They have been fully justified because every
association for mutual instruction adds something to the mass of
political intelligence, does something to disseminate ideas, but that is
all that can be said for them.
The University Societies belong to a different type. Nothing is more
important than the education of young men and women in politics, and the
older Universities have always recognised this. Socialist Societies
accordingly grew up naturally alongside Liberal and Tory Clubs, and
under the shadow of the "Unions." Oxford, as we have seen, had a
University Fabian Society from early days. Cambridge followed at a much
later date. For years Glasgow University and University College,
Aberystwyth, maintained flourishing societies. The newer Universities,
dependent largely on the bounty of wealthy capitalist founders and
supporters, and assisted by, or in close touch with, town councils and
local industries, have been much less willing to sanction political
free-thought amongst their undergraduates, and the pernicious influence
of wealth, or rather the fear of alarming the wealthy, has at times
induced the authorities to interfere with the freedom of the
undergraduates to combine for the study and propaganda of Socialism.
Undergraduate societies are composed of a constantly shifting
population, and we arranged from the first that all their members should
also be elected direct to the parent Society in order that they might
remain automatically in membership when they "go down.
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