John Wallis Quote

[Mathematics were] scarce looked upon as Academical studies but rather Mechanical... And among more than two hundred students (at that time) in our college, I do not know of any two (perhaps not any) who had more of Mathematics than I, (if so much) which was then but little; and but very few, in that whole university. For the study of Mathematics was at that time more cultivated in London than in the universities.

(1635) as quoted by W. W. Rouse Ball, A History of the Study of Mathematics at Cambridge (1889) pp. 41-42.