Leaving Lutterworth, we planned to reach Cambridge for the night.  On the way we passed through Northampton, a city of one hundred thousand and a manufacturing place of importance.  It is known in history as having been the seat of Parliament in the earlier days.  A detour of a few miles from the main road leaving Northampton brought us to Olney, which for twenty years was the home of William Cowper.  His house is still standing and has been turned into a museum of relics of the poet, such as rare editions of his books and original manuscripts.  The town is a quiet, sleepy-looking place, situated among the Buckinghamshire hills.  It is still known as a literary center and a number of more or less noted English authors live there at the present time.

[Illustration:  John WYCLIF’S church, Lutterworth.]

Bedford, only a few miles farther on the Cambridge road, was one of the best-appearing English towns of the size we had seen anywhere—­with handsome residences and fine business buildings.  It is more on the plan of American towns, for its buildings are not ranged along a single street as is the rule in England.  It is best known from its connection with the immortal dreamer, John Bunyan, whose memory it now delights to honor.  Far different was it in his lifetime, for he was confined for many years in Bedford Jail and it was during this imprisonment that he wrote his “Pilgrim’s Progress.”  At Elstow, a mile from Bedford, we saw his cottage, a mean-looking little hut with only two rooms.  The tenants were glad to admit visitors as probable customers for postcards and photographs.  The bare monotony of the place was relieved not a little by the flowers which crowded closely around it.

Cambridge is about twenty miles from Bedford, and we did not reach it until after dark.  It was Week-End holiday, and we found the main street packed with pedestrians, through whom we had to carefully thread our way for a considerable distance before we came to the University Arms.  We found this hotel one of the most comfortable and best kept of those whose hospitality we enjoyed during our tour.

Cambridge is distinctly a university town.  One who has visited Oxford and gone the rounds will hardly care to make a like tour of Cambridge unless he is especially interested in English college affairs.  It does not equal Oxford, either in importance of colleges or number of students.  It is a beautiful place, lying on a river with long stretches of still water where the students practice rowing and where the famous boat races are held.

Cambridge is rich in traditions, as any university might be that numbered Oliver Cromwell among its students.  Its present atmosphere and influences, as well as those of Oxford, are vastly different from those of the average American school of similar rank; nor do I think that the practical results attained are comparable to those of our own colleges.  The Rhodes scholarship, so eagerly sought after in America, is not, in my estimation, of the value that many are inclined to put upon it.  Aside from the fact that caste relegates the winners almost to the level of charity students—­and they told us in Oxford that this is literally true—­it seems to me that the most serious result may be that the student is likely to get out of touch with American institutions and American ways of doing things.