" Let us remember this when the
learned Professor of Poetry at Oxford, Mr. Shairp, calls Shelley "an
Atheist." Mr. Hogg sometimes complains that undergraduates were left
too much alone. But who could have safely advised or securely guided
Shelley?
Undergraduates are now more closely looked after, as far as reading
goes, than perhaps they like--certainly much more than Shelley would
have liked. But when we turn from study to the conduct of life, is
it not plain that no OFFICIAL interference can be of real value?
Friendship and confidence may, and often does, exist between tutors
and pupils. There are tutors so happily gifted with sympathy, and
with a kind of eternal youth of heart and intellect, that they become
the friends of generation after generation of freshmen. This is
fortunate; but who can wonder that middle-aged men, seeing the
generations succeed and resemble each other, lose their powers of
understanding, of directing, of aiding the young, who are thus cast
at once on their own resources? One has occasionally heard clever
men complain that they were neglected by their seniors, that their
hearts and brains were full of perilous stuff, which no one helped
them to unpack. And it is true that modern education, when it meets
the impatience of youth, often produces an unhappy ferment in the
minds of men. To put it shortly, clever students have to go through
their age of Sturm und Drang, and they are sometimes disappointed
when older people, their tutors, for example, do not help them to
weather the storm.
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