My dear Darwin,
I am very much ashamed of myself for the enormous time I have allowed to go over before answering your letter of last October term.2 I was at the time grievously busy with preparing for my Senate House work,3 but can offer no satisfactory excuse for the time elapsed since the end of January, when my labors in that respect ceased. I am not quite confident that I know sufficiently the working now-a-days of the two large colleges to offer an opinion worth very much. When I was an undergraduate, I have no doubt that a moderately good man got better trained in Mathematics at ⟨John’s than⟩ at Trinity, while for the very best men there was then little to choose.4 The first men at any college are nearly sure to be well cared for by both the college & private tutors. I rather fancy that the lecturing at John’s now is much less conscientiously done than it was in my time, & I think that, in saying this, I am not merely judging from results though the last few years Triposes would certainly favor this opinion. There is however no doubt that the Math. Lecturing, & general management, at Trinity, has very greatly benefited by the great infusion of new blood into their staff the last few years. For Classical men, either moderately good, or first rate, I really think that we at Christ’s may fairly claim to make more of our men than any other college. Shilleto5 goes so far as to say, that on the average our men are a class higher than if they had gone elsewhere. And, though of course it shocks my modesty to say so, I think a good mathematician gets ⟨quite as⟩ well attended to here, in College lectures, as at any other place whatever, better, perhaps, than any but Caius.
I do not think there is anywhere any fear of damage to health by over-reading now-a-days. It is a tradition of past times altogether, & I am rather inclined to believe we have carried our reforms in that matter too far. Earnest students are far too rare, in any of the subjects we profess to teach, & the lovers of study for its own sake are extinct.
Trinity Hall has this year been blooming like an aloe, but I think the result rather accidental. They were the first to offer open scholarships, & their two men, who have certainly taken the two best degrees of the year, were their early harvest.6 On the whole, if a large college be preferred, I should certainly now incline to Trinity, & of the small, I do not think an⟨y⟩ ⟨o⟩ught to be preferred to ours, unless very dubiously Caius, though against ⟨the⟩ race of men Caius breeds I have myself a prejudice, perhaps unjustifiable.
I am just packing up to be off to the Lakes tomorrow morning for a fortnight.7 I wish you were with us again.8 We are rather a large party, [and] I think mean to invade Wastdale on Sunday or Monday.
I am, | My dear Darwin | Yours faithfully, | Joseph Wolstenholme
Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4062F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on