselves with a walk. With the undergraduates, as with their seniors, the habit of hard drinking was unfortunately still prevalent. But the great changes through which the country passed between 1815 and 1834 produced a totally different state of things. The old order changed; slowly and almost imperceptibly at first, but still it changed. As the wealth of the country increased, a new class of students presented themselves for education; ideas began to circulate with rapidity; old forms of procedure and examination were given up; academic society was purified from its coarseness and vulgarity, and lost much of its exclusiveness; new studies were admitted upon an all but equal footing with the old ones; and, lastly, the new political principles asserted themselves by gradually sweeping away, one after another, all restrictive enactments. This last change, however, was not consummated until 1871.