The Universities will excuse me, if I observe, that both are, in one respect or other, defective in these three capital points of education.

While in Cambridge the general application is turned altogether on speculative knowledge, with little regard to polite letters, taste, or style; in Oxford the whole attention is directed towards classical correctness, without any sound foundation laid in severe reasoning and philosophy.

In Cambridge and in Oxford, the art of speaking agreeably is so far from being taught, that it is hardly talked or thought of.

_These defects_ naturally produce dry unaffecting compositions in the one; superficial taste and puerile elegance in the other; ungracious or affected speech in both."-- DR.

BROWN, 1757: _Estimate_, Vol.