Excerpt from The Place of English Literature in the Modern University an Inaugural Lecture Delivered at East London College on October 2: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered at East London College on October 2, 1913

I welcome this opportunity of thanking publicly the Senate of the University of London for appointing me to the newly created chair of English Language and Literature tenable at this college. I have also gratefully to acknowledge the part played in my election by the Principal and Council of this college, and by the Drapers' Company, to whose enlightened munificence this college lies under deep obligation. The Drapers' Company, by virtue of its assiduous promotion of advanced education, is rendering the nation the highest service of which wealth is at the moment capable.

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary for me to mention that my life has thus far been mainly spent in the study rather than in the teaching of English literature. I have not lacked experience as a lecturer or examiner, but my new office gives me larger educational opportunities than any I have yet enjoyed. I enter on my duties with good hope and with a resolve to meet the calls on me to the best of my ability.

What Bacon said of money I hold to be true of learning: it is 'not good except it be spread.'

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