Education in Oxford, its method, its aids, and its rewards

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EDUCATION IN OXFOKD.

^o%

EDUCATION IN OXFOED:

ITS METHOD,
ITS AIDS, AND ITS EEWAEDS.

BY

JAMES E. THOEOLD EOGEES, M.A.,

TOOKK PBOFESSOR OF ECOXOMIC SCIEXCB ASD STATISTICS, KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON ;

SOMETIME PUBLIC EXAMINER IN OXFORD ; AND ONE OF THE DELEGATES

OF THE OXFORD LOCAL EXAMINATIONS.

LONDON:

SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL

M.DCCC.LXI.

{_The right of Translation is reserved.']

PKEFACE.

The author of the following pages has more than one
purpose in what he has written, and hopes to attract
the attention of more than one class of readers.

First of all, he wishes to give information to that
very large hody of persons who may think of placing
their sons in the University of Oxford, but who know
nothing but what is very vague about the studies of the
university and the expenses of residence in it ; and still
less about what are the material advantages procured
by successful study, both during the time of an under-
graduate, or student's career, and after he has proceeded
to his degree. The author has reason to believe that
any real knowledge about what Oxford is, does, and
may do, is exceedingly rare ; and that, as with every
other thing which may be in estimation, the tendency
to unduly depreciate what we do not know anything
about, is far more common than that to unduly exalt.
Hence he concludes, if people knew more about what
Oxford is, that it would be to the advantage of the
university, and with it of the highest education, even

h

Tl PREFACE.

tliongli one speaks plainly of what seem to be faults
and sliortcomings, and tries to distinguish the causes
why this ancient seat of learning has such narrow
influence, such slatternly energies.

Next, he intended to give his impressions of the way
in which the Act of 1854 was working, and what was
likely to be the result of the changes introduced six
years ago. Partial as these changes are, they are vital
and large. Coupled with them was the domestic
legislation of 1850, in pursuance of which the new
system of examinations was instituted, and which, with-
out, it appears, intending to do so, seriously altered the
previous method of the university, while professing to
reform its ancient studies, and incorporate new ones
with them. The persons who instituted these parlia-
mentary and municipal changes in the government,
material, and funds of the university, are very likely to
be in the dark about their consequences, unless they
have by accident been en rapport with academical life
since those periods.

Next, the author took advantage of such occasions
as were before him, according to the plan of his work,
to suggest what appear to himself desirable modifica-
tions in the existing management of the university, its
extension, its utilization, and its social influences. He
has not, he hopes, gone out of his way to introduce any
theories of his own, for he has said very little which
others have not said, or are not ready to endorse. If
he has spoken too fully on such subjects, his apology
lies in his attachment to Oxford, and his wish that

PREFACE. VII

those who should enjoy the benefits of a national univer-
sity, were multiplied tenfold or twent3rfold.

For carrying out these purposes, he has, in the first
place, said a little about what seems to be the meaning
of education, and how preparation may be made in
schools, in supplementary establishments, and in private
teaching, for the requirement and the prospects of
academical life and academical success. Such an
account must be general ; he only hopes that it may not
be merely superficial. Next, he has pointed out what
are the relations in which the student stands to the
university, and he has wished to separate as markedly
as possible those relations to what may be called a
municipal body, from those in which the undergraduate
stands to this or that college, and which are, in a
manner, domestic. Hence he has dealt in this part
of his work with examinations, with public or pro-
fessional teaching, with university prizes, and the
significance of those mysterious appendages to people's
names, which denote the degrees they have taken under
the authority of the university or municipal body. Nor
did he think this portion would be complete, if he did
not annex to it his experience and his hopes of the
Oxford local or middle class examinations.

As, however, an individual cannot be a member of this
universit}', without being also a member of some college
or hall, in which undergraduates are lodged, in part
boarded, in some shape or the other taught, and form
associations, in which they catch the tone and manner
of the society to which they are attached ; it is neces-

VI 11 PREFACE.

sary to speak at length on these institutions. Here, of
course, the information given is, as far as possible,
precise and definite, though, for reasons which the
reader will recognize and even anticipate, far less pre-
cise and definite than could be wished. For within
this subject lie the greater part of the questions natu-
rally asked by parents and others in contemplating the
university as a matter of interest to themselves or their
children. What will the education cost? what is it
w^orth ? what is the best college into which the intend-
ing undergraduate can be introduced ? The reader will
find a pretty uniform answer to the first of these ques-
tions, a general one to the second, and a necessarily
variable one to the third. The author has said as much
as he thinks himself warranted in saying, and has ven-
tured on a plainness of speech, which he hopes will
argue his willingness to give as much information as he
can ; and if the reader will be at the pains to consult
them, he has annexed, partly in confirmation of his
statements, and partly as a guide to an independent
judgment, a series of tables, the interest in which will,
he hopes, obviate the proverbial dryness of statistical
accounts and arithmetical proportions. More minute and
immediate information may be gathered from inquiry ;
and it is well to inquire, and inquire fully and cau-
tiously, before taking any definite step. The author
would be sorry to fall into the mistake of affecting to
give full information where it cannot be given.

Next, and lastly, the author has stated to the best of
his power, and to the fullest extent of his information.

PREFACE. ix

what are the resources of these great and rich corpora-
tions, and what is the destination of those trusts which
the university and colleges hold for the benefit of pro-
ficients, whether they be undergraduates or have taken
their degree. The information is imperfect, and always
must be. Colleges have a large power of self-govern-
ment, and a great inclination to secrecy. This is
especially true of the richer colleges, for some of the
poorer ones rather made a display of their poverty
on the occasion of the Commission. But most of the
colleges resisted, and resisted successfully, any inquiry
into the extent and nature of their estates. In all
likelihood, the estimate given by the author will be
censured as exao^crerated. He will be Had to be cor-
rected by evidence.

The question, in short, which he has especially tried
to solve may be put in the following shape. Are the
social and material advantages attendant on success in
academical life sufficient to warrant the certain expen-
diture incurred for a degree, and the risk of failure
even under the conditions of diligence and perseve-
rance? The reader must judge how far this question
is answered, though the author can assure him that
he has done his best to answer it, both in its general
aspect and in its particular bearings.

Perhaps he may be excused for fortifying the in-
formation he does give, and the views he holds about
the duties and destinies of the university, by mention-
ing that he has lived in Oxford, almost continuously,
for eighteen years. During that time he has been pupil.

X PREFACE.

teacher and examiner. Academical life has been his
living. He has instructed several hundreds of under-
graduates, and has been familiar with most forms of
undergraduate capacity and conduct. He has had the
pleasure of teaching many very able persons, and has
done his best with the material of many very stupid
ones.

But he has no interest, near or remote, with any
college or hall, and, therefore, no prejudice. He has
no motive to praise or dispraise. He is not open to the
unconscious influence of habit or association, of esprit
de corps, or local sympathy. His affections are to the
university only — to the municipal, not to the domestic
institution. The society to which he belongs is no
more to him than a vehicle for keeping his name on
the books of the university — that is, for retaining his
academical suffrages ; and whatever preferences he has
are due to an external and independent judgment. It
is to the purpose to state this, because people who
directly recommend any particular college are very
often unable to give rational grounds for their recom-
mendation, and the author would not have his indirect
commendations misunderstood.

Oxford, Nov. 1860.

►

CONTENTS.

PART PAOS

I. — Inteoduction ... ... 1

n. — The Student and the Uniyersitt . , . . 22

III. — The College . . . , . .96

IV. — SCHOLAESHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND OTHER ENDOWMENTS 207

EDUCATIOJ^ IN OXFORD.

PAET I.
INTRODUCTION.

There are few things about which people are so much
agreed as on the value of education. Though they are
not prepared very often to explain what they mean by
education, and not very apt in determinirig what its
value is, they assent to the general statement that it
is of the highest value, without hesitation, and on all
occasions. It is not difficult to explain why the precise
appreciation of its value is rare, and why the precise
signification of the word " education " is seldom arrived
at. To make out, however, what each of these terms
imports, is of prime necessity.

Education differs from information or knowledge.
The latter is of a special character, the purport of
which is to fit a man for bringing about certain definite
results by the immediate operation of that knowledge
which he possesses. We talk, indeed, of the education
of a lawyer, a doctor, and a clergyman — of an engineer,
a soldier, or a sailor ; generally meaning by it the
information or knowledge which he has acquired for
the immediate exercise of his vocation. But law,

1

2 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

medicine, divinity, mechanics, strategics, and naviga-
tion, are not education. A man may possess any one
of them and be well nigh illiterate, though of course
some can more possibly coexist with want of education
than others. One can conceive that a man may have
a profound practical acquaintance with law, and be an
uneducated person. Again, to quote an instance, the
first Duke of Marlborough was one of the most skilful
generals ever known, but he could not spell, and hardly
write. Some men who have had the most marvellous
aptitude and quickness in mechanical science, have been
unable, from sheer ignorance, to sustain a common con-
versation.

Education, on the other hand, deals with formalities.
It does not so much aim at setting the mind right on
particular points, as on getting the mind into the way
of being right. It does not deal with matter, but with
method. It purposes to train the thinking powers of
man, not to fill the mind with facts. Hence, were
it perfect, it would cultivate the intelligence so largely
as to render easy the acquisition of any knowledge.
It deals, in short, either directly or indirectly, with
logical order and the reasoning powers. That it falls
short of effecting what it purposes, is due to defects
in its system, to defects in man's mind, to defects in
this or that man's mind. As, however, its operation
is not immediate, but only indirect, its best methods
are frequently cavilled at as useless.

It may teach the logical method of thinking and
reasoning. This, however, is generally too abstract
for most minds, except they be more or less matured,
and more or less informed on some one or two subjects.
In place of this, then, it teaches ordinarily something,
which is as exact an illustration of logical method as

INTRODUCTION. 3

can be, and which, being unfailing in its inferences,
trains the mind in method, and often stores it with
facts. In a greater or less degree, but in some degree
at least, this inculcation of an abstract method is neces-
sary for any kind of education, and even, except it be
a mere knack, for information.

Reading and writing even are educational methods.
The letters of the alphabet are abstract and arbitrary
signs, the comprehension of which requires a certain
amount of attention, and a separation, for a time at
least, between the thing signified and the sign. After
a time the use and formation of letters become almost
mechanical arts, though this is, to be sure, the case
witli all perfect methods ; for what we call a mechanical
process in the mind, means a habit the exercise of which
is so rapid, that we are unable to follow it, and so sure
about it as not to need to follow it. Arithmetic, the
science of abstract numbers, is an educational method
of great and well nigh universal necessity, though it is
also of great practical utility in its application to details
and facts. By far the majority of people who learn
ai'ithmetic fully, never need use more than its simplest
rules. So, in a still more marked way, is it with
geometry, and certain other familiar educational pro-
cesses. To illustrate these methods, however, we need
the presence of a certain number of facts, and to arrange
and classify these facts we need more or less of these
methods.

Now, it is plain that some of these methods have so
obvious and universal a practical application that they
must be possessed by everybody who wishes to carry
on, except in the lowest station, the commonest business
of life. Hence they are looked on as pieces of know-
ledge or information, as they have a direct result. Thus

1—2

4 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

it is that the confusion commences between education
and information. It is not difficult to put knowledge
and method in strong contrast, but it is not easy to say
where method ends and knowledge begins.

The value of education is measured by three rules.
What is it worth to the individual possessing it ? What
is the worth which society assigns to it ? What is its
material worth, or, in other words, what advantages are
connected with it, which may be reduced with greater
or less exactness to pounds, shillings, and pence ? The
first of these aspects of the value of education is apt to
be measured by the other two ; but unless a man is to
merely live by other people's good opinion, or to merely
follow that which will increase his balance at his banker's,
the first has a fair claim to independent consideration.

All judgments which have been worked out by a
man's own mind, all general principles which have in-
fluenced society, all directions of original thought, have
come from the first of these values of education. In
the worth of education to the individual who has it lie
all the facts of human progress, and all hope of human
progress. And in it, too, are all the consolations of
the man himself, whether they be escape from prevalent
error, or relief from the toil of labour, or the shield of
a rational self-respect.

The social worth of education is not so great, indeed,
as it might be, but it is very large. It is true that the
immediate product of certain branches of information is
so visible and so tangible that the disposition of man-
kind would be to sacrifice method to knowledge, were
it not for the urgency of a competition among those w^ho
possess knowledge, and among whom the man who has
at once method and knowledge is pretty sure to win the
day. The influence of educated men on society, and

INTRODUCTION. 5

the respect of society to educated men, would be more
general and more reciprocally beneficial, if more edu-
cated men applied their method to the ordinary business
of life. That they do not do so, is, perhaps, in great
degree" the fault of those institutions where the best
education is given. I have not the slightest doubt that
a person who had studied successfully, as he would do
if he studied honestly, at the universities, would in
trade, or any other business, speedily outrun compe-
titors who had not the same advantages as himself.
They do so ordinarily in those occupations which they
undertake. They would do so in more, were not the
expenses of the university a serious impediment to their
popularity.

The material advantages of education are exceedingly
large. Not only is it daily more and more the case that
a certain status of educational method is being required
for public employment, but beyond doubt it will b© so
in private employment, where offices are those of trust.
But this is a small matter compared with the singular pe-
cuniary aids and rewards which are attached to grammar-
schools and colleges. I believe I have fair grounds for
concluding that in Oxford alone these aids and rewards
amount to half a million of annual income. Twenty
years ago. Professor Huber set the income of the uni-
versity and colleges in Oxford at more than 300,000^
per annum. I am convinced that he understated the
amount very largely ; and there must be added to this,
benefactions since ; the vast enhancement in the value
of estates, most academical endowments being improve-
able freeholds ; the proceeds of a successful and lucrative
trade, that of the press ; and the income of accumulations
which were not dreamt of by the diligent German.
The income-tax assessment of college and university

6 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

property in Oxford alone, is 58,000^. annually. Besides
these there are the exhibitions from grammar-schools,
miserably and scandalously perverted as these are, but
still part and parcel of those aids to what professes to be
the highest education in England.

Education, and education of the highest and most
universal method, is what is professedly given at the
English universities. I do not pretend in this work,
however, to make any reference to other systems than
that prevailing in Oxford, still less to make comparisons
between Oxford and its amicable rivals. There is
hardly a single special branch of human learning for
which a teacher is not provided in Oxford, hardly one
which is taught as a science of facts.

Most people think that Oxford is a training school
for clergymen. It is undoubtedly the case that by far
the majority of Oxford graduates take holy orders, there
being only twenty-seven per cent, of its masters of arts
who are not clergymen. But Oxford does not teach
clergymen. Its instruction in theology is of the scantiest
and most meagre order, comprising ordinarily such in-
formation as would be given by any Christian parent
to the members of his household, and in the case of
those who purpose entering the Church, the attendance
on one or two courses of professorial lectures. These
are of very little profit, not because the professors may
not be willing to extend the utilities of their office, but
because attendance on these lectures is merely the com-
pliance with a requisition on the part of bishops. Were
it not for this episcopal rule, there would not be, I
believe, half a dozen hearers to each of the four divinity
professors. It is true, indeed, that one of the conditions
of a degree is that professed members of the English
Church should be able to translate the gospels and the

INTRODUCTION. 7

Acts of the Apostles; but this is quite asmuch^ or more,
an examination in Greek, than in the contents of the
narrative. The bishops require a degree in most cases,
and so clergymen must be trained at one of the uni-
versities ; they do not require, indeed cannot get, any
profound acquaintance with theology out of their can-
didates, and so the clerical education, unlike any other,
is supposed to be finished when a course of secular
teaching, which is mainly, as I have said, a teaching of
method, is gone through.

There is a popular, but I believe very shallow notion,
that the course of academical instruction is not useful.
It is not worth while to revive a discussion settled long
since, about the relative advantages of what are called
practical sciences, and what is called nuere mental
culture. It is sufficient to say, that the world would go
on very poorly without both. Exclusive cultivation of
mere physical knowledge would leave a very intelligible
gap in those moral and intellectual forces which for
good or evil, but especially for good, have such weight
for the collective destinies of mankind. That mere
mental culture should supersede the developments of
the knowledge of the material universe is unlikely ; the
danger is, and has been, on the other side, and this with
but one exceptional period, from the beginning of
history. The advantage of an acquaintance with some
branch of practical philosophy is so obvious and imme-
diate that one is perpetually reminded of the risks which
educational method runs in either being confounded
with the knowledge of facts, or of being ignored alto-
gether, or of the experts in the one branch of human
science disdaining and disliking contact with the other,
and men being divided as to the most fundamental
securities of progress and civilization. It was with

8 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

reason that Bacon asserted that his logic of facts would
equalize all intellects. But great as the vantage ground
is which is promised for such learning by those simple
rules of inference which he iirst called attention to, the
result has been that the mere acquaintance with such a
method has caused it to cease from being an engine of
education properly so called.

The part played by the universities in the general
education of the country, and in the moral forces which
govern it, is of the last and greatest importance.

Unlike analogous establishments in continental cities,
the universities are municipal bodies, possessing very
large powers of self-government — powers only invaded
in modern times in order to give them more flexibility,
and in effect more power. Fortunately, they are not
situated in large towns, where other interests ^would
clash with theirs. As they receive no assistance from
the public purse, and were not at any time, except in a
very insignificant degree, beholden to the Crown for any
of their endowments, but w^ere wholly the creations of
private munificence, the interference of the State with
their organization and emoluments could not take place
except in pursuance of the privileges which they might
possibly enjoy, wliich, by the way, are very scanty,
or of their coming under the head of trust-estates, to be
administered for limited, but for public purposes. The
faculty of self-government is the essence of the English
universities, as indeed it is of all institutions worth any-
thing in the country.

Again, they educate, though they do not specially
inform, the greater pai't of the English clergy, and a
very large number of lay persons. Whatever else they
may do, or may not do, the Enghsh clergy do more to
break the fall between the rich and those who are

INTRODUCTION. 9

indifferently off than any other class in the State. By
prescription and by the anomalous condition of eccle-
siastical endowments, they are very poor. By education
and associations they are gentlemen, and generally so
by birth. Thus they act as intermediaries. And, in
respect of lay persons, it is easy to point to the lawyers
and statesmen who have received their educational
training at the universities, to the numbers of men who
have been sustained by college endowments during the
arduous expectancy of professional success, however
diflScult it may be to denote distinctly the part which
academical education has had in the eminence and
success of such personages.

Again, they present the maximum standard of an
English education. With more or less success, similar
institutions aim at a method of training very much akin
to that which prevails at the universities. There are, it
is true, gymnasia, and schools which deal with special
branches of information, such as medicine, chemistry,
mechanics, and the like, which subjects the university
could not teach if it would, for the materials are not,
and cannot be, at its disposal, and should not if it could,
as by doing so, it would transgress the limits which are
so justly assigned to it, as a typical place of education.

Lastly, except in very trivial and vanishing points,
they inculcate an equality between all classes of students,
whatever be their means, and whatever their antecedents.
Social rank as part of public life, and as a stimulant to
proper self-respect, has and will have its value, but
degrees in it are out of place among young men who are
under a common discipline. Large means at command
will act powerfully upon the world at large, and secure
a numerous following; but young men ought not to
worship the golden image in the persons of their fellow

10 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

youths, and what is more, in Oxford at least, it does not
appear that they do.

School Education. — The education given in gram-
mar-schools, and they are reckoned, endowed and
proprietary, in England, by hundreds, culminates in that
which forms the staple of academical success. Like the
colleges, they are generally the result of private bene-
volence, though Eton was founded by Henry VI.,
Westminster, in some degree, by Henry VHL, and a
few establishments were created from the wreck of
monastic property by Edward YI., or rather his
counsellors. But for the rest, they are mainly due to
the munificence of private persons, the Crown in this
country never having been noted for bestowing any
portion of its wealth on learning, and generally, indeed,
from the time of the Tudors, having very little wealth
to bestow.

In most endowed grammar-schools, the greater part
of the revenues are consumed in the payments made to
the masters, and in repairs of school buildings. But
there are very few which do not possess, either in addi-
tion to the original endowment, or from the dispositions
of the founder, or by the increased value of the school
estate, certain funds for the maintenance of one or more
of their scholars at one or the other of the universities.
Occasionally these endowments are limited to a par-
ticular university, or a particular college, but generally
the recipient of the benefaction has the right of choosing
his own university. In some few of the great grammar-
schools alone, the amount of these exhibitions, as they
are called, is more than 10,000?. a year. But I shall
have more to say of these aids in the Fourth Part of this
work. It is sufficient to say, that there is very little

INTRODUCTION. 11

accessible information as to the amount and destination
of these revenues.

The endowed grammar-schools which are the great
feeders of the universities are Eton, Westminster,
Winchester, Harrow, Rugby. To these may be added
Merchant Taylors', which owes its connection with the
university to the fact that White, the founder of
St. John's College, annexed his benefaction for the most
part to this school ; and the Charter House, the exhibi-
tions from which, assigned to residence in the university,
are understood to be numerous and valuable. The
Charter-house School, however, is well nigh the worst
job in all England.

Other endowed grammar-schools supply, in greater or
less degree, members to the university, by the exhibi-
tions connected with them. It is almost impossible to
arrive at what these exhibitions are, and it is not gene-
rally worth while, as almost all endowed grammar-
schools are in an unsatisfactory state, if we estimate
them by their products in the Oxford examinations. In
some of the greater ones, there are advantages of a
social kind of no small value : school friendships and
associations are more firmly retained than any other
which arise subsequently ; but unless we extend the
word education to that which boys get from boys,
exceedingly valuable as this is, these schools, considering
their opulence and their numbers, bring forth marvel-
lously small academical fruit.

Of late years, schools called public, but differing
nothing from private schools in their origin, have been
founded on two distinct principles, and bid fair to com-
pete successfully with the old public schools. There is
a very considerable number of one kind, and there are
two of another. The first of these is the class of

12 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

proprietary schools ; the last is that in which the sons of
the clergy have differential advantages.

Proprietary schools are, in reality, schools founded on
the principle of co-operation. The shareholders in these
schools have a body of directors, or a committee of
management, and these parties elect and dismiss their
head and other masters. The advantages of the scheme
are manifest, the danger in these schools being that the
managing body is apt to interfere too much in those
details which are best left to the head-master. There is
occasionally, too, in the method of these institutions, a
tendency to a slavish sectarianism, and a want of healthy
feeling.

The proprietors either procure differential advantages
to their own children, or receive dividends on their ad-
vances. Hence they are natm-ally induced to send their
own sons to these schools, and to induce others to do the
like. Each proprietor is in effect a sort of private ad-
vertisement to the school. The institution has no need,
in the ordinary course of its existence, to pass through
that period of establishing a reputation, which is the
most serious obstacle to success in the efforts of private
individuals. It starts, as all co-operative societies of
supply start, with a goodwill of customers ready made.

In cases where the head-master is at once competent
and left in great degree to his own discretion, these
proprietary schools have been exceedingly successful.
Though the institution is favourably placed from its
very commencement, it needs diligence and continued
success to hold its own. It is affected by the wholesome
stimulus of competition, a spur to which the mass of
public schools is insensible. If a parent wishes his son
to be well taught, by far the safest place of education is
a well and carefully managed proprietary school. The

INTRODUCTION. 13

reputation of some of these institutions is great and
deserved, though in the face of so many doing well, it
would be invidious to cite some, and wearisome to give
all cases.

Similar to these proprietary schools, but differing
from them in their constitution, are the two great
schools of Marlborough and Rossall Hall. These in-
stitutions were, I believe, set on foot mainly by the
instrumentality of the present dean of Manchester. The
chief characteristic in them is that the sons of clergymen
are admitted at less charges than the sons of other parties.
This economical error, if error it be, is committed on
the avowed ground of the narrowness of clerical incomes,
and the equity of providing, if possible, means for the
sons of the clergy to receive that education which their
parents have had before them. Many other professional
bodies have followed this example. There are schools,
for instance, for the sons of medical men, and for the
sons of commercial travellers, in which the same dif-
ferential rates are held. The idea is not an original one,
having been borrowed from the graduated system pre-
vailing in military schools, where there are many rates
of charge. But these military schools are, unlike those
which I have referred to, supported by a public grant.

Of these two schools, one is intended for the south,
Marlborough ; the other for the north of England.
The former is an exceedingly useful educational insti-
tution, instructing as many boys as any of the public
schools, and turning out a very large number of suc-
cessftd candidates for college scholarships. The latter,
for several reasons, has not yet developed its resources
to the full. But under the working of the same princi-
ples one may predict similar results.

There are very many private schools in England.

14 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

These establishments are, of course, superintended by
persons of very various capacity, and with very various
success. But when one reflects that there is no possible
rule by which the efiiciency of the teacher in these
schools can be guaranteed, or the worth of his method
tested, except by means of those local examinations
which the university of Oxford instituted three years
ago, it is not very safe, unless from, very good private
information, to entrust the education of a boy intended
for the universities to any of these parties. Parents
are unhappily very ill-informed on these subjects, and, to
all appearance, very indifferent about information on
them. Dr. This and Dr. That advertise and puff their
schools, and people are taken in by the shallowest pre-
tences in the most serious and important matters. Often
and often have I known schoolmasters, of considerable
connection and some repute, who have entered them-
selves at the university, and who have attempted to
pass its examinations, but who have displayed an
ignorance so gross, that they have been obliged to
abandon the hope of a degree in an English imiversity,
and to accept, in its place, one of the German diplomas,
which, if all be true that is told, are hawked about by
London agents, and bestowed on parties who procure
satisfactory testimonials, and send an essay, which
somebody else may have written, and which, in all
likelihood, no one of the German degree-mongers takes
the trouble to read.

Education in all grammar-schools is pretty uniform.
The Greek and Latin languages, and composition in
these tongues, the composition bemg generally verse,
are the staple of the education given in them. Latterly
these schools have instructed their boys in aritlmietic
and occasionally in the higher branches of mathematics.

INTRODUCTION. 15

Modern languages, even English, are taught but rarely,
and seldom well. Physical science hardly at all ; history
and its cognate branches of knowledge in a miserably
barren fashion. Ordinarily, too, it is held that, consider-
ing the length of time devoted to the subjects, no great
progress is made in the classical languages. But per-
haps when one considers the mode of teaching, that
namely in a class, and the fact, that it is next to im-
possible for the schoolmaster to prevent the better
scholars from prompting and helping the more ignorant,
or from a give-and-take system of mutual help, one
does not wonder that, with few exceptions, the progress
of lads in these institutions is not satisfactory. Nor
does the annual examination practised in most such
schools by some persons who are expected to test the
proficiency of the boys, seem at all conclusive as to
their progress. The best test that could be applied is
the university local examinations. These, however, are
described in a subsequeiit chapter.

It need hardly be said, that the personnel of the head-
master in a grammar-school has the largest and most
important influence upon the character and success of
the boys. It is notorious that Rugby owes its reputation
to Dr. Arnold, who was not, except in the eyes of those
who worship him and his memory blindly, anything of a
profound scholar. In the same way schools which have
been drooping and declining for a long time under men
of, it may be, great scholastic acquirements, revive under
the direction of persons with less pretensions for learn-
ing, but more administrative abilities, and more practical
views. The fact is, the regime of a grammar-school is
something more than books and classes, and the most
successful teachers have been those who have formed
habits, rather than filled heads.

16 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

Most grammar-schools are presided over by masters
of arts, and other graduates who have attained dis-
tinction at the university to which they belong. Indeed,
many of the best men at the universities migrate to
schools, the office of a schoolmaster being looked for-
ward to by such persons as a means of starting in life,
since the material prospects of these functionaries are
considerably better than what is commonly available in
the university itself.

It is not possible to give any rule about the choice of
a school for those boys who are by way of finally
becoming members of the universities. The reputation
of schools varies, and varies annually. On general
principles, however, derived from the constitution of these
establishments, those are most likely to be satisfactory
in which the proprietary system is worked by a prudent
body of directors and a competent and active head-
master, and next to these the great grammar-schools,
whose endowments are of sufficient value for the creation
of a staff of persons fit for the offices they hold, and
whose credit is strong enough to make them anxious to
retain a past reputation. Last of all are private schools,
the merit and hope of which are very low, and which in-
deed rarely succeed in bringing about any result in supply
to the university. Occasionally lads are educated at
home and take a high position. I remember to have
heard, that the members of one family, all of whom
were of great distinction at Oxford, were all educated
by their father in his country parsonage.

Boys are, as a rule, retained at grammar-schools till
they are able to enter the university. The practice,
which is comparatively speaking a modern one, has
something to be said in its favour, but far more, I
imagine, to its disadvantage.

INTRODUCTION. 17

It lias, perhaps, the advantage of keeping a youth up
to the work which has ordinarily a practical value in
the election to college scholarships. The examinations
for these advantages generally copy what prevails in
the teaching of an upper form in a grammar-school,
and the lads at these schools are, it is understood,
habitually drilled in the sort of papers which are set
in college examinations. It by no means, however,
follows that the successful competitors for college scholar-
ships will make an equally successful figure in the final
trials. Of course, if a college examination is perfect,
it will not only estimate the present, but predict the
future ; and it is understood that in one or two colleges
of great credit this compound of estimate and prediction
is actually effected. But, beyond doubt, the efibrts of
these tests should be to discourage mere cram, the bane,
and the increasing bane, of competitive education. Yet
the power of the examiners, like that of the teachers,
is by no means so common as examiners themselves
suppose.

Again, it is not easy to find any satisfactory method
for employing the last year or two, between the time
when boys used to leave school — i, e. between sixteen
and seventeen — and that at which they should enter the
university — eighteen or nineteen. At the same time,
this year is, perhaps, the most important of all in the
preparation for academical life.

On the other hand, it is dangerous to immediately
transfer a youth from the discipline of a school to the
freedom of a college. The beginning of academical
residence is very critical ; most of those who go to
the bad, and many do this who graduate in the end,
have their bias given them in the first term or first
year of their residence.

2

18 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

Again : though those boys at a school who are of
marked capacity or notable perseverance get on in the
course of upper-form school education, it is not clear
that those of inferior capacity or less perseverance do
so in a similar ratio. Discipline over the intellectual
progress of great boys is not so easy. There are
abundant opportunities for escaping work. In the
course of things, there is no opportunity for dealing
individually with minds. There are certain periods in
the education of young persons when personal and indi-
vidual supervision and training are of the last account.
And I feel persuaded that these periods are at the begin-
ning and end of the university course. To be in the
upper form of a public school is a dignity suggestive
to many lads of ease, and rest, and quiet days, and no
more work. To be transferred to the process of an inter-
mediate training for the university is a new beginning,
and a fresh stimulus.

Rather a lax morality prevails in public schools as
to the relations of master and pupil. There is reason
to believe that this has been imported into the univer-
sity in the shape of taking unfair advantage in public
examinations. Boys, it is said, look on their chief as
their natural enemy ; but it is just as well that this
notion as regards the university should be interrupted,
by bringing lads to the knowledge that the university is
not a gathering of mere upper-form boys.

Education Intermediate to School and College. —
One of the most useful institutions in the country is
that of King's College, London. Founded in the first
instance as a place of education for members of the
English Church, in connection with the London Uni-
versity, and in some degree, at least, in rivalry to

INTEODUCTION. 19

University College, in Gower Street, it has supplied
a certain number of graduates to the metropolitan
university, hut has also established a net-work of
grammar-schools in connection with itself, and annually
provides a very considerable body of students to the
other universities. It affords a convenient opportunity
for employing a year or two of time between leaving
school and entry at the university, and it gives much
the same instruction as that at the best Oxford and
Cambridge colleges. I can only say, for my own part,
that the advantages I derived from a year and a halPs
study at King's College were larger and more sugges-
tive than any which I ever procured from academical
instruction. The professors and lecturers at King's
College have to keep up their reputation by the success
of their pupils.

For those whose parents live in London, the com-
bination of domestic discipline with careful and sound
instruction is easy and ready. And when those who do
not reside in the metropolis wish to avail themselves of
the benefits which such an institution gives, there are,
I am informed, facilities for boarding young persons in
the houses of certain parties whose names and charges
are to be learned by application at the college office.

General students, as such persons are called who
contemplate a degree in arts either at the London
University or in Oxford or Cambridge, are instructed
in Greek and Latin, mathematics, modern history, and
one or more modern languages.

There are other institutions where such an interme-
diate education is possible, but I am not aware of any
which is specially designed for the purpose, and where
the prevailing purpose of the establishment is the pre-
paration for academical life.

2—2

20 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

Better, however, than this system, is that of private
tuition for some definite period before entry at the
university, provided the instruction is obtained from
those who are competent to teach, and are well up to
the present tone of academical work. Best of all, when
such a teacher lives in or near the precincts of the
university.

No doubt private tuition has fallen somewhat into
disrepute. This is due in some degree to its expen-
siveness, but in a very large degree to the inefficiency
of persons who take on themselves the duties of pre-
paring young men for the university. There is not a
country parson, however hardly he may have procured
his degree himself, or however remote he may be from
the present status of academical education, who does
not confidently take in hand the difficult task of bring-
ing up young men for entrance into the university.
I have known men who have been plucked ad libitum,
but do not hesitate to take these functions on themselves
with the greatest equanimity.

But private instruction in the hands of competent
persons is of great value for the pupil, and the more
so when it takes place in the university itself. Young
persons are brought in contact, under judicious super-
intendence, with the dangers which beset them on
entering upon college life, and they see much which
they learn to avoid, as most of the fascination of those
mischievous practices which ruin so many young men re-
sides in the novelty of the scene which they are entering
on. To keep young men in the dark, and under strong
checks while they are at school and at home, and then
to give them their head and their sight when discipline
is impossible, and habits of self-restraint are not formed,
is about the surest way of giving common temptations

INTRODUCTION. 21

an irresistible force. One of the reasons brought forward
in the debates on the University Reform Act of 1859,
for the establishment of private halls, was the facility
they would afford for a discipline or a supervision
which college authorities could neither exact nor restore.
All this is secured by some time of residence in the
private house of a person whose character is assured,
and whose fitness may be easily ascertained.

Apart, however, from the moral reasons for such a
preliminary course of instruction — and they could be
multiplied, and, indeed, will suggest themselves to the
mind of the reader — there are material* considerations
of no small weight which belong to such a plan of
procedure. An undergraduate can procure his degree
at the end of three years from his matriculation. Ordi-
narily he does not procure it for five. And the reason
is plain. There are no means by which any college
instruction will make up for inefficient preparation.
Send a youth to the university without his being fit to
pass the first examination at his entrance — and there
are many who are unprepared — and it takes a long
time for him to fit himself. He may, it is true, and
often does, procure private instruction while he is an
undergraduate, but this is by irregular snatches, by a
superficial cram, and without lasting good. I am per-
suaded that on the score of economy, both of time and
money, such preparation would be amply recompensed..

PAET 11.

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY.

Periods in the Histokt of Oxford. — The period at
which the valley of the Isis became a seat of national
education is out of all memory or record. We have
no information of the causes which led to the selec-
tion of this spot, and how it came to pass that the
earliest notices of it speak of the academical features
of this city as habitual and familiar. No document
affecting its constitution, as yet brought to light, is
of an earlier date than the latter part of the reign
of Henry HI., and yet we read of Henry H.'s judges
dining with the masters of the schools of Oxford, in
one of their progresses, as though they were parties
to be mentioned without explanation or comment, as
they must have been personages of distinction. The
first hints given us of tlie existence of a university in
Oxford, present us with the fact of its being fully and
immemorially recognized as a place of education. And,
similarly, the first endowments by which learning was
encouraged (and academical antiquaries inform us that
they are fragments of larger donations), were bestowed
on the corporation, or assigned to the natives of parti-
cular regions — and especially to the north of England —
on the ground that the resources of these distant and im-
poverished provinces could hardly find the means of aca-
demical instruction. The terms " university," ^' master,"'
" bachelor," are not suggestive of any period in history

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 23

from which their first mention could designate the
beginnings of these familiar and definite phrases.
The first merely means "corporation," and was im-
ported into English bj the civil jurists. The last two
are merely titles of respect common to other and very
different classes of society. The origin of this ancient
corporation, like the origin of the common law, is
unknown, but its privileges and prestige in ancient
times were as national and as accepted as they have
become limited and obscure. Persons crowded into
Oxford from all parts of England, in order to acquire
such learning as was at that time known and taught,
and the existing customs of the place gave every
facility to the numbers who made use of its advan-
tages.

The founder of the first college was Merton, Bishop
of Rochester, who removed some students, whom he
had settled in Surrey, to this university. In course
of time, that is, between this period and that of the
Reformation, eight other colleges were founded, and
three more, which were hardly other than precarious
establishments, were incorporated. But those foun-
dations do not appear to have been intended to receive
more than those whom the original founder or subse-
quent benefactors wished to assist. The great mass of
students lived in houses under the direction of a Prin-
cipal, whom they elected, and who was security for the
rent and other properties of the tenement which they
occupied. These tenements were called Halls, and
they were, in the period preceding the Reformation,
exceedingly numerous.

As might have been expected from any sudden and
general change, the university was seriously affected
by the Reformation. The vast numbers who had been

24 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

sent during some period of their career to study in the
university from the monasteries, at once ceased to ap-
pear, though great endeavours were made to supply some
specially authorized teaching which should be based on
more rational grounds than the scholastic jargon and
profitless subtleties of the earlier method. This was
the time in which the great professorships of Divinity,
Hebrew, and Greek were founded ; the purpose of the
last two being the interpretation of the sacred text,
with a view to the encouragement of a critical theology.
At the same time the work of creating colleges was
carried on. The existing ones purchased the sites of
the ancient halls at easy rates — almost at nominal rates,
since when those houses were once devoted to academical
purposes they were incapable of being secularized, and
three more colleges were founded within little more
than thirty years. The reign of Elizabeth saw another,
that of James the First two more, and finally one other
arose in the last year of Anne's reign.

Meanwhile, those independent students who had
filled the numerous halls of the earlier history of the
university had departed. In the time of Elizabeth only
eight halls remained, three of which formed so many
colleges. Of these three one was at the time of its
conversion into a college, little better than a ruin, and
another was lost with the college into which it was
converted. This unfortunate society was Hertford
College, which maintained a languishing existence for
nearly sixty years. The university was being gra-
dually absorbed into these collegiate foundations, and
nothing but a legislative Act was needed by which the
existence of any independent body of students would
be absolutely annulled, and the colleges with the five
remaining halls become the university.

\

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 25

This Act was procured by the instrumentality of
Laud, Chancellor of the University from the year 1630.
Till his imprisonment by the Long Parliament he gave
the most minute attention to its discipline, and while
he framed statutes for its guidance, watched their main-
tenance with a sort of affectionate rigour. Among
others, he procured that by which it became necessary
for every student and every graduate to be a member
of some existing college or hall, the former being bound
to reside within the walls of a college or hall, and the
latter to keep his name on the books of the society.
The statute created a monopoly, in which there was no
competition, and from which, except by the sacrifice of
academical privileges, there was no escape. This
statute, interpreted subsequently with some laxity,
was re-enacted at the close of the last century, and
except on rare occasions, or under definite circum-
stances, has been interpreted rigorously. The colleges
have completely absorbed the University, though the
functions of the aggregate corporation are distinct from
those of the private corporations, however blended they
are to general observation.

The administration of this united body was carried on
by self-originated statutes, under a constitution created
by Laud, in which the initiative of all measures was
reserved to the heads of the colleges and halls. The con-
firmation of these measures after a formal publication in a
formal meeting, was left to the suffrages of the convoca-
tion, that is, the aggregate of those doctors and masters
who complied with the requisition of retaining their names
on the books of some college or hall, and who could, on
their being summoned, accept or reject, but not alter the
measures proposed to them. Debate was permitted in
Latin only, and the legislative power was virtually

26 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

lodged in the authorities who formed the board from
which the measures emanated.

Six years ago (1854) this constitution was remodelled
by Parliament. The Laudian Statutes were continued,
with certain alterations, in their integrity, the chief
object of the Act being to change the constitution of the
colleges. The university was still left in the same
negative position as before, overwhelmed by a series of
powerful interests, generally harmonious, and only slightly
antagonistic. In^the endeavour to liberalize the college
endowments, the characteristics of the collegiate system
were left unchanged, and the attempt to open the
imiversity to the nation at large was confined to a
clause empowering the creation of private halls, according
to the ancient system, the conditions of whose existence
were left to parties interested, according to the ordinary
reasoning of the occupants of a monopoly, in preventing
their existence at all. Unfortunately, they who might
have asserted the nationality, and secured the indepen-
dence of the university, were ill-informed, and the evi-
dence collected by the Commissioners, from which they
should have derived information, was cumbrous, dull, con-
tradictory, and delusive. I have referred to these facts, in
order to point out how intrinsically the university is dis-
tinct from the Colleges ; how that antiquity and design, to
which appeals are with great justice made, when inno-
vations are deprecated, seeing that much of the reputation
of Oxford rests on its appeal to sympathy with past
history, are in favour of the restoration of a body of
independent students, who are unconnected with the
private corporations, and how the university is, in its
fullest sense, national, and should be to the fullest
extent coincident with the learning of the country, and
Avith what ought, in the aggregate of industry and intel-

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 27

ligence, to have the largest facilities for that extension
of the period of study, out of which the best service can
be rendered subsequently to the community at large*
And though I do not propose to make this little work
generally critical, yet it becomes a necessity in the
outset, when one has to distinguish matters which are
confounded, to point to the cause of the confusion, that
one may show how important an issue is involved in
the distinction.

The University. — This corporation is known by the
name of the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the
University of Oxford. The first-named personage is
generally a nobleman of considerable eminence, who is
supposed to watch over the interests of those who have
elected him from his seat in the House of Lords. Prac-
tically, however, he does not interfere with the business
of the university, those offices which reside in liira
being fulfilled by a deputy, the Vice-chancellor. This
personage is, in effect, the highest official in Oxford,
He is not elected, but the various heads of colleges occupy
the office in a rotation according to seniority, the tenure
of their office being four years. The Vice-chancellor
admits all persons to matriculation and degrees — to the
former by virtue of his office, to the latter as the mouth-
piece of Convocation.

Joined to the Vice-chancellor are two other persons,
known as the Proctors. These officers, nominated
annually out of the colleges and halls, are entrusted
with the discipline of the students whenever they are
outside the walls of the college to which they belong.
Within those walls, students are supposed to be under
the care of the domestic authorities. In order to carry
out this discipline upon breaches of academical order

28 EDUCATION IN OXFOED.

and morality, tlie Proctors are invested with certain ex-
traordinary magisterial powers ; and that they may be
able more effectually to provide against any incon-
venience from misconduct or other causes, they have
each two deputies, who exercise a delegated power nearly
identical with that of the Proctors. Certain other officers
of the university are also invested with partial and local
powers of the same nature, and of course the functions
possessed by proctors are also possessed by the Vice-
chancellor, to whom there is an appeal from their
sentence.

The general age of matriculation is about eighteen
years. As a rule, it is unwise to enter the university
at an earlier age, as younger persons are not, of course,
so competent to contest for academical distinctions and
prizes with their seniors. The process of matriculation
is very simple. The person to be matriculated is
presented to the Vice-chancellor by the authorized
officer of the college or hall, at which he has to enter,
is admonished to observe the statutes, and presented
with a copy of them. He pays also certain fees. These
are graduated according to certain ranks, a nobleman
or a peer's eldest son paying 8^. ; a privileged person
(the phrase will be explained hereafter), 5L ; ordinary
students, 21, 8s. ; and Bible clerks and servitors, 10s.
The gowns and caps worn by the matriculated person
are allotted to the several ranks, the shape and material
of which differ. There is the nobleman's gown, a
gentleman commoner's, a commoner's, a scholar's, and a
servitor's. In the first two cases the gown is made of
silk and the cap of velvet. In the last cases the gown
is made of stuff, and the cap of cloth. The good taste
of most colleges has led them to decline receiving
students distinguished by the dress of the nobleman and

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 29

gentleman commoner, and to insist on persons who
might claim these dresses appearing as commoners.
Practically the class of nobleman and gentleman com-
moners— the term is used of the dress — is confined to
Christ Church. In one or two of the halls, and at one
of the colleges, advantage is taken of the greater age of
students to oblige them to appear as gentleman com-
moners. The largest number of these is at Magdalene
Hall. By far the majority of the members of the
university are what are called Commoners. All persons
on the foundation of a college, who are as yet undis-
tinguished by a degree, are familiarly known as Scholars,
and form the second division in extent.

The subsequent relations of the student to the
university consist in his annual payment of IZ. 8s, to
the academical exchequer, in his undergoing examina-
tions demanded by the university, previous to gradation,
and in his takinor deg-rees.

Ordinarily the student proceeds to degrees in arts.
This term is technical, and suggests nothing except on
explanation. Should the student wish to graduate in
any other faculty, he has to submit to the examinations
requisite for degrees in arts, as well as to those demanded
by his special faculty. These faculties are Divinity,
Physic, and Law. Degrees in Divinity are practically
nothing but the payment of a sum of money. Those in
Law are procured by examination, and those in Physic
also. As might be expected, the examination in the
latter faculty is the most rigorous. There seems no
reason to doubt that degrees in Law will cease tx) be
taken, and it is very unlikely that Oxford will ever be a
medical school. It is desirable, however, to show what
is the course intended by the academical body in re-
lation to this faculty, in a subsequent part of this work.

30 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

To all practical purposes, the course of study which the
university prescribes, is that of Arts.

Degrees in Arts. — These degrees are two, those of
Bachelor and Master. The former of these only is
obtained by examination, the latter is a mere matter of
time and money.

The examinations which must be undergone for the
degree of bachelor of arts, are four in number. The
first is called Responsions, and is popularly known as
Little-go. The next is called the first public examina-
tion, and is known as Moderations. The third is the
second public examination ; and the fourth on one of
three subjects — mathematics and physics, natural science,
law and modern history. The first three must be
passed by every candidate, and the choice of the last
is voluntary. Different periods in the course of aca-
demical standing are assigned to each examination.
The responsions may be as early as the first term ;
the first public examination not earlier than the seventh
term; the second public examination not earlier than
the eleventh term. Exception is made in favour of
noblemen and privileged persons. These can, in case
they are not on the foundation of any college, be exa-
mined and graduate at earlier dates. Privileged persons
are the sons of noblemen and the eldest sons of baronets
and knights. Limits are assigned at which honours can
be taken in each of three public examinations. Those
in the first cannot be got later than the twelfth term ;
those in the second public examination, not later than
the eighteenth from matriculation. There are four
terms in the year.

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 31

The Examination called Responsions. — In the
computation of the sixteen terms necessary for a degree,
that in which the student is entered by matriculation at
the university counts as one. Immediately on his
residence, he is therefore able to proffer himself for this
examination, and it is to be regretted that the authorities
have not sanctioned the rule, that this first probation
should not precede residence, if not matriculation. A
person who cannot pass responsions ought not to be at the
university at all, and as no distinction is made between
those who pass this examination ill and those who pass
it well, the minimum which it implies might fairly be
claimed from all parties who wish to make a trial for
academical degrees. Much mischief would be obviated,
since disappointment and expense to parents, and sloven-
liness in study, arise from the absence of this preliminary
test. But faihng this corrective, the examination
should be passed as early as possible.

It is a feature of the Oxford schools that the subjects '
proffered by the candidates are in some degree optional.
Part of the method and quantity is prescribed, but
variety is left to the discretion of the individual. In
this examination the optional part is the selection of the
portion of a Latin and Greek author, and the choice
between two books of Euclid and the rudiments of
algebra. The prescribed parts are arithmetic as far as
decimal ' fractions, translation from English into Latin,
and a series of questions on Latin and Greek grammar.
During two days the candidates are examined on paper,
and then, after an alphabetical order, vivct voce; oppor-
tunity being given, except in very bad cases, of re-
trieving errors and making up deficiencies by fresh
papers. They who satisfy the examiners receive a
paper attesting their satisfaction, which paper is called

32 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

a testamur. They who fail to satisfy the examiners are
said to be " plucked," a term peculiar to Oxford, but
now become almost universal. Of course, the average
of rejected candidates is no great guide. It amounts to
about 25 per cent. At least this was my experience
when I filled the office of master of the schools, the
name given to the examiners in responsions or little-go.

The First Public Examination. — This examination
is conducted by officers called Moderators, and is the
most difficult of all those which the candidate for an
ordinary degree has to undergo. As before, certain
parts of the examination are optional ; the selection,
as before, being left to the candidate of the poet and
orator, portions of whose works he must proffer. One
of these must be Latin, the other Greek, and in effect,
the pass candidate generally chooses Cicero and Homer,
or some tragedian. He has the option of three books of
Euclid and algebra to quadratic equations, or logic.
As before, he is called upon to translate English into
Latin, and to answer grammatical questions on both lan-
guages. Added to these, he must offer the four Gospels
in Greek, and is expected to answer certain questions
arising from their contents, at the discretion of the
moderators. A competent acquaintance with this por-
tion of the examination is indispensable, and no excel-
lence can countervail the defect of this knowledge.
From those who are not members of the Church of
England an equivalent quantity of secular knowledge is
demanded, which must be satisfactorily known before
the success of the candidate can be contemplated.

Subsequently to this ordinary examination, those
among the candidates who wish to pass with distinction,
and who are therefore selected from the general mass.

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVEESITY. 33

are taken apart. The guide to their purpose is the
number of authors they proffer, and which must include
at least a poet and an orator. A far longer and more
searching inquiry is made into the proficiency of these
candidates, the paper work extending over nearly a week.
Logic, and this especially from an analytical point of
view, is required ; and great stress is laid on the exhi-
bition of that scholarship which is carefully taught in
schools, such as composition in prose and verse, with an
empirical knowledge of grammar, and some acquaint-
ance with philological theories, such, for instance, as
are contained in the Cratylus and Yarronianus of
Dr. Donaldson. The examination, in short, is one
which would be passed most effectively by persons who
had been well drilled in the upper forms of public
schools. After the examination is concluded, a list is
published, containing three schedules, — one of those
who have acquitted themselves particularly well, an-
other of those who have done so generally well, and
a third of those who have done so well. The averao-e
for seven years of those who have been placed in the
first division is twenty-six per annum. The same
knowledge of the Gospels, and facts connected with
them, is required from these candidates, under the same
conditions, but no amount of knowledge is allowed to
affect the candidate's place on the list.

Opportunity is also afforded to parties who wish to
distinguish themselves in mathematics. The material
of the examination is "pure mathematics," and the
classical examination, either as an ordinary pass, or
with a view to being placed, must be undergone pre-
viously and successfully. The candidates are ranged,
as before, in schedules, with the same distinctive words
to denote the degree of satisfaction which the mode-

3

34 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

rators have felt at their ^performances. The average of
persons who have been placed in the highest position is
eight per annum. The names in each of the schedules
are arranged in alphabetical order.

The Second Public Examinations. — There are two
— one compulsory, and the other elective. The former
is that in Uteris humaniorihus, or, as it is popularly
called, in Classics ; the other, at the option of the candi-
date, is in mathematics, law, and history (modern), and
physical science. The first examination, that w^hich
has to be passed by all, will be dealt with first.

Here, the student who aspires to no position in the
class list proffers portions of two authors, one Greek
and the other Latin, as subjects for examination. The
choice of authors is bounded by the condition that one
must be a philosopher, the other an historian. As a
consequence, the range of choice is practically limited
in Latin to the philosophical writings of Cicero, if such
bald gossip can be called philosophy ; and in Greek, to
the works of Plato and Aristotle. Fortunately, for the
credit of the school, the latter of these authors is gene-
rally preferred, and, as a rule, nearly half the candidates
proffer a portion of Aristotle's NicG7nachean Ethics,
The history is more various ; but the popular authors
are portions of Herodotus in Greek, and of Livy in
Latin.

The examination in these authors consists in giving
portions of average difficulty for translation, with ques-
tions on the matter of the books, those in history being
confined to facts contained in the subject, and those on
philosophy being generally aimed at reproduchig a
resume of the arguments used by the author in question.
It need hardly be said that the philosophy elicited is of

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 35

the feeblest and most evanescent description conceivable.
The real test of the examination is the power of faithful
translation, a power generally acquired by a diligent
use of printed translations. This portion of the work
occupies a single day.

Besides this, an examination is held in divinity. The
nominal range of this subject is the history of the Old
and New Testaments, the Greek text of the Gospels and
the Acts, and the Articles of the Church of England,
with Scripture and other proofs of their authority. Till
lately this portion of the examination was carried on
wholly viva voce, but the author of this book, when
filling the office of public examiner, was able to in-
troduce, with very beneficial effects, a divinity paper,
— an innovation which has been particularly successful,
as well as equitable.

As before, those parties who dissent from the dis-
cipline and doctrines of the Established Church are
allowed to tender an equivalent; and, as in the case
of the previous examination familiarly called Modera-
tions, no excellence in the knowledge of this subject, or
of its equivalent, is allowed to assist in the passing of
tlie candidate, though it must be rigorously exacted.

It is not easy to say why the university has loaded
the knowledge of divinity, as it is ordinarily called,
with this discouraging condition. The only argument
I have ever heard alleged in its favour is, that the
sacred nature of the subject makes it improper that
j^ divinity should be the ground of specific distinction,
^Liand that the reverence due to revealed truth would be
^■iSacrificed in the desire to acquire credit by the posses-
^Ksion of information on the material. But, in practice,
^»the impropriety lies in the conditions, and the irreve-
rence is enhanced by the way in which the perfunctory

36 EDUCATION IN OXFOED.

theology of the Oxford schools is learnt for the purpose
of effecting a pass.

The knowledge exhibited by the candidates is pecu-
liar. It is quite possible that persons may have a sound
practical acquaintance with Christian doctrine, without
possessing sufficient technical information for the satis-
faction of the examiners. I have known cases in point,
and those of a painful kind ; yet were the examiners to
demand anything beyond a mere acquaintance with facts,
were they to exact the poorest proofs of the Articles
and doctrines of the English Church, they would reject
candidates by wholesale. The most ludicrous errors
are constantly made in the divinity examination. The
most irreverent methods are resorted to for obtain-
ing the bare minimum, and, of course, under such a
system, the tendency is always to a minimum. A
doggerel memoria technica, and a jargon of mutilated
words expressive of persons or periods, are among the
devices frequently resorted to for creating a temporary
knowledge of Oxford divinity. I do not, of course,
mean that all learn after this fashion; but some do,
and the theory of the university offers the strongest
inducements to all its students for adopting these pro-
cesses. The only remedy for these evils lies in one
of two alternatives. Either the study of theology and
certificates of proficiency should be confined to the
domestic organization of the colleges, or the university
should incorporate excellence in this branch of know-
ledge with the other proficiencies of the candidate.
These alternatives are on the hypothesis that the uni-
versity should in its public relation to its junior mem-
bers require proofs of this knowledge from all. It is,
of course, possible to make the examination distinct and
voluntary.

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 37

Of course, the method of the passman's theological
study, negligent as it is, is even more favourable to
information than that of the candidate for honours.
Loaded with other work, the knowledge of which is
relative to his object — academical distinction — this kind
of student is still more disinclined to lavish time on
what is of no immediate avail. The depression to a
minimum rate is still more marked in the honour schools.
And the natural reluctance of the examiners to reject-
ing a candidate for honours conduces still more to this
undesirable result. As a rule, the " divinity" of a can-
didate of this kind is scantier and shallower than that
of an ordinary passman, and is accepted with more
consideration.

As before, part of the examination is conducted viva
voce, and in public, the candidates being examined in
alphabetical order. The purport of this portion of the
w^ork is partly to remedy the defects of the written
examination, partly to make further inquiries into
knowledge of facts in the history, philosophy, and
divinity required from the candidates. As before, they
who pass have a paper given them bearing the signa-
ture of the examiners, while the names of those who
fail are passed over in silence.

Certain persons who, attempting only to satisfy the
examiners, do more than satisfy them, are by the prac-
tice of the schools, and under the sanction of the
statute, distinguished by having an honorary class — of
the lowest kind, that is, the fourth- — assigned to them.
Occasionally, the still larger distinction of an offer to
receive such parties into the number of candidates for
honours is made. A few such cases have occurred in
my experience. But the offer is, as might be expected,
declined, and is in effect little more than the publica-

38^ EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

tlon of the fact that such a person will be rated in the
fourth class under extraordinary circumstances. Pass-
men generally court this honour before examination,
and regret its bestowal subsequently. As they are
grouped with the lowest honour candidates, it requires
explanation in order to prevent persons from imagining
that they have tried higher things and signally failed.
Such explanations are inconvenient and egotistical.

The Classical Examination for Honours. — Those
persons whose list of authors denotes that they purpose
attempting the distinctions of a classified proficiency,
are examined, as in the case of the " Moderations,"
subsequently to the general body of ordinary passmen.
The number of such persons varies, but it may be
taken on the whole, under the present system, at
betweeen thirty and thirty-five twice a year.

In theory the candidate has the option of the authors
which he proffers for examination ; in practice the
authors proffered are generally identical. They' are
especially historical and philosoj)hical. The ordinary
list comprises one or more of Aristotle's works — the
Nicomachean Ethics invariably being offered; one or
more of Plato — the Republic being specially selected ;
with the Novum Organon of Bacon ; and Logic, viewed
especially from a psychological aspect. To these is
ordinarily added the Analogy or Sermons of Bishop
Butler; and, together, they form the philosophical
subjects, or, as they are called collectively, science.

The historical part of the books consists of Herodotus,
Thucydides, the First Decade of Livy, and the Annals
or Histories of Tacitus.

But the names of these works give a very superficial
conception of the examination, and the knowledge of

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 39

tlieir contents would not alone, in the existing practice
of the schools, entitle a candidate to any eminent dis-
tinction. The procedure of the schools is not by
authors but by subjects. Thus, papers are set seve-
rally in Logic, in Moral Philosophy, in Political Philo-
sophy, in the History of Philosophy, in Greek History
and Antiquities, and in Roman History and Antiquities.
As might be expected from the age of the candidates,
the papers on Moral Philosophy are the best answered,
those on Political Philosophy the worst That on Logic
is of various value, but is almost always of speculative,
not a practical kind ; that on the History of Philosophy
still more fluciuating and uncertain. Besides tliese,
the examiners require Latin prose, that is, the trans-
lation of English into Latin ; and opportunity is given
to show powers in Greek prose composition. Finally,
the books offered are the material for a further exami-
nation, passages being selected which are difficult to
translate ; grammatical, philological, and other formulae
being proposed in the form of short passages from these
authors, and forming one of the most valuable tests of
proficiency.

Of course, in so varied and searching an examination
a principle of compensation is inevitably acted on.
Singular ability is frequent in special subjects, average
ability in all is more frequent, great ability in all is
rare. This arises not only from the nature of the
examination, which deals with very distinct mental
powers, but from the different capacity for aggregating
facts, and the further difference of the particular powers
for collecting particular facts. Of coui'se the practice
of diligent study, and the habit of question and answer
go far towards amalgamating these powers, and as a
rule those candidates are most likely to be distinguished

40 EDUCATION IN OXTOKD.

who have steadily practised the faculty of writing on
questions analogous to those given in the schools.

There is a viva voce examination, open to the public,
in which the candidates are further tested. The value
of this part of the procedure has been gradually
diminishing from various causes, which it is not neces-
sary to dilate upon.

The candidates are arranged into four classes, the
names being published in alphabetical order. The
average of first classmen over a period of six years is a
little more than twelve per annum.

The first class in classical literature represents the
highest general distinction which the University can
give. It deserves all that can be awarded to it by
public opinion, and even more, since it implies vastly
more than the highest honours which are put in parallel
columns to it. It denotes years of laborious study,
with the possession of extraordinary mental powers.
It searches to exhaustion the stores of accumulated
labour, the patient drilling of schools, and the voluntary
acquisitions of painstaking research. True, it is com-
parative. A larger field of candidates for university
honours than that which the languishing public recan-
tation of Oxford affords, and the monopoly of colleges
continually narrows, would supply a far more copious,
and, by implication, a far better material. But as it is,
it is the estimate of the best of all the University does
for, or gives to, the nation. Other classifications are
only those of feeble growths in unpracticable soil, some
necessarily weak, and some temporarily so from the
scanty and superficial nature of their requirements.

Since the alteration of 1850, when the examination
statute was remodelled, and the change was an experi-
ment and is a failure in its general bearings, the ^first

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 41

class in classical literature is diminished from its pre-
vious width. Scholarship has ceased to form an
integral part of it, and the extent of the material of
examination is diminished by a half. There is a great
and a radical difference between the old and the new
first class, both in the number and acquirements of the
candidates.

The Optional Schools. — Mathematics have never
flourished in Oxford. Distinguished persons have occa-
sionally proceeded from this university, but their
number is small. The subject of an ordinary exami-
nation for a pass, is eithet six books of Euclid, or the
" first part of algebra." As three books of Euclid are
an optional portion of the pass examination under the
moderators, this school is extensively preferred by
passmen, a few weeks' or even days' study being all
that is required for the mere pass.

In the honour examination, mixed and pure mathe-
matics are subjects. The acquirements needed for high
distinction in this school are considerable, and repre-
sent a great deal of previous labour and training. But
the number of candidates is very small, and the average
of those who have been rated in the first class is,. during
a period of six years, only three and two-thirds. This,
too, is less than the average before the break-up of the
present system by the statutes of 1850, since between
the years 1847 and 1852 inclusive, the average was
nearly six.

The other two schools are of a modern date, and of
a more pretentious character. They affect to be in
accordance with the wants of the age, and profess to
be an instalment of the services which Oxford is here-
after to bestow on the vast fields of physical and social

42 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

science. To judge them by their professions would be
unfair, and even ludicrous, and it remains to be seen
whether they will be subordinate to these gigantic pur-
poses. One has only to view them now in their present
aspect and present working.

There is a very general tendency, founded upon a
very wholesome judgment, and very imperfect pre-
mises, towards requiring special information upon defi-
nite points of practical knowledge. We see in all
directions how much national wealth and national
greatness are due to the division of learning, as well as
to the division of manual labour, and the man who
affects universal information is progressively considered
a quack. There certainly has never been in the his-
tory' of mankind any period in which so much is done
by definite application to definite subjects, none in wiiich
popular judgment is so accurate upon the capacity of
individuals. At the same time, better educated people
can hardly get on without some acquaintance of the
general facts and laws of nature and social science, the
prominent phenomena of modern civilization, and the
general means by which those results are gathered —
results with which we are habitually familiar. These
seem the utilities of knowledge, the current coin of
current history.

And certainly this general information is, and in a
still greater degree was, at a minimum in Oxford. It
is a fact that nowhere could you find educated people
who were so ill-informed as in this university. Modern
history was nowhere known ; modern science was no-
where studied. Parties who knew every name and fact
in Herodotus could not say what was the date of the
Reformation or Long Parliament, and had the most
shadowy impressions of the notables in European his-

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 43

tory. Men who had learned all about the law courts
and economy of Athens and Rome were ignorant of the
very elements of the modem science of wealth, and of
the principles of English legislation. There was good
reason then for many people to lament that there was
no resting-place for the study of contemporaneous
philosophy and modern history, and it was tolerably
certain that, when the need of knowino; somethino; was
admitted, that the professors of these neglected sciences
— and they existed all along — should claim attention to
the expressed deficiencies of an Oxford education.

Hence arose the tAvo schools of physical or natural
science and modern history and law. The former of
these has always aimed at a high standard, and has
asserted that it demands an intimate acquaintance with
certain branches of this philosophy. Three are pre-
scribed by the statutes ; mechanics, chemistry, and phy-
siology ; and while the candidate for an ordinary pass
is required to have a rudimentary knowledge in two at
least of these, the candidate for honours is expected to
possess a rudimentary knowledge in all, and a large
knowledge in one of the three.

There is, of course, no education in the sense of
method and training in such studies. Attempts to make
the science practical have been generally failures, and
it is even out of the question to expect that the candi-
dates should possess any large power of estimating the
principles of these inductive sciences. I have heard
more than once of persons achieving the highest honours
in these departments of physical philosophy with six
months' reading, and, though I am quite prepared to
admit that previous method has been the foundation of
such success, yet I feel sure that not a single " first "
in chemistry would be fit for a laboratory, a single

44 "■* EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

"first"- in physiology for the certificate of the Apothe-
caries' Company, a single " first " in mechanics for the
commonest functions of the commonest engineer. There
is, of course, a lack of mechanical training and empi-
rical knowledge which Oxford students are not willing
to acquire if they could, and the university is not com-
petent to give if it would. I dare say the students of
this school, few as they are, acquire a power of chat-
ting upon natural history and natural science. The
examiners, it is true, have not had the means of
awarding such distinctions as they give to many per-
sons hitherto ; the number of first-class men in this
department of study having been, for six years, only an
average of three, and the candidates for an ordinary
pass being very scanty.

The school in law and modern history has been, in
point of popularity, more successful. About half choose
this, and the candidates for honours are numerous.

Persons who wish to merely pass in this school have
the option of proffering that period of English history
which extends from the Conquest to the accession of
Henry the Eighth, or that period from Henry the
Eighth's accession to the reign of Anne. In the former
portion the student is required to be acquainted with
the law of real property ; in the latter, that of personal
property and the rights of persons. No reason is given
fbr this combination, and one does not see that a reason
could be given. The Institutes of Justinian may be
offered in lieu of either portion of law, but it seldom
happens that this treatise is read. The text books are
Hume and Blackstone.

The subjects offered for examination by candidates
in honours, include the periods needed for passmen,
and even more ; general historical knowledge being

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 45

required up to the date of the French Revolution.
Each candidate is required to offer a special portion
of history treated in a minute and special way. Fur-
ther, he generally gives a list of books, including
Hallam's historical works, portions of Gibbon, Cla- .
rendon, Ranke, Robertson, and Guizot. International
law may be offered, or the elements of political
economy. But these subjects are not compulsory,
and the highest honours may be be obtained without
them. Nor is it needful that the candidate should have
any acquaintance with modern languages.

It is unfortunate that no portion of this examination
should necessarily include anything requiring the use
of reflective or logical faculties. The school is one of
mere cram. The law exhibited is, as might be expected,
deplorable, and there is hardly any person who ventures
on political economy. The weight of the examination
lies in the knowledge of the constitutional antiquities
of Hallam, and the learned platitudes of Guizot.
Hence the highest honours are often obtained from very
brief study, and, indeed, there is no distinction awarded
by the university which is more pretentious and more
delusive than this. The average of first-class men for
six years is a little under six per annum.

These examinations passed, the student is permitted to
take his first degree, that of Bachelor in Arts. By an
ancient custom in the university, any master of arts
is empowered to refuse this degree, and indeed any
other degree, three times without alleging any reason ;
but is required to state his reasons on the fourth rejec-
tion, which are then submitted to the decision of Con-
gregation— the assembly empowered to grant degrees.
Practically this privilege is never acted on, except when
creditors employ the offices of the university^advo-

46 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

oates — called proctors in the Yice-Chancellor's Court —
to represent that the candidate is the defendant in an
action for debt, a cause which the university rules to be
sufficient for the postponement of the degree.

The cost of a bachelor's degree is 7/. 10s. This is
exclusive of the fees paid on the occasion of each of the
examinations described above, and which amount in the
aggregate to 3^. 125. Fees are not returned to rejected
or plucked candidates.

Besides the examinations, a certain residence in the
university or its precincts, i. e. within one mile and a
half from the city church — the centre of the town — is
required. This amounts in the whole to twelve terms,
the Oxford year containing four terms. These twelve
terms equal, on an average, seventy-two weeks. For-
merly sixteen terms, or four years, must have inter-
vened between matriculation and the first degree, but
from the example of Cambridge this period has latterly
been shortened. In practice it rarely happens that
students are prepared for their degree at the minimum
of time. Among many reasons which may be given
for this prolonged residence and prolonged expense, two
are prominent ; the absence of a university matricula-
tion examination, and the option afforded to the student
(feebly corrected by college discipline) of presenting
himself for examination at any time he pleases. An
efficient matriculation examination would, I am per-
suaded, ordinarily shorten residence by a full year,
and a limitation of the period at which students must
present themselves for examination, Avould, by keeping
before them the necessary termination of their univer-
sity career, save well nigli as much more from procras-
tination and waste.

Only lately a custom was abrogated of levying a

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 47

very heavy fee from those persons who, presenting
themselves for degrees, were possessed of 300Z. a year
of their own. These unfortunates were called grand
compounders. The tax was rescinded, I believe, from
its having been adroitly made in one case ridiculous.

The dqgree of Master of Arts, which may be taken
three years after that of bachelor, provided the name
of the bachelor is continually on the books of some
college or hall during the interval, and the dues to the
university or college are paid, is a mere affair of
money. It costs 121. About eighty per cent, of the
bachelors of arts proceed to this further degree, the
aggregate cost of the intermediate payments, and the
fees for the degree being about 36/.

The Act of Parliament 18 & 19 Vict., under which
the constitution of the university is now regulated, has
rescinded by special provision the necessity, on the
occasion of matriculation and the taking a bachelor's
degree, of subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles of the
English Church, and certain declaratory Canons expres-
sive of hostility to Popery. But the subscription and
the oath to the Canons are retained for the degree of
Master of Arts, though it does not appear that the
university may not, if it is disposed, waive compliance
with these practices. All the powers and franchises of
the university are lodged in Convocation, that is, the
masters of arts and doctors in all faculties except
music, either immediately, as in the election of members
of Parliament, and certain professors ; or indirectly, in
the sanction which this body gives to bye-laws of the
university prepared and proposed by a committee of
the residents, styled the Hebdomadal Council.

Intermediate to Convocation and this Council, in all
matters relating to the government of the university.

48 EDUCATION IX OXFORD.

is a local body called Congregation. This term was
applied, previous to the Act of 1859, to an ill-defined
aggregate of persons, who sanctioned the publication of
decrees without, it appears, having any power to reject
them. Congregation has, under the present law, cer-
tain important privileges ; especially the power of
debate, of suggesting amendments and improvements in
what has been proposed, and in rejection on division.
It also elects the Council, but the arrangement by which
more than two-thirds of this committee must be selected
from a small portion of the university, and the possi-
bility of the remaining third being chosen from the
same fraction, have caused that there is a chronic dis-
agreement in almost all matters between the Council
and Congregation, and have reduced the Council to the
practice of overwhelming Congregation with a mass of
propositions at once, in the hope, it would seem, of
passing at least some portion of its proposals. The
members of the Council must be resident, the members
of Congregation must also be resident, with some excep-
tions. As a result, the direction of academical legis-
lation is more and more local, more and more charac-
terized by devotion to the real or presumed interests of
the colleges.

• The power of retaining the privileges of a member of
Convocation is limited by certain bye-laws of the
university, requiring uninterrupted holding of the
name of the master or doctor on the register of the
university, and on the butler's books of some college
or hall. If the name is lost from either, heavy penalties
are exacted for replacing it, and when these penalties
have once been paid, a fresh negligence is visited with
conditions of an impracticable character, unless the
applicant for readmission can satisfy the authorities

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 49

that he has been innocent in the omission, when a
private statute may be procured authorizing the renewal
of his relations with the university.

The privileges of Convocation are purchased by an
annual payment of 11. 6s. to the university, and what-
ever else the discretion of the college to which the
graduate belongs thinks proper or prudent to demand.
The latter exaction is, of course, variable. But the
aggregate is so large, that of the masters of arts, forty-
five per cent, decline, after graduation, to remain mem-
bers of Convocation ; for as the vast majority of these
graduates are clergymen with scanty incomes and
considerable claims, one may conclude that the pay-
ment is a more valid motive to separation from the
university, than that of indifference to the parliamentary
franchise and legislative control of Convocation. Of
this annual payment a portion is devoted to the income
of the Bodleian Library — a thoroughly public purpose ;
the remainder, and by far the largest portion, goes to
meet the local rates and taxes apportioned to the 'real or
supposed rental of the several colleges. It is easy to
explain the origin of this arrangement, but singularly
difficult to excuse its dishonesty.

I may observe, in concluding this account of the
processes necessary to the attainment of the degrees
of bachelor and master of arts, with the contingent
honours on laborious study and original ability, that
there is no definition of the age at which students may
enter the university. That it is desirable for the
university to limit this period, is, I think, proved from
the fact that a serious objection is felt to the length of
time necessarily occupied in j^reparatory labour before
the labour becomes productive. Parents point to the
twenty-three or tsventy-four years of preparation, as a

4

50 EDUCATION IN OXPOED.

reason for not contemplating the university as a place
in which they may put their sons. Coupling this
rational objection with the vulgar error of conceiving
that academical instruction has no practical value, they
have dechned first to consider the university as coming
within the natural field of public competition, and have
thence ceased to feel any interest in its characteristic
merits or faults.

Practically, the age at which students graduate is
determined by the canon of the Church declining holy
orders to any candidates under twenty-three years of
age. The majority of students contemplate the Church
as the future field of their labour, and drag up the age
of those who do not. It would, I think, be an excellent
reform in the university, were the age of matriculation
limited somewhat loosely, and that of the right of
competing for honours rigorously. At present the
honour schools are caricatured by the privilege afforded
all persons to enter them, whatever their age may be.
Thus, since 1846, four first-classes have been obtained
by members of Magdalene Hall. But in each case
they have been achieved by gentlemen who have
entered the university late in life, and with all the
advantages of faculties trained elsewhere, and trained
fully. In one case the honour of a first-class was
obtained by a candidate who had been for many years
a master of arts of Cambridge. Opportunities such as
these are a direct injury to those who at a necessarily
early period of life, and with powers far less matured,
have to cope at once with the difficulties of acquiring
methodical skill and accumulated information.

The precise privilege accorded by degrees in arts, as
in other faculties, is the right to teach. The words
addressed by the Vice-chancellor to the several gra-

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 51

dilates^ are a confirmation of what the candidate has
formally prayed for and Convocation has permitted.
But this is the sole direct privilege of a degree. That
bishops should exact the degree from those who present
themselves for holy orders, is a voluntary practice of
theirs, highly beneficial to the university, since without
it there would not, one may assume, remain one-fifth
of the present number of students ; but it is one com-
pletely in their power to omit — a practice they may, and
do increasingly depart from. The connection of Oxford
with the bar has long since departed ; the prejudices of
the pre-Reformation university leading to the study of
civil as opposed to common law ; and the privilege of a
call of graduates at an earlier date than that of non-
graduates, having been in later times neutralized. The
experimental knowledge necessary or desirable for
medical study has, at a later date, but at a sufficiently
remote one, transplanted the science of therapeutics
from small provincial towns to the metropoHs, and
nothing but vanity or dilettantism would hope to revive
it in Oxford.

Whether or no it is wise or expedient to grant a
monopoly of occupation to those who have passed an
examination in a special phase of knowledge, is a ques-
tion as yet in its infancy, when considered theoretically,
and one to be decided, one may surmise, in the general
way such questions are argued out, by the inductions
of economic science. I make no doubt that the practical
solution is in the negative. At any rate, the only
profession in which the public habitually and even
uniformly prefers the services of accredited persons, is
that of the law, in which there was not till lately any
test of the proficiency of attorneys, and is not of neces-
sity any test for that of advocates. The application of

4--2

52 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

the rules of an arbitrary system, such as law is, can
safely be left, according to the ordinary method of supply
and demand, to the care of its machinists. But in
medicine, despite the provisions of increasing acts of
Parliament and the social jealousies of the craft, there
are as many heresies as there are in theology.

But though one may consider that the legislative
monopoly of the doctor and the lawyer — I do not mean
the word offensively, as there are habitual correctives
to the fact — may very well be left to its natural destiny,
and that the judgment of the public is pretty correct on
this point; yet the same judgment is tending with
increasing determination towards exacting tests of
educational proficiency. "We have heard, probably, the
last cackle of the geese on the Capitol, when a formal
defence has been uttered on behalf of bad spelling, and
the defence has been ridiculed. But we want to know
how these requisites can be weighed? We want to
know more and more whether individuals are equal to
the social requisites of a liberal education ? And herein
lies, I imagine, the future of the university. It has
supplied to the few who enter its precincts these advan-
tages c^ a liberal education in the best way it can,
seeing that it is crippled by the selfishness, the igno-
rance, the timidity, and the obstinacy of a domestic
monopoly. It showed a wiser way when it dealt with
the general question of public education, and assumed
what is its best and most natural power, the task of
estimating the produce of schools in its local examina-
tions. This movement, though it is yet in its infancy,
is the harbinger of better things for the country and
for itself, if, as may be hoped, the details of the process
may eventually react on the discipline and method of
the university itself.

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 53

Other Faculties than those of Arts. — There are
three faculties in Oxford besides that of Arts : Divinity,
Law, and Medicine.

Degrees in divinity are merely the payment of a sum
of money. It is true that the degree of bachelor of
divinity is preceded by a formal disputation, as it is
called, in the divinity school ; two or more persons
affecting to argue a theological thesis, one of them de-
fending, the other objecting. This is a relic of the time
in which such disputations were a reality, and the
general body of the university attended to estimate the
ability with which such a thesis was defended or im-
pugned. Now it is a miserable farce. The form of the
disputation is, I believe, arranged beforehand between
the parties seeking a degree, the Regius Professor of
Divinity sitting as moderator, with a view to controlling
the dialectics of the disputants, and guiding the sym-
pathies of a crowd of auditors. But the dialectics are
the veriest chii)S, and the crowd is nowhere. No person
graduates In divinity, one may conclude, from choice ; of
old the statutes of several colleges required this degree
from the Fellows, and, therefore, it was taken, but there
seems little reason to doubt, that this condition beino;
removed, degrees in divinity will be confined to bishops,
heads of houses, and ambitious schoolmasters.

Till lately, what can be said of divinity, might equally
have been said of law. Graduates in law were always
such persons as the statutes of their colleges compelled
to proceed in this faculty, or who wished to practise in
ecclesiastical or other courts, where the rules of the
civil code were accepted, or where a degree in civil law
was required from the proctor or advocate, or who desired
to write themselves down as doctor, and chose this faculty.
Latterly, the university has instituted an examination

54 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

in civil law, and it may be possible that in future a few
candidates will be found to avail themselves of its pro-
visions. But in the absence of any reason for doing
so, it is not very likely that the number will be large,
or that civil law will ever form again a definite subject
of study at the university. Still, degrees in civil law
will signify some acquaintance with the subject.

The faculty of medicine has always been more re-
spectable than the others. Obviously it was impossible
that it should be the reward of perfunctory formalities.
The examination has always been a matter of fact, and
proficiency has been claimed from candidates for degrees.
With a harmless and natural pedantry, the university
has required an acquaintance with Hippocrates, Galen,
Aretseus, and Celsus, while it has left the inquiry into
the capacity of the candidate on the inductions of modern
therapeutics to the discretion of the official and other
examiners. There are, however, only twenty-three
doctors of medicine on the books of the University of
Oxford.

That such should be the case, is no matter of wonder.
There is, perhaps, no profession in which the workman
is more diligent in acquiring knowledge and experience ;
none in which there is more active and honourable com-
petition. To be great in this art, one must not only
meet with those adventitious helps which bring its
professors into notice, but one must show that they are
not mere accidents by proof of unquestionable skill and
habitual tact. Besides, the tendency of medical science
is progressively more and more towards a division of
labour. The most skilled among physicians are they
who deal with specialities, and while these specialities
demand an unremitting attention, they demand still
more a wide field of observation. Reputations are

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 55

founded more upon width of particular knowledge than
on the possession of general information. And equally
the credit of theoretical knowledge is progressively con-
fined to the study of special points in physiology and
natural philosophy.

To suppose that in a country town of 35^000 inhabi-
tants, there will be a sufficient field of observation, is a
delusion. To imagine that medical studies can be re-
called from large cities is an absurdity. The university
may laudably provide for the sufficient information of
its few candidates for medical degrees, and the pecu-
cuniary emoluments attached to the study of thera-
peutics. As long as there is, or can be, one medical
student in Oxford, there should be an opportunity for
him to exhibit his proficiency. But the attempt to
revive the practical and extensive study of physic in
Oxford, is as rational as to galvanize a corpse and call
the spasm of its muscles, life.

There is, I should add, a voluntary examination in
theology. Hitherto this has been a total failure. The
university is now attempting to recast its statute, and
it is expected that the subject will be carefully studied.
But the promoters of the statute have not explained the
ground of their hopes. At present, the university is
coquetting with the requisites exacted by the bishops
for theological learning. But there is no reason to
believe that these requisites will square with Oxford
studies, or that their lordships are not better judges of
what they need from candidates for holy orders than the
university has showed itself.

Besides the abovenamed faculties, the university grants
degrees in music. These degrees are not necessarily
accompanied with the study of arts, and hence do not
confer academical rights on the parties invested vrith

oG EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

tliem. Of old, music was one of the subjects required
from candidates for degrees in arts, and when the habit
of studying the practice of harmony died out, an at-
tempt was made to found a separate school of music.
The plan failed, degrees having hitherto rarely been
attempted, except by the college and cathedral organists.
Latterly, the system has been recast, and I am informed
that the degree in music represents a large acquaintance
with the principles and practice of the science. But, of
course, such a school as this is more an excrescence than
a part of the system of Oxford studies. The connectioji
of the musician with the university is of the most
transient and unreal kind. Whether or no it would be
possible for the professors of this art to extend their
connection with Oxford, is a question which could not
be solved except under very altered circumstances from
those which affect the course of academical studies now.
At present, though, in rare cases, parties who have
graduated in arts, are found to prosecute this branch of
human science, the occurrence of such events is occa-
sional and explainable, and the extension of such a body
of graduates is exceedingly unlikely.

The fees for bachelor in divinity and medicine are
14Z. ; for that in law, 61. 10s. ; for the doctor's degree,
in all, 40Z. Bachelors of music pay 5L, and doctors
10?. But it must be added, that graduates in music
have to pay the expense of performing an elaborate
exercise.

Besides those degrees which are accorded for the
course of study which candidates have to pass through,
or which are the right of academical standing, and the
voluntary expenditure of money in this purchase, some
degrees are bestowed in an exceptional manner.

These are by diploma, by decree of Convocation, and

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 57

honorary ones. The first of these is a rare distinction.
It is the formal degree, however, of English bishops,
the practice of the university being to bestow honorary
degrees on colonial bishops. It has occasionally, how-
ever, been bestowed on individuals, who are, or are
supposed to be, eminent for their merits or accomplish-
ments, or who are high officials. The second is gene-
rally that of master of arts, and is accorded to those
persons wdio, having been introduced into the university
without any previous connection with its studies, have,
in some way or the other, been made members of the
professorial staff. The third is far more common. At
the Commemoration, the annual academical festival, a
batch of such honorary graduates is created, the indivi-
duals selected for this distinction being generally those
who have some considerable external reputation. The
honour, such as it is, is perhaps made a little too cheap,
and now and then the patience of the university is sorely
tried by the fact that the dignity of the degree — gene-
rally that of doctor of civil law — is bestowed on parties
who are hardly of sufficient character or credit for
the distinction.

All degrees of this kmd proceed in practice from the
Council, for though the Convocation has a negative voice
on the choice of the Council, the voice is seldom heard ;
and when it has been heard, as far as "sve can learn, it
has been disregarded. Honorary degrees confer no
academical privileges, though, when judiciously be-
stowed, they are evidence of the appreciation felt by the
university for external merit and public reputation.

Univeesity Peofessoes. — The aids afforded by the
university in its corporate capacity to the student, are
the lectures of the public professors. These are very

55 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

numerous, and represent well nigh all brandies or
ancient and modern learning. Tliej are differently
endowed, varying on this score from very large annual
stipends, to comparatively small ones. The occupants
of these oflSces are understood to work under the direc-
tion of definite statutes, prescribing the number of
the necessary lectures, and the penalties attached to the
non-performance of these statutable obligations.

There are four divinity professors : the Regius pro-
fessor, the Margaret professor, the professor of pastoral
theology, and the professor of ecclesiastical liistory.
To these may be added the professor of Hebrew, whose
duties are naturally rather theological than philological.
All of these professors are endowed with canonries
at Christchurch. The divinity lectures are generally
attended by persons who contemplate holy orders, and,
as a rule, the bishops exact a certificate of attendance on
one or more courses of divinity lectures from their
candidates.

There are eight philological professors: the pro-
fessor of Greek, the professor of Latin, the professor of
Sanskrit, the professor of Anglo-Saxon, two professors
of Arabic, the professor of the exegesis of Holy Scrip-
ture, and the professor of modern languages. Sub-
ordinate to these, are certain university teachers, wdio
are bound to afford gratuitous or regulated teaching to
members of the university. These are appointed seve-
rally for instruction in French, German, Italian, .
Spanish, and Hindustani.

There are four professors of moral and mental philo-
sophy: the Waynflete professor of moral philosophy.
White's professor of moral philosophy, the professor of
1 ogic, and the professor of poetry.

There are three professors of history and economics :

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 59

the Camden professor of ancient history, the Regius
professor of modern history, and the professor of
political economy.

There are three professors of jurisprudence: the
Regius professor of civil law, the Vinerian professor of
common law, and the Cliichele professor of inter-
national law.

There are nine professorships of natural philosophy :
that of natural philosophy, that of geometry, that of
astronomy, that of hotany, that of rural economy, that
of chemistry, that of experimental philosophy, that of
mineralogy, that of geology.

There are four professors of physiology and thera-
peutics : two of anatomy, the Regius professor of
medicine, the clinical professor of medicine.

There is also a professor of music.

It will he seen, then, that the university is amply
provided with the means of public instruction in the
persons of its professors. In all likelihood the number
will be increased hereafter by the creation of new offices.

There can be no doubt that generally the occupants
of these professorships are willing and anxious to do
their duty by the offices which they hold, and 'by the
university which they serve. But it is equally un-
doubted that professorial teaching is not effective in
Oxford, and that attendance on the lectures of pro-
fessors is rarely serious, and never studious.

Two causes conduce to this result in an eminent
dem'ee. One of these is in the nature of thine-s. The
days are gone by in which the instruction of a body of
men is attained by oral teaching. Books are multiplied,
and knowledge is placed in the easiest, the most striking,
and the most accessible form in a host of publications
which are within the reach of most persons. The pro-

60 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

fessor is apt to become a mere teacher, except he be
engaged on some subject which is not generally com-
mended to immediate popularit}-.

Still, the advantages of oral instruction, the oppor-
tunity which it gives of question and answer, and the
fact that a competent teacher is not only a book, but an
index to his art, would have made it practicable, even
under the altered circumstances of the present time,
that very large benefits would be offered and eagerly
accepted by persons with whom the possession of
knowledge bears a high market value in the endow-
ments bestowed on proficiency under the names of
scholarships and fellowships. But there is a state of
things in Oxford which thoroughly neutralizes such
hopes. This is the monopoly of college tutors.

The modern sense of the words tutor and tuition, is
a striking instance of the way in which the inherent
meaning of terms is altered. A tutor is properly a
person set over the conduct and morals of those
committed to his care. A college tutor is properly a
sort of academical curate, who is usually responsible for
the guidance and government of youth. T|ie word has
not the remotest connection with education. Tutors
were licensed by the university authorities, and w^ere,
like curates, removable at the discretion of these authori-
ties. Now, however, this duty is merged in that of
teaching, and attendance on the lectures of college
tutors is always compulsory, and seldom discreet. As
a consequence, the hours of public teaching are absorbed
by the routine of the college lectures, and the public
professor has to scramble for the scraps of the undergra-
duates' time. There cannot, I believe, be conceived or
imagined a more suicidal and more mischievous mono-
poly than that of the college tutor. College lectures

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 61

are, as a rule, perfunctory, repressive, irritating. For
one man who learns and profits by them, ten are
depressed and discouraged. Under a healthier system,
the fancy that a college could give adequate instruction
in the various studies of the university, to the various
capacities of its members, would be discerned to be the
paradox which it is.

This it is which more than anything else deadens the
energies of the active professor. Were it removed,
though one cannot expect that the palmy days of pro-
fessorial teaching could be created or revived, yet much
would be done which it is now hopeless to look forward
to. If, indeed, a professorship is a reward for past
services, and is to be looked on as a comfortable provision
for acknowledged capacity, it may be well to continue
the present state of things ; but the practice of the uni-
versity is strangely at variance with its statutes. On the
one hand, it exacts the fulfilment of rigorous conditions
from its officers, or affects to exact them; and on the
other, it permits a state of things which negatives the
conditions by completely emptying the lecture-rooms.

In one professorship, and one only, a provision is
made that the professor should give general proof of
his efficiency by the publication of one or more of his
annual lectures. Perhaps it was not by accident that
this rule was introduced into the statutes of the pro-
fessorship of political economy, when one estimates
the serious results which might ensue from erroneous
teaching on this subject, provided the professor had
hearers. But the rule is an admirable one in all cases ;
and forms, when honestly enforced, a perpetual barrier
against incompetence and sloth. Perhaps the best
proof of its effects on public teacliing would be found
in the list of the individuals who have held the pro-

62 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

fessorsliip of political economy, thougli the professor is
elected in almost the worst way possible, by the general
suffrages of Convocation, and is the worst paid of the
body.

Except where special provision is made to the con-
trary, professorial lectures are gratuitous. In some
cases, the smallness of the stipend is the cause for this
provision ; in one or two, however, this cause does not
apply. An attempt to assign the right of taking fees
from the audience of a professor's lectures was made
several times in the past year, but failed.

For some years an attendance at two professorial
courses was exacted from any candidate for a degree.
As might have been expected, in the absence of any
certificate on the part of the professor that the student
had derived any benefit from the lectures, the attendance
was regular indeed, but meant nothing more than the
expenditure of so much time for the purpose of pro-
curing a necessary formula. The rule was thereupon
rescinded, with the consent of many among the professors
themselves. Had the professors been empowered to
refuse their testimonial in cases where they found that
the attendance had been unprofitable, there would have
been virtually two more examinations for a degree. To
this, however, it need hardly be said, the colleges were
unanimously averse. It is not understood that those
professorial lectures which had been found useful or
instructive, have suffered under the abolition of the
rule, except in so far as they have lost the attendance
of those whose presence was really a nuisance.

There can be no doubt that even under existing
circumstances, students may derive great advantage
from professorial lectures, especially if those lectures
are made something more than a mere reading. Adverse

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVEKSITY. 63

as is the position in which the professors are placed, in
the struggle after an undergraduate's time, this position
has heen vastly improved within the last ten years.
During the time that I was myself an undergraduate,
attendance on professorial lectures was rare and un-
profitable ; that it is better now is due to the painstaking
and energy of some among those who in this later period
have occupied professorial offices. But the painstaking
and energy are due to moral and personal causes, which
are honourable in individuals to the highest degree, but
are no safe or permanent motive for future action. It is
only in changing and stirring times that the ordinaiy
impulses of human conduct are superseded. Even in
these cases there has been previously a repression of
natural action, and altered circumstances strike people
with greater distinctness than they otherwise would,
when such parties have been subject to incidental dis-
couragement. But they who are old in easy and negli-
gent habits, are very slow to discern a new state of things,
and still more slowly adapt themselves to the novelty.

Provided the professor is competent and energetic,
those lectures will naturally be best attended in which
the teacher deals with a subject of immediate academical
value. Here, as elsewhere, the pursuits of under-
graduates are directed by the rewards of proficiency,
and with great justice the university sets the largest
prizes before the successful student of literce humaniores.
As I have said above, this school not only represents
the largest amount of knowledge, but the fullest habit
of mental training. It is only by vulgar and ignorant
people that education according to models of ancient
eloquence, poetry, history, and philosophy is derided.
Much, no doubt, of the labour expended on certain
branches of this precious inheritance of antiquity is

64 EDUCATION IN OXFOED.

wasted, and much of the detail of youthfiil study is
fantastic and conventional ; but the inner spirit of the
wliole thing is sound and true. The revival of letters,
the restoration of a pure religion, and the gigantic
vigour of that learning and energy of which modern
civilization is the fruit, came from the reverent and
patient study of ancient genius. What we have re-
maining to us of that bygone time is as fresh as though
it were written yesterday — jewels always precious,
though the setting is antique ; gold of the purest coinage,
though the type and the legend point to acts and per-
sons who are ennobled as long as man is to be, by their
being the fortunate examples of bygone but perennial
worthiness.

They who^ have studied the history of human learn-
ing and human progress, gather each in his degree the
knowledge of how modern thought has naturally fallen
into the paths worked out for it by the giants of the
ancient world. The analysis of man's mind, the limit
of its powers, are mapped out and defined by those men
who showed in their OAvn energies the most that man
could do. Constantly as men search into the meaning
and extent of their own capacities, and reconstitute the
principles of reason and art, are they more and more
enlightened as to these restless workings by the calm,
clear light, the delicate and subtle art of those masters
of the Grecian world. The store of those great thinkers
is far from exhausted, because far from being under-
stood. They are always teaching, even from the relics
of their labour ; ever suggestive when read over for the
hundredth time. The more they are studied, the more
they instruct. No human being has ever influenced
mankind like Aristotle, in whom the philosophy of
antiquity culminated, every page of whose thoughtful

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 65

writing contains well nigh the material for a volume.
He invented terms, which are the watchwords in every
civilized tongue, of power and patience. It is every-
thing for Oxford that his thinking is academical edu-
(jation; while he is taught and learnt there will be
no fear that the highest forms of human learning will
suffer by contact with a smattering sciolism of physical
science.

Besides the larger investigation of the philosophy of
Aristotle, much attention has latterly been given to that of
Plato. Formerly this author was hardly read at Oxford,
and the revival of the study is due mainly to one of the
professors. Far inferior as he is to his pupil and rival,
the subtle, soothing, gentle mysticism of Plato is at
once a relief and a foil to the sterner reasonings of
Aristotle.

It is particularly in the direction of philosophy that
the Oxford professoriate is developing its energies, and
honestly working out its duties. Not but that much is
left untried. Very little is done here directly with the
philosophy of art, and especially with that of rhetoric.
Neither ancient nor modern history, as yet treated, have
emerged from the gossip of archaeology and detail into
the picture of social states, and the induction of
political science. Archaeology and facts are the necessary
material of the philosophy of politics, but to stop short
at these preliminaries is as weak as it is to theorize
without the knowledge of them. As a general sum-
mary, Oxford teaching is that of knowledge, not use.

Upon these points then especially, the philosophy of
ancient and modern, mental and moral science, and the
analysis of economic conditions and political forms,
there is reason to hope that the labours of the Oxford
professoriate may be stimulated, as undergraduates con-

66 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

template a careful study of either in the present school
of liter CB humaniores, and a developed and amended
scheme of law and modern history. At present the
former is hampered by the inherent vices of the Oxford
or rather the collegiate system, and the latter is still
a sham, and^ withal a superficial sham. The law, as I
have already stated, is the veriest smattering in the
subject, which six months in an attorney's office would
put to the blush. The history is the collection of facts
without principle, of details without inductions. And
the remedy for this state of things is to be found, one
may hope, in the labours of the professors of common,
civil, and international law, in those of the professors of
political economy, and of the professors of modern
history. Hitherto the colleges have not been able to
absorb this portion of university education into the
dull routine of their appointed lectures. The student
in this school must or will seek his information without
the walls of his college, and from the lips of professors
and private teachers, when he is unable to obtain out of
books the reasonings which give life and light to juris-
prudence and history.

As long, indeed, as the special study of the University
of Oxford is directed towards the philosophy of human
nature and human history, as long as it insists on a
power of accumulating and methodizing the facts which
the varying but recurring story of human thought and
human action announces — and one would rue the day
when this, the highest of all learning and the most use-
ful of all teaching, were omitted or subordinated — so
long will there be ample opportunity for the recognized
teachers of the university to do the best service to the
public in general, and the student in particular. The
criticism of the multiform theories of philosophy and

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 67

history, the analysis of the principles of jurisprudence
and economic science, are the natural field for an edu-
cation, the first methodical direction of which is attempted
in the abstract study of a rigorous logic, and the
practice of dialectics. It is ip. the examination of these
theories and principles that the professoriate may train
young men, and teach elder ones. It is in appreciating
the large and growing interest which the public life of
this country feels in these and cognate subjects that the
future duties of the professors lie.

Hitherto, it need hardly be said, we have no such
labour in Oxford. Scholarship, philosophy, and history
are borrowed from French and German authors. In
scarce any of these has Oxford any native growth.
Very little has been added to the general stock of
human learning out of the vast endowments of uni-
versity and collegiate income — endowments equalling
the incomes of many States. The most notable among
Oxford authors have hated and despised the place of
their education, or at least regretted that so vast a
power of stimulating causes should have eventuated in
such scanty results. But with an active staff of public
teachers, and a resolute determination, both within and
without the walls of Oxford, to give every opportunity
for entrance into this arena of academical distinction,
and to unfetter the trade of learning, and the right of
teaching, there can be no doubt, on the narrowest and
scantiest estimate of human motives, that the future of
the university would in some degree, at least, recall the
past, and that while the number of students would be
largely increased, the inducements to active and metho-
dical study would call out in fuller measure the energies
of the teacher, and secure the profit of the learner, and
through him of the country at large. We should thus

5—2

68 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

find that the highest schemes of mental, moral, and
political philosophy, would be not, as now, the produce
of minds which have gathered conclusions experimen-
tally and illogically, but would represent the patient
and conscientious activity of those who have the leisure
to collect facts, the inclination to order them, and the
power to combine them into a coherent system.

I have made the foregoing observations, partly because
it is desirable to show what is the legitimate result of
that professorial system which the Act of 1854 intended,
and the regulations of the commissioners worked out ;
partly to denote that this system is in a state of transition ;
partly to point to the causes which may nullify its
objects. Without a large modification of the discipline
of college lectures, and a greater freedom given to the
student in the selection of the subject and the teacher
of his future learning, the professoriate of these days
will be a mere pageant of names, a series of well-
endowed sinecures.

Besides the oral teaching of the professors, the uni-
versity provides experimental instruction to its students
in the public libraries and the museums which it con-
tains, access to which is ready to all who wish to enjoy
their benefits, either as a matter of right, or on the easy
terms of an introduction.

Foremost among these institutions is the Bodleian
Library. This great collection of books begins from
the time of James L, in whose reign Bodley revived
the library which had been, according to the tale of
the middle ages, first instituted by the good Duke
Humphrey of Gloucester. Bodley gathered books
himself, got as many as he could from his friends,
did much in stone and mortar, gave statutes to his
foundation, and left the university a fair estate as a

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 69

means for maintaining the chief officer of his institution
and enlarging its treasures of » learning. Since that
time an annual payment from all members of the
university, as well as large gifts from the funds of
academical savings, have been devoted towards the
same purpose. Other benefactors have bestowed much
on the same institution, and the Legislature has sanc-
tioned a tax on all publishers of a copy of each book
printed in the kingdom, with the view of enlarging the
material of this public library. From such sources as
these the annual increase of the institution is very con-
siderable.

The tax in question is one on authors. It is obvious
in such a trade as that of publishing, that practically
any impost of the kind must affect those whose payment
is the last in the series of those who derive profit from
a commercial transaction in which different interests are
involved. The affectation of considering this tax as one
laid on publishers, is either a transparent mistake, or the
specious pretext for a fraud committed by unfair against
fair dealers. The tax, except in very exceptional cases,
is one of the lightest and least appreciable. It returns
in the most convenient form to those parties who are so
far mulcted of their profits, by the fact of its forming
an aggregate for easy, commodious, and instructive
reference. In every sense of the word, the Bodleian
Library, in common with other such institutions, is of
great public utility.

The library is open for longer periods of the day and
year, as it appears from a return made by the present
head librarian, than any other public library, except
that in the British Museum. The graduates of the
university have the use of the library by right, though
no one is permitted to borrow a book out of the building.

70 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

Undergraduates and strangers can readily obtain admis-
sion, on the introduction of responsible parties. The
university has for some time past sanctioned by formal
statute the creation of an evening reading-room, but
the authorities, with characteristic tardiness, have taken
no steps to realize the statute. The fault, however, is
not in the management of the library.

The catalogues are well arranged, and the discovery
of any book which may be needed by the student is
easy and ready. Nothing can exceed the convenience
of the room, its harmony with the purposes of study,
its light and quiet. The courtesy and kindness of all
the officials in this great library is deserving of the
gratitude of every one who has ever had occasion to
use the treasures it contains. They never spare their
trouble, nor grudge their valuable information. Here,
at least, there is nothing which one can possibly complain
of, and the facilities of this noble collection are enhanced
by the admirable conduct of its staff.

Unfortunately few persons use it. Many causes
•conduce to this fact. Colleges contain libraries from
which books may generally be borrowed ; and the hours
at which the library is open, as far as undergraduates
are concerned, are absorbed by the devouring dulness
of college lectures. The elder members of the univer-
sity are engaged in the routine of their labour, and,
perhaps, would not study if they could. There is some
hope that the inducement of an evening room may
change this state of things.

There is another library of the same public kind,
but limited in the nature of its collection to works
on physical science. This is the Radcliffe Library.
It is, perhaps, less used than the Bodleian, even when
one takes into consideration the narrower extent of its

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 71

selection. The Taylor Institution also contains a small
number of works in modern languages, and a fair
amount of rubbish. Such books as are to be had in
the Taylor Institution can be taken home by parties
who wish to use them, and the reading-room in this
building is open in the evening. The room is seldom
used, but then there is very little to use it for. The
fact of the scanty use of this limited and very un-
equal library, is made a reason for delaying the evening
room of the Bodleian. But the cases are no way
parallel.

The collections of objects of natural philosophy and
art which the university contains are scattered in various
places. It is expected that they will be collected into
the new museum, which the university has been latterly
building at so prodigal a cost that the expense of the
structure has doubled the architect's estimate. At
present these collections are inaccessible, in great
degree in consequence of the inadequate space afforded
them.

However, in natural history, at least, there are the
materials of a museum inferior to few in the country.
The late Dr. Buckland collected a set of geological
objects of vast and varied value, the extent of which has
been increased by the energy of his successor. There
is a fair mineralogical museum, an increasing anatomical
one, and an indifferent collection of stuffed animals.
The liberality of Mr. Hope has enriched the university
with an invaluable entomological series, and the growth
of a complete museum of recent and fossil shells is
rapid. There is abundant opportunity for a far larger
study of natural history than there is ever any reason
to expect will occur in Oxford. And the study of
chemistry is provided for by a well-arranged laboratory.

12 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

the only part of the new museum at present in working
order.

There are in Oxford the materials for a school of art.
By the liberality of a private subscription, aided by a
munificent gift from the late Lord Eldon, the university
became possessed of a large collection of the original
drawings of some of the greatest Italian masters. Be-
sides these, it possesses a few pictures of no very high
order of merit, but of some value. Perhaps in time
to come this collection may be enlarged by gifts or
bequests. Sometimes donors have bestowed pictures on
colleges, with what motives, except a mistaken piety,
one cannot imagine. Those which were given to Christ
Church have been almost inaccessible to the public, and
have been completely neglected by that corporation.
On the other hand, the few pictures which have been
bestowed on the university have been carefully pre-
served, been freely exhibited, and, as far as possible,
judiciously placed. Besides the pictures in the univer-
sity galleries, the Bodleian possesses the most exquisite
gems of miniature missal painting conceivable, which,
like everything else the Bodleian possesses, are available
for the use of parties who require or wish them.

The University Prizes. ^-The University of Oxford
is not wealthy, but devotes the funds at its disposal to
purely public purposes. The main source of its revenue
is a successful printing trade, which it carries out as
one of the patentees of a regulated monopoly, the pub-
lication, namely, of Bibles and Prayer-books. From
this revenue it has from time to time endowed professor-
ships and founded prizes. It acts largely, however, as
trustee for several endowments, generally more honour-
able than lucrative, under the name of university

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVEESITY. 73

scholarships and prizes. A successful competition for
certain among these is, after the honour of the univer-
sity class list, the most characteristic and reputable
distinction in the academical course of a student. Some
of these scholarships and prizes are confined to the earlier
period of a student's life, some are extended to later
occasions.

The earliest endowments which bygone liberaHty
afforded to study and learning were, as has been
already stated, donations to the university. Gradually,
and by steps which cannot be traced, these donations
were limited to the students of particular houses. In
later time they formed part of the foundation of some
among the earliest colleges, such as those of Exeter,
Balliol, University. At the time of the Reformation,
and, indeed, for some time after, there were no estates
held in trust by the university for the general body of
its members, without distinction of college or hall, and
with a view to the promotion of learning among inde-
pendent students.

The first gift to the university in which provision was
made for parties who were not possessed of any college
emolument was that of Lord Craven, in 1647. He
intended his scholars, whom he endowed, for that time,
munificently, to be unattached to the foundations of any
college — the statute, grounded on his bequest, excluding
foundation members from the advantage of his liberality.
Latterly, this was interpreted to apply to those only who
were not scholars or fellows of any college at the time
of their election. The bequest was also clogged with the
condition of a preference to the name or kindred of the
founder.

. After certain changes, in which the leading features
of the founder's will were preserved, the whole scheme

74 EDUCATION IN OXPORD.

was remodelled by the commissioners under tlie Univer-^
sity Reform Act, and the new plan is to come into effect
on the avoidance of the present occupants. In point of
stipend, the Craven is the most valuable of all the
university scholarships — of those, at least, which are
open to undergraduates. Where it has been procured
by examination, its possession has always been a cre-
ditable achievement ; but the limitation to non-founda-
tioners, and the preference to founder's kin, have
hitherto made the field of competition narrow and the
occupancy ambiguous. A student might have been a
Craven scholar without being better than an ordinary
passman. Hence, any inference from the possession of
the scholarship would be fallacious, without an explana-
tion of the circumstances under which the election took
place.

More than a hundred years after this bequest, certain
fellowships and scholarships were founded by Mr. Viner,
for the study of common law. This gentleman, how-
ever, nullified his gift by permitting the election of the
scholars to Convocation. Hence the scholars were chosen
without any consideration of their knowledge of common
law, or without any pledge that they would study it.
As a consequence, numbers of Vinerian scholars used
the endowment as a means for eking out a fellowship,
and finally took orders without having learned an atom
of the common law of England. This state of things
was, however, changed in the last few years, and the
election has become the consequence of an examination.
Hereafter there will be an annual election, and the
scholai'ship will be held for five years, with a stipend of
35 Z. per annum.

The other university scholarships are much later in
point of time, the gift which gave the first stimulus to

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVEESITY. 75

this valuable and satisfactory form of academical emolu-
ment having been that of the late Dean of Westminster,
Dr. Ireland. Dr. Ireland had himself been a servitor
at Christ Church, had owed his education to the coarse
beneficence of that kind of dotation, and repaid thou-
sandfold the advantages he had received.

He founded four scholarships of thirty pounds a year
on the widest possible basis, no preferential claim being
admissible. The right of competition is contmued during
the whole of an undergraduate's ordinary career, that
is, till his sixteenth term, so that every matriculated
person has four chances. The tenure of the scholar-
ship is for four years, and though the material of the
examination is that of school learning, and is therefore
so far narrow, the credit attaching to the successful
candidate is deservedly large.

Soon after this foundation, the university created from
its own resources an annual mathematical scholarship
modelled on the plan of Dean Ireland's scholarship.
Subsequently, however, the scheme was altered, and in
place of a single mathematical scholarship, two were
framed, one for juniors, that is, for persons who had not
exceeded the ninth term from their matriculation, and
one for bachelors who have not exceeded their twenty-
sixth. The tenure of each scholarship is for two
years, and the value of the senior and junior scholarships
are respectively 40Z. and 30^. per annum.

A biennial scholarship in mathematics was also
founded by Dr. Johnson. It is of small value, and has
generally been obtained by the senior mathematical
scholar of the year. The proceeds of this scholarship
are expended in books, which must be theological or
classical.

Some of the relics of the foundation of Hertford

76 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

College were made into a prize by George the Fourtli,
for the encouragement of Latin learning, candidates
being limited to the second year from their matricula-
tion. The scholarship, which is annual, and only
enures to the occupier for the year of his election, is of
the same value for that year as Dean Ireland's scholar-
ship, and is also a prize denoting the great acquirement
of the successful candidate in the ordinary school
learning of Latin.

In connection with the Taylor Institute, the purport
of which is the teaching of the modern languages,
four scholarships have been founded, each of which, of
the value of 2 51. annually, is tenable for two years.
These scholarships have been in existence for two years
only.

In the years 1831 and 1832, certain Hebrew scholar-
ships were founded, two by Mrs. Kennicott, and three
by Mr. and Dr. Pusey with Dr. Ellerton. As those on
Mrs. Kennicott's foundation may be held for four years,
the election takes place at irregular intervals ; but those
on the Pusey and Ellerton foundation are elected
annually. The former are limited to the year after
which the candidate has taken the degree of B.A. ; the
latter can be contended for by parties who are under
the degree of M.A. or B.C.L., or who, having taken
this degree, are not more than twenty-five years of age.
The scholarships are of about the same value as the
Ireland scholarship.

There are also two scholarships for the study of
Sanskrit, which are tenable, if certain conditions of a
stringent character as to residence and age are fulfilled,
for four years, and are annually worth 50^.

Besides these benefactions, there is a valuable scholar-
ship attached to the study of law, which originated in a

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVEESITY. 77

testimonial declaratory of the sense entertained by the
university of Lord Eldon's political services, amounting
to 2001. a year, and three for the study of medicine,
derived from the remodelling of Dr. RadclifFe's bequest
for travelling fellows. These also are equal to 200Z. a
year each, the necessity of residence abroad during
some part of the tenancy being exacted from the
occupiers of these emoluments. The electors of the
Eldon scholarship are certain parties who act as trustees
to the fund, but who are bound in the exercise of their
patronage to consider a series of conditions derived from
the academical distinctions of the candidates. The
appointment to the RadclifFe fellowship is the consequence
of an examination in medical and other science, with
the additional provision that candidates shall already
have been tested in the first class in natural science. In
either case the scholars are bound to proceed respectively
to the status of barrister and physician. Generally speak-
ing, the condition has been fulfilled, and the object of
the foundation accomplished by the parties who have
been invested with these advantages.

For nearly a century there have been certain prizes
bestowed for compositions in prose and verse. At
present they are regularly awarded from a fund derived
from a bequest of Sir Roger Newdigate, and from the
liberahty of the Chancellor of the University. They
are of the annual value of 20Z., and when once obtained
cannot be a second time successfully competed for.
They are four in number : two for verse ; Latin and
English, limited to undergraduates ; and two for prose ;
Latin and English, assigned to bachelors of arts. The
successful prizes are recited at the annual festival of
the university which goes by the name of the Comme-
moration. In case the compositions are not of sufficient

78 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

merit, no prize is awarded, a circumstance which has
occurred four times within the last twenty years.
Naturally the number of competitors for the Newdigate
is much larger than that for any other of the prizes.
Young poets are plentiful.

The institution of these prizes has been followed by
that of others, the earliest, after them, having been some
on divinity. Either from incompetence or from indif-
ference, it has frequently happened that no prize has
been bestowed from the bequest of Dr. EUerton and
Mrs. Denyer.

Latterly the fashion of prizes by way of testimo-
nials to eminent names in literature has obtained in
Oxford. The death of Dr. Arnold was made the
occasion of founding a prize to his memory, the subject
being alternately one in ancient and modern history,
and the successful candidate — the period of his candi-
dature is limited to eight years from matriculation —
receives 42 Z. from the fund. Similarly, on the death
of the late Dean of Christ Church, Dr. Gaisford, a
double prize for Greek prose and verse was instituted
out of a subscription collected in his honour. Lord
Stanhope has also bestowed on the university an annual
prize of 201, for an essay on some point of modem his-
tory, within certain chronological limits.

On the whole success in competition for university
prizes, as is the case with that for university scholar-
ships, is understood to be highly creditable to the
candidates. Nevertheless, in working out the general
purposes of academical study, the direction in which
prizes have been bestowed is either too much that of
merely testing school work, or of giving an external
impetus to studies which are either novel or languish-
ing. And it is to be hoped, as there are other equally

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 79

important portions of the general theory of academical
education, that more of such prizes may be forthcoming
on these subjects.

It does not follow that those persons who have been
successful in the competition for university prizes should
have also made a good figure in the university class
lists. No doubt, as a rule, they do, especially when
they have appeared as prize essayists in English and
Latin. But the examination in Uteris humaniorihus, or,
as it is commonly called, but very vaguely, in Classics,
is far more general than any subject for a xmiversity
prize is or could be. It is necessary to state this fact,
since it has been a feature in the details of late acade-
mical reform, to put the prize essays on the same foot-
ins: with a first class.

Subjoined is a table containing an account of matri-
culations and degrees of bachelor and master of arts
respectively for the last twenty years, divided into
quinquennial periods. The obvious inferences are : —

1. That there has been a considerable diminution in
the numbers of the university on the last two averages,
when one estimates the matriculations, and that this
becomes more serious and important when one con-
siders the vast increase of national wealth during the
last twenty years. In this period the real value of
imports and exports, the best test of national wealth,
has more than doubled, and it may fairly be argued
that if the University of Oxford had been commen-
surately appreciated according to the development of
national prosperity, that it would have shown a very
different set of figures from those appended.

2. That of the parties who have matriculated during
the last twenty years, about 73*3 per cent, have pro-
ceeded to the degree of bachelor of arts. The bache-

80

EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

lors, when compared with matriculations, must bo
sought for in the fourth year from the matriculations,
the masters in the seventh. Thus the bachelors of
1853 and the masters of 1856 correspond to the matri-
culations of 1849. In this year the number of matricu-
lations was the largest during the whole period, 443 ;
the bachelors and masters in the respective years being
also most numerous^ i.e, severally 354 and 261.^

3. The quinquennial average shows a steady increase
in the amount of masters of arts. This result is pro-
bably due to the greater facilities which railway com-
munication has afforded members of the university in
coming to Oxford for the purpose of graduating, and
in the increased value of the parliamentary suffrage.
Latterly, also, the removal of certain impediments in
the way of proceeding to this degree, and especially that
of the compulsory three weeks' residence, has tended to
increase the number of these graduates.

Year.

Matricula-
tions.

B.A.

M.A.

Year.

Matricula-
tions,

B.A.

M.A.

1840

1841

1842

1843

1844

396
441
379
390
398

254
272

287
280
284

194
200
179
181
234

1850

1851

1852

1853

1854

Average

1855

1856

1857

1858

1859

Average

409
359
413
406
393

305
306
300
354
258

196
204
256
247
198

Average..

400-8

275-4

197-6

396

304-6

220-2

1845

1846

1847

1848

1849

438
411
406
412
443

281
303
252
273
298

208
201
240
196
201

* 344
385
380
399
419

236
291
269
277
300

189
261
241
234
258

Average..

422

281-6

209-2

385-4

274-6 1 236-6

Matriculations. B.A.
Total for 20 years 8,021 5,681

M.A.
4,318

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 81

Oxford Local Examinations.-— No sketch of Oxford
education would be other than very imperfect which
did not take into account the remarkable and truly
national movement of 1857, in what have been
called middle-class or local examinations. This work
of the university has been so singular and important,
has been so characteristic in its value, and, with
very explicable exceptions, so appreciated by those
who were able to avail themselves of it, that it bids
fair to be a solution of a very practical kind to a
vast social difficulty, and a serious social inconvenience.
It was no less than the bringing to bear on the general
education of the country those tests, and maybe those
influences, which this university could so ably use, and
so disinterestedly employ. It is impossible to exaggerate
the merits of the movement, and it is quite out of one's
power to predict the action and reaction of the process
which was accepted, not without hesitation, but, in some
degree, by surprise on the part of the university. For
though Oxford does not in any sense, except the most
indirect, educate the general body of the nation, yet the
university does not practically educate its own members ;
it does by them, except in so far as the professors teach, no
more than estimate the product of education by other
parties, and of various but assimilated kinds.

Everybody knows that an elaborate and organized
governmental system is employed to scrutinize the
profitable employment of national funds in the esta-
blishment and working of those schools which are
aided by educational grants. These grants form an
important and increasing charge in the annual estimates ;
and from the pecuhar disposition of the English nation
to recognize and deal exceptionally with those parties
who are, or are presumed to be, in need of what may

6

82 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

be called public or parliamentary charity, the schools
which are maintained by these grants are rapidly ap-
proaching perfection in the capacity of teachers, in the
means of instruction afforded to the poor, and in the
selection of the best and ablest from the ranks of those
who are taught, with a view of their being made school-
masters and schoolmistresses, under the name and with
the allowances of pupil teachers. No one can read the
reports of the school inspectors without recognizing that
an elaborate and highly efficient organization is at work
on the system of instruction adopted and maintained for
the children of the poor. No one can doubt that the
police of the system, so to speak, is eifective and exact,
and that the product is as elaborately usefal as the time
and material of the pupils can supply. Probably, too,
in the whole range of public questions there is not one
on which the general opinions of public men are so
agreed, as on the principle of national education, as
applied to the poorer classes. If governmental charity
is excusable, this is the most excusable form of it. That
differences should occur as to the wisdom of sectional as
opposed to secular national education is only a part of
the great question which is still agitating men, and which
is as yet unsolved — the advantage, namely, or disadvan-
tage of a public recognition of religious differences.

Again, there are certain persons whose fitness is
certified by definite general or special tests. The uni-
versities examine their own students, and determine their
qualifications, unfortunately in the main only for one of
the professions which educated men fill — that, namely, of
the Church. The benefit which the credit of the university
examinations bestows on the clergy of the English Church
is incalculable. After one deducts the natural de-
preciation of gossip and party spirit, there is on all hands

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 83

admitted the fact, that the clergy of the English
establishment are not only the most highly educated
ecclesiastics in the world, but, as a body, the best in-
formed men on general subjects in England. To them,
more than to any other body of men, the special and
most valuable features of English better-class society are
due. The 'most ordinary acquaintance with the social
history of England is conclusive on this point. Never
may be much better, but always better on all social points
than the landed and other wealthy property-holders of
England, it is by their means especially, that the satyrs
and drunkards of a late age have been raised to the
signal social decency of the present time. This object
has indirectly at least, and not a little directly, been
produced by the universities and their standards of
education and intellectual refinement Not, indeed, that
the terms of the social equation are not numerous, and
supplied from very diiferent sources ; but among them
none has been more dominant in the product than the
influence of academic estimates on the many moral agents
with whom the university annually supplies the country.
But waiving the question of the public value of social
influence of such persons, there is plainly a conclusive-
ness given to the reality of their educational status by
the certificate of a degree.

Similarly the effect produced upon the few members
of the legal profession who receive a university educa-
tion is relatively effective on the whole class. The
influence is waning indeed, in the progressive diminution
of numbers in students from the university who graduate
at the Inns of Court. So,. also, the education of country
gentlemen, though far less academical than it once was, is,
to a certain extent, provided for by the standards taken
in those who have graduated at Oxford and Cambridge.

6—2

84 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

But there is a vast mass of education of which there is
no effective test. By far the largest number of those
who are educated at public schools enter on their special
branches of study when they leave those schools. In
professional hfe, and in the upper walks of trade, the
age at which general education ceases is from seventeen
to eighteen. In the ordinary business of trade and
agriculture, it ceases at from fourteen to fifteen. Hitherto
the tests by which the capacity of teachers and the infor-
mation imparted to the pupils are estimated, have been of
the most meagre and unsatisfactory kind. The power of
parents to determine the most important conceivable thing
— the best means and the best places for the instruction
of their children — ^was either absolutely wanting or totally
empirical. Hence there is nothing in which incompe-
tence has been more loud and pretentious than in
scholastic business. The most successful schoolmaster
was often, and is often, far from being the most capable
person, but the most unblushing and impudent charlatan.
The road to profit lay in puffs and advertisements.

Now the chief use of advertisements is the instruc-
tion of the purchaser in the place where he can pro-
cure, at prices which he can comprehend, goods which
he can estimate the value of. But an advertisement is
a delusion or a guess, when it puts forward the sale of
that which persons are quite unable to appreciate.
And education — that is, the special powers of individuals
to educate — is one of those things about which parents
are very apt to be misinformed and mistaken. It is
true, indeed, that they can ordinarily estimate the
common routine of proficiency in commercial requi-
sites— that is to say, the knowledge of reading, spelling,
writing, and rudimentary arithmetic ; but the method
of teaching the way in which what is known has been

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 85

imparted, and the extent to which this has systemati-
cally been put into the minds of young persons, they
take on faith, and are perpetually deceived in. It was
tolerably well understood, indeed, that the ordinary
teaching of schools was unsatisfactory, and that an
inquiry into it would reveal some significant and serious
facts. The real want of information about it was most
of all felt by the schoolmasters themselves, whose in-
terest it was to have their goods tested by capable and
critical judges, that they might have some appeal in
the midst of the clumsy competition of persons very
unequally competent, for the custom of persons singu-
larly incapable to form an accurate judgment about the
worth of the commodity. It was of the last importance
to such persons that they should be supplied with this
desideratum — a test, that is to say, of the value of their
method and their teaching, and this by some unmis-
takeable authority.

Any governmental inspection was out of the question.
There is nothing in which there is a stronger, and one
may say a more rational, dislike to government inter-
ference than in the education of one's own children.
There is not only an indefinite suspicion of it, but in
the minds of those who have formed a judgment, the
continental system is one m which small advantages of
uniformity and regularity iire purchased at the serious
cost of the sacrifice of independence and parental autho-
rity. Even in the necessary intrusion of government
inspection into the system of national education, care
is taken that the possible prejudices of parents during
the education of their children from public charity
should not be shocked by an educational method which
was wholly secular. The distinctions of religious
bodies have been preserved and stereotyped in the

S6 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

inspection ; far more, one may be certain, from jealousy
of any attempt at centralization, than from a belief that
religious truth was likely to be compromised by a
merely secular method.

Now it is obvious that no body could be found whose
capacity could more completely satisfy the want, and
whose position could more fully negative this jealousy,
than the universities. It was plain that these institu-
tions, dealing with a form of education tj^-pically perfect,
and with a range of information actually universal,
could test in the best possible way the results of an
instruction which, after all, is in a small and inferior
degree a copy of that which prevails at these corpora-
tions. And, on the other hand, the universities were
by way, if of anything, certainly not to absorb the
schools into their system ; but to look on them at the
best as likely to supply from their better scholars, more
and better instructed students. Their position was at
once that which would create confidence and disarm
suspicion.

Besides, it was seen that in the case of elder youths
the examinations which the university might give
would meet another and very important necessity, that,
namely, of exacting sufficient educational proofs from
those persons who contemplate professional specialties.
Medical men and attorneys are invested by the Legis-
lature with peculiar and exclusive privileges, such,
indeed, as are accorded to no other professional men.
As a consequence the field of competition, though suffi-
ciently wide for the practitioner, is more or less
narrowed for the public. But it is not desirable, what-
ever may be the view entertained about the wisdom of
granting legislative sanction to professional privileges,
that such persons should be in matters of ordinary

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 87

education, inconveniently ignorant. Hence the medical
profession long since, and the legal lately, has demanded
proofs of the general education of those persons who
were by way of entering the practice of either profes-
sion. But the union of this general examination with
the special one was awkward and deceptive, and no one
doubts that the decision on it would be on every ground
better lodged in the hands of such persons as are found
in the universities, whose competency and candour are
beyond question.

Furthermore, there was seen to be an opportunity for
the uiniversities to set, by their stamp of proficiency, ^
sign upon candidates for employment in public offices
and in the public companies. Whatever be the merits
of the examinations for government offices, the assimila-
tion, in degree at least, of these examinations to those
held in the universities was pretty suggestive of the
source from whence the style of examination was drawn ;
and, on the other hand, few persons would doubt that,
were such examinations conducted by the university,
there would be, for those who desired it, a great advan-
tage purchasable at a cheap rate ; and in government
appointments, at least, a certainty that the universities
would be candid judges of proficiency, as they were
disinterested and unprejudiced in matters of immediate
or temporary party feeling and political patronage.

There was, therefore, combined, in the acceptance of
any project for creating, by the spontaneous working
of the university in the direction of these voluntary ,
examinations, the satisfaction of several important in-
terests and the solution of several social problems.
On the one hand there might be derived an easy, cheap,
and expeditious way for determining the proficiency of
youths, and this as a proof to parents and a test to

88 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

schoolmasters. On the other, there was the opportunity
for the public to be satisfied of the general capacity of
persons seeking employment and deserving it, as far as
any merely intellectual test could estimate these deserts.
And, above all, there was a conviction that the uni-
versities were at once able to do the work and placed
far above any interested considerations in accepting an
office of such public value and of so delicate a nature.
That the Convocation of Oxford took upon itself the task
was as surprising as it was public-spirited ; and one may
be confident that the real nature and direction of the move-
ment will be yearly more fully appreciated and acted on.

The credit of the movement is immediately due to
Mr. Acland, and Dr. Temple, the present head-master
of Rugby. It was furthered by the late warden of New
College, Dr. Williams, at that time vice-chancellor
of the university, and the master of Pembroke, the
present vice-chancellor. A statute was passed embo-
dying the principles of a double examination for seniors
and juniors, and the grant of a title — that, namely, of
Associate in Arts, A. A. — to the former. Provision was
made also for the creation of a board of delegates, who
might carry the measure into eflPect, by framing regula-
tions, and elaborating details. The result was a scheme
mainly founded on the form of a tentative examination
held at Exeter in the summer of 1857, and which is
already fully in the possession of the public and those
interested in the plan.

It is well known that the scheme was favourably
accepted by the persons for whom it was designed. The
numbers presenting themselves for examination were
very large in the first year, and though, owing in great
part to crude notions about the tendency of the move-
ment, and to the disappointment felt at the large pro-

' THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 89

portion of failures, the numbers fell off slightly in the
following year, yet the plan was an obvious success,
because it was a great boon. Very soon the University
of Cambridge followed in the wake of that of Oxford,
though with less numbers ; and even the University of
Durham entered the field.

The system of these local examinations had to contend
against some jealousies and some vulgarities. The former
of these proceeded especially from the dislike felt by
many persons in Oxford, and a considerable majority of
the Senate in Cambridge to the grant of any title to the
senior candidates. The sister university has more than
once refused to grant anything more than a certificate
of proficiency, and lately the majority against any step
towards an amalgamation with the Oxford scheme has
been more decisive than the arguments alleged for the
refusal to grant a title.

These arguments have chiefly been, that there was
reason to expect a confusion between any title and those
degrees which the universities bestow as the mingled
claims of residence and proficiency. It was held that
persons would mistake A. A. for B.A. But such a
mistake would be very short-lived. That it would be
made at all, was a strong expression of the opinion that
the country had ceased to comprehend, because it had
ceased to value, academical degrees. The best way to
escape from any such error would, it appears, consist in
familiarizing the public with inferior but analogous dis-
tinctions. One might as well refuse to coin silver because
people had but a feeble appreciation of the value of gold.

Another reason was, that the grant of a title to youths
under eighteen would promote and stereotype vanity in
the young. It is difficult, indeed, to see how they who
are acquainted with the history of the universities could

90 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

allege so childish an argument. Not long since, the ordi-
nary age at which the degree of B.A. was taken was
hardly more than that which now forms the maximum
age for the seniors' examination. Besides, even if altered
circumstances are a plausible ground of objection to a
different title or status, one may be sure that the precise
value of that embodied in the formula A. A. would very
soon be put at its proper rate. Scandals and mistakes
lie in dark places, which need to be enlightened. And,
after all, youthful vanity is sensitive enough, and deals
timidly with its capital. Carry out the principle, and
all emulation is bad. Intensify it, and the competition
which is favoured by acknowledged merits is absurd.
Better give no distinction, for fear it should be abused.
Better omit all praise, lest it should terminate in morbid
self-esteem.

Another objection was taken to the scheme of a far
less rational kind. It was supposed that the popular
name, that of *' middle-class examinations " (which, by
the way, w^as no phrase of the university, but one im-
ported from the Exeter experiment), implied a class of
persons below, forsooth, the average social condition
of most youths in public and private schools. The
process was not designed or fitted for the sons of gentle-
men; and some small schoolmasters actually alleged
this as a ground for declining to take advantage of the
university scheme.

Of course, it is inevitably the case in a social state
like that of England, where there are a variety of grades,
more or less simply marked, into all of which every in-
telligent and well-conducted person may enter, that there
should be an affectation of social rank and a mannerism
of gentility. Indeed, these pretensions are the stock-in-
trade of comedy-makers, novelists, and character writers.

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 91

The thin dignity of Mrs. Jones verms Mrs. Smith, and
of both versus Mrs. Brown, are stereotyped realities.
The spirit of mock distinction is most rampant, when
people torture patronymics into all varieties of spelling,
or introduce additions to their names which have no
proper place in their pedigree. The ass tries to snip
his ears, the goose to spread his poor stumpy tail into
the peacock's orb.

Half the boys in England are turned in this way into
premature prigs. The healthy equality of youth is
dwarfed by those coddling vulgarities. True self-respect
is lost in the wretched and valueless tinsel of sham self-
created rank.

Far better was the old fashion of the ancient world,
in which, long before the rules of a more humanizing
faith had ignored these paltry distinctions, we read of
how all were taught in the same school, served in the
same ranks, were drilled to the same method, were
instructed in the doctrine of mutual dependence. The
discipline was far more healthy, and men quite as digni-
fied. They sought for reasons on which they should
rest pretensions. There is, as far as I know, only
one way to spell Pericles, Alcibiades, Socrates — a good
many ways of spelling Smith.

I have my hopes that good sense and good manners
will meet the absurdity of these insulated affectations.
Liberty and equality are, I am fully persuaded, incom-
patibles ; but the reasonable inequalities of social life,
and they are great conveniences to many people, are not
to be multiplied by self-created distinctions.

The number of candidates for the several certificates
in the first year w^as — seniors, 401 ; juniors, 750. In
the second, 299 seniors, 597 juniors. In the present
year, the seniors are 300, the juniors 589. Of those who

92 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

obtained certificates in the first year, 150 were seniors,
280 juniors. In the second, 151 seniors, 332 juniors.
In the third, 152 and 346.

The primary objects of the examination were the
supplying a test of ordinary educational proficiency,
and of enabling young persons to exhibit special know-
ledge on special subjects. As these special subjects are
not practically capable of distinction in the juniors, the
product of the several subjects proffered was grouped
together, the estimate being collective. In the case of
the seniors it was conceived that there was sufficient
specialty in direction of those studies which youths of
sixteen to eighteen are engaged on, to justify a distri-
butive estimate. But it is not quite settled wdiether this
principle of distinction was a wise one, even on the
admission that such persons are engaged in specialties
of a sufficiently distinct kind.

The great ^evil of the distributive method is the un-
equal value of the several sections. If this unequal
Talue were a mattei* of such notoriety as to make the
estimate of those who stand in the highest place in
one subject, as compared with those w^ho are similarly
situated in another, easy, much of the evil would be
obviated. But in the general darkness of the parties
primarily interested, i.e. parents, there is no reason to
believe that the distinction of classified subjects, accord-
ing to their intrinsic worth, would be fairly or satisfac-
torily settled. Again, so eminently is the practical
aptitude of persons to particular branches of knowledge,
and the thumb rule of ready habit at once the worthiest
part of the knowledge, and the most difiicult to test in
an examination, that we would hardly believe that any
certificate of proficiency in the scientific part of the
subject, would guarantee a useful acquaintance with it.

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 93

It is the hardest thing conceivable to devise an exami-
nation which shall be satisfactory in any knowledge the
immediate value of which resides in empirical skill.
And this, hard as it is in the case of men who are
taking certificates of professional skill, is still harder
with boys whose knowledge, at the best, is little more
than headwork. I have referred before to this in
speaking of the Oxford school of natural science.

Another difficulty of a serious character is the posi-
tion of theological knowledge in the examination of
seniors and juniors. To have exacted membership
with the Church of England from all candidates would
have been, one may be permitted to assert, to imperil,
if not to negative, the whole value of the movement as a
national one. It was necessary, then, to leave to those
who are not members of the Church of England, or who
do not think fit to declare themselves such, an oppor-
tunity of avoiding an examination in the distinctive
doctrines which the Church accepts and endorses. At
the same time it would have been impossible to examine
— even had it been desirable — in the various tenets of
various religious bodies. The third course, that of pro-
viding an examination which would be passed by all.
Churchmen and Dissenters equally, though adopted by
Cambridge, was unsatisfactory in theory, and no less
in practice : in the former, because no scheme could be
wide enough to include all persons, who might possibly
wish to be examined ; in the latter, because so general
a material is not religious knowledge, but moral philo-
sophy, since the acceptance of this part of the examina-
tion implies an admission of its authoritative character.
The fact that such an examination was almost uni-
versally accepted by the Cambridge candidates is no
argument against the inherent inconveniences of the

94 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

course adopted in the sister university. There is not
likely to be an objection to an examination in a diluted
revelation, and so much of a moral creed as society
generally admits ; but this is not theology in any sense
of the word. The gist of an examination in the general
truths of natm^al and a few tenets of revealed religion
exists in the ordinary acceptance of them ; were it not
for this, were a religious examination a merely intel-
lectual process, an atheist might as properly satisfy a
test of theological proficiency as the most devout and
consistent believer. If, however, the general agreement
of various religious bodies is to be the minimum of dog-
matic examination, one is at a loss to see on what principle
the university is able to determine the minimum.

But, in the case of Oxford, the course pursued — and
one might multiply arguments about the unsatisfactory
character of the Cambridge plan — was different enough,
and distinct enough, but still marked by serious incon-
veniences. The miiversity wished to examine in the
teaching only of the Church of England, and to exact
compliance with this condition, unless under a definite
statement of non-conformity. The former regulation,
on the hypothesis of a divinity examination at all, was
reasonable and safe enough, when accompanied by cer-
tain compensating provisions ; the latter is one, the
wisdom of which is open to grave doubts, and the
propriety of which is, I think, still more questionable.

This compensation is a classification of those candi-
dates whose divinity examination may be satisfactory.
Without such a classification the tendency of the quan-
tum offered is and must be, in the nature of things, to a
minimum. The university scheme has been accepted
because it is the supply of a popular want. But
the acceptance of the supply is always measured

THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY. 95

by the want. Now, one of the characteristic features
of the demand was the system of classes. This is
bestowed in all branches of knowledge except one,
that is, the knowledge of divinity, in other words, the
material of a religious education. As a consequence,
there was no incentive to exertion in a mere pass, and
the amount of knowledge actually proffered has been
in the three years of the movement markedly declining.
Unless the classification of candidates is adopted, one
may expect to see this deficiency increase.

The hardship supposed to be entailed on the children
of dissenting parents, who are unable to show the results
of their particular teaching, is, I think, exaggerated.
After all, religious instruction, communicated on con-
scientious grounds, and with a view to the moral culture
of youth, is very different from that information which
forms the material for question and answer, and a formal
examination.

To exact compliance with a condition which asserts
recusancy or dissent is, in my opinion, unwise and im-
proper. With a fortuitous wisdom, the Legislature has
declined to deny the right of church-membership in
pursuance of overt acts of schism, or non-conformity.
And, as this view of the Legislature has been imported
into the Oxford Reform Bill, it is not desirable, or even
proper, that the regulations of the university should be
narrower than public convictions. There is a national
church, the width of whose doctrines and, in great
degree, of whose discipline is sufficient for even an
argumentative conformity. It would be an evil day if
the beneficent working of its present activity were ex-
changed for that narrow exclusiveness which exti-eme
men advocate, and which God's providence and man's
common sense have hitherto successfully repelled.

PAET IIL

THE COLLEGE.

I HAVE attempted to show in the foregoing pages what
are the relations in which an undergraduate stands to
the University of Oxford, what is the process which he
goes through in obtaining his degree, and what in
general is the relative value of the various distinctions
in the various faculties of Arts, Divinity, Law, and
Physic. I have ventured occasionally on some few cri-
ticisms in the course of this detail, more, indeed, by way
of explaining anomalies and connecting facts, than
because I was willing to discuss these anomalies and
facts, or from the feeling that the criticism was in any
way exhausted, or suggested improvement totally ex-
pounded. And I have appended to this account a state-
ment of the extraordinary and important movement of
1857, in the so-called local or middle-class examina-
tions, because I felt sure, although this is no way a part
of Oxford education, properly so called, that the
systematic instruction of the great body of the middle,
classes would be increasingly influenced and finally
distinctly directed from the limits and the divisions
assigned, or to be assigned, to it by the Oxford de-
legates.

The next part of the work before me is to designate
the relations in which an undergraduate stands to his
college, that institution which appearing subsequently —

THE COLLEGE. 97

tliougli at a very remote period — to the university, lias
finally absorbed it, though in several points it is even
now distinct from it. Every undergraduate must be
attached to, and for a considerable time reside within
the walls of a college ; and every graduate must, by a
bye-law of the university, remain a member of a college,
under the penalty of losing all academical privileges
direct or indirect. The direct privileges are the right
to interfere, on occasion arising, with the self-government
of the university ; the indirect, is the parliamentary
suffrage of those who are technically called members of
Convocation, that is, masters of arts and doctors in the
several faculties. These privileges are preserved by the
payment of an annual fine, the proceeds of which are
distributed partly to the general purposes of the uni-
versity, partly to the relief of those institutions in which
the so-called foundation members have all the authority,
and reap all the benefits.

There are nineteen colleges in Oxford, and five halls.
There is a nominal equality between the colleges and
the halls, but a marked practical disadvantage in the
position of the latter institutions. The explanation of
this fact will come hereafter. It is only necessary to
state here, that the members of halls labour under so
many serious inconveniences that at present it is a loss
to be connected with them.

As institutions, the halls are of earlier date than the
colleges. There were, we are told, more than three
hmidred of these establishments in the pre-Reformation
period. But such places of education have long since
been merged in colleges, or have been aliened to private
individuals, with the exception of the five which now
remain, and which seem to have accidentally escaped the
fate of their kindred, generally by the fact of their

7

98 EDUCATION IX OXFOED.

having been connected directly or indirectly with some
college.

The characteristic features of a college are, that it
is an aggregate corporation, empowered by charter
to hold lands and tenements, and governed by statutes
administered by a head and fellows. They have
nearly all been the creation of private benefactions,
and originally the buildings of the society were in-
tended, and only provided accommodation, for such
parties as were designated by the founder as the
recipients of his endowment. In one college — All Souls
— this rule holds good still, no person being admitted to
that society who is not a member of the foundation.
But in all other colleges, either from remote periods,
or sometimes within the memory of the present genera-
tion, extraneous persons have been permitted to become
members of the society, on payment of such charges as
the college thought proper, on conditions of a more or
less stringent kind, and occasionally on the under-
standing that they appeared in the society, or, as it is
technically called, on its books, as of those higher
academical grades named noblemen and gentlemen
commoners.

The Head of a College is known by various names.
He is president, warden, master, rector, principal, pro-
vost, as the case may be. In one society he is called the
dean ; this personage, the head of Christ Church, being
also the chief dignitary of the cathedral church. In all
cases but the latter, the head of the college is elected
from the fellows on the occasion of a vacancy, and
almost always by them. The Dean of Christ Church
being at once an ecclesiastical and an academical officer,
is nominated by the Crown, the foundation which he
rules being an endowment of Henry the Eighth — if.

THE COLLEGE. 99

indeed, it can be called his endowment, since it repre-
sents the relics of a far more extensive scheme, which
Wolsey contemplated and planned, and for which he
provided funds. Suspended at Wolsey's disgrace, the
college was reconstructed by the king.

Previous to the Act of 1854, the choice of the fellows
on the vacancy of the headship was restricted, and
occasionally confined to the members of some particular
foundation. Now, however, the choice of the fellows is
free, and they are generally empowered to elect a head
out of other societies as well as their own. There is no
reason to believe that the permission will be acted on,
for there is, naturally enough, a considerable esprit de
corps among the members of any particular society, and
it would never probably happen that any stranger,
however meritorious, would be preferred to one of the
society, however incompetent the members of the society
may be out of whom to make a choice.

The functions of a head of a college are rather to
reign than to govern. As far as possible the fellows
would endeavour, and succeed in their endeavours, to
prevent any increase of his authority over themselves,
and the tendency of their relations to him, both by pre-
cedent and by their mutual combination, is to limit that
authority which the head has previously possessed.
Over undergraduates, however, the authority of the
head is absolute, though in all likelihood this authority
would not be arbitrarily exercised without discontent on
the part of the subordinate authorities, and perhaps
without provoking an appeal to the Visitor. The visitor
is an individual — generally of high official rank — to
whom the founder of the college assigned the business
of interpreting his statutes, and enforcing obedience to
them, when any member of the society is, or fancies

7-2

100 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

liimself, aggrieved. Most of the visitors are bishops.
Thus, the Bishop of Winchester is visitor to five colleges,
and others to a less amount. The Crown is visitor to
three among the colleges, and one is liable to the appel-
lant jurisdiction of a nobleman.

The heads of halls, called Principals, are nominated
by the Chancellor of the University. This privilege of
the chancellor is a usurpation, but one of ancient date,
having been procured by Leicester, chancellor in
Elizabeth's reign. The farce of an election is, how-
ever, enacted when a nomination is made. As a rule,
heads of halls are persons of ability and pretensions.
These personages have a far more active set of func-
tions to fulfil than the heads of colleges, since they are
not neutralized by the fellow^s ; and, indeed, unless
possessed of private means, are considerably dependent
upon the numbers of their undergraduates for their
income. The head of a hall, however, like the head of
a college, seldom takes any part in the instruction of
the undergraduate members of his society. These
duties are delegated to a vice-principal, and occasionally
to additional teachers. One of the headships of the
halls is in the patronage of a corporation — Queen's
College.

Halls have no endowments. Neither are they cor-
porate bodies. The fragments of academical patronage
which they possess, are held for them in trust by the
university. In one of them, Magdalene Hall, the
annual income from estates given for their benefit is
said to be considerable.

By the statutes of the university, no change can be
made in the tariff of the expenses to which Aularians,
that is to say, members of halls, are subject, without
the consent of the members of the society. Like many

THE COLLEGE. 101

other statutes of the university, this regulation is either
ignored or systematically broken, and the members of
these societies are liable to whatever charges the ca-
price, negligence, or necessities of the head may impose.
Imposts which emanate from an irresponsible head are
in their nature endowed with a marvellous vitality, and
are continued often after the necessity for which they
arose has ceased, or are imposed for considerations
which are utterly incongruous with the nature and
extent of the impost. This, however, will be seen to
be almost as characteristic of colleges in their relations
to undergraduate members.

It has been stated before that no person could be a
member of the university unless he resided within the
walls of a college or hall. When halls were numerous
and easily created, and when sites were procurable at
cheap rates, as in early times, this condition was no
hardship, but rather a benefit, as it gave an opportunity
for discipline in turbident times, by rigidly marking off
academical from private or civic arrangements. But
when the ancient halls were lost, the condition, enacted
first by Laud, that every graduate or undergraduate
should be a member of some existing college or hall,
tended to produce a state of things in which the uni-
versity would be practically closed to all, except persons
of fair income, or possessed of eleemosynary emolu-
ments— a result but very slightly and temporarily
modified by an affected supervision over expenditure.
It has been said that, at the beginning of the present
century, the rule had fallen into disuse, but has revived
by the urgent representations of those colleges where
incapacity or misfortune had caused their walls to be
empty of all but the foundationers. Since that time,
the statute has been rigidly enforced, and all under-

102 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

graduates are required to reside twelve terms, or three
years, within the walls of a college or hall. After that
they are free to live out of college, and, indeed, are, as
a rule, obliged to quit their rooms. The only excep-
tions to the rigour of this regulation, are the cases of
those young persons who live with their parents within
the precincts of the university, and of those whose age
the vice-chancellor considers is a sufficient guarantee
for their powers of self-control. The former are very
few indeed, the latter are those exceptional middle-aged
persons who enter at one or two of the halls, and one of
the colleges, as gentlemen commoners.

It is not easy to conceive a scheme which is more
likely to prevent the enlargement of the university, the
improvement of study in the place, and of the practical
faculties of its recognized teachers, than this statutable
monopoly of the existing colleges and halls. Freed from
all considerations, except those of merely filling their
sets of rooms, the authorities of these societies enjoy all
the advantages which the prestige and endowments of
the university possess, without any claim being made
upon their energies beyond the routine of the books
they read when they were undergraduates themselves,
and the traditional jargon of college lectures. Nothing
but the rivalry of one or two among the colleges raises
this state of things above the dead level of a uniform
dulness. And the consequences on the relations be-
tween the university and the country are even more
deplorable. With a population greatly increased, and
with national wealth almost enlarged by one-half, if not
actually doubled ; with general and special education
still more extensively enlarged within these twenty
years, the number of undergraduates in the university
has absolutely declined within this period, and the sym-

THE COLLEGE. 103

pathies of the nation with its ancient academies have
grown weaker and weaker. Men care less and less for
academical distinctions, know less and less of academical
learning, feel less and less the immediate influence of an
academical training, and the connection between the
universities and the Church bids fair to be the sole
remaining link between the country and its noblest
corporation. When these things are commented on,
the general answer given in favour of maintaining the
monopoly of the colleges, is the superior moral training
which their domestic system affords. The statement'
begs the question, and the fact is problematical. There
is no reason to believe that life within the walls of a
college is provocative of morality. Perhaps it may
even be dangerous to it. At any rate, the direct in-
fluence of college authorities on the practice of under-
graduates, is confined to a discipline wliich turns religion
into a penalty, and instruction into a routine. Com-
pulsory attendance on Divine service in college chapels
does not, as a fact, induce great reverence for the
holiest thino;s, but rather suc^fvests a sort of tabulated
quittance of formal observances. The very phrase,
commonly used to denote obedience to these require-
ments, is no direct evidence towards the favourable
effects of the discipline. ^' Keeping chapels " is a remote
metaphor for praying in God's house.

Equally so is the case with college lectures. I can
confidently state that these performances are almost
universally quoted by undergraduates with contempt
and dislike. It is very often with great injustice that
young men criticise the perfunctory attendance on a
conscientious college lecturer. But the limitation of liis
time, by a programme which is arbitrary, and often
unsuitable, is apt to produce in the undergraduate's

104 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

mind a sense of utter weariness or of active irritation.
People are unwilling to learn perforce, and many a man,
who has taught to the best of his power, is baffled in its
results by the unwillingness of those who think his
lecture a bore, and his authority a tyranny.

Nor is one prepared to think much more highly of
the domestic supervision of college authorities. It is
true that there is a standing rule in all colleges to the
effect that no egress is permitted from colleges after
nine at night, when the gates are shut, and that all
entrance after that hour is noted and fined. This, how-
ever, and an occasional interference with an occasional
uproar within the college, are all that the direct dis-
cipline of the institution enforces on its junior members.
But for the rest there is not, and I honestly believe
cannot be, any remedy. Gambling and drinking may
go on within a college to a far greater extent, for a far
longer time, and with far more ruinous effects, than
they could without a college. And though it may be
the case that the latter of these vices has declined of
late years, yet I have been told, on the authority of
a respectable Oxford tradesman, that the number of
packs of cards which he has supplied to the members
of a particular college, in one term, is something quite
incredible. Nothing but constant interference or es-
pionage could prevent such practices, — methods impos-
sible or mischievous. Of course, there are cases in
which the college tutor has that singular tact by which
the confidence of young men is won over to their good,
and an influence is exerted which is invaluable, because
it is critical and permanent. But such powers are as
extraordinary as they are eminent. Nay, I should
almost say that they occur in spite of, and not in the
least in pursuance of, the system of college life. Fur-

THE COLLEGE, 105

ther, thej rarely affect more than a few. Indeed, with
the general mass of men, especially young men, deference
to a rational and honoured authority is seldom given,
and given with increasing hesitation, except under ex-
ceptional circumstances. Personal influence is, I believe,
far more difficult in the case of youths than in that of
grown men ; and this comes from the fact, that where
impulses are strong characters are variable, and personal
influence is accorded to those who have the gift of dis-
cerning characters. Again, there is less common ground
between the several parties than there is when men of
similar experience, but unequal powers and abihties, come
into collision. But, in addition to the natural difficulty
of assimilating on this fashion minds and feelings so
remote from each other as those of a college authority
and an undergraduate, the sharp line drawn between
what is called in Oxford a " don," and a young man,
increases the unlikelihood of these reciprocal influences.
Graduates are here, when brought into relations with
imdergraduates, " upon parade." There is the obvious
and easy acquisition of a formal stiffness, and the difficult
and cautious habit of conscientious tact. What wonder
if, with no ordinary motives to accept the letter labour,
that most older Oxford men adopt the former sloth ?

I have dwelt upon these facts, in the beginning of
what I am now saying, because just as the colleges have
absorbed the university, so the monopoly of education
and of the locus standi of education has brought about
and perpetuates several evils. First, the limitation of
the university and the inexpansiveness of its existing in-
stitutions; next, the elimination of almost all the human
motives which would lead- the man in authority — the
teacher — into making the most of his opportunities, and
adopting a general appreciation of his duties ; third.

106 EDUCATION IN OXFOllD.

the facility witli which temptations are brought before
young men, from the absence of anything like domestic
control in that state of things which most familiarly
aflPects it ; and, lastly, the difficulties which lie in the
way of a healthful influence over the minds of those
whose moral and intellectual good is that which the
colleges aflPect to consider their peculiar care.

Matkiculation. — When a college is in high reputa-
tion, and a variety of circumstances conduce to par-
ticular reputations of pai-ticular colleges, it is not easy
to procure enrolment among the members. In some
cases, several years must pass between the notice given
of the intention of a parent to send his son to one of these
colleges in high repute and his consequent residence.
The law of residence within the walls of a college makes
entrance occasionally very difficult. The monopoly of
education enables the authorities in these establishments
to prescribe, in the case of those who are anxious to enter
their walls, a considerable amount of patience, and to
entail no little disappointment. Of course, no rational
objection can be made to any rule which the domestic
discipline and academical interests of a college pre-
scribe. The only hardship resides in the system which
prevents any education in any place except those build-
ings which, from their limited extent, constitute a
narrow monopoly, and in which privilege is a stimu-
lant of nothing but mediocrity.

Everybody who has paid the least attention to the
facts, as they at present exist in Oxford, must be aware
that certain colleges have a very high reputation for
success in academical distinctions, and that among these
none takes so high a place as Balliol. The position,
indeed, which colleges severally have in academical

THE COLLEGE. 107

honours and prizes will be found in the tables subjoined
to this portion of my work, and to which the reader is
referred for information.

In case a parent desires to matriculate his son at
one of these particularly reputable colleges, it will be
needful that he should give notice of his intention to
the head of that college some years previously, and
it is safe to do so four or five years before the time at
which it is intended that the residence should com-
mence. Not but that it often happens, in those colleges
even which are most select, that an occasional scarcity
of applicants for matriculation may render it easy to
get a person in without such long notice ; but the
opportunity is rare, and should not be depended on.
It is far better to secure, as far as may be, an opening
at some future and rather remote period. I am quite
aware that this necessity is an evil and a great one,
because it may often happen that persons are undecided
about sending their sons to the university till long after
the period which I have designated as that in which
application should be made ; but it is not possible to
provide a remedy against such a state of things. The
privilege of matriculation at a reputable college is, and
will be, a matter of competition, and, therefore, must
follow, as the area is limited by the statute to which
I have so often referred, the ordinary rule of supply
and demand.

Notice being given, then, to the head of a college to
the effect that it is wished that an individual should
enter a particular college at some future time, it is
understood that the head registers such applications;
and when the time comes at which the residence is to
commence, notice is given to the parent that his son
may become a candidate for matriculation.

108 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

But it by no means follows, when the candidate is
summoned, that he will be entered at the college in
question. Most colleges in any repute demand a cer-
tain amount of proficiency on the part of the person
who contemplates belonging to their society — knowledge
which is tested by a matriculation examination. Rea-
sonable self-interest, and, indirectly, the well-being of
the university depend on this rule. It is obviously
undesirable that persons should come to Oxford that
they may learn everything about the subjects in which
a degree denotes a certain proficiency. The more such
incompetent persons there are, the more surely is the
ordinary standard lowered. And even if the univer-
sity, as is to be desired, were to institute a matricula-
tion examination for itself, it would still be a judicious
measure for colleges to have their own rule about the
competency of their undergraduate members. And it
is more to be regretted that the university has not
sanctioned this matriculation examination, because there
is great suspicion — though I fully believe an unfounded
suspicion — that the standard of the college examination
is variable, and regulated by the amount of candidates
presenting themselves. I say unfounded, because it is
so obviously the interest of a college that it should have
hopeful undergraduates, that nothing would be more
suicidal than to import a number of persons whose
attainments are scanty and abilities unpromising. Of
course, when a college is but scantily filled, and mem-
bers are needed, the standard is necessarily low, and
the examination itself in all likelihood a farce ; but,
then, this is no more than would be the case when
a college matriculates members without examination
at all.

In some colleges the matriculation examination is

THE COLLEGE. 109

very severe, and tlie standard is systematically high.
This, we are informed, is particularly the case at Balliol,
But in point of fact this college has the reputation, and
the deserved reputation, of very considerable products ;
and it is not to be wondered at that it should, like most
sensible manufacturers of products, take some guarantee
to the goodness of its raw material. It has indeed been
said, with a pardonable exaggeration, that a matricula-
tion at Balliol is as good as a scholarship elsewhere;
in other words, that it denotes an equal amount of
knowledge with that ordinarily required for a scholar-
ship.

I am not acquainted with any college which does not
require a formal examination of its undergraduates
before matriculation. Some of the halls even demand
the fulfilment of this condition. In the largest of them,
however, namely, Magdalene Hall, no examination is
required, and consequently many persons matriculate
at this society who are unable to procure their degree,
or who expend an immoderately long time over it.
The gentlemen commoners of Christ Church are also
exempt from the operation of this domestic rule. Of
course the same effect is to be expected in this case as
at a hall where no examination is held at entrance.
But the body of gentlemen commoners is small in
Christ Church, and a considerable portion of them does
not care to graduate at all, but merely spends an idle
year or two in Oxford, and sets a bad example.

It may be taken for granted that the general rule in
these private examinations for matriculation is to make
the standard of proficiency equivalent, or nearly equi-
valent— the quantum being more or less — to what is
ordinarily exacted from a candidate for the certificate
of satisfying the examiners for responsions, or little go.

110 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

By this I mean acquaintance with the grammar of the
Greek or Latin languages, expressed in the power of
translating at sight, and of giving evidence of knowing
the principles and rules of the construction of sentences,
moderate capability in the translation of English into
Latin, and familiarity wi^h the method of arithmetic, of
the rudiments of algebra, and the first four books of
Euclid. This will be, as a rule, the outline of the
examination. In some colleges the questions will be
more severe. But it is impossible to determine what
is the amount of knowledge required in these sub-
jects for the satisfaction of the domestic authorities
of any college. This varies with the college, and in
all likelihood with the numbers generally pressing for
admission, and the ordinary status of the parties matri-
culated at the several colleges. It may, in short, be
a very severe examination, and it may be a most formal
one.

There is a practice in Balliol, and maybe in some
other colleges of high reputation, to reserve a number
of vacancies for those parties who distinguish them-
selves at the scholarship examination, but who are not
yet members of the university, and have not given
their names in as expecting to be members of the
college. In these cases the promise which is shown
in the examination is met by an offer of immediate
matriculation on the part of the college. As notice is
given that such a reservation is customary at the
college, no fault can be found with the arrangement,
though it may happen that persons may be disappointed.
Even were no notice given of the reservation, but
merely a general "understanding was afforded that the
colleace would matriculate those candidates who are
hopeful in preference to any others, the rule, though

THE COLLEGE. Ill

not perhaps a prudent one, would still be bona fide and
appreciable.

But there is not, as I am informed, any ground for
the ordinary charge laid to this college that the autho-
rities are in the habit of postponing long existent claims
to matriculation for the sake of kidnapping all the best
commoners they can. With the exception of the reserve
— and of this, as I have said, due notice is given — the
authorities of this college invariably keep good faith with
the parties who have notified their intention of sending
their sons to the society, subject always to the rule that
the candidate for matriculation is duly qualified accord-
ins: to what it is asserted is an invariable standard.
Of course, when this examination is genuine there will
be disappointment. Parents, and especially ill-informed
parents, almost always rate the capacity and attain-
ments of their children at a higher status than is
justified by facts, or proved on inquiry. And it is with
such persons as these that the greatest disappointment
arises.

It is customary for colleges to afiix a variable limit
to the age at which they will matriculate applicants.
As a rule, this would not be more than twenty. They
who are much senior to this must seek some society
whose limit is less rigidly retained, and these will
generally be such as have small numbers in proportion
to their accommodation. When the age is, as people
would say, advanced, that is, from twenty-five upwards,
parties can rarely matriculate except as gentlemen
commoners ; and at present no society appears to admit
such persons, except Worcester, and Magdalene HalL
In the former of these societies they are fellow com-
moners, that is, they associate with the fellows. In the
latter they have the sole privilege of paying higher fees.

112 EDUCATION IN OXIORD.

If the ordeal of a matriculation examination is passed
through successfully, or the college accepts the under-
graduate without inquiry into his capabilities, the next
process is that of his appearing before the vice-chan-
cellor to be admitted as a member of the university.
This admission may take place at any time, even in the
vacation, though, for certain reasons, matriculations
rarely occur except in term time. Of these the prin-
cipal is, that the term in which an undergraduate is
matriculated counts for one of the series he has to
keep towards taking his degree, and this without the
necessity of further residence. Another reason is, that
many colleges do not admit undergraduates except at
specified times. What these times are may be learned
from the head of the college, from the vicegerent, or
the dean. -The last-named officer is the person by
whom the matriculating parties are presented to the
vice-chancellor.

The reader will remember that there are four acade-
mical terms in the year, and that sixteen of these terms
— the number has lately been reduced to twelve —
were necessary to the taking of a degree. But these
twelve must be spent in residence. Now the occasions
on which examinations may be passed for the degree
are fixed at two periods in the year — after Easter, that
is to say, and after Michaelmas. If the undergraduate
matriculates, then, before the long vacation, or in the
term immediately following Christmas, he can graduate
in his twelfth term; and at the same time the oppor-
tunities given him for being an honours' candidate
are lengthened to his eighteenth term — the maximum
period of standing permitted by the existing statutes of
the university. If, on the other hand, he matriculates
in the Easter or Michaelmas term, he can proffer

THE COLLEGE. 113

himself for his degree in his thirteenth term ; and he
is barred from the honour schools after his seventeenth.
As, therefore, it is desirable to shorten the time of
residence, if the student is ambitious of a common pass
only, or to lengthen the period of study if he contem-
plates graduating in honours, it is worth while before
matriculation takes place to consider which of the two
alternatives is to be preferred. As a rule, however,
one may observe, that if an undergraduate is properly
prepared before he enters the university, there is no
doubt that he will do as well in the shorter as he would
in the longer period. Delay in presenting oneself for
an examination generally means idleness, except in those
cases in which residence has been an occasion of rudi-
mentary as well as of advanced study.

Residence and College Discipline. — As I have
already stated several times, residence must be within
the walls of a college or hall, except under extraor-
dinary circumstances.

The rooms which are assigned by the college autho-
rities are of very different kinds in point of conve-
nience. When the undergraduates are freshmen, as
they are familiarly called, they have to put up with
small and inconvenient apartments, situated, ordinarily,
in the highest story of the buildings. After a time,
they have the choice of better rooms, as vacancies occur
in them, though, occasionally, residence is completed in
the chambers in which it has commenced. As the fur-
niture is the property, of the undergraduate, and the
expense of paymg for furniture is larger as the rooms
are more desirable, it is sometimes necessary to put up
with the inconvenience for the sake of economy ; and,
as a rule, the system on which the succession to the

8

114 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

furniture of an outgoing tenant is either by a valuation
— which is paid by the incoming tenant, or by a rude
system, according to which the former pays two-thirds
of what was paid by the latter.

The rent of rooms is generally low, and generally
•uniform. The rooms, as has been observed, are unfur-
nished ; and the tenant has to pay rates and taxes,
besides some nondescript charges, called college or hall
dues, which, in all likelihood, form a building fund for
the general purposes of the college. Rent varies from
61. 8l year to 16Z., or even more; but the rate is exceed-
ingly moderate. A very dishonest practice prevails, or
did prevail, in some societies, of levying room rent, as
well as other charges, during the time of non-residence,
or even after the necessary period of intramural resi-
dence was over, and the undergraduate was allowed, or
rather compelled, to go out of college. It is generally,
however, abandoned now ; but it existed at the time of
my undergraduate residence at Magdalene Hall, and,
I am informed, exists there still ; and though it may be
argued that the practice merely meant that 161. a year
was claimed for rooms instead of 12Z., yet the fashion
of short weight and short measure, to which the prac-
tice is strikingly analogous, has never, I believe, been
defended on customary grounds, except by people who
cultivate a very low sense of even the morality of expe-
diency.

In many colleges undergraduates, according to ancient
custom, are assigned to the personal supervision of a
tutor. This word, as I have before said, has quite
passed away from its earlier meaning, which is a legal
one. It implies guardianship, the protection of the
weaker by the stronger, whether the weakness of the
former be that of age or sex. When employed by

THE COLLEGE. 115

the university in bygone times, it denoted that the
tutor was responsible for the conduct, and, in some
degree, for the morals of his pupil, in much the same
way as a curate, or other ecclesiastical personage,
was responsible for the personal character of his
parishioners. At the time, too, when residence was
begun at very early years, and the universities were,
in reality, so many public schools, the word had a
practical, as well as legal, significance. The tutor
was the academical guardian of the boy who was in-
trusted to* the discipline of a college life ; and though
we have, perhaps, at present reached the maximum
age at which young men will be subjected to the
studies of a college life, because it is the age at which
persons ordinarily enter, after a long course of train-
ing, on the active duties of a professional life, yet the
maximum has only been recently obtained, and many
persons are even now engaged in the work of Oxford
instruction who are contemporaries of the system in
which youths, fully two years younger than the ordi-
nary average of the present time, entered on the Oxford
curriculum.

Of course, the tutor has long ceased to be the agent
for the moral information of undergraduates. That he
should have ceased to stand in this position is due to a
variety of causes. The prominent feature of modern
times — personal independence — is the latest among these
causes. More mature years, the greater difficulty of
personal control, the improved canon of social morality,
and, above all, the monopoly of the colleges, have singly
and collectively been sufficient to do away with the
ancient system of authority and dependence. All the
authority that remains is, from one point of view, con-
ventional, and, from the other, capricious. The college

8—2

116 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

tutor administers the prescribed discipline of the college,
and the undergraduate submits to it, in some degree,
because he has the wit to see that rules — even arbitrary
rules — are necessary ; and because he is going through
a routine which has a social value, at least, and, in
many cases, a value of a different and more tangible
kind, and to which the routine, and all its incidents, are
a temporary necessity, if not a rational discipline.

College tutors, in point of fact, if they would only un-
derstand it, are in an unfortunate and abnormal position.
Though they are hypothetically trusted with pastoral
functions, they are checked by the difficulty of dealing
with individual minds, and chilled by that absence of all
reasonable motives for exertion which a safe monopoly
is sure to effect. And though there is evidence of indi-
viduals taking on themselves the voluntary labour of
personal influence for individual benefit, yet the old bane
of inadequate impulses to labour is sure to infect even
the most earnest men with the poison of mannerism and
the unwisdom of onesidedness. With an antiquated law
to administer, they are shut out from modifying it, by
the rigour of precedent, and the barrier of imperfect
sympathies. Men who live in Oxford see that the in-
fluence of seniors on juniors is rapidly getting less and
less, and this while the old forms of dependence seem as
stubborn as ever they were. That college tutors should
have become college lecturers, is a natural product of
the system, but a product the nature and effect of which
I cannot discuss here, though I hope hereafter to say
some thin 0^ about it.

The characteristic parts of college discipline are: the
rule that undergraduates should be confined to college
after nine in the ^evening, a rule which has been modified
into a fine for being out of college after that hour, or what

THE COLLEGE. 117

is teclinically called " knocking in," no undergraduate
of the society being permitted to go out of college after
that hour; the general condition of residence, that all
parties under the degree of B.A. should attend college
chapel as a formal requisition, at least once a day ; and
the compulsion laid on them of attending college lectures,
according to a scheme which is ordinarily put out at the
beginning of the term. It is upon the violation of these
rules, that the college authorities ordinarily exercise their
official power. To these may be added, the penalties on
the occurrence of marked ignorance and indolence —
being plucked, as it is called — in any examination; and
any other evidence of misconduct with which the do-
mestic discipline of the college visits its members with
heavier or lighter hand, according to the strength or
weakness of the domestic executive.

When an undergraduate has resided twelve terms in
college, he is, as I have stated, allowed, or rather,
obliged, to give up his rooms. Afterwards, if he needs
to reside in Oxford, he lodges in private houses. These
houses are, however, under a strict discipline. The
occupiers of them are obliged to consent to certain con-
ditions, on the non-fulfilment of which their licence is
forfeited, and they are what is technically called dis-
commoned. The force of this process is, that no
member of the university is suffered, under penalties,
to make any negotiation or contract with them. Lat-
terly an attempt was made to render these conditions
more strict, and to enforce them on resident bachelors
of arts. The plan failed, as a needless stretch of
discipline over senior men. The chief conditions com-
prised in the formal obligation laid on lodging-house
keepers are : the rule that their doors should be closed
after nine, that no egress or ingress be permitted

118 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

without the knowledge of the master of the house, and
tliat a register of such egress and ingress should be
furnished, according to the rule laid down by the
undergraduate's college, to those officials under whose
discipline he may be.

Lodgings are far from expensive in Oxford, and when
one considers that the season of the place, so to speak, is
less than six months in a year, and that during two or
three of these months lodgings are rarely occupied, the
lowness of the charge is even more remarkable. Many
circumstances, however, conduce to this. CoUege
servants, in the first place, are generally the owners of
lodging-houses, and seek to add to an income, respect-
able already in amount, by the casualties of occupancy
by undergraduates. Few, if any, live by letting
lodgings. Next to these are the tradesmen, many of
whom, occupying the ground floor of their houses for
business purposes, live themselves in the suburbs of the
city or the villages adjacent to it, and put some house-
keeper or other in charge of the upper rooms. Again,
as undergraduates always dine in college, and as they
are not, in theory at least, permitted to procure any
food or drink, which the college supplies them with,
elsewhere, the attendance on the inmates is very scanty,
and the cooking next to nothing. Hence the establish-
ment of a lodging-house keeper is of the narrowest
kind, one female servant is often all that is needed for
several persons, and the capital of the owner of the
lodging-house is invested in little more than rent and
furniture.

There is no reason to believe that vices of a particular
character are assignable to the residence of under-
graduates in Oxford lodgings, but direct evidence to
the contrary. I can at least assert, that during the four

THE COLLEGE. 119

years in wliich I liave had some pastoral work in one of
the largest of the villages near Oxford, from which
\illage numbers of domestic servants in Oxford come,
that I have never met with more than one or two
persons who, having been domestic servants, have fallen
into evil courses; and m these few cases the offender
has been the keeper of tlie lodging-house and not his
inmates. The ordinary agents of these results are, as
far as I can learn, shopmen and folks little above the
original station of these unfortunates.

Attendance at college chapel is a means of discipline,
secured by the evidence of a bead-roll, and enforced by
penalties. The list is kept, in most cases, by the Bible
clerks, who employ the time while the lessons are
read in noting the presence of those who are in chapel.
In some colleges, however, this unseemly practice is
abandoned, and one of the college servants is charged
with the duty of taking note of the attendance as the
several individuals enter the chapel doors. The prayers
used are ordinarily the full service of the Enghsh Church;
in one of the colleges only, I believe, is there any
deviation from this practice, a practice directed by the
Act of Uniformity. But in Christ Church there is a
special service, much shorter than the common form of
prayer, and this service is in Latin. On particular
days, too, the service is performed in the Welsh language
at Jesus College, this society being mainly composed of
natives of the Principality. Prayers are said, as a rule,
at half-past-seven or eight in the morning, and from
half-past-four to five in the evening. In Christ Church,
however, evening prayers are said at a late hour.

In four of the colleges the service is choral, either by
the tenor of its foundation, or by some subsequent
arrangement. These colleges are Magdalene, New,

120 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

Christ Church, and St. John. But another service is
provided at Magdalene and Christ Church, at which
undergraduates are commonly present. Some other
colleges, as Queen's and Exeter, have latterly established
a choral service, but the practice is novel and perhaps
precarious. At any rate, there is no provision made for
the choral service in the older or later statutes of these
colleges, and the formation of the choir has been a
voluntary effort.

Prima facie, the practice of making religious worship
a portion of domestic discipline, seems likely to neutralize
the sense of religion for the sake of enforcing a formal
obedience. And this is no doubt a frequent effect of
compulsory attendance. But there may be, and are
beyond question, many undergraduates to whom the
office of daily prayers is an encouragement, a comfort,
and a means of moral and religious strength. Perhaps
all the good of the service would be obtained if atten-
dance were allowed to be voluntary.

College lectures are also, as I have observed, a means
of discipline as well as of instruction. They are, I
conceive, far more powerful for the former than for the
latter effect. I have already commented on the causes
which lead to their being perfunctory and dull. If a
college lecturer makes them better than ordinary, it is
supererogatory, and due to -his own conscientiousness
and activity. But colleges are drained of their best men,
who quit Oxford for schools and other extraneous
work ; and while the least efficient of the seniors clincr to
the lecture, which they have read for so many years,
the rest of the lectureships are in the hands of younger
masters, who are eager to get away from a work which
is destitute of all ordinary human motives. Besides, no
college, except under the rarest circumstances, employs

THE COLLEGE. 121

any person on its staff, except he happen to be a fellow
of the society, and the most vital interests of under-
graduates would be, and indeed are, habitually over-
looked, to carry out the rigour of a rule which seeks to
avoid offence by the sacrifice of duty and principle.

Of course there are marked exceptions to these
functional mediocrities. There are many persons in
Oxford who conscientiously and laboriously further the
moral improvement, as well as the intellectural culture
of the undergraduates under their care. But they do so
in despite of, and not in pursuance of the state of things
under which they live and work. Their " noble rage "
is repressed by the decorous feebleness which surrounds
them. And that I may not seem to have stated what is
not apparent to any but myself, or to a few, any of my
readers who chooses to peruse the articles contributed,
some years ago, by Sir W. Hamilton to the Edinburgh
Review, will see the case stated far more strongly than I
have stated it ; and any one who takes occasion to
question the first half-dozen Oxford graduates whom
he meets, will find that what Hamilton reprehended
has not passed away, but is just as characteristic as
ever.

Habits of Undergeaduate Life. — Many farcical
novels have been written on the practices of young men
at college, and some few serious ones. Attempts, too,
have been made from time to time to describe the
temptations and the results of the necessary training
for an Oxford degree ; and even the cumbrous volume
of evidence procured by the Royal Commissioners,
prior to the Act of 1854, contains some few notices
of what young men are and do in Oxford, and how
they spend their time. None ^of these accounts, how-

122 EDUCATION IN OXFOED.

ever, give any accurate information on the subject ; and
from the very various motives which bring persons to
the university, as well as from the very various
characters congregated in it, it is not hkely that more
than the most general features of academical life can be
depicted.

Oxford undergraduates are no worse, but, in many
traits, far better than most aggregates of young men.
The discipline of the university — I do not mean by this
the colleges — has something to do with this, the tradi-
tions of the place vastly more. Undergraduates have
their own laws, and their own customary rales of social
life, and these, though often formal and priggish, are
very effective and very useful. Their code of honour,
it is true, is a little one-sided, and their notions of right
and wrong somewhat defective and partial, but they
have both code and notions. They do not mind run-
ning into debt, and they are apt to waste their money
and time — money often procured by great domestic
sacrifices, and time which is the most critical in their
lives; but they are ordinarily truthful, decorous, and
high-spirited. They are great admirers of courage and
endurance, and have those virtues themselves in the
fullest degree', and they feel a sincere respect for those
painstaking members of their own body who achieve
academical distinctions.' I never heard that an Ox-
ford undergraduate was guilty of an act of cruelty,
or that he offered an insult to a woman. Further, to
use a bygone political phrase, they are, as a rule, strong
Tories ; not because, I take it, they have any profound
respect for authority, but because they are strongly
infected with what has been called the gentlemanly
heresy. Nothing, perhaps, has more contributed to the
contempt felt by Oxford men for Oxford tradesmen

THE COLLEGE. 123

than the touting and servility of the latter. When it
comes to pass that men shall no longer be ashamed of
an honest calling, and shall not prosecute it by forms
which argue lack of self-respect and independence, tlie
last relics of this social barbarism will, I imagine, be
found in tlie cringing and supple petitioners for under-
graduate custom.

But whatever may be the feelings of Oxford under-
graduates towards what is without their own body, and
however contemptuous is the mannerism of academical
freemasonry, there is not a particle of this feehng shown
towards any of their own body whose antecedents are
below the ordmary rank from which most educated
persons come. It is no reproach to a young man, and
not the most distant allusion is ever made to the fact,
that he has come of low origin. The best position in
the university is repeatedly taken by persons whose
parents are, socially speaking, in a very humble grade.
So thoroughly republican in this direction is the feeling
of the place, that external social differences are rarely
remembered even against arrogance and presumption.
There are, it is true, affectations about particular col-
leges, and the members of one society pretend now and
then to look down on other societies, but the feeling is
collective, not towards individuals. And in this charac-
teristic, Oxford undergraduate life contrasts in the most
favourable way with any other social arrangement and
social practice which can be named elsewhere. There
is no place, I repeat, where antecedent social differences
are so little counted on as here. And this is the more
remarkable, because the existing statutes of the univer-
sity put some de^nite premiums on social rank, and have
a distinct leaning towards vulgar kinds of tuft-hunting.
Where men's rank, or supposed rank, is distinguished

124 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

by dress and privilege, the most odious form of servility-
is encouraged.

Along with this general sense of equality, there is a
strong esprit de corps in the members of particular
colleges. This feeling does not spring, I repeat, from
reverence towards the authorities of these institutions,
and very little from association, but eminently from the
habitual cultivation of local affections. The most
rollicking muscularity has a very warm interest in the
intellectual prowess of his college ; and the most
secluded student is in a very unhealthy frame of mind,
if he feels no pleasure in the victories of his college
boat, and his college cricket club. And though, in
after life, this sympathy is resuscitated for unreasonable
electioneering predilections, yet it is, on the whole, a
wholesome and rational feeling. There are very few
men to whom, whether the time has been well or ill
spent, whether there is great satisfaction or great regret
felt at the way in which the four years have passed,
who do not fully comprehend that those four years
were the happiest and healthiest of his life. One's
university is worth loving, with all its inequalities and
shortcomings ; one's college is worth loving, too, despite
its management ; and so natural is the feeling, that the
exception to it cannot be the fault of the man, but must
be of the place and its governors.

The most natural distinction which can be drawn
between one set of undergraduates and another, is that
of those who read, and those who do not — in other
words, of those who intend that their academical educa-
tion should be the means of a step in life, above that
which is attained by an ordinary degree. Every uni-
versity distinction has its value, and if rightly used,
like any other capital, will return its profits. The

THE COLLEGE. 125

extremes are, of course, an ordinary degree, and the
fullest honours which the university assigns.

An education which extends over four years, and in
which the competitive process which lies at its termina-
tion is the consummation, is an admirable test of per-
severance and industry — the main elements here, as
elsewhere, of success, — but is a very strong trial of
patience to those who are unable to realize the future.
It is not easy for young men who have their head
given to them, after years of domestic and school
restraint, to anticipate the benefits of a voluntary dis-
ciphne. Hence it is, and will be constantly the case,
that young men who have achieved nothing in Oxford
are found foremost in after life. The stimulus of a
remote advantage is the least effective when motives,
by the very nature of things, vary. And hitherto the
theory of the university examinations has no way fur-
thered, but rather damped these prospective energies.
Nor, as might be expected, has the collegiate system
of domestic training done much to supply the lack of
motive, or remove the natural hindrances of thought-
lessness and negligence.

Parents, too, have been much to blame. If they
insisted on their sons testing their own powers and
work, by appearing in the lists of competitors for acade-
mical honours, they would largely profit their children
and strengthen the hands of the university. In the
nature of things, as this nature works at present, the
direct control of the university and college on a young
man's time is weaker and weaker, and the indirect in-
fluence of academical distinctions is far less appreciable
than it should be. But here, as elsewhere, parents
exhibit the most culpable indifference to the best in-
terests of their own chikh-en, and suffer the most sacred

126 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

obligations which lie upon them to be deputed to the
chance impulses of the pupil, and the scanty influences
of the teacher. They would not, as has been said of
old over and over again, trust the supervision of their
pecuniary concerns to the irresponsible and unsupported
agency of others ; but in what is of the largest concern
to them they are slovenly and incautious to the last
degree.

Reading men are, as may be expected, the most
orderly and well-conducted of the general body of
undergraduates. But there are other persons, and they
form a numerous body, whose character is very com-
mendable. These are the individuals whose abilities are
not of such a kind as to secure them any position, or
any very marked one, in the intellectual trials of the
university, but whose character or training makes them
averse to its vices. Such men are a credit to Oxford,
and of great practical service to those with whom
they associate. Without any affectation of purism,
they give a high tone to the morality and manners of
the place.

I never heard of any person whose health was
seriously injured by over-reading, if, indeed, it was
injured at all by the process. Novelists represent these
alarming results in their fictitious narratives, but the
health of yovtng men is injured by a vast many prac-
tices, which cannot be conveniently confessed to, while
the most reputable among the causes which might
injure health is a passionate attachment to study. I
should listen with great incredulity to any person who
alleged that his health had given way to over-much
mental exertion. Where we do know that great efforts
are made, and a great strain is put on the intellectual
powers, we do not find that these formidable results

THE COLLEGE. 127

ensue. And it is the more necessary that we should
understand how little reality there is in the charge
upon study of its producing physical debility, because
this is a point on which parents, and especially mothers,
are habitually deluded. I have often heard parents,
sensible folks in their way, deprecate the toil over books
during an undergraduate's residence, and urge upon
their children not to ruin their powers by an over-eager
pursuit after knowledge ; but these good people are not
able to quote authentic cases of the deplorable effects of
this single excess. Hard reading cannot be pursued
without weariness, and weariness is rest, and slip-slop
reading is no task, but a mere relaxation.

Along with systematic indolence, the worst vices of
undergraduate life are drinking and gambling. The
former vice is, in pursuance of the practice of society
generally, very much on the decline, and the last few
years have seen a marked and important improvement
in this respect ; but the latter practice is, I am informed,
on the increase. Every occasion in which the theory
of chances can be applied is material for this fashion.
Boat races, horse races, billiard matches, cricket matches
— a thousand and one things are available for the wildest
application of the doctrine of probabilities. It is said,
however, that one necessary term in the equation of this
propensity is often wanting. Men do not meet their
liabilities. I am not sure whether this is the case or
no ; but, if it be, indifference to the dishonour of default
is a considerable corrective to the passion.

The out-door amusements of undergraduates are some-

CD

times excessive, but generally very sensible. Boat-racing
and cricket, tennis and racket, are favom^ite sports. As
a rule, the occupations of Oxford men are muscular and
fatiguing. Many men play billiards, and, as usual, the

128 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

constant habitues of this amusement are among the most
disreputable persons to be found. Everybody knows
that no game presents more convenient opportunities
for the dishonest dissimulation of skill ; but, of course,
where everybody is known, there are, comparatively
speaking, few occasions on which the wily errors of a
practised player may be turned to pigeoning.

As may be expected, the worst discipline is found in
those societies where there is scanty supervision, or a
divided and contradictory authority, or the presence of
undergraduates who are not amenable to academical
penalties, because they are indifferent to them. Where
young men are left entirely to their own discretion,
without any authority residing within the walls, as at
Magdalene Hall, there is not likely to be any great
sobriety of demeanour ; or if there be, it is from the fact
that the junior members themselves establish a quasi
Committee of Public Safety. Where, again, as at Christ
Church, the preposterous combination of a disunited
capitular body, and a staff of tutors without personal
authority, represents what should be the domestic
control of a large body of young men, one is not pre-
pared to expect any very good product. And the evil
is increased, hypothetically at least, by the fact of there
being a large number of undergraduates habitually at
Chi'ist Church, who do not, and perhaps do not intend
to, take their degree or even pass any examination. It
is in vain that the university arms its officers with
penalties, and the college affects to exercise discipline
over such persons. They leave the university if they
are threatened with a crisis ; and as they would have
been no better for its instruction, so they are no worse for
its punishments. But they are a very great nuisance
during the interval.

THE COLLEGE. 129

There are, indeed, persons who argue that these
irregular members of the University are advantageous,
by their bare presence, to the interests of the body
itself, because they will hereafter look back to the
casual years of their Oxford residence with affection
and consideration. But in truth nothing but the worst
parts of the University system, that is to say, those
parts which rely on jobbing, are helped even possibly
by the fact that those gentlemen have had free quarters
for a year or two in Oxford. And in all likelihood
they look back on those times in after life as a delusion,
and maybe as a swindle. People who do not graduate
at their University are ordinarily shy of acknowledging
a previous connection with it. The University needs
not, or ought not to need, the chance support of a mere
squirearchy. It is very doubtful whether the Univer-
sity ever gets any support except when the support
assumes the form of political obstructiveness.

That the University will have to rely on itself for
its place in the respect of the country is plain to the
meanest capacity. Even if a great corporation whose
public merits lie in the advancement of learning, had a
million patrons, such a corporation, in these days at
least, is happily on its trial. The grace of self-govern-
ment is only durante bene placito, however long the
sentence may be postponed by party considerations.
Reform is progressive, and the smallest innovation is a
breach in the dyke. No delusion can be more mis-
chievous than the very common one, that there is
such a thing as a final change. Unless men move
onwards in the practice of their public duties, when
they have once been made subject to the rule of public
opinion, there will soon be an end of their voluntari-
ness. Men must prove their usefulness, or the eyes of

9

130 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

society are permanently fixed on tlie vanishing point of
their utility.

What Oxford has lost, and what it is still losing,
— I speak for Oxford only — as the mother of English
learning is not to be calculated. What it may even
now regain if it sets itself diligently to its duties is
more intelligible. How, one by one, its ancient univer-
sality has past away, is the saddest fact in its past
history, and the largest difficulty in its present posi-
tion. But no recovery is likely by strengthening the
monopoly of what is, after all, an aggregate of lodging-
houses.

College and Universitt Seaeching. — The instruc-
tion of undergraduates is partly compulsory, partly
voluntary. Compulsory instruction is afforded by
college tutors and college lecturers, voluntary instruc-
tion by University professors and a class of teachers to
which I shall particularly advert in the next chapter.

In some colleges an undergraduate is committed to
the charge of a tutor, who is supposed to be responsible
in some degree for the studies and conduct of his pupil.
But the connection is exceedingly slight, and has a
continual tendency to become slighter. The system
is, in short, a relic of what once existed universally,
and to which, as I have already stated above, the name
tutor points. Till late years, or comparatively late
years, the relations of the pupil to the tutor were
included in the fact that the tutor formed a sort of
intermediary to the head of the college, and in part a
delegate, and that the pupil received religious instruction
from the tutor, who was a kind of academical curate.
But no other education was provided by the college,
beyond the incident of some established lecturers. The

THE COLLEGE. 131

present position of the college tutor was created by the
voluntary efforts of some conscientious persons in the
first place, and has been stereotyped by the interests
of others in the second.

There is no radical difference existing between the col-
lege tutor and college lecturer. The phrases have come to
mean that the tutor is generally one of the senior officers
of the establishment, the lecturer one of those who has
latterly been placed on the staff. The lecturer is by
way of becoming a tutor. Tutors are appointed by the
head of the college, though custom rarely allows the
passing by any one of the fellows who is even decently
competent for his functions, a competence measured by
his position in the cl^ss schools. The nomination is
always from the fellows, except when there occurs an
absolute deficiency of proficient persons among that
body, and ordinarly the tutor is deprived of his office on
marriage, though, in exceptional cases, the office is
retain ed by married men. But there are, it appears, no
means by which an incompetent tutor can be superseded
or divested of his office, or if there be, I am not aware
of these means being adopted. It is not therefore
necessary that the senior tutors should be very able
persons. The older members of the University or-
dinarily migrate to other spheres of labour, as schools,
and the like, since the income of a college tutor is
generally small, and dependent on celibacy ; while men
who wait on in Oxford in college employment, are
naturally not so active as those who leave it.

The lectures of a college tutor are addressed to a
class of variable numbers, are more or less catechetical,
and on a considerable variety of subjects. Generally,
however, one of the tutors takes on himself the office of
instruction in grammar and in translation from Latin

9—2

132 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

and Greek to English, and of composition in those
languages ; another gives lectures on philosophy accom-
panying some text book, a third deals with history. Some
colleges have no mathematical lecturer, but the great
majority, in later years, have added this office to their
staff. Very few colleges offer instruction in modern
history or physical science.

The pupils attending the lecture translate a portion of
the author who is taken as a text book, the teacher select-
ing at his discretion the person who is to translate, in
order, if possible, to secure the previous preparation by the
whole class. But no precaution can prevent the slovenly
method of preparation, the use of translations, and the
most superficial knowledge of the contents, and even of
the grammar of the author. It is almost needless to say
that the lecture naturally tends towards the calibre of the
worst informed person in the room. The teacher corrects
the errors of translation, and adds observations of his own,
more or less valuable, according as he has made the
author his particular study, and as he is competent to
illustrate the book, the style, and the matter to which
it refers. The hearers are supposed to take notes. Of
course there is greater opportunity for taking notes
when the subject treated of by the author involves
something besides art or grammar. I am not aware
that criticism on the style, the spirit, the psychological
significance of the ancient drama, or the ancient
narrative forms part of a college lecture. It did not in
my time, and I have seen no trace of it since. Nor is
instruction in grammar more than empirical knowledge.
The analogies of language, and the logic of construction
are not taught in these lectures. The teacher's ambition
is bounded by the formularies of accidence, and the
traditional rules of Greek and Latin syntax. In history.

THE COLLEGE. 133

also, ethnological and geographical instructions are not
afforded, still less is the political philosophy of the
author expounded. The text of the author is all that is
illustrated, and this more by requiring more or less
exact translation, than by any original criticism. In
philosophy, however, there is rather more scope for
particular instruction. But even here it is very rare that
any large view is taken of the author's meaning. The
practice, and the laudable practice, of requiring acquain-
tance with the text, generally supersedes any investiga-
tion of the matter and its criticism.

The product of the term's work is tested by a domestic
examination, called collections. AU undergraduates who
have not passed the final university examination are
required to submit to this piece of discipline. This
domestic institution is, however, of very scanty utility.
The colleges have not adopted the very sensible rule of
similar institutions in Cambridge, that, namely, of giving
terminal annual prizes for proficiency. Hence, and for
other causes, these collections are looked on by undergra-
duates more as a piece of discipline, conscientiousness in
the submission to which is visited with no reward, and
negligence with no penalty beyond a scolding. Very
rarely does it occur, that the only real punishment
annexed to a shabby performance in these examinations
is inflicted, the loss, namely, of term, and very often
does it occur that the punishment is deserved. But to
inflict it would be simply a vicarious penalty; the
undergraduate's parents would be mulcted for the
sloth of the son, and maybe for the carelessness of the
tutor.

Annexed is a list of the colleges with the number of
tutors in each, the number of subjects for which tutors
are appointed, and the school honours acquired by those

134

EDUCATION IN OXTORD.

tutors. It is perhaps the fairest way in which I can
give materials for judging the present status of the
several colleges, when taken in connection with other
tabular statements.

Colleges.*

.si

t

Cm

II

o

p

g-2

IS

p

University .........

4
5
3
8
3
3
2
3

3
4
2
7
4
5
5
3
3
3

1
2

1

1

1

1
1
1
2
1
1
1

1

1
1
1

"l

"l
1

1

1
1

"i
"i

1

3
5
3
6
3
2
1
2

2
4
2
2
4
3

2
2
2

1

i*

1

1
1
1
1

1
1
"l

"l

1
1

1
1

...
...

1

Balliol

Merton

Exeter.

Oriel

Queen's

New

Lincoln

All Souls

JVIaigdalene

...

Brasenose

Corpus

Christ Church ....
Trinity

1

St. John's

Jesus

Wadham

1

Pembroke

Worcester ^.

Halls: —
St. Mary

...

Magdalene

New Inn

St. Alban's

...

St. Edmund

Litton's

1

But here, as elsewhere, I must caution my reader
against an error into which he may be drawn by such
statistics as I can give. It is one inherent in all tabu-

* The figures come from the Oxford Calendar, the lists in which
are furnished by the college authorities.

THE COLLEGE. 135

lated summaries by which general inferences are sug-
gested, and in which only one or two of the constituents
of the product can be exhibited. Anybody can see
what academical honours a college tutor has acquired,
but no one can estimate what are the capacities which
he possesses of imparting the knowledge he has, still less
of what he has done by way of improving a stock, the
amount of which was taken possibly many years ago.
In the imperfect state in which we are, and must be
left, about a vast many of the elements of administrative
capacity, such statistics afford, even in combination
with others, only qualified inferences. But as far as
they go they are just. They stand in precisely the
same logical position as any other inference from
any other competitive examination, are possessed of the
same value, and open to the same objections. In the
present state of inquiry, they are all that can be aimed
at ; but it is but fair that one should point out their
worth and their weakness, though the country at large,
and equally the University, assigns, as a rule, a final
value to these bygone trials of comparative acquisition.

The public teaching of the university is that by
professors. I have already adverted to this part of the
academical system, in the first portion of this work.

Attendance on professorial instruction is rarely of
much value before the latter portion of an undergra-
duate's residence in Oxford. The earlier trials to which
his acquirements are subjected, are so exclusively of
school-learning, that the diffuse generalities of a profes-
sorial lecture are rarely of any service in the acquisition
of what I have already stated to be empirical knowledge.
Nor would it be possible, unless the professor became,
as he is said to be, in the Scotch universities, a mere
schoolmaster, that the lectures he gives could become

136 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

in the slightest degree serviceable for the earlier public
examinations.

But when these earlier trials are over, and the final
examinations are all that remain for the student, the aid
of professorial teaching is appreciable, and if some of its
present inconveniences are eliminated will be very con-
siderable. Not but that under the best of circumstances,
its value will be qualified, and necessarily supplemented
by other assistance. In the nature of things, the pro-
fessor's class is larger than the college tutor's, and very
distinct firom the personal relations of the private tutor.
Still more marked is the character of his teaching. It
is eminently of generalities, of matters which make a
vast show, which can be of infinite value, and which
may become, and often do become, in the pupil's head a
mere gabble of platitudes. There is nothing, as we are
daily more and more aware, more easy than the reputa-
tion procured by the knowledge of general principles.
Much of the reproach cast on learning is due to the
confusion between the voluble retail of propositions
taken at second-hand and the patient aggregation of
these propositions from a careful induction of particulars.
And, of late years, Oxford learning has been seriously
impaired by a deference to the facilities of acquiring these
generalities. The fashion of the time is, perhaps, in
favour of these wide formularies ; but they are, unless
accompanied with a large inward training, mere parrot
phrases, which are worse than useless. There is some-
thing in the whimsical wish that penal servitude without
the option of a fine, should be visited on those who are
always referring one to first principles, and who habitually
talk of subjective and objective.

All this, however, which suggests contingent evils as
associated with the professorial system when applied to

THE COLLEGE. 137

the practical objects of academical education, must be
understood to refer to that portion of it only which
belongs to the ordinary curriculum of an Oxford degree.
When the student aspires to an acquaintance with
modern languages and physical philosophy, the public
teaching of Oxford supplies all that can be desired or
even procured. At no time and in no place fiave the
various professorships of physics been filled with more
intelligent, competent, and, what is far more to the pur-
pose, more conscientious teachers. The interests of
physical science cannot be entrusted to more diligent
and energetic keeping than they are at present ; and
though the habits of the university, and the natural
suspicion felt towards an active band of innovators on
the ancient studies of Oxford, the smart of an extrava-
gant expenditure on the museum just erected for the
purposes of this new philosophy, and the well-defined
impression that this is not, and will not be, the place for
any practical or large development of natural science,
have made the professors of these mysteries at once
painstaking and vigorous in advancing their favourite
studies ; yet one may fairly say, that whatever they
can do towards making their knowledo;e available and
their lectures attractive, will be certainly done to the
full, and in the most solid manner.

Most colleges have libraries, which are open under
certain restrictions to all members of their societies.
There is no difficulty, however, in procuring admission
to the Bodleian, if an undergraduate requires the assist-
ance of any books which are too expensive for his
purchase, or are not procurable in the college stock.
But few young men employ the University library.
This is mainly due to the fact that the Bodleian is open
only at those times when undergraduates and graduates.

138 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

pupils and tutors, are engaged in their respective occu-
pations. Perhaps, when the long-expected reading-
room is provided (and these conveniences are accorded
with singular slowness in the University), more persons
will be found to employ the advantages which the Uni-
versity library affords. At the same time it must be
remembered that much of the reading of undergraduates
is gathered from a very small range of books, that in-
terpretations and commentaries on those books are oral
or traditional, and that there is little immediate profit
in studies which lie outside the narrow course of
academical instruction, since they would not be tested
by academical examination or invested with academical
distinction. Teacher, pupil, and examiner act and re-
act upon each other.

Private Tuition. — A very large number of resident
graduates occupy themselves in Oxford as private
tutors. There is nothing remarkable in the fact, for
the private teacher is the most ancient institution in the
place, from which professors are an offshoot, and on
which college tuition is a late usurpation. The terms
of a degree are a licence to teach, whatever the degree
may be ; the special subject in which the graduate is
empowered to instruct others being definitively stated in
the terms by which he is invested with his academical
status.

But, even if the private tutor could not claim cus-
tomary antiquity and a formal recognition of his func-
tions, the exigencies of a natural demand would call
him into existence. He is wanted for the work of the
place; and if college instruction were ever so much
improved, and professorial teaching made ever so effec-
tive, the inevitable result of a larger competition for

THE COLLEGE. 139

academical honours would only call forth the energies
of a larger body of private tutors. As a proof of this,
there is no college in which so efficient and laborious
a staff of college tutors can be found as at Balliol, there
is no college which has for the last twenty years come
near it in the acquisition of academical honours, and
there is certainly none, the undergraduates of which
read so steadily with private tutors. And beyond
doubt, now that this college has very wisely made a
rule, which, by the way, should have been made for the
whole University, that every undergraduate shall, under
pain of dismissal, appear in the final school, not as a
candidates for a pass, but for a class ; it will inevitably
follow, that a still larger number of Balliol under-
graduates wiU seek the services of those men who give
private and personal instruction. It betrays an utter
ignorance of the nature of things, and of the ordinary
rules which regulate every kind of competition, when
college tutors affect to dissuade undergraduates from
the use of private tutors, on the plea that college
lectures are sufficient for the purpose. The better the
college lecture is, the more need is there for private
instruction ; and if, as sometimes may be the case, the
college lecture is wholly wortliless, there is still a need
of private instruction, though for a different reason.
No doubt, to a person of very large abilities, a private
tutor may not be necessary, and especially is this the
case when such persons do, from indolence or per-
versity, decline to compete for academical honours ; but
it may well be doubted whether, in such cases as these,
the assistance of college lectures is at all appreciable in
the product. Of course, if college tutors act volun-
tarily as private tutors to their undergraduates, the case
is different ; but such voluntary action is rare, is pre-

140 EDUCATION IN OXFOED.

carious ; and in default of ordinary human motives —
those, namely, in which the services rendered are repaid
by a pecuniary equivalent — is not over trustworthy.
At any rate, these exceptional cases are no calculable
diminution to the general rule.

It is not difficult to detect the cause of this use of
private tutors, though their employment adds largely,
in many cases, to the expenditure of an undergraduate's
career. To most men a degree, to some a class, is the
object of Oxford residence and study. Now, for the
degree there are a vast many candidates whose abilities
or previous education preclude them from any hope, as
at present constituted, of academical distinction. To
such persons, the earlier the degree is gotten, the less
is the total of academical expenses. And though the
general ignorance of pass-men exercises a very depress-
ing effect on the examination schools, yet the tendency
of these schools is inevitably to exact as much as can
safely be demanded from the candidates for a degree.
The quantity, in short, sufficient for a pass is, even
without the knowledge or the will of the examiner,
comparative. Thus, at present, there is less virtually
required from the undergraduate than there was prior
to the change of 1850. A common degree is certainly
worth less, if the general public were able to appre-
ciate it. In those days, undergraduates habitually read
for six months with a private tutor, previous to appear-
ing for their degree ; and I can safely assert, from my own
extensive experience as a private tutor, acquired far more
knowledge of a solid kind than they now do in the slip-
slop quality of a very much diminished quantity. The
office of the private tutor, to mere pass-men, has, for all
good, passed away ; the work now gone through on this
score, being the veriest cram which the ingenuity of

THE COLLEGE. 141

the tutor can furnish his pupil with, in order that he
may, so to speak, dodge the examiner. This is not the
fault of the tutor, as silly people think, but it is the
fault of the University which has prepared an examina-
tion, the details of which are to be got up in this
trumpery, superficial manner. To blame the tutor is
as reasonable a thing as it would be to blame an
advocate, who uses the best of his skill and experience
in defeating the application of a particular law to a
particular person, who happens to be his client. Any
person who has any experience of the practical ope-
ration of such a state of things, is aware that the
ingenuity of the advocate is as much a profit to the
future action of the legislator as it is immediately to his
client.

The case is still stronger in the private tuition of
the class man. Here competition is far more charac-
teristically the feature of the examination. Beyond
doubt the amount required of the class men has been
constantly increasing during the prevalence of the old
system, up to the time in which it was superseded by that
of 1853, when the classification of 1850 began to apply to
the final schools. And with equal certainty have the
modified and scantier quantities proffered at present,
been higher in point of quality within the limits assigned
to them, and subsequently created for them than they
were at first. Nor does this fact take away from what
I have said elsewhere, about the unsatisfactory nature of
the present class schools. Scholarship, it is true, is
progressively enfeebled, a careful acquaintance with
books is getting rarer, and the substitution of general
principles, general knowledge, crude criticism on events,
and a gossip of philosophy has been but a poor recom-
pense for what has been lost in these matters. But

142 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

nevertheless more of these novelties are acquired, stored
Tip, and reproduced under the pressure of the examiners'
requirements, and the inevitable tendency to a larger
standard of quantity and quality. Though candidates
for honours are put into classes, the limit of knowledge
required for each class shifts insensibly, and continually
verges towards more ample claims. The system, in short,
though nominally formal and uniform also, is practically
and really competitive, and the examiner is not only
true to his own function, but is carrying out the principles
of his office and duty, when he seeks continually to
raise the general standard for the class schools and the
examiners.

And now that there is added to the ambition of
distinction in the class schools, the palpable and material
advantage of an open competition for those fellowships
which are being flung among the successful competitors
for academical honours; and the old fashion according
to which petty caprices, social affectations, and personal
influences had far more to do with the disposal of fellow-
ships, than intellectual or moral worth, is passing away,
the preparation for such a competition will yearly
become more severe, and the study more careful and
laborious. It is under such circumstances as reasonable
to expect that undergraduates will be content with the
coUege or professorial lecture, when they are alive to
what is at the end of their academical course, as to
conceive a manufacturer will put up with antiquated
macliinery and unskilled labour, when the most delicate
appliances of invention, and the readiest skill in work-
manship are absolute essentials to fortune, and a manifest
economy of capital. And they w^hose interests are most
bound up in the ultimate success of undergraduates,
parents, namely, and friends, may be well assured that

THE COLLEGE. 143

in the catalogue of academical expenses there is none
which returns more abundant profit upon outlay than
the cost of a private tutor. Over and over again it
happens, that a parsimony on this score, or an ill-advised
notion that collegiate instruction is fully enough for all the
exigencies of academical education and its degree, have
been stultified by the fact, that undergraduates who
should under proper teaching and moderate pains have
taken their degree in the shortest time allowed by the
statutes of the university, have remained in Oxford for
two or three years longer than was necessary, frittering
away the most important period of their life, wasting
money which has been provided for themby many domestic
sacrifices, and acquiring habits of sloth in preparation,
and of indifierence at what ought to be the most serious
misfortune and the greatest shame to a right-minded
youth, the disgrace of being plucked on one's presenting
oneself for a creditable qualification. There is nothing,
I am persuaded, in the whole course of an under-
graduate's career which is more damaging to him, than
the being forced into, or being led into the miserable
habit of searching out the minimum of duties, and
trying to dodge claims on his capacity, which the
university, for its own credit and his good, exacts from
him,

A college tutor ought never to be trusted with the
answer to the question: Ought my son to have a
private tutor ? The best men have their amour propre,
and the most conscientious college teacher is tetchy
about any doubt as to the efficiency of his instruction.
And naturally enough : he has no credit, or but little,
if his pupil succeeds, because his share in the success is
divided among others, nor has he any scandal at his
failure, because the same process of distribution relieves

144 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

him from the collective inconvenience, and from any
sense of personal inefficiency. But were he and all his
colleagues ever so clever, ever so good, ever so efficient
as teachers, the inevitable necessity of personal instruc-
tion in matters of such large importance as a class is, or
should be, are a total hindrance to his supplying all
that is needed to the candidate.

The expense of a private tutor, when compared with
the highest rate of college tuition, is considerable. If
the pupil reads an hour every other day with his teacher
the fee is lOl. for two months (eight weeks), tlie ordinary
duration of the term ; if every day the fee is double.
Few persons, however, use a tutor's assistance every
day, or when they do, employ these services under the
immediate pressure of an examination. ,The fees are
settled by custom ; and it is perhaps fair to add, that a
very moderate income as a private tutors implies, not only
from the nature of his labours, but from the fact that his
services are required periodically only, and ordinarily
with considerable intervals of comparative inaction, that
he is working very hard.

There is a perfect free trade, a competition between
private tutors. Occasionally, it is true, the recommenda-
tions of college authorities have considerable weight with
certain undergraduates; but in the majority of cases,
and certainly in the best men, both as tutors and pupils,
this has but little to do with the success of a private
teacher. He stands on his own merits; and though
young men are sometimes apt to prefer the services of
persons about their own age, and fresh from the schools,
in preference to those who have had larger experience, yet
one is well enough aware that this is frequently paralleled
in other occupations, and is quite within the calculations
of an open competition.

THE COLLEGE. 145

Naturally, too, there are various kinds of private
tutors. Any one who takes the trouble to read the
slang novels of Oxford life, in which it would seem that
the main business of undergraduates is to indulge in
riot and debauchery, will find caricatures of the fast
private tutor, who crams his pupil in divinity by a
profane jargon, and stuffs his head with a memoria
technica for the schools. But such an evil — enormously
exaggerated in the publications I refer to — >is but part
and parcel of the ordinary features of competitive occu-
pations. There are young men in the university who
are a scandal to it, and there are, maybe, teachers who
assimilate their teaching to the capacity and character
of those whom they prepare. But if this be the case —
and I am by no means by way of saying that it is,
except in a very modified degree — it is, I repeat, the
fault of the university which makes such teaching
possible ; and whatever this teaching may be, it certainly
has no resemblance to the coarse bufibonery which
characterizes college novels. People who read them
may safely disbelieve them.

As the choice of the pupil is free, so the relations of
teacher to his pupil are personal and often intimate.
These relations are, however, but temporary ; and not
so frequently as might be is there exercised influence
over undergraduates by these teachers, which is the
more profitable as it is entirely voluntary. That these
relations are not more intimate and advantageous, is far
more the fault of parents than of undergraduates. It
would be highly desirable if parents, leaving their sons
in Oxford to make choice of their tutor, w^ould establish
some relations between themselves and him. I can
speak from experience of the happy effects which have
occurred when this confidence has been given and

10

146 • EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

claimed, and of the mutual advantage of an intercourse
authorized on this fashion.

But even apart from this rare incident, and it is to
be regretted that it is rare, there is no occupation,
despite its laborious nature and comparative uncertain-
ties, despite its responsibilities and its anxieties, more
grateful to well-meaning persons than that between
pupil and private teacher. It is no small pleasure to
watch the gradual progress of an educated intelligence,
to mark how the several steps of an elaborate system
of logic, of psychology, of moral philosophy, and of
political science are developed in the mind of those
who receive implicitly with a view to understanding
completely what they receive. There is no occasion
in which the authority of the teacher is so thoroughly
tempered and so completely corrected by the rational
acquiescence of the pupil. There is no occasion on
which one has so fully the satisfaction of working out
one's own train of thought before the inquiring mind
of an interested hearer, where one is more sure that
plainness of language and accuracy of detail are neces-
sary, and where logomachies are less profitable. It is
as though one were anxiously watching from a central
mountain top, and saw, one by one, the beacons in a
long line receiving and transmitting the light oneself
has set up.

I am confident in saying that Oxford is indebted to
the private teachers within it for well nigh all its
developments in learning. On many grounds they
have not been so extensive as might be desired, and
they are still less known than extensive. But this is
the only part of the academical system to which the
wholesome stimulus of competition is appUed; and com-
petition, be it remembered, regulated by the fact of its

THE COLLEGE. 147

being affected by other more lucrative callings, as well
as the fact that it requires a certain acknowledged pro-
ficiency for its exercise. Most of our best thinkers
have spent years in the service of private teaching, and
there, if they have got them, is to be found the origin
of the careful analysis and lucid exposition which
belongs to the strongest and healthiest mind. Pity it is
that when they get used to their work they leave it for
more profitable, if not more grateful, employment ; and
that the best teachers of young men are obliged to quit
their station for the instruction of boys. Pity it is
still more, that this large power for the moral govern-
ment of youth is, by its being onesided and partial in
its influences, less effective for the great ends it might
serve, and occasionally does serve, in pursuance of
relations which, beginning fi*om the best source, volun-
tary confidence, do affect intellectual training, and might
affect personal character.

Eeadino for Examinations. — Period at which the
Degrees should be taken. — Pass and Class. — I am
not in the present chapter, by way of giving any
advice to undergraduates as to the method that they
should adopt in preparing themselves for examination,
nor of prescribing what is the time at which it is
advisable for persons who contemplate honours to
proffer themselves as candidates ; nor, again, of enter-
ing into the comparative capacities of undergraduates,
the books they should read, the school they should
prefer to compete in, the tests by which they may dis-
cover whether the bent of their genius lies in the direp-
tion of classical learning, of historical research, of
mathematical deductions, of physical philosophy. They
must find these things out for themselves; nor do I

10—2

148 , EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

think, were I ever so competent to deal abstractedly
with all these questions, that much profit would ensue
to the reader from my attempting to give him directions
for the solution of these personal inquiries.

Several gentlemen of considerable experience have
attempted the discussion of these matters. As may be
expected, the result is either a series of generalities or
a scheme as practicable as the bed of Procrustes. No
writing ever raises such hopes, and ever disappoints
them more fully, no, not even a newspaper, as a guide
to students in reading for university honours. Without
exception, works of this kind are and must be delusive.
And as long as no two minds are exactly constituted
alike, so long will this kind of advice be nugatory.
Further, even if one could make minds as uniform as
possible in power and material, the numerous con-
tingencies of training, physical continuity, actual know-
ledge, and the like, would still create a variety which
no generalities can practically unite. Everybody must
find out for himself what is the best method of dis-
covering his own powers, and, which is generally
antecedent to the discovery, giving those powers the
fullest opportunity of development. No one, I hon-
estly believe, would ever rely on a guide to university
honours, except he were of such capacity as not to
attain them at all. The writers of these works are, as
may be expected, composing an autobiography of them-
selves during their course of study, and are still
occupied with the process by which they themselves
have won their position.

It is worth while, however, for the sake of parents
and parties interested in another way with the proceed-
ings of young men in Oxford, to state briefly what
reading for examinations is, and to say a little about

THE COLLEGE. 149

the other topics which are put at the head of this
chapter.

That system of the university which leaves it op-
tional with undergraduates to appear as ordinary pass-
men or as candidates for honours, inevitably suggests to
the majority of men that they should accept the former
alternative. The distinction destroys, in many persons'
minds, all inducements to careful study. It bids a
young man weigh himself before he is, as he must be,
weighed by others. And though this is an excellent
moral rule in certain cases, yet, in the determination as
to our own resolution in postponing present pleasure
or care for immediate regularity and study, with a view
to subsequent distinction, it may be doubted whether
the university does not put a premium on sloth. At
any rate, the effect of the practice is that few, very few
men, out of the mass of undergraduates — and these
undergraduates are, or are supposed to be, the pick of
public schools — read for academical honours. Of course
there is no remedy for this but the abolition of the line
which separates pass from class, the rating all can-
didates for degree in classes, and by implication, ex-
tending the number of the classes. But until this
regulation is accepted, these motives against reading for
honours will have their way.

Furthermore, that alteration of the university sys-
tem, which allows a class list to intervene between the
first public examination and the final one, is, as I have
already said, a strong inducement to decline the attempt
at honours in the final school. If the candidate is rated
in the highest place under this examination, he is un-
willing to risk this position by a second trial : if, on the
other hand, he takes a low place, he is discouraged
from a further attempt. These causes have, therefore.

150 EDUCATION IN OXEORD.

effected that, in the first place, but a small portion, from
one-third to one-fourth of the candidates for a degree
appeared in the class schools; and on the subsequent
alteration of the examination statute to its present pro-
portions and regulations, the number of candidates has
sunk to one-tenth.

I repeat these circumstances, because they show the
effect of bad legislation, and are, as far as I know, the
immediate explanation of the singular phenomenon, that
in a university whose characteristic studies are classical
learning, the number of those who read in any sys-
tematic way is progi'essively declining, and to expound
the reason why so large a proportion of Oxford students,
are content with an unadorned degree.

A common degree may be attained with care by any
person of average abilities and ordinary school aquire-
ments, by the work of about an hour or two daily.
The vast majority of pass-men do not read so much.
They go into lectures, as I have observed, and the
scanty knowledge they have may be kept alive by the
routine which they undergo ; but for real reading, six
weeks' or a month's exercise at the text of the author,
and the matter of his writing in some cases — the former
procured by translations, and the latter by a process of
cramming — is all that is ordinarily given to each exami-
nation, because it is really all that is required. The
rest of an undergraduate's time is occupied in those
pursuits which gratify his tastes, develop his muscles,
improve his manners, draw upon his funds, or in any
other way, bring about what his father meant him to
achieve at the university, or, perhaps, did not mean him
to achieve. Of course, all these advantages may be
procured in company with a considerable amount of
real knowledge and mental training; and though they

THE COLLEGE. 151

are exceedingly valuable, they could be gotten by
virtue of any aggregation of young men, and are not
any part of the academical theory. It is worth while
to mention this, because many of those who uphold the
details of the university and collegiate system, assign
these results to academical influences.

The reader, therefore, will be prepared for the con-
clusion at which I arrive from the facts of the present
academical system, that as long as this prevails — and
indeed after its alteration, in case there be no intention
on the part of the undergraduate to compete for any
academical honours which are worth having — that he
should attempt his degree at the earliest possible period,
and pass, or attempt to pass, every examination as soon
as the university allows him.

The earliest period at which an undergraduate can
attempt his responsions or little go is his second term,
that is,*he can, if there be, as there ordinarily will be, an
examination for this certificate of proficiency, appear for
it in the first term of his residence. Then, in his seventh
term, he can proffer himself for the " first public exami-
nation," known as moderations ; and in his twelfth, for
his final examination. In plain English, he can get his
degree, and ought to get it, in two years and a half, or
three years at the outside, from the date of his matricu-
lation. He should not, however, be sent to Oxford
until he is fully able to pass his responsions ; and his
education has been a fi:aud, or a nullity, if he is not
competent for this. If parents would only insist on
their sons presenting themselves for these examinations,
in case they do not desire and expect that honours
should be attempted, they would be fulfilHng, far more
fully than they imagine, their duty towards their chil-
dre n ; they would strengthen the authority of the

152 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

university, they would save a vast amount of money,
and obviate a vast amount of idleness, folly, and vice.

On the other hand, considerable latitude as to time
should be accorded to those parties who desire to dis-
tinguish themselves in the class schools. No one, I
repeat, can advise them what to read, beyond what the
practice of the university commends, experience of
the schools sanctions, and their own capacity qualifies.
More time must be given, and more money must be
spent. And no wonder; the prize is great. The
training is, if wholesome, invaluable. The material
value of a good class is not in process of depreciation,
but inevitably in the ascendant. The moral value of a
habit of study, and the steady contemplation of a remote
object of acknowledged worth, is greater still. It
would be well if parents not only recommended, but
insisted on, 'the trial being made. There is no one
who, handled judiciously, and who follows the course
designed for him, and approved by his own experience,
who would not be bettered in the process. If there be
any persons who would not, and could not, be improved
by steady and systematic study, the university is, I con-
ceive, no fitting place for them, and they, I am sure, are
neither ornament or profit to the university. I can
safely say that I have seen, both in my experience as a
teacher and as an examiner, hundreds of young men to
whom the university and* its teachings would have been
the means of great knowledge and sound method, but
who have lost those opportunities, for lack, I imagine,
of discreet firmness on the part of their parents, and
rational advice on that of their academical guardians.

Expenditure. — ^Next to the question of the ultimate
utility of an academical education, and before it with a

THE COLLEGE. 153

very large class of persons who might, a priori, be anxious
to avail themselves on behalf of their children of the ad-
vantages, moral, social, intellectual, and material, which
three or four years' study at Oxford would aiford, that of
the necessary expenditure holds its place. On this point
there is a very general and a very well-founded alarm.
It is ordinarily understood to be enormous. Each year
of academical life is known — and the academical year is
only twenty-four weeks — to cost half as much as, very
often, the whole family of the undergraduate is main-
tained at. Many a clergyman, with an income of four
hundred a year, or thereabouts, wishing that one of his
sons, at least, should have the same education, and per-
haps follow the same profession, as his father, begins to
save, and pinch his family, from the very boyhood of
the son, in order that he may accumulate enough for a
liberal education at Oxford. England is cram full of
daily histories, more touching in the voluntary privations
of fathers, and mothers, and daughters, for the sake of
one who is to inherit his father's position, than the most
pathetic passages of novels. Derived from these priva-
tions, out of the wanton forgetfulness of the son, and the
uncomplaining patience of his family, out of the misery
of evil example, and the facility and width of its con-
tagion, incidents have occurred of a far more tragic
cast than the world knows, and perhaps would care to
know, since the tragic sense h strongly infected with
flunkeyism. If folks could tell where to gather it from,
and how to get at the facts, they might be overwhelmed
with materials for those sentimental sorrows which well-
off people enjoy, and philanthropic novelists profit by.

Many people who, knowing that there are facilities
for ruin or vicarious suffering, as the case may be, in
the discipline of Oxford, which no other place of educa-

154 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

tion can lay claim to, either ignorantly or carelessly
defend its domestic institutions, and point to individual
cases in which there have been great results with great
economy of means, and a just appreciation of an under-
graduate's duties and opportunities. As well quote the
occasional success of wild speculation, in the forgetful-
ness of the larger amount of mischief and loss. The
defence is the gambler's reason. It does not meet the real
charge, that there are more young men of fair hopes, and
more than average powers, at the university of Oxford,
who do not succeed at all, or whose success is dispropor-
tionately small, than in any other institution where per-
sons are gathered together for the purposes of education.

The academical year is ordinarily twenty- four weeks.
That is to say, no undergraduate need reside longer than
this period in each of the three years which make up the
amount of time required by the university for his
degree ; and, indeed, must get permission — a permission
seldom granted except in Easter — to reside in Oxford
during vacations. That is, the whole period required by
the Oxford statutes is seventy-two weeks at the most.
By peculiar management it may be limited to sixty-four
weeks.

It can rarely happen that the annual expenditure of
an undergraduate's residence is less than 200/. I have
inquired over and over again, and with invariably the
same answer. I do not mean to say that there have not
been cases in which this amount has proved to be much
above what has been expended ; but for one case of an
economy below the limit, there are twenty or more
above it. There are found, it is true, young men
whose conscientiousness, or self-respect, or indifference
to the social habits of the place, or absorption in study,
and the like, keep within a narrow expenditure. But

THE COLLEGE. 155

the cases are exceptional. The tendency is the other
way. Such economy means that an undergraduate is
above his fellows in his tastes and character, and no
account can be taken of such moral monsters in a dis-
quisition on the ordinary practice of young men. The
great majority will go in the same way with each other;
and it is well if the limit which I have assigned is rigidly
kept to. It is at least ample.

Out of this annual expenditure, college bills amomit
to between 801. and 1007. These bills include tuition
provided by the college, rent of rooms (unfurnished, the
furniture being purchased and transferred on entering
and leaving rooms) ; kitchen and buttery— -the former
of these two providing dinner, the latter commons and
beer. . The college does not supply the undergraduate
with tea, coffee, sugar. Most colleges arrange for the
undergraduates' washing and coals, and these items are
included in the bill. Besides these, a fixed sum is paid
for servants, besides a variable gratuity, left to the dis-
cretion of the undergraduate. This division of servants'
payments is a wise regulation, as the supply may be
stopped in case the servants neglect their duties. The
servants paid voluntarily by the undergraduate are
the scout, porter, bedmaker, messenger, and shoe-
cleaner, and the amounts paid to each vary from IL to
25. 6d, a term, more or less, according to the custom of
the college. These items will make the expenditure up
to 100^. or 120Z. a year.

For the remainder, it goes to clothes, travelling, wine,
pictures, horses, or whatever other articles the under-
graduate needs or fancies, and it is in these that expen-
diture is extravagant or economical. Of course, they
who receive much company in their rooms raise the
college bill to a larger amount than what I have de-

156 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

noted ; but, in the ordinary course of things, note is
taken of lavish college expenditure, and a limit put
upon it by the domestic authorities. The check is not
so stringent as might be, for it is, of course, necessary
for this supervision that the college tutor should be
vigilant and active, and that the relations of those
undergraduates whose expenditure ought to be care-
fully checked should communicate their wishes to the
authorities of the college. Parents are ordinarily far
more to be blamed for the extravagance of their sons
in the university than they are aware of, or would be
willing to admit.

The great cause of this large expenditure, on the
part of the average number of undergraduates, is the
same as that of the extravagant and ruinous prodigality
of others — the force, namely, of example ; and the un-
likelihood of any one young man being better — or,
indeed, much worse — than the conduct of the general
body of young men. .Shut up within the walls of one
building, with very little virtual superintendence of
their conduct, and scarce any of their expenditure, the
limits to extravagance and foolish waste are found only
in the taste of the majority. Too old for the coarse
authority of a pedagogue, and too young for the dis-
cretion of their own time and means, the facility for
going wrong is not so surprising as the fact of so many
doing well. Oxford is shut to the nation, and the most
powerful means for producing the large influences of
liberal education over an extended, and increasingly
extended, area are sacrificed, as has been already said,
to the monopoly of the colleges, who boast of their
domestic institutions with little evidence and less reason
in their favour.

It is not difficult to discover what direction under-

THE COLLEGE. 157

graduate extravagance takes, if one is at the pains to
cast one's eye over an Oxford directory, or trades' list,
and get a knowledge of the multitudinous hangers-on
to the colleges. There is a very considerable floating
population in Oxford, which has what is technically
called no occupation, but which is really engaged in
ministering to the boating, cricketing, and horse-riding
pastimes of the place. Some portion of this population
might naturally be expected in every place where there
are masses of young men aggregated, and the world
could not go on without tailors and hosiers. But the
amount of such parties is a marked and suggestive
feature in the economical history of Oxford. At first
sight, it would appear that the object of the university
was the enjoyment of social pleasures and athletic
amusements.

That parents contribute largely to the follies of their
own children during the time of their undergraduate
career, even when they deprecate the follies themselves,
would be a matter of which they, on their own part,
would be conscious, if they cared to investigate the general
details of necessary expenditure and voluntary expense.
But it is the misfortune or the fault of most parents
that they think their duty is fulfilled, if they simply
accept the status quo nunc of academical institutions,
and determine whether, on its ordinary conditions, and
with its ulterior advantages, they think it desirable to
incur the estimated outlay on an academical education.
They omit two important acts of common prudence,
which together would do more to expand to the fullest,
and afterwards to force another kind of expansion of
the university, when its present resources for the ac-
commodation of undergraduates is overpast. These are :
putting themselves en rapport^ so to speak, with the

158 EDUCATION IN OXFOKD.

necessary expenditure of the place ; and the other is,
after having defined the limit of expenditure which they,
can afford, employing supervision of a qualified kind,
either from a college, or, better, if it could be from a
private tutor.

Until, then, parents commend themselves to the con-
sideration of what goes on in the university to which
they send their sons, or would like to send them, there is
little hope of any great diminution of ordinary, and little
more hope of a prevention to extraordinary expenditure.
There is no reason to believe, judging by the obvious
moral effects of a monopoly, and a sufficient supply from
a permanent demand — such as that of the general requi-
site on the part of bishops of graduation at a university
— ^that the colleges will reform themselves in the par-
ticular of expense. There is no human motive why
they should; and, as has been elsewhere stated, one
cannot rely on the exceptional and rare occurrence of
active, self-denying superintendence, when the superin-
tendence is voluntary. It is idle to expect anything
from human nature, unless it be roused by stimulants
and checked by safeguards. Neither of these are to be
discovered in the decorous uniformity of college life and
college authority.

But the negligence of parents is not the sole cause
of this large expenditure and occasional extravagance.
There are certain relations m which a particular class
of trade stands in Oxford to the undergraduates, which
contribute very powerfully towards these evils. This
trade is that which unites, naturally enough, high prices
with extraordinary facilities of credit, and which is espe-
cially directed towards supplying those who ought not
to have the latter, and ought not to afford the former.

The credit system in Oxford, though less characteristic

THE COLLEGE. 159

than it used to be, is still a marked feature in academical
life. Every undergraduate can get any amount of
goods lie likes — within conceivable limits — from any
number of tradesmen. I presume that, in the long run,
such business is lucrative and safe, but it must be at
very considerable sacrifices to the purchaser. At any
rate, Oxford credit has been known over and over again
to be, in after life, a mill-stone round the neck of those
who have spent a short time in the university. I have
known persons of forty or fifty years old who have not
yet escaped from its consequences. In fact, many
tradesmen habitually suggest that amounts need not be
settled till after the degree is taken, and the existing
privileges of the University Court are a great protection
to their kind of business.

By a statute of the university, no one can be presented
to his degree, pendente lite. Hence it is in the power of
any creditor to enter an action against his debtor, at any
time, even immediately before his graduation, and so
expose him to the disgrace and scandal of having his
degree refused in open Convocation. Of course, this
privilege is rarely taken, the practice of trade in Oxford
not being to disturb a coimection with a particular
college or colleges, by pressing the settlement of claims
in so summary a manner. But the indirect influence of
the regulation is large, and payments of account, with
virtual or actual acknowledgments of the whole debt,
are the natural consequences of the statute.

It sometimes happens, however, that tradesmen bring
actions in the University Court. This court, elsewhere
described, is, a priori, the very worst vehicle for the dis-
charge of justice between suitors. Its business is neces-
sarily small, its fees must be large, and its judgments
may be partial. So evil was its reputation, that while

160 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

tlie jurisdiction which it possesses was by a clause in the
University Act of 1854 retained, it was enacted that it
should be assimilated to the county courts in procedure,
and that the judges should frame a body of regulations
for its guidance. Neither assimilation nor regulations
have, as far as I have heard, been forthcoming.

It must inevitably be the case where a judge being
resident on the spot is one of a body which is in a normal
state of antagonism to another corporation, and is there-
fore disposed to concede in what does not immediately
concern that portion of his own body which is brought
into collision with the other corporation, that there is a
very definite tendency towards conciliation, even to
the verge of unfairness in his judicial procedure.
There is quite enough to dispute about, between the
authorities of the university and city, without importing
into these disputes the wretched squabbles between
undergraduates and tradesmen. Besides, a privilege,
such as a peculiar court, is odious; and, in order to
retain even a shadow of popularity, it must make a
sacrifice of interests. When those interests are other
people's, the surrender is easy; but the justice of the
procedure may be sadly marred.

The most ludicrous stories are told of the judgments
of bygone assessors in the Vice-Chancellor's Court. I
have heard of one who ruled against two receipts
pleaded in bar of an action for debt, that it was more
likely that the undergraduate should have forgotten to
send the money than that the tradesman should have
given false evidence. I have heard of one who
habitually decided according to the fact of a particular
proctor, i.e, an advocate, being retained, and who gave
private interviews to plaintiff's. And as for the rules of
the civil code having been the basis of ordinary judg-

THE COLLEGE. 161

ments, I imagine that the assessor did not, verj pro-
bably, know the names of the treatises comprising
those codes, and certainly not their contents. The
Vice-Chancellor's Court is a remnant of barbaric
feudalism, tempered by a mild disinclination to oiffend
plaintiffs.

I do not pretend to discuss the vexed question of how
far it would be well that short periods should constitute
legal limitations, but I am sure that the best moral
arguments which could be alleged, and maybe the best
economical ones also, might be gathered from the facts
of those actions which are brought on the part of those
tradesmen whose dealings are ordinarily with young
men, and more particularly with young men at the
university. And this more especially from the circum-
stance that when cases of this kind are decided by juries,
in suits brought against the guardians of infants, there
is so marvellous an elasticity in the interpretation of
the phrase " necessaries," that one is disposed to doubt
whether juries should be trusted with more than the fact
of the contract, but that the meaning of the word
should be left to the discretion of the judge.

Many remedies have been suggested for the preven-
tion of the credit system, of which the best seems to be
that which makes Oxford debts subject to the equitable
judgment of a magistrate appointed for that purpose,
and without appeal except to the Court of Queen's
Bench. And this form of equitable jurisprudence is
the more rational in a place like Oxford, where very
many transactions bear so questionable an aspect as to
suggest that the ordinary process > of trade has been
made a stalking-horse for the practice of money-lending
at exorbitant rates. I am well aware, from cases that
have come to my own knowledge, that such transac-

U

162 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

tions have been effected under the colour of legitimate
trade.

Whatever, then, may be the causes which lead to
the large expenditure necessary for an academical
degree, the fact remains the same. It may be the case
that some persons are willing to make that degree the
measure of a certain age, in which the business of life
is protracted ; and of a certain cost ; and to argue that
the value of the degree is to be estimated by the time
it takes to achieve it, and the money payments neces-
sary to procure it. But, in effect, a conventional value
founded on so artificial a rule is at best temporary, and
will inevitably be superseded sooner or later by some
other means or by an external reformation. It is im-
possible that the credit of the highest English educa-
tion should be made to rest on the facts that it is com-
pleted at twenty-three years of age, and at the charge
of 1,000Z., or thereabouts. Many, very many, will
decline to compete for it on these terms, and they wha
wish for it will, by the creation of other institutions, or
by the force of a public estimate of the product, be
disposed to seek similar advantages elsewhere, at a less
overwhelming cost. At the same time, even under the
present circumstances, the reader will, it is to be hoped,
find, as he goes on with this work, that there are mate-
rial advantages still connected with the university
education of no inconsiderable amount.

At present let us consider the effect of this large
expenditure on those who do come to the university,
and the indirect hardship inflicted on those who do not.
There are two evils which result from the conscious-
ness that the members of the university are limited by
dearness and monopoly. These are laziness and one-
sidedness. Not only is it true, where exclusiveness is

THE COLLEGE. 163

the rule of those who profit by any calling, that the
numbers of those who are customers of that calling
are narrowed to an extent which would not have
naturally been contemplated, but they who enter into
the field are, by the same cause, indisposed to exert
themselves. There are many young men in Oxford
who want the stimulus of competing numbers. Sup-
pose it were possible that persons could be examined
in the Oxford schools who had not been submitted to
the parental despotism of college life, and that such
persons bore away the prizes of academical distinction.
The obvious effect of such competing agencies would
be the activity of those who are being deprived of their
reputation by the energies of other teaching and other
methods.

Again, with all its equality, the tendency of under-
graduate collegiate life is to onesidedness. That men
leave the university with but a scanty comprehension
of the varying conditions about them, and with narrow
stereotyped views, is so general an impression that it
cannot be false. The views of such men are, to use a
cant phrase, shoppy. They cannot ordinarily escape
the clumsiness engendered by a single aspect of human
action and human motives. They make a world of
their own, which is habitually eclipsed by larger
worlds. And nowhere is this felt so painfully as in
that profession which the university prepares so largely
for. The energies and self-denial of parochial clergy-
men are beyond praise, while their tact and judgment
are too often below contempt, and their practice, even
in the most familiar parts of their duty, and the most
ordinary details of social life, exposes them in the worst
manner to the alternations of fraud and suspicion. Nor
is it wonderful when one reflects on that utter lack of

11—2

164 EDUCATION IN OXFORD,

anytliiiig like a dialectical education, and familiarity
with the realities of modern society which is discernible
so openly and so perpetually in the course of an acade-
mical curriculum. Some one has spoken of this igno-
rance of the details of social life, and the relations of
the clergyman with his people, under the name of the
" gentlemanly heresy." This tact, which should have
come elsewhere, must subsequently be picked up by
experience and inconvenience, if it is gotten at all, since
the fruits of what might have been once learned in
Oxford, are often gone for ever by being missed at the
proper time.

Still more formidable, however, is the effect on those
who do not come to the university. Of these, numbers
are, no doubt, prevented by the expense attending an
academical curriculum. Yet nothing is more alien to
the genius of the university than such a hindrance.
Whatever developments there may have been made in
the doctrine that the raising oneself from the lowest
social position to the highest is the best right of liberty
and civilization, this power, or privilege, or right, or
whatever else it may be called, is the most ancient
characteristic of the miiversity of Oxford. It was
emphatically the means whereby poverty was able, out
of the diligent attendance to letters, to raise itself, per
saltum, to the most reputable social state. And such a
privilege has only been broken in upon since the com- ,
mencement of the present century, though it has gone
on decreasino; till the cjeneral bodv of those who in old
times mounted to eminence by their academical labours
have been excluded from the university, in pursuance
of the worst and most artificial condition, the very
poverty which it was the first object of the collegiate
foundations to relieve and sustain. It is a hardship

THE COLLEGE. 165

not tlie less real because so long ignored, and a hard-
ship of the highest order, that men are deterred on
pecuniary grounds from attempting that which their
intelligence and their industry give them abundant war-
ranty to hope. This right of poor men to come to
Oxford is very different from the right which has often
been claimed for them, and, in my opinion, under the
present Act, wisely resisted, that, namely, of poverty
beincT a claim to colleo;e emoluments. It is doubtful
whether such a privilege, that is, the privilege based on
mere poverty, is equitable, and it is perfectly certain that
the interpretation of the privilege would be nothing but
an endless job, as it was before the negation of the pre-
vious sj^stem was imported into the Act.

It is, as might be expected, disastrous to the univer-
sity. As has been already said, in the face of a vast
increase of material wealth and of population, the num-
bers at the university have not only been stationary for
the last twenty years, but have actually, in some degree,
retrograded. The institutions of the place are beginning
to feel the effect of putting impediments in the way of
great abilities with insufficient means, by the great decline
in popular estimation which Oxford has experienced.

But it is even more disastrous to the nation. Out
of those who have been enabled, through the medium
of the university, to set a mark upon their ability, in-
.telligence, and industry, and thereupon to approach the
larger duties of a higher, and reasonably higher, station,
England, in old times, gathered her jurists, her states-
men, her churchmen. It must be supposed that the
education given is the best of its kind, and the distri-
bution of academical distinctions equitable and appre-
ciable. But when the field of choice is progressively
narrowed, other sources supply the deficiency, though, it

166 EDUCATION IN OXFOED.

may be, in an inferior degree. It is inevitable that they
should. Yet the means by which proficiency should be
tested, when it is not tested by a demonstration of actual
knowledge at some one great time, but by an estimate
of a series of facts spread over a large space of time, are
rare, capricious, uncertain. We do not educate the best
of God's gifts, natural quickness and conscientious in^
dustry, in what we confidently assert is the best way,
because we have walled round the domains of know-
ledge by a cordon of narrow fortresses, and provided
that no one should enter, except he be possessed of a
golden key.

The Compakative Merits of diffeeent Colleges. —
One of the commonest questions people ask is — " To
what college shall I send my son?" — and it is a ques-
tion to which it is far from easy to give an answer.
Indeed, the determination of the question must be due
in general to accident or prejudice. People; who have
themselves been at a particular college, have ordinarily
esprit de corps enough to advise their own, when the
querist has no means of arriving at a conclusion for
himself. Again, colleges have local and particular
connections. For instance, Exeter has a large west
country connection, and a very considerable clerical
one. Balliol and University are strongly occupied by
a Scotch and north of England connection. Jesus is
almost entirely Welch. Trinity is powerfully Wyke-
hamist. Queen's was, and, maybe, is, eminently limited
to Cumberland, Northumberland, and Westmoreland.
Brasenose is a good deal beholden to Manchester and
its neighbourhood. And so, in their degree, with the
rest. This peculiarity is due, as a rule, to the fact that
the foundation of the college in question was limited to

THE COLLEGE. 167

some particular district ; and tliougli, generally speak-
ing, these exceptional preferences are abolished, yet the
effect of the abolition is not remote enough to be re-
cognized. Besides, the alterations which affected the
foundation members were not extended to those unin-
corporated benefactions which are known by the name
of exhibitions. For instance, some of the best Balliol
men are the exhibitioners from Glasgow University.
These exhibitions were founded by Snell and Warner,
with a view to promote episcopacy in Scotland, at some
period before the Revolution of 1688. I am not aware
whether they have subserved that purpose, or whether
the^ rigour of the Presbyterian discipline has been con-
tented by the acceptance of valuable eleemosynary aid,
and has received the endowment, while ignoring its pro-
visions. But whether or no, it is certain that the most
promising students in the University of Glasgow are
annually drafi;ed off to Balliol, to the great advantage of
that college in particular, and the university in general.
Such an election tends powerfully to produce and main-
tain the reputation of a college, and, similarly, hmitations
of exhibitions, in favour of particular colleges, though
the academical distinctions of their occupants may often
be anything but large, have a very marked effect in
maintaining the numbers of the college to which they
are attached.

Of course, it is not difficult for any person to answer
the question of the comparative merits of different col-
leges in certain special cases, and in certain obvious
phenomena. Balliol, judged by the standard of the
class lists and university prizes, is a far better college
than Christ Church or Brasenose, or, indeed, any other
in Oxford. So with others in an inferior degree.

I have added to this chapter certain tables of a

168 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

statistical character, which, as others of the same kind,
must be accepted with certain limitations and explana-
tions. In truth, one cannot observe with too much
frequency that the estimate of any product, which is
based on statistical returns, is liable to a fallacy, derived
from the fact that the product is a quantity, in the
analysis of which all the forces are seldom discriminated
and reckoned. Thus the accompanying tables will
point to an extraordinary number of first-class men in
Balliol. No doubt Balliol is the most distinguished
college, and not only is it far beyond all others during
the last twenty years, but is far beyond any parallel of
any other college at any other period. But this pro-
duct is, at least, as much due to the excellence of the
material entered at Balliol, as to the subsequent training
in that institution. Young men do not come to Oxford
in a state of ignorance. They have been j^repared with
more or less exactness, care, and success for a long
period of years, and it needs no proof that similar
abilities, tasks, and acquirements are apt, all other influ-
ences being equal, to gravitate to the same centre of
activity. I do not, of course, mention this to the dis-
paragement of the coUege, which must command the
respect and good will of all who are anxious for the
preservation and increase of learning in Oxford, but
because, in common fairness, one is bound to state what
hindrance there may be to an absolute inference from
tabular statements.

The tables annexed contain, then: — 1st. The number
of undergraduates at each college and hall during the
last twenty years. 2nd. Quinquennial statements of
the number of first-class men obtained in each college
and hall, in classics and mathematics, during the last
twenty years. 3rd. Similar returns for a similar period

THE COLLEGE. 169

in university prizes. 4th. Number of matriculations
and admissions in each college and hall during the last
twenty years, distinguishing scholars from commoners.
5 th. Number of rooms available for undergraduates in
each college or hall.

Now, though these tables will not entirely explain
why it is that certain colleges are far ahead of others
in all the distinctions which the university affords, yet
they do show some very important particulars, and
point to the remarkable incongruity between the num-
bers on the books of several colleges and the number
of honours acquired by those who have matriculated
at this or that institution. And it must be added, that
a further research into the migrations from Balliol to
other colleges, by such persons as, having been matricu-
lated at the former college, subsequently procure a
footing on the foundation of other societies, would have
added considerably to the list of those persons who have
been distinguished at this society. But the discovery
of such names would have been very difficult, and the
result would have been of little practical value.

I shall take for granted, then, that the reader will be
enabled to draw his own inferences from the tables
which I have presented to him, and to conclude, as far
as such tables can be the basis of inference, about the
present and past position of the several institutions. It
will be seen, of course, that the whole of this tabular
exposition is founded on the presumption that the pro-
duct of the class schools, and of university prizes, is
the most obvious test of the nature and character of
each particular college.

170

EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

TABLE I.

Number q/'UNDEEGRADiiATES in each College and Hall during

Colleges: —

University

Balliol.

Merton

Exeter

Oriel

Qsaeea's «

New

Lincoln

AU Souls

Magdalene

Brasenose

Corpus

Christ Church

Trinity

St. John's

Jesus

Wadham

Pembroke

Worcester

Halls: —

St. Mary

Magdalene

New Inn

St. Alban

St. Edmund ..
Litton's

1841.

1842.

1843.

1844.

1845.

1846.

1847.

1848.

1849.

51

62

64

65

68

60

64

65

62

80
40

77
43

83
41

82
38

85
37

82
36

80
40

86
36

88
36

135

124

126

107

118

129

136

135

120

80
81
22
48

79
93
18
52

81
75
17
57

73
67
15
59

72
71
13
54

77
73
20
54

76
61
20

48

80
73

18
57

74
7S
20
56

4

4

4

4

5

6

4

4

4

15

14

18

17

16

17

23

23

20

101

114

120

102

91

93

92

104

97

18

17

19

17

17

19

20

21

23

182

189

204

196

192

187

195

191

193

85

92

84

77

64

67

73

80

75

59

68

71

66

70

63

70

67

67

48

44

44

42

43

47

50

56

52

86

85

80

73

77

83

92

86

81

42

48

49

45

50

63

69

71

78

87

90

95

101

94

98

96

102

107

30

28

33

32

30

31

31

33

33

85

102

88

79

104

96

81

86

97

31
15

24

9

28

7

27

7

28
10

32
10

22

8

27
8

19
9

26

25

22

23

33

34

32

32

33

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

THE COLLEGE.

171

TABLE L

the last Twenty Years. Taken from the UNiVBasiTT Calendab.

Colleges: —

University

Balliol

Merton

Exeter ,...

Oriel

Queen's

New

Lincoln

All Souls

Magdalene

Brasenose

Corpus

Christ Church

Trinity

St. John's

Jesus

Wadham

Pembroke

Worcester

Halls: —

St. Mary ,

Magdalene ,

New Inn ,

St. Alban ,

St. Edmund ...
Litton's

1851

69
92
43

133
87
82
23
55
3
17
74
19

187
69
62
51
83
72
85

54

106
21

7
24

1852.

65

82

43
137

82

64

28

53
4

20

77

17
168

73

71

47

81

74

99

53

102
11

7
17

1853

61

83

43
142

77

58

34

51
4

17

72

25
184

60

62

44

79

77

98

1854.; 1855.

i

70
81
48

137
86
48
29
45
4
28
86.
29

188
66
61
48
76
75

106

29
87
10
4
14

65
84
46

126
78
54
23
51
4
32
90
30

192
70
68
46
83
79

115

32

92

11

3

7

1856

77
90
43

126
77
49
23
42
4
35
81
33

202
64
63
47
86
78

106

1857.! 1858,

71
87
44
137
74
53
26
41
4
30
83
41
216
66
72
45
82
71
89

18
92
11

9
17

4

69
98
39
145
74
56
26
37
4
42
90
41
211
77
63
42
83
59
83

12
90

6
10
23

6

1859.

73

106
45
162
85
47
26
41
4
38
84
47
214
83
56
41
85
63
75

16
85

5
10
22

7

101
45
171
87
63
34
40
4
55
99
47
211
81
49
44
72
66
68

18

73

6

9

22

5

172

EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

TABLE 11.

Quinquennial Statements of the Number o/First Classmen obtained
by each College and Hall /or the last Twenty Years, and general
Total of First Classjien in Mathematics for the same Period.

Colleges: —
University ...

Balliol

Merton

Exeter

Oriel

Queen's

New

Lincoln

All Souls

Magdalene ...

Brasenose

Corpus

Clirist Church

Trinity

St John's

Jesus

Wadham

Pembroke

Worcester

Halls r —

St. Mary

Magdalene ...

New Inn

St. Alban

St. Edmund...

Total...

Classics.

1840-44

48

1S45-49. 1850-54. 1855-59. 2o7ears

54

71

8
21
1
1
1
3

55

21

57
6
8
7

10
4

14

4

4
11
18
14
11

1
11

6
11

2
6
1
1

228

THE COLLEGE.

173

TABLE IIL

Uniteksity Prizes * obtained in each College and Hall during the
last Twenty Years.

Colleges :-
University.

Balliol

Merton ...

1

1

1
2

2

8

I

02

1
8
1
2
2

i

...

1
...

1

■p.

2
3

1
1

2

5

•-3

S
1

:^
2
1

1

c

c

1

DC

1
1

w
3
3

{A

o
H

1
1

i

o

1

2

1

3
3

3
1

13

1
4
4

1
1
I
2

i

1

a

3

8

1
2

1

■I

1

2

1
1
4
1
3

i
1

2

i
<

3

1

i

c
tn

1

■ 00

.2

'5
O

5

4

£

26
67

7

Exeter

...

^^

1

1

...

2

1
1

1

5
2
5

19

Oriel

1

...

...

10

Queen's ...

1

2

1
1

1

1

1
1

9.0

New

1

...

6

Lincoln ...

...

1

7

13

All Souls...

Magdalene .
Erasenose

2

1

2
1

3

1

1

1
3

2

1

3

2

1

1

2
2

1

13

1

2

2

1
1

...

1
1

1
1

1

1

11

Corpus ...
Christ Ch. .

1.
3

1
1
3

14

2

1

1

...

13

, Trinity ...
St. John's

1

1

1

19.

5
2

2

2
1

3

8

2

...

...

9^

Jesus

2

1
1

1
1

7

Wadham...

1
1

...

1

1

3

3

1

1

...

2
1

2
3

1

1

...

14

Pembroke .

10

Worcester .

1

1

...

8

Halls:-—
St. Mary...

1

...

...

9

Magdalene
Jsew Inn..

1

1

2

4

1

1

1

St Alban

!

1

St Edmd

il

1

1

1

3

■

'

"■

"

'

. 1

1

* The dates denote the period at which tie prize was founded.

174

EDUCATION m OXFORD.

TABLE IV. - - - - -
Matriculations and Entries at each College and Hall,

1840.

1841.

1842.

1843.

1844.

1845.

1846.

1847.

1848.

Colleges : —

s.

c.

s.

c.

S.

C.

s.

C.

S.

C.

s.

c.

S.

C.

S.

c.

s.

C.

University .

3

9

2

20

3

16

4

16

2

20

2

11

3

19

3

18

3

13

■Ralliol

3

14

2

20

3

22

2

23

2

20

2

20

2

20

3

22

2

23

Merton

5

6

6

8

4

...

5

8

4

9

5

7

4

8

2

4

5

6

Exeter

3

30

3

35

3

21

5

35

2

43

2

41

4

39

2

80

2

32

Oriel

18

17

22

21

19

16

21

14

18

Queen's

21

9

25

1

13

4

17

3

20

5

20

2

8

3

32

4

20

New

3

1

1

6

1

3

7

2

2

3

8

3

Lincoln

11

2

7

9

12

7

8

4

8

2

11

7

12

8

11

6

10

All Souls ...

1

...

1

...

1

...

2

...

1

...

1

...

...

1

...

1

...

Magdalene .

4

...

3

2

9

1

5

...

3

3

4

1

7

3

4

3

4

1

Brasenose...

27

6

29

6

20

7

19

5

22

11

24

6

24

8

16

6

19

Corpus

2

4

2

4

2

4

1

6

2

5

2

2

3

5

3

6

1

Christ Ch....

60

6

54

6

51

9

45

8

48

10

44

9

42

11

52

15

48

Trinity

21

5

24

1

19

5

13

2

14

3

22

4

10

2

18

3

12

St. John's...

13

5

21

5

12

2

10

2

14

2

20

3

16

2

11

2

18

Jesus

4

10

1

11

4

8

2

12

3

13

7

14

4

11

2

16

1

10

Wadham ...

...

24

2

18

1

■

20

2

20

3

18

...

29

4

24

4

17

3

17

Pembroke...

11

9

5

3

11

1

2

3

9

4

25

2

22

2

12

...

22

Worcester .

3

20

1

26

3

27

2

25

4

17

3

27

2

28

2

27

2

30

Halls: —

St. Mary ...

...

16

...

7

...

13

...

18

...

9

...

11

...

16

...

13

...

14

Magdalene .

...

20

...

28

...

25

...

11

...

25

...

19

...

16

...

25

...

30

New Inn ...

...

13

...

8

12

8

...

10

...

15

...

6

...

8

6

St. Alban...

...

5

...

2

...

...

...

4

...

4

3

...

1

...

2

2

St. Edmund

...

6

...

8

6

...

7

...

12

...

10

...

5

10

...

7

Litton's

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

"

THE COLLEGE.

175

TABLE lY.
distinguishing Foundationers (s.)froin Commoners (c.)

1849.

1850.

1851.

1852.

1853.

1854.

1855.

1856.

1857.

1858.

1859.

s.

C.

s.

c.

s.

c.

s.

c.

s.

c.

s.

c.

s.

c.

s.

C.

S.

C.

8.

c.

s.

C.

5

20

1

19

2

15

3

19

6

12

3

18

3

17

5

17

5

13

2

11

2

21

3

23

2

23

3

10

4

26

2

14

2

19

3

23

2

19

2

24

3

27

3

16

4

9

4

7

2

6

7

6

11

5

10

■5

5

7

5

6

5

3

7

8

6

2

41

4

37

2

35

4

40

27

1

25

3

34

3

42

5

37

3

49

6

50

...

20

...

27

16

...

14

4

22

2

17

2

20

2

12

...

17

4

24

2

17

4

25

6

13

4

7

2

12

...

14

7

25

1

6

6

11

1

9

5

9

4

22

3

1

7

3

10

3

7

4

2

6

2

2

3

5

4

4

2

2

5

9

5

4

14

6

14

3

8

12

8

5

4

9

2

3

6

5

6

3

8

6

7

7

2

...

...

...

1

...

2

...

...

...

...

1

...

1

3

...

...

...

...

...

4

...

4

1

4

4

...

4

10

4

4

7

4

3

2

8

11

3

3

5

13

7

22

8

17

8

15

5

16

9

27

8

14

5

10

6

14

6

25

5

14

6

20

5

1

3

...

3

5

6

8

1

6

2

7

4

10

2

13

5

6

6

9

4

10

5

42

5

49

6

41

6

57

8

48

7

54

3

55

6

55

3

53

6

58

6

50

2

23

1

19

6

13

2

13

3

22

3

16

3

9

3

19

5

20

2

22

2

13

2

12

2

19

4

18

2

12

1

15

4

20

6

6

7

12

5

6

2

9

3

6

6

13

4

9

1

11

4

16

2

15

2

10

4

9

3

10

2

12

5

10

7

8

4

23

2

23

2

23

4

15

3

16

3

26

2

18

5

10

2

19

3

23

...

13

1

25

...

14

5

21

2

22

1

25

1

16

3

14

2

18

2

13

4

11

1

20

5

31

2

25

2

22

4

27

4

30

6

23

1

14

3

14

5

12

1

13

2

14

20

28

14

12

14

9

6

4

3

10

8

41

...

23

17

...

23

...

19

...

28

...

23

...

22

...

22

...

18

...

14

10

...

9

■

1

...

4

...

4

6

...

1

...

5

...

1

...

4

...

2

1

...

3

...

2

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

9

...

1

...

1

...

3

7

...

2

4

...

...

2

...

5

...

3

...

11
3

...

5
2

...

7
3

...

3
1

...

6
2

176

EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

TABLE V.

Rooms available for Undergraduates.

Colleges. Rooms.

University 53

Balliol 64

Merton 31

Exeter 119*

Oriel 55

Queen's 84

New 35

Lincoln 40

All Souls 4

Magdalene 50

Brasenose 75

Corpus 35

Christ Olmrch 159t

Trinity 61

Colleges. Rooms.

St. John's 56

Jesus 50

Wadham 62:{:

Pembroke 61

Worcester 67§

Halls.

St. Mary 30

Magdalene 41

New Inn 11

St. Alban 10

St. Edmund 27

Total 1,280

That other considerations enter into the fact of a
young man's being sent to Oxford, I am perfectly well
aware. That these considerations constitute the sum of
many people's objects, I am equally alive to. Social
position, the fact of acquiring a particular tone and
manner, the influence of association, and the possibility
of the student's acquiring some valuable acquaintances,
and a definite locus standi with persons to whom it is
desirable that he should be known, are very valid
reasons with many persons. Some of these will never,
it is likely, be ineffective, but some have progressively
become inoperative. The days of patronage — mere
patronage, that is to say, the promoting of inefficient or
less efficient men to offices of trust and reputation — are,
it is plain, rapidly passing away. The potency of noble
friendships, and the value of hanging on to Lord Tom
and Lord Harry, are at a discount. However strong

* Including eight sets borrowed from Jesus College,
f Including "students' " rooms. J Including four Fellows' sets.
§ Including five Fellows' sets.

THE COLLEGE. 177

toadyism may be even now-a-days, tlie adept in the art
has seldom much profit beyond the approval of his own
conscience.

Besides, these indirect advantages, were they ever so
powerful, are completely compatible with that to which
they may be and ought to be subordinate. The uni-
versity should not be a place for sowing wild oats in —
a mere playground for noisy and ignorant boobies.
That such people are permitted and encouraged is a
mischief and a scandal. They are a snare to their
companions, and a hindrance to the w^ell-being of the
place. It would be well if w^e were rid of them ; and
the hypocritical argum.ent that it is beneficial to those
persons that they have had a year or two's stay in'
Oxford, and that they become a power to the university
by the rallying round it of those who have been edu-
cated within its precincts, is as contemptible as it is false.
The real meaning of such reasoning is that such persons
pay well for the room they occupy. Meanwhile, they
frighten a far more valuable class of persons from en-
trance into the university, and drag down the education
and character of those who do belong to Oxford.

COMPAEATIVE MeRITS OF COLLEGES AND HaLLS. —

The reader may remember, from what has been stated
before, that the halls are the most ancient places of
academical education, and that they were originally in-
stitutions in which the students elected their head, and
governed the details of the society in matters of ex-
penditure and the like. Indeed, the latter privilege is
existent still by statute, and there is even now a form
of election on the death or avoidance of a principal;
though, as the nomination of the head has been usurped
to the Chancellor since the time of Leicester's chancel-

12

178 EDUCATION IN OXFOKD.

lorship, tlie election, except for the sake of being a record
of a better state of things, is a mere farce. As it is, the
head of a hall has no more interest in his society than a
lessee has in the future destiny of the land which he
holds for a term of years.

Before the Act of 1854, the halls were tolerably pro-
sperous. A great many people came to Oxford who
would not come now, in consequence of peculiar advan-
tages derived from local preferences and kindred to the
founder. Hence there was a superfluity of numbers
by the side of accommodation. Besides, it was the
fashion, in the time antecedent to that change, to send
away young men from the colleges who were stupid,
ill-behaved, or refractory. It is difficult to see on what
principle of morality an institution which had accepted
tlie education of an undergraduate could dismiss him
when it found that his mind was weak ; or, what is
equally possible, college instruction was inadequate to
iit him for his degree. And it is even more difficult to
determine on what ground it was argued that A. B.,
whose conduct made him unfit for a particular college,
should be fit for another society, and should depart with
a testimonium of merit. Perhaps, it was that cheap
conscientiousness which will not take the trouble of
doing a general duty, but cherishes a particular and
unsacrificing benevolence.

Out of this practice three of the halls derived their
inmates. These were St. Mary Hall, Alban Hall, New
Inn Hall. The last-named institution was actually
fitted up for the purpose by the late principal. Dr.
Cramer, who, it is said, took the principalship on con-
dition of making the buildings available. It was seldom
the case that any person matriculated at these societies.
'The inmates were the outcasts of more orderly colleges.

THE COLLEGE. 179

The cost of living at them was, by the ordinary scale,
enormous. They contained, no doubt, a pleasant and
varied society ; but it was not in that time ordinarily
thought well of, even when estimated by the coarse rule
of undergraduate proprieties. The institutions were
called refuges for the destitute, and residence in them
was almost as costly as a sponging-house to an in-
solvent.

The other two halls, Magdalene and St. Edmund,
were not of this character. The latter always had, as
will be seen from a reference to tlie tables annexed to
the foregoing section, well nigh as many undergra-
duates as it could hold. The society had the reputation
of being one of what is technically called the Evangelical
school ; and, perhaps, it owed, in some degree, its num-
bers to this reputation. But it had the advantage of
possessing a vice-principal of very high character, of
very respectable attainments, and of sterling conscien-
tiousness. He was a member of the society by the
way, a rare wisdom in tlie management of a hall. He
worked well nigh all his life with the people whom he
taught, and at the close of his days received a tardy
acknowledgment of his services from the present Bishop
of Winchester. In all likelihood, however, the connec-
tion of St. Edmund Hall with Queen's College (the
principalship of it and a valuable living are in the gift
of the college, and descend, like any other kind of
patronage, through the Fellows of that society in order)
was, in some degree, the cause of its numbers ; at any
rate, it declined in quantity when that college declined.

Magdalene Hall has always had a large supply of
undergraduates, and did, on the whole, rank fifth in
the scale of quantity. It has succeeded to this state of
things from a considerable antecedent and even historical

12—2

180 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

connection. Under tlie present circumstances, apart
from its connection, the popularity of its principal had
no small weight in increasing its inmates. Besides, it
had three open scholarships, of considerable value, in
the time when there were very few of such commodi-
ties. There have always been, too, a copious body of
elderly people, as the phrase goes, in Oxford, who have
gravitated to this society, under the form of gentleman
commoners. And it is fortunate for the reputation of
the society that they have ; for, out of six first-class
men, during the last twenty years, three have been
gentleman commoners, one a scholar, and two com-
moners. The open scholarships have not generally had
the effect of producing this distinction. Since the be-
ginning of the foundation only one has achieved this
place, and that case is at the commencement of the
limits which I have assigned to the tables, namely, 1840.
With all the halls, however, matters were seriously
changed when the Act of 1854 came into operation.
The numbers, as will be seen, declined in nearly all
these societies, and no doubt they are likely to decline
still more. Nothing can have been a greater miscalcu-
lation than the expectation commonly entertained by the
framers of that Act, that the development of its principle
would lead to the formation of new halls. The writer
of these pages urged that, wise and necessary as the pro-
visions of that Act were, they would inevitably tend to
the damage of the old halls, and that the creation of
new ones would necessitate a far more searching and
total change than anything which the legislature con-
templated, or than the university was likely to initiate.
And this was due to the peculiar institutions of the
university, to the distribution of property within the
boundaries of the city, and to the constitutions of the

THE COLLEGE. 181

halls themselves. With the former of these conditions
I shall have to deal shortly ; with the latter, at present.
Halls are entirely under the management of the
principal. He is practically irresponsible, the appeal to
the chancellor, whose nominee he ordinarily is, being
only that to any other visitor, and therefore long since
inoperative. He has no interest in the society beyond
the fact of its being a means of income, nor does he
affect any interest.. Sometimes the only real value
which his headship is to him, 'is a house in Oxford, and
the position given him by reason of his office. He is
but remotely concerned in the credit or disrepute of the
members of the society of which he is head. He takes
ordinarily no part in the instruction of the inmates of his
hall, and but little in their discipline. He nominates
strangers to all offices of trust and authority in the
society, and never thinks that those who belong to the
hall have any claim upon him for the discharge of the
ordinary functions of college tutor or lecturer. Except
for trivial matters, no person who has distinguished
himself at a hall is employed in its management. He
can appoint and displace these officers at his pleasure.
They are wholly dependent on the discretion or caprice
of the principal ; and generally the nomination of a new
head is followed by the dismissal of those who had been
hitherto engaged by his predecessor. In a college, the
authority of the head is largely modified by the resist-
ance of those who work the college, and is ordinarily
neutralized; but in a hall, the head is, if he wills,
absolute as long as he lives. He can turn his hall into
a private house, or a set of chambers for strangers, if
he wills. The heads of halls are generally the occupants
of other offices. Of those at present in this position,
two are university professors, two hold countr}- livings.

182 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

and the remaining one is a fellow of a college, and the
rector of an Oxford parish. In the last-named case, the
headship was held immediately before the present
occupant by the registrar of the university, and before
him by a canon of Christ Church. Depending but
little on the success of the establishment over which
they preside, their interest in the well-doing of its
members is naturally languid. They have no feeling
for a society to which their relations are wholly fiscal.
They generally remain members in name, and almost
always in sympathy with the society from which they
were taken to fill the office of head. All, with the
exception of the head of Magdalene Hall, keep their
names on the books of their parent college.

That peculiar esprit de corps which is so character-
istic of the colleges is wholly wanting in the halls. The
members of these societies have the least possible con-
nection with the place of their education after its period
is over. There are very few among them, I apprehend,
who do not regret that they ever had to do with the
institutions in question. And no wonder, for their
sympathies with their society are exceedingly slender.

Furthermore, the instruction is indifferent in point of
quantity. In my time, there was but one lecturer in
Magdalene Hall, though it had between eighty and one
hundred undergraduate members. And this can easily
be understood, when one remembers that the office of
teacher depends on the caprice, and is determined by
the decease or promotion, of the existing head. Men
will not take a precarious office unless they are well
paid for it; and as the amount received for college
tuition is pretty much regulated by custom, the proceeds
from this source of income cannot conveniently be dis-
tributed among many recipients.

I

THE COLLEGE. 18^

The discipline is also likely to be bad. Most of the
halls have, it is true, an officer resident in the walls of
the society. But in the largest of the present halls,
Magdalene, all the tutors are married, and reside at a
distance. The undergraduates are left entirely to their
own discretion. But witlun the walls of a college, disci-
pline, such as it is, is, I conceive, far more important
than instruction. At any rate, the culture may be
procured from without, while the aggregation of a large
number of young men in one building, without any
supervision at all, is not likely to result in anything but
disorder. On the whole, then, it is, in my opinion, a
great misfortune to any person that he should be a
member of a hall. While an undergraduate, as com-
pared with the member of a college, he lives as
expensively, he is taught less carefully, and he is over-
looked less steadily. When he has taken his degree,
he is at a still greater disadvantage, for all the officers
of the institution at which he has graduated are indif-
ferent to his fiiture well-doing. And as in a college
there is a perpetual desire to promote the fortunes of
those who have been members of the society, so the
utter absence of this desire in a hall is something more
than a negation in the competition of the university; it
is a positive hindrance and loss.

Of late three of the halls have attempted, as I am
informed, a greater economy of expenditure than pre-
vailed in them before the Act of 1854. This at any
rate was necessitated by that event. Had not some
reform taken place, they would have been empty. In
one of these the experiment was founded on a private
benefaction ; in another, it is a voluntary act on the pai't
of the principal; in a third, it was urged upon that
authority and accepted by him. But it is too early to

184 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

predict anything from the trial. Certainly very large
advantages are needed in the way of economy and dis-
cipline to counterbalance the inconveniences resulting
from membership in a hall.

I should therefore strongly dissuade any parent from
sending his son to any existing hall. In their present
state there is none of that esprit de corps which^, in some
degree at least, stimulates the energies of a college, and
none of that competitive spirit which would result from
a larger interest, and a larger stake being invested by
the authorities in the welfare of the society. I can
understand, even under the depressing circumstances
which would affect the attempt to create independent
centres of education in Oxford, that unshackled activity
would do a great deal, even against the prestige of the
existing colleges. I can readily imagine a state of
thincTs in which a vast influx of students mixrlit be
expected in the university ; but I cannot conceive any
practical good likely to arrive from the slovenly despotism
of a head who has larger interests elsewhere, and none
in the society which he governs. It would be well for
the university if the buildings of the halls were handed
over to the nearest college, and infinitely advantageous
for the inmates of those buildings.

Private Halls. — By a provision in the Act of
1854, the university in Convocation was empowered
to make regulations, under which private halls might be
instituted. It does not appear that parliamentary
sanction was necessary for this purpose, for the uni-
versity had, by its ancient statutes, full power for the
creation of these establishments. It must be understood,
then, that the seeming proviso was an exhortation or a
command on the part of the legislature, intended to

THE COLLEGE. 185

promote action on tlie part of the university. The
result was a statute in the following terms.

It will be seen that the facilities for opening a hall
are very considerably limited by the condition of previous
residence in the university, a condition the reason of
which it is hard to find, except it be in the jealousy felt
at the possibility of these institutions. But there are
other circumstances which make the creation of these
halls very unlikely, and their want of success all but
certain.

When the legislature sanctioned the establishment of
private halls, one among the reasons given for the
provision in the Act was the convenience which would
be added for the residence of young persons of large
means or large expectations in the home of some person
who would give more attention to their conduct than can
be looked for, or even desired, in a college. But no one
has as yet availed himself of the licence for this purpose,
and no parent has initiated such a step for his own son.

Another reason assigned for the change, was the
facility it would afford for the extension of the university.
Such an argument betrays a singular ignorance of the
university, the colleges, and the hindrances in the way
of developing this enlargement, on the condition of
residence within the walls of any one building. Of
course it was implied that private halls could be carried
on with greater economy than colleges or any existing
institution of the kind. This, however, is far from
being likely, and the ignorance of such a state of things
is one of painful significance, arguing as it does the
absence of any information, and one might almost say
interest, in the domestic svstem of the colleges, and the
peculiar circumstances which affect the tenure and
possession of houses or other available sites, within those

186 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

precincts which form the local limits of the university.
It is sufficient here to say that only two private halls
have been attempted; that one of them was a failure
from the beginning, one person only having belonged to
it, who had migrated from a college in consequence of
having failed to pass his examination ; and that the other,
though it has continued for some years, and has been
presided over by one of the ablest and most competent
members of the university, has never had more than
seven members, and it is not likely to be remunerative
to its head.

There are, however, many grounds on which the
institution of private halls was not likely to be successfuL
One of them is the advantageous position of the existing
colleges in respect of their buildings, and the comparative
cheapness of rooms within their walls. For many years,
as I have elsewhere observed, the colleges and halls
have contrived to fasten the burden of one part of their
local taxation on the general body of the university, and
till lately the colleges and halls were extra-parochial,
and therefore not liable to the relief of the poor. Nay,
even after a special Act of Parliament was procured —
the necessary consequence of many years of incessant
squabbling — by which the colleges Tvere rated, the
largest of them has taken advantage of the general
provisions for the rating of extra-parochial places, has
made itself a parish, and of course has no paupers to
maintain. But with the greater part of Oxford, that
at least which falls within the limits of the united
parishes, and in which there is union rating, the poor-
rates are very high, and form a very considerable item
in the charges of house-rent. And when there are
added to these material advantaf]:es attached to the
college, the large moral ones of prestige, habit, and the

I

THE COXLEGE. 187

like, there must be a far greater number of persons
seeking admission to the university than at present,
before the candidates apply themselves to the masters
of licensed private halls. But all things considered, the
number of matriculations has declined, and to me, it
seems, is declining.

Again, it is not easy to get a fitting house for the
establishment of a private hall. These institutions
would naturally be set up in those parts of the city
which are easy of access to academical buildings and
the ordinary conveniences of the university. But by
far the greater portion of the limited area is the property
of corporations. The number of freeholds is singularly
small. I have not been able to arrive at the exact
proportions, but I am informed by some persons on
whose experience I can place the fullest reliance, that
seven-tenths, at least, of the area available for building
purposes, within the natural limits of the academical
structures, is the property of the colleges or the city.
Now such corporations are not capitalists, nor are they
improving landlords. They live, so to speak, from
hand to mouth, will do nothing, and can do nothing.
Any person who walks down the principal streets of
Oxford can distinguish, at a glance, the few freeholds
from the numerous tenements held on lease. The latter
are old, shabby, low, and inconvenient. The streets,
I admit, are made to look picturesque enough, by their
tumble-down structures of the Stuart period, but the
buildings themselves are hardly available for any but
the rudest purposes. And if the colleges had the will to
grant long leases, they have not the power. They were
ordinarily restricted to a period of forty years, a limit
rational enough in the days of Elizabeth, when houses
were well nigh worthless, and college authorities had

188 EDUCATION IN OXFOKD.

fallen into the common vice of corporations of granting
long leases at large fines and nominal rents, but in the
present time, when the tendency is in another direction,
the hindrance to improvement is inconceivable. And
in those few cases in which the colleges have procured
private powers of longer leasing, the disinclination felt
towards the tenure, or the extravagant ground-rents
required, have made nugatory these offers of longer
leases. Moreover, the evident disposition on the part
of colleges to resume their leases, and to grant tenancies
at will, is a great bar to any occupation of their estates
for building purposes. The old system of renewable
tenancy, on the payment of a fine, was a hindrance to
improvement, because the tenant was in constant danger
of being called upon to pay interest for his own outlay ;
but it was not worse than that which seems now likely to
prevail, the letting houses by landlords who have no
funds with which to improve, or even to repair. Except
on the prospect of slovenly overlooking, corporations are
the worst landlords conceivable.

For these and other grounds which it is not necessary
here to make mention of, I do not, for my part, think
that the establishment of private halls is likely to be a
success. One only direction, in which it was at all
likely to be available, was in the provision for Non-
conformists. But it need hardly be observed that this
result, though anticipated in the Act of 1854, has not
taken place. The subscription to the Thirty-nine
Articles, that is to say, in other words, to all and
every part of the political and social, as well as to the
religious, formulae of the Church of England, is required
from all masters of arts ; and none but masters of arts,
or other members of Convocation, can be the heads of
private halls. Now, I do not mean to say that one could

THE COLLEGE. 189

not find among the masters of arts many persons who
would have no hesitation in accepting Nonconformists
within their houses, as, indeed, some of the colleges
have accepted a few. But I have great doubts whether
parents, who strongly or conscientiously believed in the
special tenets of the several Protestant sects, would
entrust their children to the care of a person who was
bound to derive his domestic services from the Book of
Common Prayer, in default of taking them to some
neighbouring church or college chapel, unless it were
on the part of those who believed that their creed
Avas too diverse from that of the Establishment to
suffer risk by contact. Hence none, I believe, but
Roman Catholics and Jews have as yet matriculated
in Oxford.

Prospects of Nonconformists at Oxford. — The
Act of 1854 — and it was a characteristic feature of the
law and a special motive in legislation — took away the
necessity of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles
and the three clauses in the twenty-seventh Canon,
from all persons who matriculated or proceeded to the
degree of bachelor of arts. In other words, the ad-
mission of Dissenters to the education of the university
was indirectly conceded. Those persons had been all
along admitted to Cambridge, by the fact that the
above-named subscription was not required at matri-
culation ; and the consequence has been that several
Nonconformists have been educated at Cambridge, and
achieved high honours in the schools of the sister
university, though they are prevented from gradua-
tion. No part, however, of the government scheme
excited such hostility in Oxford as this, and against the
possible contingencies of it several precautions were

190 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

taken. Compensative amounts of book learning were
provided for in the examination of Dissenters, and, as I
Lave already stated, tlie creation of private halls was
rigorously limited to resident or quasi-resident masterg
of arts, whose method of religious instruction was to be
guided by the formulae of the Established Church. At
any rate, one cannot see how the teaching was to be
of a general kind, while the prayers were of formal
orthodoxy.

Of course, the admission of Dissenters to the several
colleges rests with the authorities of those several
estabhshments. One does not see, except on the com-
plete destruction of the privilege of self-government,
how the legislature could prescribe that nonconformists
should demand admission to these private institutions.
The legislature, in short, provided that these persons
should be able to graduate, but could not, or would not,
supply them with the means of graduation; in other
words, take precautions for providing opportunities for
study in Oxford, apart from any connection with exist-
ing colleges and halls. Yet, without this opportunity
being given, one does not see how any practical result
could possibly ensue from the licence of graduation
afforded to nonconformists. And, be it observed, the
graduation is only initiative; the claim of nominal
orthodoxy is exacted from all persons, without excep-
tion, who wish to become members of Convocation ; of
those, in short, who desire to attain to that position in
connection with the university, which is certainly in-
tended to be the ultimate object to which all previous
processes are subsidiary.

I do not criticize at length this narrow and barren
privilege. I think its limitation illiberal, and I tliink it
is unwise. I see no reason why religious tests should

THE COLLEGE. 191

be exacted from those who claim academical distinc-
tions, any more than from those who aim at a social
or political status. I do not, and dare not, believe that
the fullest liberty to others can, by any possibility, be
harmful to the English Church. However rigorous
may be the standard of orthodoxy in the ministry of
the Estabhshment, I cannot see with what propriety a
minute rule of faith should be exacted from her lay
members, still less why those who do not profess alle-
j^iance to her should be debarred from the membership
with the secular distinctions of that university which
should be tlie pride, as it surely is the property, of the
whole nation. I never yet heard of the aristocracy of
letters, or of royal roads to learnmg, or that the limitation
of the prerogative of learning to theological conformity
was a strong stimulus to either learning or conformity.

While there are, however, overwhelming reasons to
be given why Nonconformists should be admitted to the
fullest privileges of the university, it does not seem to
me that they can fairly claim the endowments of the
colleges, or even the right to reside within them. The
former of these would be, in the majority of cases at
least, in direct contravention of the founder's intention,
and would be, therefore, bad faith to bygone bene-
factors. After all, if one departs from established
formulas, one does not, and cannot, exclude any one.
Admit a Protestant Dissenter, and you should admit
a Jew, a Mahommedan, a heathen, to academical en-
dowments. I cannot see what power can honestly and
equitably draw a line. Toleration is not width, but
inclusiveness. The least Hmit on its extension is the
destruction of its essence.

Furthermore, residence within a college is what I
think nonconformists could not reasonably ask for, or

192 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

the authorities of a college wisely grant. These places
are societies in which familiar intercourse is more or
less compulsory. We who live in Oxford, after periods
of polemical disputations, have ordinarily been to out-
ward appearance indifferent and uniform in our theo-
logical generalities. In so narrow and limited a society
we cannot afford to differ, which is to quarrel. The
odium tlieologicum needs, to make it even tolerable, a
wider area than Oxford affords. Where it exists it is
only in barren minds and unsocial tempers. And I
am persuaded that the social difficulty of nonconformity
is, among liberal-minded Oxford men, the largest objec-
tion to its being brought into familiar intercourse with
the acceptance of Anglican doctrines. Hide it as
people will, professions of Protestant belief are now-a-
days far more based on social orders than on any deeper
foundation ; far more maintained by social isolation than
by rational argumentation. Few people, I apprehend,
who are informed about the strength of divers sects
have any doubt of this fact, however disagreeable it
may seem to enthusiasts and advocates. And where
those social difficulties do not apply, I am quite sure
that Oxford collectively, and Oxford men individually,
can challenge comparison with any others on the
ground of liberality. Intolerance crops out in the
most unlikely regions, even in the hunting ground of
the most vigorous voluntaryism.

The whole of the Oxford colleges are the gifts of
private munificence. It is true that one of them is
nominally a royal foundation. But, in fact, Christ
Church was far more really endowed by its first
founder, Wolsey, than by its second founder, Henry
the Eighth. The present college is but a skeleton of
the vast place which Wolsey schemed, and which he

THE COLLEGE. . 193

heaped with wealth. It passed through the exchequer
of the bluff king, and came out with less even of the
metal it went in with, than the coinage which came
from the royal mint of that age possessed of silver.
Parliament, too, has done nothing in the w^ay of endow-
ment for Oxford. Some scanty professorships were put
on the civil list, but they were more than met by the
proceeds of the stamps on matriculations and degrees.

Were it not for the monopoly that the colleges cling
to, and the hindrances they put in the way of persons
using the university cheaply — w^ere it not for the fact
that they have grasped at and retain the whole autho-
rity of this great corporation — no difficulty could reason-
ably be made at their own discipline, however capricious
it may be, within their own walls. It is in the fact
that no person can make use of Oxford, except as a
member of an existing college or hall, or as the member
of an impossible establishment, based on a rash and
unprofitable private speculation, that the true hardship
and reaUy public wrong consists.

There is then, in my judgment, no remedy by which
all persons can avail themselves, wdthout distinction, of
academical instruction in Oxford, than by the removal
of the following obstructions. There must be accorded
a power of becoming members of the university without
the necessity of residence in any existing college or
hall, the university providing, as it can from its privi-
leges, against any want of discipline among such mem-
bers— a discipline which may be searching, but neces-
sary, and no more a reasonable ground of objection to
those wdio reside within its compass than the discipline
of a camp is to those who think proper to inhabit it.
And if it be thought imperative that domestic control
should be exercised over those students who gather to

13

llWb EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

the university — a control I confess to thinking metapho-
rical, unreal, and nugatory — it will become necessary
for the larger interests of education, that some legis-
lative Act should enable the purchase of freeholds
within the limits of the university, as defined by Act
of Parliament. The dead hand is the blight of this
place, as would easily be found on inquiry. The gifts
made with a view to foster learning have been its
heaviest hindrance ; the wealth with which letters have
been endowed has made this alma mater the veriest
stepmother to genius and labour.

Future Prospects of the University of Oxford.
— If my reader has followed the facts, and argued from
the figures which I have laid down in what I have
written, he will not be at a loss to divine what is likely
to take place in the further history of this place. And
what has to be said in a subsequent part of this work
will not materially modify the necessary inferences
from what has been said. The very large assistance
rendered to those who are competent to hold the foun-
dation scholarships and exhibitions provided in Oxford,
will not seriously affect those who are compelled to
consider the future advantages of an expenditure of a
very great amount, at a time of life when large and
hitherto unproductive outlay has been made, and at an
age which is so critical for good or evil. The course
of education in Oxford must be estimated not only by
its social but by its material value, and this is what is
the great difficulty in the extension of the numbers
who enter the university. Can we, in short, get any
guarantee that this education will promote the moral
and material interests of those who spend so many
valuable years in its acquisition ?

THE COLLEGE. 195

I t^ke for granted that in itself that education is of
the liighest order. Few persons disparage it but those
who are ignorant and self-conceited. After all, by far
the largest amount of what people learn does not tend
to a direct, but to an indirect, utility. It seldom
happens that they who study mathematics need to use
them. The simplest rules of arithmetic meet the
ordinary business of life. The empirical knowledge of
grammar is sufficient for the general purposes of
educated intercourse. Few persons make a practical
use of historical knowledge. Physical science is com-
monly an amusement, rarely an occupation. And
similarly in what it is the fashion to call a higher style
of education, the usefulness of its prodnct lies in its
method, and the display of its facts is called pedantry.
Now there is nothing more difficult .than to give a true
estimate of the relative values of what indirectly con-
tributes to education, and yet nothing more easy and
specious than to censure knowledge which has no
immediate and obvious application. Of com-se they
who do not possess it, and from whom its indirect
operation is hidden, are by way of denouncing its sup-
posed advantages. Perhaps the uniform testimony of
those who have received a liberal education is more
conclusive than the dissatisfaction and dislike of those
who have not procured this specialty. Perhaps, how-
ever, this statement that the worth of an Oxford educa-
tion, when it is of the highest order, is specially
eminent, will but be .understood by a reference to a
series of obvious and, at the same time, important
facts.

For some few years now — years sufficiently long to
test the material submitted to that form of inquiry
which the government has instituted, and the legisla-

13—2

196 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

ture indirectly sanctioned — public employment has-been
guarded from the danger of nomination by the form of
a specific examination. In some departments of the
public service, the rule detur digniori has been inter-
preted by the giver of, and not by the nominee to,
official occupation. In other words, examination has
been exercised upon those who have been named for
place ; though all candidates, except those who have
been fortunate enough to get their claims endorsed by
members of Parliament, and such folk, have been pre-
cluded from giving proof of proficiency. Since, how-
ever, the individuals who form the legislative and
executive body have insisted on retaining the power of
nomination, and the pleasure of being bored by their
political friends and supporters, rather than of con-
sidering the rational method by which the public service
might, apparently, best be carried out, it would not be
just to governmental officials, and still less to the uni-
versities, to compare the status of those who fill respon-
sible public offices with the best specimens of academical
education.

But in one, and that a notable case, this provisional
system of examination has not prevailed, and there are
annually thrown open to absolute public competition the
various offices in the Indian Civil Service. Yet, on
looking at the list of those who succeeded and those
who failed last year in the competition for these offices,
— offices, we are assured, of considerable immediate, and
very great progressive value ; which have been puffed
with great vigour, and which, no doubt, w^ould have been
reasonably estimated without the puffing; there is not
to be found a single first-class among the successful
competitors, though all who approached in some degree
to that status have been placed, and placed well, in the

THE COLLEGE. 197

published lists. No doubt, if the best Oxford men had
entered the lists, they would have distanced their com-
petitors, when one sees how much was done by second,
third, and fourth rate ones. Why it is that the best men
do not compete for these offices is no part of the present
purpose to inquire. It is a sufficient proof of the goodness
of an Oxford education when one is able to point out
that the best men do not try, and that their inferiors
generally succeed. Yet, with this significant proof of
what might be done with the superior material of an
Oxford education, one is, on inquiry into costs, a good
deal startled at the ordinary estimate of the university
and its functions. This estimate is one from facts.

It is tolerably plain that the influence, claims, or
whatever else one pleases to call it, of the university
have declined. It is a small matter that the number of
students is absolutely fewer than it was twenty years
ago, were it not for the prodigious development of
national wealth, of national education, and of public
morality. Add to this the increasing competition for
employment, and the large impulse given to the desires
after progressively higher social rank, and no external
circumstances can explain the decreasing popularity of
the universities. But, one by one, the university has
lost its hold on the great professions, or is losing its
hold. It is no longer needful for a judge to be a
graduate; and, though one is far from asserting that
his legal powers are diminished by the lack of acade-
mical training, yet one shrewdly suspects that his tone
and manners might now and then have been mended if
he had had the advantage of certain educational asso-
ciations. One deplores its being conceived that any
public functionary of great dignity and official repute
can dispense with being a scholar and a gentleman. At

198 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

any. rate, the necessity of accredited education — I do
not mean information — is being increasingly recognized
in all public employment of a far lower kind. I con-
clude that the Civil Service and Indian examinations,
the presumably searching inquiry into the competence
of officers in the Queen's service, and the like, are, not
intended merely to exclude those who cannot read, write,
and cast accounts, or to relieve members of Parliament
from the scandal of giving or the odium of refusing
nominations to those who are wholly unfit to receive
them. There is some inconsistency in the claim on
subordinates, that they should be educated men, and
the remission to dignitaries of any such condition.

In the same way, the direct influence of the univer-
sity on the destinies of Churchmen has of late years
become slighter. I am not aware of any period in the
modern history of the English Church in which two
bishops have been successively appointed from the roll
of Oxford graduates, whose names are not found in the
class list. But a bishop ought to be able to translate
the Greek Testament. It seems to be a misfortune to
the Establishment, when it is not thought necessary that
learning should be an element in the acknowledged
capacities of its chief officers. The greatest human
glory of Protestantism — at least, its first promoters
thought so — is that it claims the allegiance of learning
to its inferences and judgments. And the claims that
the dignitaries of the Church should be taken from the
best sons of the university seems to me to be a corporate
right of the highest rank, and the most indisputable
equity. And as such claims could not be disputed, so
I do not think they can be ignored, if the universities
did their work. Piety, to be sure, and activity have
very far more urgent rights than learning ; but why not

THE COLLEGE. 199

have both ? Are they naturally or commonly separate
among the clergy ?

It is not my business to point out how the material
interests of those who now-a-days enter into holy orders
are modified by the negligence shown in these and
other matters to tlie claims of learning, or how a bastard
priestcraft is encouraged by modern practice. But the
increase of subordinate places of clerical education is a
notable and acknowledged fact. They have generally
originated on the ground of economy. I do not dis-
parage the endeavours of conscientious people in sup-
plying a want severely felt for the services of men who
are inadequately paid. But I am sure" that the natural
tendency of theological seminaries is vulgarity and
.narrow-mindedness. I am convinced that the advan-
tages of supervision and special training are more than
counterbalanced by mannerism and esoteric sympathies.
Nay, I am strongly inclined to disbelieve in the value of
supervision, when exercised over youths of twenty-three
years old and upwards. The plants that hold their own
are not bred in a hothouse.

The remedy for this evil is found, I believe, in the
cheapening of education at the universities. People
cannot afford the present cost. They ought not to
afford it. On the commonest ground of prudence, it is
absurd to spend 1,000^. on what is, materially speaking,
a problematical good, unless there be abundant funds to
meet such an outlay. And yet the University of
Oxford, were it not as a nursery of Churchmen, would
be nowhere. If once the claim on the part of the
bishops of an academical education were remitted, the
university would be denuded of the great majority of its
students. Yet the date of this remission does not seem
to be very far distant. When the ancient connection is

200 EDUCATION IN OXFOED.

once invaded, it is not long before it is weakened and
finally set aside.

A powerful contributory to this result will be rapidly
efficient from the reconstruction of the colleges. Under
the former institutions, by far the largest proportion of
collegiate endowments were assigned to special, and
generally narrow, localities — to particular schools and
particular families. With few exceptions, the first of
these limitations has been done away with, and, without
exception, the last is. The succession from schools,
too, has been much modified. Absolute nominations
are, generally speaking, no longer possible. These
nominations, in the better-endowed schools, are promised
to children in their cradle. The emoluments in some of
the older and richer foundations were as close a matter
of patronage as the election to a pocket borough before
the Reform Bill. You can trace, if you will, particular
families in certain schools or colleges, who, from their
having taken care to possess a permanent interest in the
shape of some fellow, or the like, on the books of any
one college, were the perpetual occupants of these
charities. These parties rarely distinguished them-
selves in the university, seldom were much public credit
to the society which provided for them, but they swelled
the numbers of the university. They are passing
away ; and though one does not regret their departure,
they leave a notable vacancy.

With rare exceptions, the local endowments were
absorbed by the sons of clergymen. These persons
were, perhaps, better educated than the squires or rich
tradesmen's sons; they were certainly better informed
of the advantages to which they were born. So
thoroughly were the old foundations understood to be
endowments in which there was practically no competi-

THE COLLEGE. 201

tlon, that husbands used to take — so it was said — their
wives to favoured villages that they might lie-in there.
Now these preferences are generally annulled, and with
them a large class of persons will be incompetent to
maintain their children in Oxford, or unwilling to
prepare them for an open and competitive examination.

The^ preference, occasionally the absolute limitation,
to the members of a particular family, was another
source of supply. Whatever may be the physical law
which checks the geometrical increase of individual
stocks, it is certain that in many cases it was found
almost impossible to find candidates for these offices.
Several of the fellowships at Pembroke stood vacant for
years, for lack of founder's kin. In some colleges the
preferential claim was enlarged by the discovery of a
remote common ancestor. Sometimes the preference
was formally set aside. In one college the founder's
kin was enormously large. Hence the visitor limited
the right to half the foimdation. But it may be
doubted whether the ingenious antiquary who drew up
the pedigrees was not satisfied by proofs of descent
which would have hardly been legal evidence. How-
ever, be this as it may, the claim is gone ; and it cannot
but be the case, that many persons who would have
otherwise entered at Oxford on this score will be
deterred from the attempt.

Again, the very few opportunities for open election
had brought about a thoroughly well-adapted system of
intrigue, and a complete departure from the spirit of
statutes, the letter of which, in some points, was
affectedly kept. This applied to the best colleges in its
degree, and was characteristic of the worst. All Souls
and Merton were by foundation well nigh as open as any,
but they were systematically filled by the younger sons

20t EDUCxVTION IN OXFORD.

of noblemen and squires. It is needless to observe that
these gentlemen were not endowed with any great stock
of academical learning. The scandal, indeed, of these
and other such establishments precipitated the Act of
1854. Thej were monasteries without devotion, learn-
ing, activity, or utility. Now such persons as these
will, except under very altered circumstances, hardly
frequent the university in future ; and though we may
not feel acute regret at losing their presence, they may,
and must, be missed in an aggregate of numbers.

Now, if we set against the diminutions in numbers —
and the list of such cases might have been extended — the
mere fact of open competition for academical emolu-
ments in Oxford, large, characteristic, and valuable as
they are, it will not be difficult to anticipate a great
decline in the external appearance of its prosperity.
One is prepared for fewer students from the very fact that
many, very many, will be unable to hold their own in
the university. The difficulty has been for some time
felt, and some plans have been suggested for its amend-
ment. One of my own friends, one of the best and
worthiest of Oxford men, the late Rev. Charles Marriott,
of Oriel College, had his plans of poor men's colleges, even
before the Oxford Reform Act. It was a happy thing
for him that he did not try them, for they would have
failed, and added one more to the many burdens under
which his great powers finally broke down. The dif-
ficulty will now be intensified and become more alarm-
ing, not from the absence of worthless people, but from
the inherent vices of the collegiate system.

I do not believe that literature is prosecuted for the
sake of a prize assigned to it at some particular period
in the career of the student. I do not think that large
endowments are any secui'ity for the possession of that

THE COLLEGE. 205

which forms the staple article in reward for which these
very endowments are bestowed. I look at the poverty
of the German universities, and I find their fruits are
extraordinary, and universal. I find my own university,
the richest in the world, far richer in its income than all
the universities of continental Europe, from St. Peters-
burg to Cadiz, far behind, in its literary labours, some
of the smallest and most modern establishments in the
pettiest German principality or dukedom. But withal
I think, under two conditions, that this ancient and
noble foundation, the most characteristic and national in
its aims which can be conceived, would be as far before
the worth of foreign academies as it is far behind it now.

These are the recognition of the rights of this corpo-
ration in the distribution of public employment and in
the domain of public service, and the provision of a
truly national, that is to say, a cheap education. I am
aware that the practice in foreign countries, of seeking
for public men in the various universities, has been
charged with the evil of bureaucratic pedantry ; but, in
the first place, institutions do not make men, but are
made by them; and in the next, the English univer-
sities are not the creatures of official mannerism, but
are independent and self-governing, though indefinitely
liable to the force of pubhc opinion. But, unfortunately,
that self-government has, in Oxford at least, been turned
to the suicidal advantage of a specious monopoly. One
cannot hope that the universities can claim what is their
natural due, until they fulfil their natural duties. If
they would initiate the cheap education of which I
speak, they would be, as they were even in the darkest
periods of English history, the centres of its enlighten-
ment and true progress.

An Oxford education costs a thousand pounds. It

204 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

might be done for a hundred. Of course, this implies
the permission to reside in Oxford, without being
attached to any college or hall, to choose one's own
residence, one's own scale of charges, to avail oneself of
the gratuitous — it ought to be gratuitous, or nearly so —
education of the public teachers and professors, and to
submit to the discipline of the university, a discipline
easily extended and readily enforced.

Many and many a young man prepares himself for
the medical profession in London, at the cost of a pound
a week for board and lodgings. Both items are 25 per
cent, dearer in London than in Oxford. What can be
done there can be done here. Twenty-four weeks'
residence is all that is needed here in a year. The
necessary cost, even on a London estimate, is therefore,
on this head, 72Z. The university fees are, collectively,
about 15Z. more, and some of these even are indefensible.
Examination fees are 31. ISs, 6d, Professor's lectures
are entirely or nearly gratuitous.

Now, here is the material for a cheap education of
the highest class. Here is that in inert perfection which
our forefathers, for a series of ages, laboured to effect
They, it is true, founded colleges for poor men. These
colleges have wholly departed — and by a natural and
unblameable process — from the purpose of their founders,
and are now the chief impediments in the way of that
which bygone generosity and self-sacrifice, or vanity,
or superstition, or what you please, wished to procure.
Now-a-days, when we have quiet days, and in some
degree a fair estimate of literary labour, the endowment
is well enough as an honour or a help, as corks are to a
young swimmer, in the struggle of life. The university
is better than its riches, and many men do without the
latter, who owe all in life to the former.

THE COLLEGE. 205

NoWj mark the consequence of an altered state of
things. Oxford has numerous professors who are
utterly unoccupied. They are engaged in spasmodic
efforts at getting hearers, and are forced against their
will into lazy apathy. As a whole, the public teaching
of the university is unwillingly contemptible. One
must either pity the men who have no one to teach, or
one must despise the men who continue the same func-
tional gabble to successive aspirants for a certificate.
Some of the ablest Oxford professors lecture to women
and strangers. I have gone in to a lecture on a subject
of the profoundest interest, and I have seen there three
or four Fellows and so forth of the lecturer's college, one
or two citizens, and an ambitious undergraduate, who
took notes for ten minutes, and slept for fifty. It is in
vain that founders of professorships annex penalties to a
slovenly performance of public offices. Under existing
circumstances, one cannot find a remedy : but permit
something beside college monopolies, and the laziest
professorial sinecurist will be forced into activity or
resignation. The creation of an independent order of
students is the very life of the Oxford professoriate, and
is the only way in which it can escape from a destruc-
tive experiment.

Look through the annals of English literature, through
the biographies of English worthies, and find how it has
been that honest labour has brought forward, under
such a state of things as I wish might be revived, the
yearnings of native enterprise. Why are such men
debarred from their best right, a university education ?
Why should their powers be straitened by the miserable
selfishness of a shortsighted monopoly, backed by the
affectation of the impossible discipline of the colleges?

206 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

The best discipline, as it exists at present in Oxford, is
that of the proctors.

I know that there are men who think that Oxford
exists for the sake of squires and boobies. I know that
there are people w4io measure the value of education by
the rude and coarse rule of what it costs, instead of by
what it does. Many people have drunk of the ashes of
the golden calf, and have gathered a vigorous flunkey-
ism by the draught. I do not envy them the enjoy-
ment, provided they derive an unobstructive pleasure.
But one would not wish to waste time in arguing with
them.

PAET IV.

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND
OTHER ENDOWMENTS.

I DESIGN in tliis concluding portion of my work to give a
succinct account of those emoluments which ai'e attached
to the several colleges, and to one or two of the halls,
as far as information for the purpose is available. It is
in these endowments that the largest modifications were
effected by the Act of 1854, and these, by way of making
the benefactions of founders more accessible to the
community at large, more conducive to the interests of
learning, and more equitable in their distribution than
heretofore. Hence, as a rule, the changes of the Act,
carried out by the instrumentality of a board of com-
missioners, in joint action with the authorities of the
several colleges, were based on a uniform principle, or
set of principles.

The ancient colleges were founded at very different
times, and with very different purposes. The funds
of those which are nominally the most ancient — Uni-
versity and Balliol — had originally a widely different
object from that which they assumed after successive
alterations in their application, having been apparently,
in the first instance, temporary benefactions. The
collegiate system began with Merton, the founder of
the college which bears his name. But it is easy to
give some general classification, under which the

208 EDUCATION IN OXPORD.

several colleges might be ranged, and the several
endowments distinguished.

First, then, there were, and still are, two grand di\'i-
sions, into one of which all academical emoluments will be
arranged. There are those which are intended to aid in
the maintenance of an undergraduate, and those which
are the rewards of a graduate. These emoluments are
ordinarily distinguished as scholarships and fellowships,
but there are other phrases used to denote the former
of these advantages, such as exhibitions, when the
annual stipend does not form part of the college founda-
tion ; and again, in Christ Church, studentships ; and in
Magdalene, demyships. So in Merton, the scholar-
ship is called a postmaster, a corruption, it appears, of
the low Latin word portionista. On the other hand,
the graduate students of Christ Chui'ch correspond in
the main to fellows elsewhere.

Properly speaking, the only endowments which are
ordinarily reckoned among the scholarships and ex-
hibitions of the several colleges are those, the funds of
which are managed and distributed by the college. But
there is a very large and well nigh unknown income
derived from schools, and occasionally from corporate
bodies, which is virtually academical. For instance,
most of the great London companies elect exhibitioners
to certain literary charities. So again, almost all en-
dowed grammar-schools, and not a few unendowed ones,
have exhibitions annexed to their foundation, or deed of
management, which are occasionally of very large value.
Nay, certain insurance companies have actually attached
the foundation of scholarships to their schemes. Li most
of these cases, the college or hall to which the recipient
is attached is a matter of free choice, and frequently
the university also. An attempt w^as made some years

1

SCIIOLAESHIPS, TELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 209

ago to systematize information on this subject, in a work
called the Liber Scholasticus, but I am not aware how
far the enumeration was correct, still less whether it was
exhaustive. Most grammar-schools, however, make
their advantages known by advertisement. Still, be this
as it may, the assistance rendered undergraduates by
these corporations is very large, and very notable.

Again, some of the scholarships attached to colleges
were, and some still are, elected from a favoured school.
In these cases the college had, or had not, as the case
might be, the power of rejecting an unfit candidate.
Of late years, colleges have asserted and acted on the
right of rejection, but ordinarily, in a time not remotely
distant, the election was a matter of course, and the
college examination a matter of form. At any rate,
if it were not so, it is difficult to account for some
elections. And, on the other hand, some scholarships
were entirely at the disposal of the college authorities,
and were disposed of by a more or less equitable exami-
nation.

Preferential claims were founded either on the attach-
ment of the scholarship to the candidates of a certain
school, or to birth in a particular region, or to kinship
with the founder. By far the larger amount of scholar-
ships were of the first and second kind. Sometimes the
preference was absolute ; that is, no election could be
made except a qualified candidate presented himself.
Sometimes it was relative, that is to say, other things
being equal, the choice was to fall on the favoured region
or kinsman. The natural tendency was to make relative
preferences absolute. But, as a matter of fact, those
colleges which have, of late years, been in greatest
repute were wise enough to reverse the process and
reduce the preferential claim to a minimum.

14

210 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

Again, wlien tlie college elected, it sometimes was the
rule that the fellows should, in their turn, nominate the
scholars. It is needless to observe that such nominations
were almost always of near relations. Thus, till the
recent Reform Act, the canons of Christ Church
habitually nominated their sons to studentships. So I
have been informed, prior to the changes introduced by
the late master of Balliol, the fellows nominated the
scholars, who, in turn, succeeded without examination
to vacant fellowships. Of course these colleges made
the largest figure in the class schools in wliich there
was an open election.

So much for the scholarships whose ordinary duration
was five years when they were terminable, which the
great majority were not, but a step to a fellowship after
a time more or less protracted. Fellows were ordinarily
elected absolutely from the scholars. In some cases this
was a provision of the foundation. Occasionally it was an
innovation on the part of the corporation. In no case,
I imagine, could the statutes of the college be cited in
favour of the absolute election of the senior scholar.
Such elections from scholar to fellow prevailed at Corpus,
Wadham, Magdalene, Queen's, Worcester, Jesus, Pem-
broke, and, generally, at Trinity.

Sometimes there were no scholars at all. This was
the case at All Souls, and originally at Merton, Balliol,
University, Lincoln, Brasenose, Oriel, Exeter. At this
last college there was generally no rule that the fellow
should have graduated, and hence Exeter had the ad-
vantage of being able to elect promising undergraduates
who were near their final examination. Where scholars
were added subsequently to the foundation, the custom
of absolute election from the roll of scholars did not
prevail.

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 211

Sometimes there was no effectual distinction between
scholars and fellows. In these cases the scholars were-
almost nniformlj elected from some school, and, after a
probation of two years or upwards, were admitted as
actual fellows. Nothing now short of inability to achieve
a common degree was any hindrance to the retention of
the fellowship. This was the characteristic of New Col-
lege, St. John's, and Christ Church. The election to fel-
lowships was either by express provision of statutes, or,
by successive innovations, closer than in the case of scho-
larships. Till late years, the condition of the under-
graduate fellow of New College vf as still more quit of
academical obligations, since he took his degree without
examination at all.

As regards duration: the condition of celibacy was^
attached to all scholarships and fellowships, with the
single exception of Radcliffe's travelling fellows. This
condition was originally, I imagine, an act of fortuitous
wisdom, and has its beginning in the compulsory
celibacy of the Roman clergy. But it is a wise
rule ; the reasons against it being gathered from ex-
ceptional cases, and being really very shallow^, and
quite discordant with the very purpose of these emolu-
ments.

Generally speaking, the fellowship was a freehold,,
those which at first were temporary ha^ang been made
permanent in the great majority of cases. But in some
colleges the fellows were superannuated after a particu-
lar period. The most notable example of this rule was
at Wadham. Much may be said in favour of this
provision, but modern legislation has made the discus-
sion of it unimportant, since the rule is everywhere
rescinded.

Very few fellowships have been created since the

14—2

212 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

foundation of Worcester College, and those tliat have
been date from a recent period.

Most fellowships were limited to persons in holy
orders, and were, after a time, vacated on failure of
compliance with this condition.

Annexed is a table, giving in the first column the
number of fellows in the several colleges before the
alterations consequent upon the Act of 1854, and in the
successive columns, marked with the years 1840-1859
inclusive, the number of successions to fellowships
during twenty years. The comprehension of the table,
however, requires a few cautions.

In the cases of New College, Christ Church, and St.
John's, it must be remembered that the numbers 70,
101, and 50 represent scholars as well as fellows. It
was not possible to distinguish them, unless one had
excluded from the list of fellows all undergraduates.
Next, it must be borne in mind that undergraduate
fellows were eligible at Exeter. It must be understood,
too, that three of the fellowships at University, eight at
Queen's, and all at Wadham were terminable. Two
at Pembroke were in the same condition, but the
occupants were re-eligible, and have been re-elected.
Some of the fellows at this latter cojlege could not
be filled up for want of candidates. The total suc-
cession in twenty years will be represented by the
decimal 1*427.

SCHOLAHSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC.

213

^'^ ^S J^"» ~o 3 »^;^' f^^ "^ X re f' 3

I 3 g.^ CH= 2.5 §35 ^^ ^ i iiS-^Sl
g 3 S p"^ ^ S a ^ 2 p- -

2 o o" ro

No. of
Fellows.

rf^- hscotstocntscoos

1840.

• I-" to H- CO • CS rfi.

OS 03 • 03 CO to

1841.

lf>. m H- C5

!-■ )-■ to In9 Ul to to

1842.

• to to o

tOCnOt>-t|i>*>.tO»f>.t-i

1843.

• 00i-'OnlO4»'i-'0303'

1844.

to • CO ^

to* COi—OJtOtOi-'' to*

1845.

• to'io !*>> CO

OTtOt-lOrf».03tO. • H-

1846.

to I-* to ►-' O tfl

to to • 03 or • 03

1847.

H-tO- i—lOOti-'lOCOlO' ^0303« rf>.i-r

1848.

tott^to* otcoi— i-icotoiorfi^to

I 1849.

^ to • to !-■ to to

1850.

• to '-' • tf*- to o^ to

«0 CT to 03 to

1851.

tOtO'-tOO»i— iJi.H-'COt-'OSH-OOCOCOH-

1852.

00lOtOO>tOt->^H-.-.i-iH-

1853.

(-•tOi— to- ^03- tOrfi-. 05. tOifi.

1854.

CO- 03*'rfi.tO>-'CS^tOi—

1855.

i-i ,f^ to • --I

to 03 • . cn 03

1856.

H-H-i-'. C»i-i0303^OtP-'i-'

—' ■ to H- CO H- •

1857.

1858.

to 03 to • I--

to I-- to H-

1859.

Total.

1214

EDUCATION m OXFOKD.

Annexed is also the number and value (nominal) of
the several benefices held by the different colleges : —

Colleges.

i

3*

Jl

i

«

>

"E-

if

£

£

University...

10

5,062

...

!

Balliol

20
17

6,186
5,865

..'.

Merton

Exeter

16

8,134

4,533

12,280

Oriel

13

27

...

1

Queen's

New

37

16,554
4,016

Lincoln

11

All Souls ...

17

7,835

Magdalene...

36

12,517

...

Brasenose ...

24

11,278

22

4,879

Corpus

22

10,215

...

Christ Ch. ...

89

21,232

Trinity

8

3,701

...

Colleges.

St. John's ...

Jesus ,

1 Wadham ....
Pembroke ...
Worcester ..,
University [
of Oxford I

Total ..,
Canonries,
&c. (say)
Glebe, &c. .

Total .

441

£
14,865
6,939
5.174
4,024
2,759

1,611

169,209
14,400
17,000

200.609

These tables of the number and value of college and
•university livings need, however, some correction.
Those are not reckoned of which no return is made as
to the amount of income. It must be remembered that
returns are ordinarily of tithe-rent charge, and do not
include glebe. Some college livings, too, are of veiy
small nominal amomit, but are not by any means, there-
fore, of small annual value. The livings at Christ
Church, though the most numerous, are, on the whole,
the poorest. The second list of livings connected with
Brasenose are assigned to Hulme's exhibitions. They
are, on the whole, apparently of small value, but this
appearance is, as I have observed, delusive.

It will be seen that rapid succession to fellowships
does not, as might have been expected, go with a large
number of livings, but that the precise reverse has been
the case. Those colleges are best endowed with livings

SCHOLARSHIPS, TELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 215

whose succession has been the slowest, with one excep-
tion. The best and largest number of benefices are at
New College and St. John's. But in these colleges the
succession to fellowships has been very slow. This
fact may, perhaps, be accounted for by the practice
which prevailed before the Act of 1854 in these two
colleges, of the absolute and immediate succession of
nominees from public schools, who had no need of study
during their undergraduate life, and eventually no
prospect, except in waiting for a college living. Now
that this state of things has been altered, or is in course
of alteration, there is reason to believe that the succes-
sion will be more rapid than elsewhere. The same
circumstance also applies, in a modified degree at least,
to Magdalene College, where the practice of absolute
succession had been substituted for election. Here the
succession was slow, though the benefices were nume-
rous and valuable. It is understood that the nominal
value of the Magdalene College benefices is far below
their real value, owing to some late legacies to the
college.

The reader will remember that the state of things
suggested by the annexed table represents what is
passing away. Though to appearance less in number,
college emoluments and expectancies will be far more
available and far more valuable in reality, when the full
operation of recent changes comes to be felt. Several
colleges, too, are empowered to augment the number
of their benefices by the employment of incidental or
regular accumulations in the funds of the society.

In many cases the head of the college is also pos
sessor of a benefice. This takes place in Exeter, Oriel,
Merton, New, Lincoln, All Souls, Trinity, and St.
John's colleges ; and at Magdalene and St. Edmund

216 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

halls. The officers of one college are a dean and
canons, and thus are possessed of large and nnreturned
advantages. One of the professors holds a benefice,
and two of the heads of houses are possessed respec-
tively of canonries in Gloucester and Rochester cathe-
drals.

Endowments before the Act. — Scholarships. — In
a previous part of this work, when I compared the
colleges together by certain statistical tables, in which
the several circumstances which seemed to contribute
to the particular reputations of colleges were aggregated,
one of the statements which was made bore on the
number of matriculations and other admissions among
the body of undergraduates, with a distinction between
scholars or incorporated members of the foundation,
and commoners, or those who were not connected with
any corporate endowment, but ostensibly living at their
own charges. This table of course implies the annual
succession to those benefactions which are apparently
]]! tended for undergraduates, though it often happened
that the benefactions in question were enjoyed by gra-
duates, who were occasionally of very considerable
standing. In this table scholarships and Bible clerk-
ships were included, and also those exhibitions which
the college specially designated. Those scholarship
exhibitions formed a considerable portion of the aggre-
gate in Lincoln College, and latterly in Balliol, the
college in its returns having been at the pains to specify
the individuals who enjoyed those emoluments. On
the other hand, no distinction till latterly was made
between scholars and commoners at Oriel College, and
hence the reader will not find till latterly any specified
number of scholars in this society.

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 217

Now on taking a calendar at random, that for in-
stance of 1851, whicli is before the late changes at the
university, I find that there were, excluding exhibitions,
375 scholarships in Oxford. This number, I must
observe, includes all those fellows of New College,
Christ Church, and St. John's, who are below the
degree of M.A. But it does not include the exhi-
bitioners, for the reason that only some of them are
given, and it is only on some of these that one could
get any return. Any account, then, with so very large
an unknown quantity, would be delusive. But I have
no doubt that the exhibitions attached to the several
colleges were as many as the scholarships, and those
attached to endowed grammar-schools, city companies,
and the like, as many more. Nor should I hesitate In
assertinor that before the Act of 1854 there were well
nigh 1,200 endowments attached to the colleges, or
enjoyed by members of them. Those endowments
varied in every conceivable particular. Some were
of very considerable value, as 120?. a year, and even
more; some were of almost nominal value, as bl., and
even less. Some were open to all candidates, some
assigned to narrow local limits, decayed schools, and
particular families. Some were of very short duration,
the limit being within a particular time, a particular
age, or a particular academical standing; some were,
either virtually or by usurpation, of an indefinite dura-
tion. Some were procured by examination, some by
an affectation of examination, some by accident, most
by favour. Most were limited by the condition of
poverty on the part of the recipient ; few were given
in pursuance of that condition, except when the recipient
was subjected to an inferior position or called upon to
exercise disagreeable duties. There was, in short.

218 EDUCATION IN OXPORD.

every conceivable variety in the tenure> the credit,
the difficulty, the value, the continuity of those several
benefactions, in not one of which save those which
were limited to the kin of the founder, or to the
sons of certain professional persons, did the grantor
intend anything but the cultivation of religion and
learning, however much his conditions may have
accidentally impaired the former or frustrated the
latter.

It is, of course, very plain that this large distribution
of academical endowments must have had some very
remarkable results — results suggestive of far more
powerful impulses than any enumeration of a part
among these emoluments would satisfactorily account
for. The greater part of the funds destined for the
sustentation of undergraduates at the university was
unknown, and, in some degree, is unknown still; and
still more imknown were the parties who enjoyed those
benefits. But, if we remember that, on my calculation,
well nigh 1,200 separate endowments were bestowed
upon little more than 1,400 or 1,500 undergraduates,
we shall see that few of those who ordinarily resided in
Oxford were actually and entirely at their own charges.
Further, it is plain that while there existed, in the great
majority of cases, preferential claims to these pecuniary
aids, that very many persons relied on these aids for an
academical education, and that very many, without
these aids, would have never come to the university
at all. Again, the presence of exhibitions of great
value, at endowed grammar-schools, has not been
suggestive of any very excellent instruction at these
schools, or of any very great capacity on the part of
those who have enjoyed them. Ordinarily, the edu-
cation of an endowed dammar-school is the worst

SCHOLARSHIPS, PELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 219

conceivable, and tlie most successful among the places
where boys are taught, are proprietary establishments,
or those which are of the nature of proprietary
ones. It is a very striking fact that colleges, which
could adopt the rule of cceteris paribus in the case of
endowments from favoured schools, but did so un-
willingly, were constantly obliged to throw open their
scholarships to general competition, because the average
of school nominees was so wretchedly bad. Of course,
this rejection was not practicable in those very nume-
rous cases in which the nominee chose his own uni-
versity or college.

Now, let us see what is the effect of the University
Act on these endowments. I have distinguished them
into three classes. 1st. Those which form part of the
corporate revenues of the college, the election to which,
and the disposition of which, was in the hands of the
college authorities, and who therefore ordinarily opened
their election, in appearance at least, to as large a field
of candidates as they could find or aggregate. These
were the scholars proper. 2nd. Those exhibitions
which were limited to particular colleges, though the
candidates were, maybe, supplied from some particular
schools, or were chosen from the number of those who
wxre already on the books of the college. Something
is known about these, since the college was ordinarily
the trustee of the endowment in question. 3rd. Those
which were confined to particular schools or particular
but extra-academical electors, and about which, the
colleges and the university, except indirectly, knew
nothing, since the choice of the college or the uni-
versity is left to the exhibitioner's discretion.

Now, the whole of those who come under the first
class have passed through the melting pot of the

220 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

university commissioners. Most of those of the second
have also. None, or next to none, of the third have,
they being dealt with, as occasion arises, by the Charity
Commissioners, and frequently set on a thoroughly new
footing, along with the school which they are connected
with, by some scheme w^hich has emanated from some
functionary or other in the Court of Chancery. Nor,
indeed, does the disquisition on these last come properly
into any account given of the university, except in so
far as it serves to point out how very much they who
,are studying in Oxford are beholden to an immense
and unknown extent of eleemosynary aid.

Preference to kindred has been wholly swept way.
Generally speaking, too, local claims are abrogated.
The exceptions to this latter alteration will be given
hereafter in detail.

Hence, in the great majority of cases, those scholar-
ships which are attached to the several colleges in aid of
those who seek education in the university, are open to
general competition, the only limitation being ordinarily
that of age, which can rarely be more advanced than
twenty. Poverty, that unknown quantity, is no longer
a claim. A duke's son, or a millionnaire's, has as much
right to compete as the son of the poorest and meanest
man, and no more. Any person who is born in the
condition of allegiance may be elected. Illegitimate
children, generally excluded by college statutes, are,
as a rule, equally competent with others. The chance
of success in the competition is determined by the
knowledge and abilities of the candidate, and the skill
of the college examiner in detecting the present powers
and the future capacities of the examinees. The general
theory of the recent changes is absolute equality among
the candidates, and absolute equity on the part of the

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 221

examiners ; the latter condition being presumably
guaranteed, and not without reason, by the interest
which the college will feel in the reputation of those
whom it places in the advantageous position of founda-
tion members.

It is clear, then, that the Act of 1854 recognizes in
the electors to the several emoluments which are
attached and to be attached to the several colleges,
the position, the duties, and, as far as possible, the
liabilities of those who would legally be described as
the instruments of active trusts. The examiners for
college scholarships are supposed to be by way of
giving true deliverance upon the merits of those who
are submitted to their choice. According to their
powers, I make no doubt they do ; though it happens,
not unfrequently, that their judgment is singularly
fallible. The reason of this is, I think, due to some
defects in their system of examination — to some errors
of judgment in their general method of surveying can-
didates, which should be, but is not, purely abstract,
and about which I shall have to say a little in a future
paragraph.

I have mentioned that, on a consideration of a par-
ticular year, I set do^vn the number of scholarships at
375, previous to the Act of 1854. But, as that Act
has made a very large difference in the nature of these
emoluments, on the ground of their local extension, so
it has made a very great extension on the score of
quantity.

Previous to this Act, some of the colleges had the
wit to see that the creation of open scholarships was
the only hope of it being possible that the individual
college would take a fair position in the class schools.
They admired the wholesome innovation at Balliol, but

222 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

followed it only by the foundation of open by the side
of close scholarships. One of the earliest of these was
University College.

The commissioners, as we have seen, dealt generally
with the difficulty of turning an absolute preference
into a competitive examination. It did away with even
a cceteris paribus preference, on the general moral
ground that the conservative tendency of corporations is
so marked and so entire as to turn even the slightest
preferential rule into an absolutely exclusive one. Con-
servatism is a negative notion ; and as no human action
can be wholly negative, the necessary impulse of this
feelino; or set of feelinirs was exclusiveness.

But it did more than this. Rightly judging, on the
hypothesis of the advantage derived from gifts for lite-
rary purposes, that these gifts were far more effective
when bestowed on undergraduates, and maybe knowing
that the ultimate tendency of these endowments — which,
under the name of fellowships, are rewards imposing no
duty and no labour on their recipients — was a pleasing
but an inert mental state, they suppressed fellowships
for the sake of enlarfjino; the number and increasino; the
stipends of the scholars or undergraduate members of
the university. The extent to which this was carried
will be seen hereafter.

I may state here that those gifts which were less than
a century in remoteness were, as far as regards pre-
ferences to founder's kin and local claims, left unchanged.
It is possible for people to endow particular spots of the
earth's surface, and particular families over the earth,
or particular professional occupations, with the same sort
of premiums which generally ruled in the university
before the Act ; but the benefaction must be temporary.

The greatest hardship in the redistribution of acade-

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 223

mical endowments was the abolition of family claims.
It was tangible, and it was fair. A paterfamilias my-
self, I am, I confess, hardly used in being annulled in
the person of my children of a convenient privilege at
a foundation, the claimants at which were not incon-
veniently numerous. We may be dunces and fools ;
we may not be fit for open competition. But, then, on
the other hand, we founded the college (I speak for the
ancestor), and left by far the largest share to the general
public. We might be bye fellows ; we might, in our
decree, share the benefaction of our ancestor, without
claiming, except on the ground of distinctive and irre-
spective merits, the administration of the charity w^ith
which our own folk have endowed the nation. " One
would not, like King Lear, give all." And it must be
remembered that the perpetuity, if it can be called so,
which the founder secured to his family, was no act of
vanity or arrogance, no perpetual entail either legally or
equitably, but one rather of humility. It was pardon-
able, nay, laudable, that the giver should provide for
his own ; and when out of his wealth and abundance he
ministered, as he thought, to the needs of others, who
shall blame him if, knowing that riches take to them-
selves wings and fly away, he had forethought for his
own poor kinsfolk and descendants, in the place which
his own munificence had endowed ? The day is gone
by, I take it, when people will found colleges, or give
benefactions for literary purposes; and I make no doubt
that this rude disclaimer of a title to preference, in a
hmited number of cases, under a rule that the advan-
tage bestowed should not constitute a right to claim
interference with the educational functions of the college,
will do more to prevent gifts than any other proviso in
the new Act.

224 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

Much has been said by the advocates of no change,
and the successful advocates of total change, about the
intentions of the founder. In many cases these were
obvious and intelligible ; in some they were temporary
and mutable ; in some they were capricious, and would,
in all likelihood, be disclaimed now-a-days, were it pos-
sible, by the benefactors themselves. Thus, the rule
that no persons should be elected except from those
counties where the donor possessed estates was one of
the last kind. The regulation that provision should be
made for the northern counties because they were
ravaged and impoverished by the incursions of the
Scots, is happily set aside by an improvement in the
social state and political relations of two nations now
made one. But the rule, that the founder's kin should
not need the liberality which the benefactor himself
bestowed on others, seems to me to be natural on the
one side, and grateful on the other. It is easy to say
that the provision was perverted, but checks could have
easily been devised. It is very obvious to say that
families increase in geometrical ratio ; but this is a
mathematical position, not a matter of fact — assumed,
indeed, by economists as a general tendency in popula-
tion, but known by genealogists to be largely corrected
in its application. If, indeed, the geometrical increase
is the rule, where is the evil in competition from a large
body of applicants? If the descendants are few and
needy, is it not just that they should share, as they were
expressly intended to share, their ancestor's dotation ?
It is natural, but not honest, that a man without a
grandfather should claim the estate of him who has one.
And, it may be observed, the privilege of founding a
college open for the general public was only granted on
payment of heavy fines to the Crown. The reader may

SCHOLAKSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 225

find, for instance, in the Paston letters that the fine on
amortisement equalled, in some cases, the fee simple of
the lands, and this was the age in which some of the
richest colleges were founded.

The condition of preference in a greater or less degree
to founders' kin applied to Balliol (long since omitted).
New, All Souls, Brasenose, Corpus, St. John's, Wadham,
Pembroke, and Worcester. It may have been the case
with other colleges, but it ruled in the above-named
up to the time when the statutes were reconstituted. In
those founded since 1760 the preference of the founder's
kin is almost uniformly a condition.

Endowments with Limitation. — Though the com-
missioners appointed to administer the Act of 1854 made
short work with the preferential claims of founders'
kin, and, generally speaking, with those attached to
particular places, some were left which are attached to
certain districts and to certain schools (the preference
being ordinarily based on the union of local schools with
birth in particular places), or to schools apart from
places, and to the sons of certain professional persons.
As far as the information is available, I shall make use
of it in the present section.

The scholarships at University are all open, and
without limitation ; and are ten in number, of the annual
value of 601.

There are fifteen exhibitions. Three preferentially
attached to certain Yorkshire schools ; four to the gram-
mar-schools of Rochester and Maidstone ; two in the
gift of Lord Leicester's heirs, i.e. Elizabeth's Leicester;
two connected with the Charter-house ; two bestowed
on the Bible clerks ; and two on those members of the
college who are proficients in mathematics.

15

226 EDUCATION IN OXFOKD.

At Balliol there are ten open scholarships worth about
*76l, per annum.

There are also fourteen Scotch exhibitions, ten of
which are elected from Glasgow University; five scholars
from Tiverton school, besides exhibitions; two exhibitions
of \00l. 2l year attached to the college, besides some
exhibitions for Tiverton and Ludlow.

There are fourteen postmasters (scholars) of Merton,
with four other scholars, all of which, with the exception
of two limited to Eton foundationers, are open.

There are ten open scholarships at Exeter College.
Ten others are limited to persons born or educated in
the diocese of Exeter, and two to persons born in the
Channel Islands, or educated at the so-called Victoria
and Elizabeth colleges at Jersey and Guernsey. But
the limitation is in favour only of those who are properly
qualified.

The college has also twenty exhibitions, limited
generally to the western counties, and one fellowship in
the gift of the dean and chapter of Exeter.

Oriel College has ten or more open scholarships of
the value of 60?. per annum with rooms. It has also
eighteen exhibitions, also generally open.

Queen's has fifteen scholarships which are open. But
it has several valuable exhibitions annexed to birth or
education in "Westmoreland, Cumberland, and York-
shire. St. Bees, Carlisle, Appleby, Kendal, Kirkby
Lonsdale, and Whitehaven schools are thus favoured.
Queen's has also an exhibition assigned to natives of
Middlesex. Queen's College is particularly rich in
exhibitions.

New College has thirty scholarships limited to
Winchester grammar-school. Six of these are'elected
annually at the school from those who have been educated

J

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 227

there, whether foundationers or not. Of its thirty fellows,
fifteen are limited to those who have heen twelve terms
at New College, or two years at Winchester school.
The college is also peculiar in having from eight to
ten choral scholars, whose duty is to take part in the
college chapel services, and who are, therefore, specially
examined in music. The value of the New College
scholarships is not less than 90Z. per annum, including
rooms.

Lincoln has eighteen open scholarships and one
limited to the county of Bucks. These are of no less
value than 501. per annum.

All Souls educates no undergraduates except (ordi-
narily) four Bible clerks.

Magdalene has forty demyships liable to no limitation,
except that, when vacancies occur, one must be
filled up by proficients in mathematical, and another
by those in physical science. It has also twenty ex-
hibitions.

Brasenose has six scholarships for Manchester, Marl-
borough, and Hereford, worth 521. per annum ; twelve of
361. 8s. ; and four of 36Z. 85. for Manchester alone.
The limitation is to persons properly qualified. It has
also some open scholarships of indeterminate number,
and of 601. annual value.

It has fifteen exhibitions of 155^. per annum assigned
to members of the college of not less than three years'
standing, and a large amount of ecclesiastical preferment
annexed to these and previous exhibitioners, which is
distributed at the discretion of the founder's trustees.
Three exhibitions have also been founded at the college
for the support of the sons of poor and deserving clergy-
men, or of poor laymen. All these exhibitions imply
that the tenant contemplates taking holy orders.

15—2

228 EDUCATION IX OXFORD.

Corpus has twenty open scliolarsliips, and seven open
exhibitions.

Christ Church has fifty-two junior students; of these,
twenty-one are limited to Westminster school, and are
tenable for seven years. The remaining thirty-one are
open, but every third and sixth vacancy is assigned to
proficiency in mathematical and physical science.
Christ Church has also a number of exhibitions in the
gift of the chapter, and a peculiar body of students
called Servitors.

Trinity has thirteen open scholarships and certain
exhibitions, one of which is assigned to Winchester
students.

St. John's College has not been hitherto reconstituted,
but is in course of modification. At present its emolu-
ments are confined to Merchant Taylors', Coventry,
Bristol, Reading, and Tunbridge schools, with a preference
of founders' kin in six of its fifty scholars or fellows.

It has also four fellowships limited to the kin of the
founder Mr.Fereday, or, in default, to natives of Stafford-
shire, or, failing the competency of these preferential
parties, to any person. Mr. Fereday granted his fellow-
ship for fourteen years with power of re-election.

Jesus College has, or will have, twenty-four scholar-
ships, the annual value of which is 80/. Of these,
twenty are limited to the Principality and Monmouth-
shire, two to the Channel Islands, and two are open.
Persons educated in certain Welsh schools, L e, Aber-
gavenny, Bangor, Beaumaris, Bottwnog, and Cowbridge
for four years are eligible equally with those born in
Wales.

A moiety of the fellowships is limited to natives of
Wales and Monmouthshire, and two of the fellows must
be proficients in the Welsh language.

SCHOLARSHIPS, TELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 229

The college has a vast number of valuable exhibi-
tions, limited, as before, to natives of the Principality
and Monmouthshire.

Wadham has fifteen open scholarships, and several
exhibitions, open also to general competition. The
scholarships are of not less than 42Z. annual value.

Pembroke has twelve or more scholars, five of
whom are from Abingdon school, two years' education
at the school constituting eligibility ; two limited, as in.
the case of Exeter and Jesus College, to the Channel
Islands, and the Channel Island schools ; and the others
open. The scholarships are worth 501 a year and rooms.

The college has also ten exhibitions, which it calls
unincorporated scholarships; one of which is Channel
Island, one connected with the Charter-house, one with
Eton; two open; and four respectively assigned to
Gloucester, Cheltenham, Northleach, and Chipping
Campden schools.

Worcester has fifteen scholars ; six annexed to Broms-
grove school, one to Staffordshire, five to clergymen's
sons, and three open. They are, or will be, worth 501,
per annum, with rooms.

It has four Bromsgrove school exhibitions, two for
Charter-house, and one for Yorkshire.

All the fellows on one foundation, that of Mrs.
Eaton (their number is indeterminate), must be the sons
of clergymen of the Established Church of England and
Ireland.

Two of the halls possess certain benefactions. There
are three scholarships at Magdalene Hall, founded a
few years ago by a Mr. Lusby; and one, of small
amount, derived from a subscription in honour of Dr.
Macbride. It holds also some exhibitions limited
generally to Worcester school.

230 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

St. Mary's Hall has some scholarships founded by a
Dr. Dyke, limited to three of the western counties, and
one by a Dr. Nowell.

I am not aware of any permanent endowment attached
to the other three halls.

In the previous account given of the number of scho-
larships at a particular date, 1851, it will be remembered
that 375 were of this character. But this number
included the Bible clerks, a body of which I shall make
further mention, and who are about two in number,
on the average, in each college. Omitting these, the
number created by the new Act is 370. But this
number omits all mention of those which will appear at
St. John's College after its reconstitution, and specifies
only the number generally, as at present existent. In
all likelihood the amount will finally reach 400 or
upwards, besides new exhibitions which are by way of
being created, and which are now, as a rule, not to be
held with scholarships.

The annual value of the scholarships at different col-
leges is very various. Some are as low in annual
value as 40 guineas, or even less ; others as high as
90^., or even more. The value of the scholarship is
generally, and ought always to be, announced in tlie
advertisement of vacancies.

But though the nominal number of scholarships is
not much higher than it was before the Act of 1854,
the succession, which is the real point to be considered,
is far more rapid. At the present time even, there is a
demy at Magdalene who graduated twenty-two years
ago, and a scholar of Worcester who took the same
position eighteen years since. In the ordinary course
of things, persons who were necessarily, or by innovation,
elected from the roll of scholars, had to wait many

SCHOLAKSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 231

years for their fellowship, and of course kept others
out.

All this has been altered. Very few scholarships
are at present tenable for more than five years, the
candidate being, ipso facto, superannuated at this date,
or at an earlier period. Let it then be understood, that
the average is five years. It will follow then, that not
less than eighty scholarships will annually be available
for competition, the majority of which number is with-
out limitation; and taking these scholarships at the
average value of Q61. per annum, the resources in the
hands of the colleges for the encouragement of promising
students equals 26,000Z. a year, 5,200/. of which is
annually open to competition, apart from what is at
least double in amount, the unincorporated and school
exhibitions. The university is entrusted to distribute,
for the same purpose, the sum of 1,835/. in annual
income, 766 Z. of which is annually competed for.

If, then, we include with the endowments attached to
the fomidation of each college, those exhibitions which
are connected with a college or a school, and estimate
them at the rate which I have stated on inquiry to
represent the proportions which they bear to each
other, there is, or will be, I make no doubt, no less than
a sum of 80,000Z. per annum bestowed on those who
desire, or receive, as the case may be, eleemosynary aid
in Oxford as undergraduates.

The annual value of the fellowships and college
headships, buildings included, is at least 140,000/. We
shall, under the new Act, have decennial returns — at
least they must be laid before the visitor — of the income
of each college.

The annual value of ecclesiastical benefices connected
with the colleges is at least 200,000/., and the income of

232 . EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

the university, including its trust estates, will bring the
gross total to not much less than 5 00,000 Z. per annum.
Not much less than a moiety of this sum is expended in
pensions — that is to say, in assistance or reward without
service or labour being rendered on behalf of the
stipend. I do not mean that the stipend is not, or
rather will not be, deserved ; but it is absolutely
irrespective of any return for the future on the part of
the recipient.

This great annual income is thrown, in the main,
open to the country at large. With the smaller portion
of it, the expenditure of a considerable sum is needed
as an addition to the help afforded. With the larger
part, the condition of a degree in the university, or an
incorporation from Cambridge or Dublin universities —
academical reciprocities do not include Durham and
London — is needed besides certain other obligations
antecedent and subsequent on the election to the endow-
ments in question, on which I shall comment in a subse-
quent paragraph.

People are not, I believe, aware of how largely
literature is endowed in England and how much more
fully it will be endowed in time to come, when the
tenants of those fellowships which are of a restricted
character have passed away. It is true that the endow-
ment is limited by conditions imposed on candidates for
collegiate emoluments, and by occupants after election.
And, perhaps, no reform or change in the existing state
of the colleges would have been more serviceable and
more beneficent than a permission granted, or maybe
an obligation laid on the authorities of those institu-
tions, to allow moderate pensions from their funds to
those persons, and there are too many of them, who,
after a long and useful life of literary toil, need and

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 233

deserve pecuniary assistance in the evening of their
clays.

Endowments of the Nature of Scholarships. —
There are, as has been already stated, intrinsic diiffer-
ences in the eligibility and reputation of those emolu-
ments attached to foundations. These differences do
not arise from the greater or less capacity and profi-
ciency of the recipient, but from the real or presumed
social status attached to the aid in question. In other
words, there are poor scholars who derive assistance
from certain more or less permanent funds in connec-
tion with or out of the general revenues of the different
colleges.

These persons are called, as the case may be, Bible
Clerks or Servitors. As is usual with phrases denot-
ing the relation of persons to official rank and duty,
these terms have totally departed from their original
meaning. The Bible clerk was in old time (after the
Reformation, however, I presume, for I have found no
trace of the office before that time) the person who,
while the rest of the society were at their common
meals, read some portion of Scripture, with a view to
the checking indifferent or ordinary conversation. It
is well known that such a practice prevailed in most
monasteries during the time of refection, or meals -
taking ; and in all likelihood the custom was induced
from this source upon the reformed colleges. In
modern times, these duties evaporated or were com-
muted into that of marking attendance at chapel, a
function which has been latterly, in many societies,
committed, as it should have been long since, to the
porter or chapel door-keeper.

The servitor (he exists at present at one college only.

234 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

Christ Church) is the relict of a very numerous and
important class of persons. In those times when per-
sonal servitude was no discredit, and the relations
between ranks were based upon the subordination of
juniors to seniors, as much as upon that of mean to
noble blood, the performance of functions which would
now-a-days be thought servile was familiar and natural.
In all likelihood when the founder of a college pro-
vided, as he sometimes did, maintenance for both
scholars and fellows, the scholars were the personal
servants of the fellows. Hence in the old accounts of
colleges one may read of many kinds of such subordi-
nates, who worked out by menial service the necessary
period of their academical career under the names of
servitores, hatellarii, and the like, nor is it more than
a century since such persons ceased to be general in the
university.

These servitors were known, as was the fashion, by
a peculiar dress. They wore a square cap without
any tassel, and a gown of stuff, without certain plaited
work on portions of it. These distinctions have been
latterly done away with, either in whole or part. They
dined after the other students, on the broken meat of
the superior tables, served up in savage fashion; and
it was the custom that on some special occasions they
should bring a dish to the high table in memory of their
previous servile condition, and their present inferiority ;
a custom remitted about twenty years ago. They
naturally formed a society by themselves.

There are thirteen or more servitors at Christ Church.
It is understood that the advantages of a pecuniary kind
attached to the office or benefaction which they enjoy
are considerable. Some of these servitors have achieved
very creditable positions in their society. Not long

SCHOLAESHIPS, PELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 235

since one of the number obtained a double first-class.
But as regarded any future position in the college, that
is to say, the place of one of the students, L e, fellows,
of the college, it was rigorously denied them. The
individual to whom I refer was refused a studentship
by the late dean, notwithstanding his high academical
position. Similar cases are recorded. The only pro-
spect before a servitor was that of becoming one of the
college chaplains, an office analogous but inferior to the
minor canons of cathedrals, with the ultimate prospect
of a college living, which has been refused by all the
students in succession.

The exclusion of those who have been servitors at
Christ Church from the hope cf any emolument or
reward in their own college has been rescinded, among
some other practices of that society, by the provisions
embodied in the ordinances' under the Act of 1854.
One cannot comment too strongly on the meanness and
vulgarity which created and endowed the precedents on
which the previous rule was founded, or fail io recog-
nize how readily corporate authorities create and defend
any practice which is elastic in one direction and rigid
in another.

Ordinarily servitors were the sons of poor clergymen.
Sometimes, but rarely, they w^ere the sons of college
servants, and inferior tradesmen.

Much may be said in favour of granting pecuniary
assistance to those whose antecedents naturally entitle
them to look forward to the same social grade as their
parents, but whose means are not adequate to the
expense, or whose abilities and acquirements are not
such as to give them a fair prospect of competing on
equal terms for open scholarships. Except on tlie broad
rule that such aid must, in the vast aggregate of cases.

236 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

where the poverty of parents precludes the hope of
academical education, be capricious and arbitrary, the
disposition to succour and promote the future prospects
of such individuals is laudable and kindly. But no
such reason can be alleged for the caprice of selecting
persons whose manners, social position, and intelligence
do not warrant their expecting any better status than
that in which they were born, and putting such parties
into what finally will be an anomalous and extraordi-
nary social superiority. It is not just, sensible, or
prudent, and not even benevolent. Such people are
apt to be ashamed of their immediate kindred, have
suggested to them by the very circumstances of their
rise in life that they should be supple and cringing,
rarely warrant the exceptional generosity shown them
by subsequent usefulness, and certainly are the objects
of a choice for w^hich no cause can be given but per-
sonal favour and unreasoning patronage. While it is
the duty of the university and its colleges to give as
broad an opportunity as possible for persons who wish
to avail themselves of academical education, however
poor their circumstances and mean their birth may be,
it is as surely its duty to rest the claims of candidates
for its pecmiiary aid on as few and as equitable principles
of distribution as can possibly be framed.

At those colleges where a musical service forms part
of the foundation, there are to be found a body of indi-
viduals who are responsible for the due performance
of choral functions. The only corporations in which
this forms a fundamental part of the establishment are
Christ Church, Magdalene, New College, and St. John's.
In the first and last of these, the men's parts are per-
formed by the same sort of persons as one ordinarily
finds in cathedral and capitular foundations, under the

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 237

name of lay vicars, or singing men. In Magdalene and
New, some, at least, of tliese offices are filled by under-
graduates ; and in the last named of these societies, the
college has very wisely created a class of choral scholars,
with a view, we may presume, to the formation of an
educated body of musical experts. Those portions of
the service which must be performed by clergymen are
supplied in Christ Church by the chaplains, and in
Magdalene and New by persons holding the same title,
but in a different position, because not forming a part
of what ordinarily constitutes a cathedral establishment.
On the other hand, the colleges maintain social dif-
ferences between the chaplains and the fellows.

Besides these, each of the above-named colleges has a
body of choristers. In St. John's the boys have, I
believe, no education beyond the necessary musical
training ; but in the other societies the boys are care-
fully and efficiently instructed by proper teachers.
Within the last twenty years the Christ Church
choristers were the servants of the chaplains ; and as
the servitors were fed on the broken meat of the
noblemen and gentlemen commoners, so these boys
fought and scrambled for the fragments of the chaplain's
table. The alteration, I am told, was made at the
earnest and repeated expostulation of the chaplains
themselves, who induced the authorities of Christ
Church, if not to feel a sense of duty or decency, at
least to comprehend its existence in others.

The president and fellows of IVIagdalene collected the
boys into a home, under the care of a master, whom
they allowed to take additional boarders, and to create
a sort of 2;rammar-school. It is understood that the
advantages belonging to a chorister's office in Magdalene
College are, both immediately and prospectivelv, very

238 EDUCATION IN OXPORD.

considerable, and there is no small competition for
election into their number. At New College, the
choristers have long been collected in one house, and
placed under proper supervision ; and here, again, great
and beneficial changes have been introduced into the
instruction and management of the children. It is
generally the case that choristers, if they take well to
learning, and are otherwise promising, fill subsequently
the place of clerks or choral scholars, and will, on the
whole, have a progressively improvable condition.
Sometimes exhibitions are specially attached to the
order of choristers.

The PniNCiPLES on which Elections to Scholae-
SHIPS ARE Made. — In the vast majority of instances,
those acquirements are tested in scholarship examina-
tions which are ordinarily cultivated in grammar-
schools ; and conversely grammar-schools make it their
business to train their youths up to what is the general
or traditional form of college examinations. They act
reciprocally on one another. Underlying this process,
however, it is generally understood that the examiners
at the several colleges frame their judgment of a candi-
date's merits, not only in what they see in his present
information, but what they can predict from his abilities
will be likely to secure a good place in the final exami-
nation in the classical school. The prediction is, how-
ever, very frequently falsified, and that, not merely
from a wrong judgment on the part of the examiners,
but from circumstances connected with the future career
of the individual who is elected to the scholarship in
question.

Very few opportunities were given in Oxford for the
study of mathematics, and very few aids afforded to

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 239

those whose taste or abilities made them proficients in
this branch of knowledge. It was always the case,
however, that particular attention was paid to mathe-
matics at Merton College ; and in the election of
postmasters — the scholars of this college — places were
always reserved to those who showed marked profi-
ciency on this subject. Merton, though a very small
college, has had more mathematical first-class men,
during the last twenty years, than any other establish-
ment in Oxford.

Latterly, however, the reconstitution of the several
colleges has introduced a change in this respect.
Special studentships are reserved to undergraduates in
Christ Church, and demyships in Magdalene, for pro-
ficients in mathematics. Such a provision is very
laudable and very suggestive. With a folly which is
strangely contrasted with this wisdom, a folly so marked
as to make the wisdom seem fortuitous, studentships
and demyships are reserved in these two societies for
proficiency in physical science, the unlikeliest thing
that schoolboys could have even a bare smattering in.
But of this hereafter.

In the ordinary course of things, the college adver-
tises its vacant scholarship some weeks, or even months,
before the day of election, the day being sometimes
fixed and sometimes variable. The advertisement is
generally inserted in a newspaper called the Oxford Uni-
versity Herald, a paper which I should imagine has the
smallest circulation of any periodical in existence. From
this, or by the announcement of their correspondents,
it gets with some irregularity into The Times and other
newspapers of wide circulation, and from which, one
may conclude, the general public derives its infor-
mation.

240 EDUCATION IN OXFOED.

It has lately been the fashion to specify, along with
the fact of the vacancy or vacancies, the annual value
and other advantages of the scholarship in question, to
state the limitations, whatever they may be, under which
candidates are admitted, and the requisite testimonials
and the like which must be transmitted or presented
to the head or vicegerent of the college or hall in
question.

These conditions are generally — 1. Age, which is
seldom more than twenty years. 2. Baptism, which
must be certified by copies from the church register.
3. Marriage of the parents of the candidate, a condition
almost universal before the Act of 1854, but seldom
exacted now. 4. Evidence of good character. 5. A
formal memorial from the candidate praying permission
to stand, and generally demanded in the form of a
Latin letter. 6. In exceptional cases, evidence of local
claims, poverty, or special descent ; the latter generally
from persons in holy orders. As there are about 30,000
clergymen of the Established Church, the latter con-
dition is a tolerably wide one.

The examination of the candidates is mainly on paper,
but partly viva voce. It ordinarily lasts four or five
days, and is, or is intended to be, as searching as
possible.

It may be stated generally that an examination for a
scholarship awarded to proficiency in classical acquire-
ments, or, in other words, to that which is relative to
the Oxford first-class, comprises an inquiry into the
candidate's knowledge of the Greek and Latin lan-
guages. This is tested in four or five ways. 1st. By
translations of difficult portions of authors in these two
tongues into English, the passages being selected, with
more or less care and judgment, from those books which

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 241

are not ordinarily read at schools. 2nd. Translation
from English prose into Latin and Greek prose.
3rd. Translation into Latin and Greek verse, the Latin
verse being generally elegiac or lyrical, the Greek
iambic measures. 4th. Questions on empirical Greek
and Latin grammar. 5th. Original essays.

These tests are of very various real and hypothetical
value. Unfortunately, they do not always coincide.
By far the safest test is that of Latin prose, and of
English translation, when the translation is estimated
by exactness and facility. But these portions of the
examinations are seldom weighed at so high a rate as
some others.

The labour of reading over a vast amount of rubbish
has brought the test of essay writing into disfavour.
But where it has been made, and it is said in some
cases still to be made, a critical test, its value is very-
great as a prediction of capacity.

Unfortunately, however, the English universities and
the English grammar-schools, in their reciprocal action
on each other, have given an enormous and utterly
disproportionate value to the faculty of stringing to-
irether Greek and Latin verses. I do not know how
the custom arose, but it is a very old one. I remember
to have read how, shortly after Eton College was
founded, one of the younger Fastens, in the collection
of these letters, sends his father from Eton a miserable
doggrel couplet, which he announces with great pride
as his own composition ; and so I conclude that, in this
school at least, the fashion of verse-writing, as a means
of education, is antecedent to the revival of classical
literature.

As it is, the power of writing Greek and Latin verses
is as fair and critical a test of the present and future

16

242 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

capacities of the candidate, as dancing on tlie tiglit-rope
or playing a piano would be. The power is exceptional,
and except in those cases in which there is a far
more ample and safe mode of forming an estimate, is
wholly worthless. However, it is of great hypothetical
weight, and will be perhaps till college examiners get to
be a little sensible of the utter inutility of their favourite
test.

The examination is not conducted according to the
plan which prevails in public competitive ones. In
these — by the way, the university has indorsed this
practice by its rule in the "local examinations" — the
candidate is only known by a number, the most abstract
and therefore the least suspicious way conceivable.
There is no evidence that there are not other influences
at work beyond an estimate of work done, and pro-
spective hopes. Yet I make no doubt that, practically,
the election is equitable. The interests of colleges are
getting to be so very much committed in the future of
its scholars as to make favouritism, generally speaking,
unsafe and unwise. But it would be well to adopt the
rule of public examinations elsewhere.

And this is the more to the purpose because, without
doubt, a very different principle prevailed before the
Act of 1854. With the exception of certain marked
and well-known societies, I do not beheve that an election
under the old system was ever bond fide. And, in fact,
whenever the very smallest element of patronage is mixed
up with the form of an open election, it is wonderful to see
with what tenacity people who have to give cling to the
right of arbitrary choice, and disclaim the practice of
choosing arbitrarily. It is not easy to account for this on
the ground of the satisfaction which people feel at denying
themselves the pleasure or the profit of the licence to

SCHOLAESHIPS, TELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 243

•enjoy a furtive iniquity. All evidence is against the
likelihood that people will do what is righteous, when
they have the privilege of committing irresponsible in-
justice. And certainly no evidence can be more con-
clusive than that gathered from the contrast between
the solemn injunctions of academical benefactors — in-
junctions fortified as far as may be with oaths and
penalties — and the marked breach of injunctions, viola-
tion of oaths, and inutility of penalties against fraudulent
preferences.

There is, however, a practical difference between the
intrinsic estimate of scholarships, which is immediately
derived from the class schools. It is plain, since Balliol
has achieved fifty-seven first-class men in twenty years,
and Jesus College only one, that a scholarship at the
latter college is less significant than a matriculation at
the former. And the same fact will apply in its degree
to other societies, when contrasted with Balliol College,
and with one another. That an undergraduate gained
a college scholarship is no evidence in his favour, and it
will not, though improved evidence, be a very conclusive
kind of it now.

Hence any information as to the relative values of
scholarships and the comparative scale of merit attached
to success in these trials would be impracticable. In the
first place, it would be interminable; in the next,
fluctuating. The best test is that of the class schools.
But this test is a remote one. Apart from other
circumstances, in estimating the merit of a college
election, one is met by the problem of how far the
college examiner was up to his work, and competent to
determine the present and predict the future.

However, with all their difficulties in detail, one may
have some confidence in the election of scholars on the

16—2

244 EDUCATION IN OXFOKD.

estimate of classical and mathematical proficiency.
These matters represent the labour of many years, and
the competitive processes of schools, misguided often and
mistaken, but still competitive.

Far different is it with the ridiculous sciolism which
has created scholarships for physical science. If it be
understood, and this maybe was the intention of this
provision, that physical science will be taught in schools,
the revolution in ordinary school education would be
ludicrous, inconvenient, and mischievous. One may
safely say that the change will not take place. And
in default of such a change, what does the provision
mean ? why, merely that some advertising or informed
schoolmaster will teach one or two of his boys a smat-
tering of chemistry and physiology, and with very trifling
pains will get the credit of having put one of his pupils
into a scholarship ranked on equal terms with what is the
result of many years' patient learning and careful com-
petitive instruction. The capital of your mere student
in physical science is the smallest conceivable. Social
reputations in older life may be founded on the scantiest
possessions in it. Scholarship reputations in boys will
rest upon still scantier qualifications. Nay, I have
already heard of a candidate and a successful one for
a physical science scholarship, who was unable to obtain
a far less valuable exhibition, in his own college, for
proficiency in the subject for which he got his scholar-
ship, because he was not up to the mark, or because the
cram of his examination work had evaporated.

Elections to Fellowships. — Fellowships were ap-
parently, in the early history of the university, con-
ferred on its junior members. In some colleges, as
New and St. John's, these offices were possessed by

SCHOLAESHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 245

youths on their quitting school. The same or a similar
state of things prevailed at Christ Church, where the
reader will remember they are known by the name of
Students. There was no distinction between the under-
graduate fellows and others, except the accidental one
of seniors and juniors, and the period of probation,
which, however, equally affected all who were admitted
to the emoluments of a fellow for a longer or shorter
period. At Exeter, too, though it does not appear
that freshmen could be elected to a fellowship, under-
graduates were. But, with these exceptions, the prac-
tice was uniformly to elect those only who had taken
the degree of B. A.

Again, the conditions annexed to all fellowships were
pretty uniform. In the first place, they were almost
always obliged to reside. Leave of absence from
Oxford was only granted on rare and urgent occasions,
at the recommendation of the highest authority, and for
short periods only of time. It does not appear that this
residence involved any duties, except those implied in
residence, namely, that the fellows should addict them-
selves to study. But the practice of exacting residence
has long' fallen into desuetude, and the obligation to study
has been very generally ignored.

In the next place, the fellow was obliged to proceed
to ordinary academical degrees, and, in certain cases, to
degrees in some particular faculty. Occasionally, the
number of fellows was parcelled out into those which
should graduate in arts, divinity, or law. The signifi-
cance of this rule, which prevailed in New College, St.
John's, All Souls, and to a certain extent in Magdalene,
was the exaction from the fellow of a particular course
of reading. Of course, when the exercises for superior
degrees became a farce, and academical education was

246 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

concluded with the degree of B.A., the necessity of
taking this degree was rested solely on the pecuniary
disabilities, or the removal from the list of fellows, as
the case may be, of those who neglected to fulfil the
condition.

Furthermore, the condition of celibacy was attached,
either expressly or by implication, to all fellowships.
The only exception, as far as I am aware, to this con-
dition was in the case of Radcliffe's travelling fellow-
ships, which were held by students in medicine, and
terminable at the conclusion of ten years. Occasionally
the founder excluded ipso facto from his benefaction
those who had engaged themselves to be married — qui
sponsalia contraxerint. Fox did so at Corpus. But this
rule fell into disuse. Most fellows of colleges are, or
have been engaged to be, married, and have suffered
from the nausea of deferred hope. The heads, too, of
the colleges were generally required to be celibates, but
gradually have been relieved from this condition, the
last case in which the limitation was remitted havino;
been that of the headship of Wadham, in the present
generation. It is easy to see the reason of the rule —
the founders have purposed that the recipients of their
henefaction should live together. Fox, in his statutes
to Corpus, expressly compares his college to a hive.

In by far the largest number of cases the fellows
were called upon, after a given time, to take holy
orders. In some colleges only one or two lay fellows
were allowed. In some, all must eventually take priest's
orders. In two it appears that no such rule existed.
These were Merton and All Souls. The former case is
marked, because Merton was undoubtedly the founder
of the collegiate system. The latter college was, how-
ever, in reality, a chantry, which, by some strange acci

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 247

dent, survived the fate of its brethren at the Reformation.
In order, moreover, to secure that the fellow should take
holy orders, the statutes ordinarily required that he
should graduate in theology, and proof must be given
on presentation for degrees in theology that the appli-
cant is in priest's orders. The conflicting interests of
different persons on the foundation caused that these
rules should be pretty correctly kept.

Very few fellowships were open to general competi-
tion. They were at Balliol, with the exception of two.
They were in a very few cases at Oriel. But they
were in no other society. Local restrictions of a more
or less narrow character, previous connection with the
college, kinship with the founder, and similar regula-
tions, made the real field of competition exceedingly
scanty in its dimensions.

The electors were bound by their statutes to choose
such persons as would promote the interests of the
college, and with them those of religion and learning.
This obligation was commonly construed in such a way
as to render incompatible what the founder conceived
was harmonious. Perhaps, the interests of the college
even were not finally considered. At any rate, those
elections which were professedly most open were seldom
free from suspicion. The examination was little more
than the thin cover of a foregone conclusion — a veiled
sophism. The writer well remembers, in the case of a
particular college, in which it was possible to elect
undergraduate fellows, that two vacancies occurred and
were duly advertised as open to general competition —
at least competition as general as was in those days
ordinarily possible. He told an individual, who was
then and is now of considerable note in Oxford, that two
undergraduates whom he named would be elected ; and.

248 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

of course, was answered it was no sucli thing, and that
the examination would be bond fide. From ten to fifteen
first-class men were candidates. The two undergra-
duates were elected, and both got second-classes a year
after their election. But of such elections one might
relate dozens, even when there was the affectation of an
elaborate examination. Nothing, in short, was more
characterized by dishonesty and jobbing than Oxford
fellowship elections before the Act of 1854. Nothing
was more thoroughly dissimilar from the reality than
the appearance of an open election, and nothing which
seems creditable is less intrinsically creditable than the
fact of a man's being one of those fellows under the old
system.

Since the Act of 1854, new statutes have been pro-
mulgated and confirmed for all the colleges but one.
This last, however, that, namely, of St. John, is in the
course of being reconstructed. The alterations gene-
rally made in the statutes are marked and tolerably
uniform.

Undergraduate fellows are absolutely done away
with. The mischief induced by permitting young men,
in the impossibility of exacting strict discipline, to look
forward with certainty to a provision for life, is so
obvious and was so great, that the Commissioners could
not but do away with it. Thus in those colleges where
these undergraduate were mixed up with graduate fel-
lows, a line is drawn, and those below it are the tenants
of terminable scholarships.

Again, the necessary election of fellows from scho-
lars, which prevailed at Queen's, New College, Corpus,
Trinity (generally), Balliol (in its close fellowships),
Jesus, Pembroke, Wadham, University (in part), Wor-
cester, and Magdalene (by usurpation) is done away

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 249

with. Scholars have now no larger claim on the
electors than any strangers to the society.

Further, kindred to the founder is no longer any
right Generally, too, local, school, and professional
claims are annulled. The exceptions are fifteen fellow-
ships at New College, and a moiety at Jesus. In the
former case the candidates must have been members of
New College, or persons educated at Winchester in the
first place, and in the latter, natives of the Principality
or Monmouthshire.

Two fellowships only, I believe, are in the gift of
extra-academical parties. One at Exeter is bestowed
by the dean and chapter, another at Lincoln by the
bishop of that see.

Certain fellowships at Worcester are still limited to
sons of clergymen of the Church of England.

Residence is no longer required. There is, indeed,
provision made in the several statutes that it may be
exacted at the discretion of the head, on pain of forfei-
ture by the fellow. But as the exercise of this discre-
tion must be exceptional, and will certainly seem like
persecution, one may safely conclude that the occurrence
of it will be rare.

The head may be nominated or elected from other
persons than those who have been fellows. In some
colleges the fellows had the liberty of choosing an
alien member for their head. But I never heard of
the privilege being employed more than once, and this
was two or three generations ago at Balliol. But it
was a proper thing to put this licence into the hands of
the college.

The fellows must remain sinjrle durinoj the time of
their tenure. In most cases a year after the marriage
is allowed to the fellow, and is called his year of grace.

250 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

The fellows must be members of the Church of
England. Any act which may be legitimately con-
strued as at variance with her communion, or in dero-
gation of her teaching and discipline, is held to - be
overt, and to warrant dismissal from the list of fellows.
There is no great reason to believe that this rule
would be enforced with any rigour on laymen, at least
it is ordinarily understood not to be very terrible to
clergymen. Of course an actual secession is another
affair. The condition of church membership is in-
tended to be a law, but is probably little better than
a protest.

On the other hand, terminable fellowships are
abolished. These existed absolutely in Wadham and
Queen's, and optionally in University and Pembroke.
There is an optional terminability in the new fellowships
of St. John's, but these fellowships, having been very
lately founded, are an exception to the Act.

Again, the necessity of proceeding to degrees in
divinity, law, and the like, is done away with. No
penalties are affixed to those who do not graduate in
special subjects. There is no doubt that this rule will
have a powerful effect on the number of law and divinity
graduates.

Finally, there is a large infusion of laymen among
the fellows of the newly framed colleges. It is not
possible to say how many there are, because the number
of fellowships is perpetually and will be perpetually
changing. Still it seems to be intended that the educa-
tion of undergraduates, the discipline of the college,
and all matters bearing on its relations to the university,
should be in clerical hands. Hence when the number
of clerical fellows falls below a certain amount, provi-
sion is made, either that the next elected person should

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 251

be in full orders, or that one or more of the lay fellows
should vacate their offices and pensions.

A fellow is disabled from holding his fellowship, and
if it happen before, from standing for a fellowship, if
he has a certain amount of personal income. This
regulation is supposed to preserve the intentions of
founders in excluding those who were not by their
circumstances in need of eleemosjnnary endowments.
It is doubtful whether the rule will be maintained; it
is certain that it has already been broken. The amount
is generally 500Z. per annum of stock, land, &c., and an
ecclesiastical benefice of 3001. per annum net. One
does not see on what grounds this large difference is
made, except it be that the clergyman ought to be poor.

If a fellow accepts a college living, his fellowship is
avoided. But this rule does not hold good, if the
living has been refused successively by all clerical
fellows.

One fellowship in every college may be assigned to
distinguished persons, even though they are married
or otherwise disabled. They must, however, have had
an honorary degree, or one by diploma conferred on
them, or must be professors in the university. Two
such fellowships have been bestowed, so to speak, in
commendam. But no college can give more than one
such fellowship away.

The Commissioners instituted what I cannot help call-
ing the silly practice of creating honorary fellowships.
Nothing but an absurd vanity can desire such a dis-
tinction, a vanity prevalent enough, and mischievous
enough in the Church. Not many such have been
bestowed. They have been instituted, however, rather
plentifully at Christ Church; but one supposes it is
because this society desires patrons.

252 EDUCATION IN OXFOKD.

Most of the colleges have contributed largely from
their revenues to the endowment of professorships. In
some cases the assignment has been made, in some it is
to be made, the university in Convocation being ap-
pointed the judge of whether the offer or the direction
of the offer is desirable for the general purposes of
instruction. Thus, Magdalene is to found four such
offices. Queen's has consented to endow Sedley's pro-
fessor ; Oriel, the Regius professor of modern history ;
Wadham, that of experimental philosophy ; Corpus,
that of Latin : the necessary funds for these purposes
being derived from the suppression of fellowshij)s. All
Souls has already created one, a professor of inter-
national law, and is by way of accumulating funds for
another.

It will be seen, then, that by the omission of certain
conditions of birth and the like, the relaxation of those
rules which affected the person who had been elected in
the choice of his profession, and by the permission of
non-residence, that fellowships, looked at from a pecu-
niary point of view, will be far more valuable; and
looked at by the facilities afforded for candidates, and
the pretty uniform rule attaching to them of detur
digniorif that they will be more accessible to the general
body of literary persons who have graduated at the
university. Furthermore, it is likely that these facili-
ties of acquirement, largeness of tenure, and freedom,
comparatively speaking, from subsequent conditions,
will have a tendency towards making the succession
more rapid, and of considerably increasing the advan-
tages derived to the clerical fellows from college livings.
They present, in short, a mass of emoluments to pains-
taking and successful labour, on those subjects which
form part of the academical curriculum which are

253

well worthy of the knowledge and interest of the public
at large.

It is of great interest, however, to know on what
principle the election is made, and is likely to be made
for the future.

First of all then, the Commissioners have universally
ruled that the election should be made according to
merit, and have left, as indeed they must have left, the
judgment about the merits of the several candidates in
the hands of the head and fellows of the respective
societies into which the candidates desire election. But
the head and fellows are bound in conscience to act as
trustees, and to make their election in accordance with
the conditions of the trust which they administer.

Such an election implies an examination. This
examination is, to be sure, at the discretion of the
electors, but it naturally flows into the same channel
with that which the university prescribes in the honour
schools, and which acts as a check upon error or unfair-
ness in the election. The colleges are empowered to
make any subject the material of their examination;
and there is nothing to prevent any particular college
from giving a preference to proficiency in mathematics,
modern history, or physical science, and there is no
doubt that, in course of time, such preferences will be
occasionally made.

On the presumption that the examination for a fellow-
ship is generally identical with that in the honour schools,
the previous status of the examinee in that school, and,
thereupon, recognized acquaintance with the material
on which the candidate's claims are rested, is ordinarily
a great guide to the head and fellows for electing into
colleges. This prejudice in favour of those who have
stood well in these examinations is as natural as it is

254 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

just. The public examiners are far better judges of
individual and relative proficiency than any elective
body in Oxford.

One cannot ever expect to see that elections, in
which so close a personal relation subsists, or is sup-
posed to subsist, between the several members of a
college, will be ever rested absolutely on the intel-
lectual powers and learning of the candidates, however
much it may be the duty of electors to make their
election on this ground only. Yet the scandals of the
old system will be avoided, in great degree, and will be
still more inoperative, if it ever comes to pass, as the
writer earnestly hopes it may come to pass, that the
monopoly of the colleges is done away. The external
stimulant of a body of independent students will do
more to purge colleges of the remaining tendencies
towards favouritism and incompetence than any other
process.

There is one college in which the rights of the
electors are modified. This is All Souls. Here, no
person can be a candidate, unless he shall have gained
a first-class — by which is not meant a so-called first-
class in moderations, a phrase the university has care-
fully avoided — in the final examination, or have pro-
cured one of the university prizes or scholarships. One
must assign this limitation on the powers of the All
Souls' fellows to the fact that no endowment was more
scandalously mismanaged and perverted than that of
this society before its late changes. Candidates might
have been elected from any part of the province of
Oanterbmy, with certain preferences to the kindred
of the founder. Chichele himself was the son and
brother of London tradesmen. But, in course of time,
the college became a club for younger^ sons of peers

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 255

and country gentlemen. Sometimes these persons had
worked well and achieved academical honours, for,
thirty or forty years ago, it was the fashion for noble-
men and country gentlemen to be scholars ; but the
college had, latterly, elected common passmen, if they
could only show a sufficient social position. In 1851,
they had two first-class men among their number, and
the majority of the rest had only a common degree.

The late warden, however, informed the Commis-
sioners that, in his opinion, the fellowships were granted
at All Souls for merit. It does not appear, however,
that any person agreed with him.

When a fellow is elected, he has generally to pass
a year, and sometimes a longer period, on probation.
During this time he is ordinarily obliged to reside in
Oxford, in order, we may presume, that the college
authorities may see whether his conduct is such as to
warrant his permanently remaining a member of the
society. I am not aware of a probationer having ever
failed of confirmation in his fellowship, for many years
past. Such cases are on record, however. This lenity
is strongly contrasted with the rigour shown in demand-
ing, or professing to demand, conclusive proof of the
character of candidates. Yet it would be hardly pos-
sible for all probationary fellows to satisfy the moral
sense of their electors.

By the present statutes of each college, fellows may
be expelled, on formal complaint, for any gross immo-
rality, or for ceasing to profess accordance with the
doctrines of the Church of England. Many persons, in
time past, have resigned their fellowships on the latter
ground, and generally because they have joined the
communion of the Roman Church. A few, however,
have quitted the emoluments of their coUege from

256 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

becoming conscientious Dissenters. I never heard of
a fellow who was expelled for immorality, and I have
certainly known of some who deserved to be. In all
cases where penalties are enforced, or even threatened,
there is an appeal to the visitor.

The succession to fellowships must, in the nature of
things, become progressively more rapid. The number
of fellowships is in some degree diminished; and, under
their new constitutions, they will be of a larger income,
taken individually. But, on the other hand, the dis-
proportionate pecuniary advantages belonging to the
senior fellows, which operated as a constant inducement
to retain them, will cease. There will be a large in-
crease of lay fellows — so large, beyond doubt, as to
always press on the maximum amount. And the reason
is obvious, because, in the great majority of cases, the
material prospects of a clergyman are exceedingly small.
This will cause fewer persons to be qualified for college
livings. Since, also, the rule of merit is to supersede
local and family claims entirely, and will interrupt per-
sonal favour in a great degree, the persons admitted to
the benefactions will be, one may certainly conclude,
more active and intelligent than formerly. Now, such
persons are not apt to remain single.

The succession in twenty years, under the old system,
was represented by the decimal 1*43, or nearly 15 to
20, in twenty years. I make no doubt that, hereafter,
it will be so much more rapid as to induce a mutation
every ten years. The number of fellowships under the
new constitution will be about 350.

There will, therefore, on the foregoing hypothesis,
be in Oxford an annual supply of 35 freehold pensions
granted, almost uniformly, to young men of twenty- two
to twenty-five years old, each of about the annual value

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 257

of 230?., without duty, either special or local, and with
no subsequent obligation or condition, except celibacy
and conformity. These fellowships will be bestowed
on the precedent condition of a degree, and with the
concurrent condition of that sort of satisfaction which
the Oxford schools exact in the first place, and a private
college examination endorses in the other. There is, I
apprehend, no occupation which provides more social
and material advantages than those offered by the
college emoluments in Oxford, under the existing state
of things.

The Celibacy of Fellows, the Condition of Church
Membership, and their Freehold Nature. — The
circumstances which belong to fellowships have been
matters of considerable dispute. Many persons are
found who dispute the wisdom of the first condition,
and a very large section of nonconformists deny the
justice of the second. Again, the advantage which the
occupant of a fellowship has in possessing a tenancy for
life is a matter of consideration, even though the con-
tinuity has been extended to those foundations the en-
joyment of which was in former times terminable.

I have already adverted to the likelihood that the
condition of celibacy was originally an accident, due to
the fact that the pre-Reformation colleges were generally
founded for the secular clergy, to whom, as well as to
monks, marriage was forbidden. It is well known,
also, that the marriage of clergymen was viewed for
a long time after the Reformation with great disfavour,
and that the superiority of a celibate state was a charac-
teristic tenet of Laud and his school. However this
may have operated, it is clear that it became or was
made a rule in the foundation of the post-Reformation

17

258 EDUCATION IN OXFOED.

colleges that fellowships should be vacated by marriage,
and it will be remembered that there is only one college
in Oxford which was not brought directly or indirectly
under the influence and control of Laud.

The arguments in favour of retaining the condition
of celibacy are — 1. That it ensures a quick succession.
No doubt, if persons could marry, and retain so de-
sirable a' freehold as a fellowship is, the senior fellows
would all be married — as, indeed, they are at Trinity
College, Dublin, an4 St. Mary's, Winchester. There
would always be a considerable number of fellowships
occupied by such persons, and the succession would be
about, maybe, one-third what it now is or rather will
be. 2. That it ensures the presence of a number of
resident tutors, who can under the same roof superin-
tend the moral control of the young men within the
college. This, no doubt, is an exceedingly powerful
argument. No one would wish that a body of young
men should be aggregated witliin a building, and then
left entirely to their own sense of discretion and de--
corum. Still, it must be observed that very few of the
fellows do reside, and still fewer will reside when the
new constitutions have their full play. Taken, how-
ever, with the first reason, it is obvious that very few
persons would be found, if all fellows might marry, who
could live within the walls. 3. The moral influence
exercised on the fellow himself. This, again, is a very
important reason. Few men make up their mind to a
single life; and it is found frequently to be the case
that, great as are the conveniences, comforts, and
luxuries of college life, they are readily resigned by the
best men, in order to have a home. The condition of
celibacy is an indirect method of making a fellowship
terminable. It operates as a stimulus to labour and

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 259

energy upon a body of men who would naturally be
indisposed to any labour or energy at all. 4. It
creates society among educated men, to whom such a
state of things would be difficult, if not impossible, were
they married. A college is a club, so to speak, the
members of which have more or less to live together.
It may be doubted, however, whether the life of a
common room is provocative of much intercommunion
of ideas.

I am not aware of any very good argument against
enforcing celibacy. Generally folks look on such a
rule with what is partly a suspicion of its moral bearing,
partly a notion that it infringes a natural right. No
doubt a man has a right to marry. But most rights
are largely invaded, and happily invaded, by social con-
siderations. No doubt single men are less moral than
married ones — at least it is ordinarily assumed 'that
they are ; but it may be questioned whether that per-
son should not only be condoned, but rewarded, who
asserts his inability to fulfil what is at once a recognized
obligation and a moral duty. I think that by the same
rule, a man might be claimed to be maintained by
society who has a distaste or dislike to an employ-
ment which he is able to follow, and which might be a
means of subsistence to him. People argue about the
propriety of marriage from the practice of the most
imprudent, and about the necessities and conveniences
of domestic life from the practice of those who have the
means of rightly enjoying them.

Something, it is true, may be said from the fact, that a
long life in college unfits a man for occupation else-
where ; that, in short, an old fellow of a college forms a
very clumsy and inefficient parochial clergyman, sadly
deficient in tact, and rarely able to deal with the very

17—2

260 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

great difficulties which increase upon the incumbents of
parishes. But this belongs particularly .to a state of
things which is passing away, and which must hold but
slightly in future. Besides, it might be met by
another remedy than that of allowing fellows who had
occupied their fellowship for such and such a number
of years to marry and retain it.

Nothing, I am persuaded, but sentimental reasons
can be alleged for making fellowships into freeholds.
People picture to themselves aged fellows of colleges
thrust out upon the world with poverty instead of a
comfortable maintenance. But if a man cannot, after a
tenure of twelve or fifteen years, sufficiently settle himself
in life, as no longer to need eleemosynary aid, he never
deserved to have it. A fellowship should be considered
as a help to start in a profession or professions where
merit is slowly, though, in the end, surely appreciated,
not as a benefaction for life. It should not be the end
of academical existence. There are numbers of men
ruined by having fellowships, because, knowing they
have a permanent provision, they are negligent in their
subsequent exertions. And any hardship which could
occur, as it might occur, to fellows by the determination
of their fellowships might be met in the case of clerical
fellows by continuing the right of presentation to livings
after the fellowship had terminated, and, as I have
suggested, by granting pensions to those who, having
been fellows, were reduced by misfortune or disease to
narrow circumstances. A fellowship is to a man in the
prime of life and reputation often a positive evil. Who
does not know that the most useless and unsatisfactory
members of society are those who have small patri-
monies, sufficient to keep them going, but not so little
as that other stimulants to exertion may affect them?

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 261

It was very well when proficiency and industry in
letters were neglected or unrewarded, that persons
should have permanent fellowships, but it may be
doubted whether what was once a rational method may
not in these times totally defeat its own purposes.

No person can hold a fellowship unless he be, and
remain, a member of the Established Church, that is,
unless he professes his agreement with its discipline
and doctrines. This arrangement has been impugned
by many nonconformists on the ground that it is not
equitable to annex theological conditions to the occupa-
tion of literary rewards.

It is not, I think, easy to meet this reasoning when
one is simply supplied with an argument from the will
or intention of the founder. It is true that there is a
vast difference between the succession of the present
English Establishment to that which ruled previous to
the Reformation, and the relations of the English Esta-
blishment to the body of nonconformists. It is true
that exact conformity with the religion of the State was
prescribed or implied in the subsequent foundations, not
only by the legal disabilites under which nonconformists
•were, but by the generally expressed condition that the
fellows should take holy orders. It is true, moreover,
that an honest declaration of disagreement from the
doctrine and discipline of the English Church is a more
commendable act than the acceptance of a benefaction
under the continual operation of the doctrine of reserve.
But even apart from the specious argument derived
from the changed circumstances of the time, and the fact
that long since it has been impossible for the statutes of
founders to be literally observed, the violent and total
change introduced in the year 1854, and subsequently,
renders any appeal to the founders' intentions inoperative.

262 EDUCATION IN OXFORD.

and any disclaimer of the abstract right of noncon-
formists impertinent. On the mere view of abstract
justice. Dissenters have as fair a claim to academical
emoluments as professed Churchmen.

The real difficulty, and with it the real answer to these
claims — setting aside the unlikelihood of the Church
quitting its hold, except under strong compulsion, of
what has been so markedly her own for more than three
hundred years — is the social difficulty to which I have
before adverted, when speaking of the prospects of
Dissenters as to admission into the existing colleges. If
there were an infusion of confessedly nonconformist
fellows, one might, I think, securely bid adieu to any-
thing like peace and quietness among them. The effect
would be, I am sure, a destructive discord. People in
Oxford can well enough, and painfully enough, re-
member the blind and furious bigotry of contending
parties, though both professed themselves staunch
members and special representatives of the Church of
England ; but it is not easy to conceive what would be
the result of a collision between those who, at any
rate, assert their connection with the Establishment and
those who hold it to be a delusion, or a usurpation, or a
tyranny, or a heresy, or whatever else they may be dis-
posed to designate it. A college is more or less a
home, more or less an imitation of domestic or common
life. With the friendliest feeling towards those who
differ with him on theological points, one might demur
to familiar intercourse, and still more to compulsory
association, with those who have marked religious dif-
ferences with one. At any rate, that feeling is one of
general indifference wdiich disclaims a preference to the
company of those who agree with him.

But in its degree this claim is met, though not in an

SCHOLARSHIPS, EELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 263

overt way, by the large infusion of tlie lay element in
the body of fellows. It is notorious that the ties
which annex laymen to the English Church are fewer
and slighter than those which unite the clergy to her.
It has loncp since been ruled that what is bindino; on the
latter is inoperative on the former, and that a kyman
may ignore what a parson must defend and uphold.
Nay, the tendency of the present time, if one can take some
of the most influential reasoning to be conclusive, is to a
progressively increasing laxity. We are told that non-
conformists are, in the eye of the law. Churchmen, and
that they ought to be invariably considered such.

Something may be stated here by the way, as a
defence for the retention of so many clerical fellowships
and an explanation for the grievance felt in the abolition
of so many more. It is certainly difficult to see how the
framers of the report, on which the Act of 1854 was
founded, harmonized their reasoning as to the creation
of lay fellowships with their favourite argument for
change, that of benefit to the society by the introduction
of a better class of men. It is not likely that lay fellows
will be resident in Oxford, nor is it desirable that they
should be. They will seek their fortunes elsewhere, and
will return nothing for the aid they receive. They do
so now, and they will more largely hereafter.

The best argument for the retention of clerical fellow-
ships is to be found in the poverty of the Church. No
one, I repeat, chooses the Church as a profession on
accomit of the material advantages incident to it, unless
these have been mapped out for him already. By far
the largest portion of that ecclesiastical wealth which
people say is so prodigious, is in the hands of private
individuals, bought and. sold openly at a high per cent,
of purchase, and as accessible to the body of those who

264 EDUCATION IN OXFOKD.

are in holy orders, as any man's balance at his banker's
is to his neighbour. For the rest it is ordinarily the
prize of political interest, of relationship to official
patrons, or of active partizans. A man may be as wise,
as eloquent, as active, as self-denying as man can be,
nay, he may throw large human learning into the sum
of his accomplishments, and remain as a clergyman
unnoticed and poor. He labours under political and
social disabilities. His choice of a profession is irre-
vocable, though he may have mistaken his capacities
and resources. He cannot get his living out of the
Church, and he cannot get his living in it. He has, it
is true, a barren social precedence, constantly imitated,
frequently denied, and always watched with distrust and
jealousy. It is through the college fellowships, directly
and indirectly, that the reputation and numbers of the
clergy, their learning and devotedness, are constantly
supplied in spite of these prodigious disadvantages. It
is by means of these endowments that men rise by the
force of self-denial and will, if not to the eminence
which patronage bestows, to the independence and
usefulness which conscientiousness effects.

Future of the Univeesity. — What may in time to
come be the work of this ancient and richly endowed
seat of learning, will depend upon the wisdom with
which it adapts itself to the wants of the age, the judg-
ment with which it exercises its invaluable privilege of
self-government, and the liberality with which it admits
students into its arms, and gifts them with its emolu-
ments. That these emoluments will increase indefinitely
in value, is plain, as the resources of the colleges are
almost invariably derived from real estates, let in many
cases at rents most disadvantageous to the colleges.

SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 265

so disadvantageous, indeed, as to suggest to many tenants
that their occupancy gave them a right to demand
compulsory enfranchisement. In some of the richer
colleges, it is notorious that land is let at half its value,
and that leases, held under these corporations, are often
worth half as much as freeholds. College estates, it is
likely, will never be managed so judiciously as those of
private individuals, but by a system of liberal leases,
at rack-rent, they might be prodigiously enhanced in
value. The custom, however, of renewal on fines is
fast dying out, and the revenues of the colleges will be
increased proportionately.

In many points the direct tendency of the university
is to meet the needs of the time by cautious conces-
sions. With very diiferent views as to points of detail,
most Oxford men are agreed in considering that what
now forms the staple of academical instruction should
be retained. It has stood the test of centuries, it is
prolific of useful men, and it is due to other causes than
those which are derived from it, that it has not pro-
duced great scholars and profound thinkers. Whatever
may be their faults and shortcomings, no national insti-
tutions are so pure in their practice and so conscien-
tious in their public life as the universities. The worst
jobbing in the worst times at the worst college was
integrity itself by the side of the dishonesty with which
the emoluments of endowed grammar-schools have been
administered.

That the universities should exercise an increasing
control over the education of the country must, it
appears, result from their secularization, their accom-
modation to modern habits of thought, and their public
acts. It is not necessary that conformity should hence-
forth be the condition of academical distinction. Ox-

266 EDUCATION IN OXFOKD.

ford has accepted the importunate wooing of physical
science, and recompensed it with a prodigal self-
sacrifice. It has initiated a voluntary system of school
inspection. It has even opened its arms, at the earnest
request of some among its body and a few of those
without it, to medicine and mechanics, the nymphs
who have either jilted it long ago, or disdained its
addresses.

The universities have done much for the present, are
doing more, and are strong in the past. They have
heen for centuries the nurseries of English youth, and
have been democratic both in their meanness and in
their dignity. The dawn of English history exhibits
the prime of their rude strength ; their pedigree begins
with that of the national liberties, and their domestic
struggles coincide in all points with the best and worst
ages of the national character.

THE END.

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