SUGGESTIONS ON ACADEMICAL ORGANISATION. t'riHttdty R. Clark FOR EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS, EDINBURGH. LONDON . . . HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. CAMBKIOCE . . MACMILLAN AND CO. DUBLIN . . . M'ULASMAN AND GILL. GLASGOW . . JAMBS MACLKHOSK. I H SUGGESTIONS ACADEMICAL ORGANISATION WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO OXFORD BY MAEK PATTISON, B.D. RECTOR OF-Ti EDINBUKGH EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS 1868 CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY . Pae 1 SECTION 1. OF LEGISLATIVE INTERVENTION. Progress of Public Opinion since date of last Commission, 1854 Reception of that Commission by the University of Oxford Mr. Stebbing's argument The Legislature has duties in respect of the Universities Limits of State interference The Act of 1854 ; its effects ; its omissions Further Intervention of Par- liament now required ..... Pages 1-24 SECTION 2. OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNIVERSITY. Present Constitution, as established by Act of 7th August 1854 Suggestions for Amendment of Council, Congregation, Convo- cation Interests of Convocation not to be rashly tampered with Suggestions as to powers and position of Vice-Chancellor Financial Administration Professor Price's Proposal Exten- sion of Mr. Price's Scheme to College Estates Proctors and Police 24-45 SECTION 3. OF THE ENDOWMENTS. Identity of interests in University and Colleges The Endowment Fund to be treated as one Fund Question, How shall the Fund Contrnt*. l appropriated ? Danger off settling tliat quorum undi-r pn-.*- Mire of an impatient public opinion Revenue of Colleges and University Charge* on grow Revenue The net Income distri- buted in three channel* .... Pages 46-5fi SECTION 4. ACTUAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE ENDOWMENT FUND. 1. Of S*l*itlif to Educating a, Scholarships and Exhibitions to Undergraduate Student* : Effect* of large creation of Scholar- ships in 1854 Demand for more Scholarships : 1. As Prizes to Merit; 2. As Exhibitions to "Poor Men" Consideration of effect of " Prizes" upon Education Suggestions as to Prize - Scholarships Exhibitions to Poor Men Recommendations of Sub-Committee IL ; Dr. Lowe's improved Scheme Imprac- ticability of both Schemes as modes of " University Extension M The only possible mode of University Extension that of permit- ting Students to live in Lodgings No " Extension" to be ex- pected till the education given in Oxford is materially improved b. Fellowships : Fellowships were not sinecures till made so in 1854 The Commissioners under that Act removed restric- tions, and, at the same time, all obligations Fallacy of opinion that the income of a Fellow is part of the salary of a Tutor Examinations for Fellowships, as now conducted, so contrived as to defeat any purpose which Fellowships could serve as re- wards of "excellence" The whole Fellowship and Scholarship Fund ( 120,000 a-year) is really distributed as "prize-money" Consideration of their utility as avenues to the Public Ser- vice . 56-103 2. Of Endowment of Instructors: List of endowed Teachers now existing in Oxford Total amount expended on gratuitous In- struction conjectured to be about 20,000 a-year . 103-108 3. Of Endowment* of Science and Learning : Heads of Colleges ; their Duties ; defect of the " Ordinances" on this point Reasons for placing the Endowment of the Heads to the credit of Endow- Contents. vii ment of Learning Suggestions Head to be turned into a Pro- fessor in one of the Faculties ; in other cases to become Master of a Hostel Libraries : Bodleian, one main source of our literary reputation ; not used by those in enjoyment of the Endowments Suggestions . . . Pages 108-118 SECTION 5. OP THE RE-DISTRIBUTION OF THE ENDOWMENT FUND. 1. General Considerations: Historical review of Motives and Objects of College foundations Study, and the Public Service, the ends of these institutions in every instance Intended to maintain Students of the " Faculties," and not Students in " Arts" Revo- lution 'of the Sixteenth Century changed the destination of Fel- lowships Error of Sir William Hamilton in attributing the degradation of Learning in Oxford to any measures taken by the University authorities What Colleges are, in fact, at the present time, viz. Schools of the elements of a liberal Education Pub- lic Opinion, not dissatisfied at the degradation of the University into a School, is disposed still further to lower the level of Instruction A struggle with Opinion on this point not hopeless Considerations on the attitude of Democracy towards abstract Knowledge in modern times France and North America College Endowments reclaimed for their original purpose, as Endowments of Science and Learning Modern form which such an endowed Institution must assume : (1.) Organisation ; (2.) Merit ; (3.) Guarantees This form may be called the " Graduated Professoriate" German Universities partially ex- emplify this form Distinction between a University as an organ of Scientific Education, and an Academy as an organ of Scientific Investigation But teaching must be founded on original, not on second-hand, knowledge ; this the distinction between a Uni- versity and a School 118-173 2. Outline of a Scheme : Division into Faculties Incorporation of each Faculty (or Sub-Faculty) in a College, or incorporated en- viii Content*. dowed Society I. Theological Faculty ; 8. Law, History, Moral and loriil Sdenee ; 3. Medical Faculty ; 4. Inductive Sciences (gem-roily); B. Am (Classics, Philology , and Art) Pages 173-190 $ 3. Income of Prnftttyr-Fellw False Principles of determining its amount True Principle, that of creating a new " Profession," that of Science Such Profession must be placed on a par with other Professions ; not absolutely in Income, but in Income taken together with the other attractions presented by such a 196-210 4. GraJttaUd Scale of Fellomhipt. An ascending Series : 1. Tutors ; 2. Lecturers ; 3. Professors ; 4. Senior Fellows (Heads) 210-211 $ 5. Patronage. Review of modes of Appointment now in use ; of these some objectionable, none successful Convocation Boards : (1.) Academical ; (2.) Extra-Academical Crown Im- possible to contrive a Scheme which may not be abused Sir W. Hamilton's Scheme ; adopted with Modifications Comli- tious fulfilled by this Scheme What is required is a healthier .-talc of opinion in Oxford as to Qualification No public opinion outside to aid Science the end of a University . 21 1-227 SECTION 6. Or THE STUDIES PRELIMINARY TO THE 1. J'au and Clou. Necessity for a Revision of the K\nniiiiation Statute Importance of the distinction between a " Pass" and an " Honour " degree 227-231 2. The Pott Examination*. Idleness of 70 per cent of the Students Favourite Remedies : (1.) New Schools in " Modern abjects ; (2.) Matriculation Examination ; (3.) Compulsory Examinations for Degree of BJL All of these have Contents. ix True Remedy to discontinue the "Pass" Examinations Not the business of a University to give Instruction at so low a level of Attainment If done at all, must be done by the Grammar and other Schools Consideration of the Objection, that this would empty the Colleges Effect of Compulsory Examination on Intellect and Character . . Pages 231-242 3. The Examinations for Honours : Only those Students who are within the scope of these Examinations can be considered as receiving a University Education Improvements may yet be made in the " Honour " Curriculum Extravagant use of the "Examination" System Bad Effects: (1.) On the Teacher; (2.) On the Pupil The Examination should be restored to its proper subordination to the Curriculum Compulsory Attend- ance on Lectures considered Experience of German Universities Adam Smith's Objection .... 242-258 4. Liberal Studies (Arts) and Special Studies (Science). The Highest Education only attainable in and through a Concentra- tion of the Mind on one branch of Knowledge What is Science ? Scientific matter, dogmatically communicated, as in Compen- diums and elementary courses of Lectures not " Science " The London University Degree of B.Sc. implies an acquaintance with Science, not Scientific Knowledge In what respect we might follow in the steps of the University of London Sugges- tions Anomalous state of the Oxford Degree in Arts (B.A.) at present Eemedy proposed : Arts, or General Training, to end at Moderations, i.e. end of first year of residence Moderations to comprise two alternative Schools : (1.) Classical ; (2.) Mathe- matical and Eeal The Moderation School of Classics to be strictly limited to Scholarship Definition of " Scholarship " for this purpose Latin and Greek Composition as an element of " Scholarship " so defined Final Classical School Existing Statute has remained unaltered, while the Examination has insensibly assumed a quite different character in practice b \ \^ (//4ft /MO. Present chancier of this Examination Tests it employs may be reduced to two heads: exact Translation and Speculative Power Defects in each of these Tests Dread entertained lK H\a.TTOv Hpyov rb eTravopOuffai iroXirelav $ Ka.TacrKevd.fcu> ij- &ffirep Kal ~rb fj,Tafj,cu>0dveii> rov jj.av6dveiv II- &pxfjs. ARIST. Pol. 4. 1. May 1866 a few Members of Convocation met in the chambers of Mr. O. Morgan, Lincoln's Inn, to consider some university matters. A wish was expressed by the meeting for fuller information and suggestions. As no one else could be readily found to undertake the task, I have ventured to offer the following notes and hints. They are but a very imperfect contribution towards a scheme for making Oxford a university fully adequate to the wants of the nation. Such a scheme can only be made complete by the joint efforts of many advisers representing different branches of knowledge. In the hope that these pages may provoke others to come forward with more matured and better directed proposals, they are given to the public. SEC. 1. OF LEGISLATIVE INTERVENTION. Those who make it their business to watch the current of opinion in this country, tell us that there are signs that i> DJ' l.rtjixlntiri- Intirnntnni. it is prc|>oring to take up thr universities. ;ui(l lliat "the university i|urstion" may l>e soon expected to become matter of ireneral discussion. In the refonn of our whole system of education we begun with elementary schools, and have slowly ascended through the middle and the grammar schools. The final stage of superior education has natur- ally been left to the last Partly, it interests a much smaller class than any of the preliminary stages do; but chiefly, it is incomparably the most difficult of all the edu- cational problems. The difficulties in \\hit-h elementary education is implicated, great as they arc, arc difficult irs of action How to carry through what we know ought to be done. 1. How is the cost to be defrayed? 2. How is attendance to be secured? 3. How are the non- conformist children to be provided for? These questions exhaust the school problem for the elementary stage. 1 low to do what we want is not easy, but we understand what \\e do want When we come to the university question it is quite otherwise. As we have here to deal, not with the masses. but with a small class amenable to reason, there would lie little difficulty in getting anything done if we could MI our way clearly to what we do want But the subject has not been sufficiently ventilated, and opinion is not ripe for action. Even university men themselves betray rather an impression that something should he done, than a n -a-oned conviction as to what that something is. The ideas of the wider public, so for as it concerns itself with our affairs at all, are still more crude and inappropriate. The danger is. that the something that is done should he di-co\eml under pressure of the necessity of doin^ it; that /,/// reform Of Legislative Intervention. 3 should be adopted because some reform is required. Twice before, in the history of English endowments, has this error been committed. For two centuries the public conviction of the inutility of monastic endowments had been slowly ripening. In 1536 the monasteries fell before the advance of rational views of society, but the national property was carried off from the nation and appropriated to their private use by a powerful aristocracy. Had these endowments in the sixteenth century been devoted to national education, it is possible that our present social difficulty a difficulty the chief element of which is the fact that our industrial and commercial development has been more rapid than our intel- lectual and moral development might never have occurred. Again, for centuries our middle-class public were slowly travelling to the conviction of the inutility of cathedral chapters. In the crisis of the revolution of 1830 the chapters went to the ground. The advance of social science since 1530 was shown by the fact that this time there was no plunder. Wrecking was no longer permitted by public morality. The nation this time retained its pro- perty, but it appropriated it to parochial, not to educational purposes. Thus a second opportunity was lost; but the need of the parochial clergy was so great, that it overbore other considerations. Now, the turn of the college endow- ments is come. The same power which destroyed the monasteries, which destroyed the cathedrals, is beginning to ask Of what use are college endowments ? The British public will not long ask this question without helping itself to the answer that they are of no use. Thereupon a new appropriation of the endowment will be made. Such ap- propriation will necessarily be unwise, because it has been 4 Of Lrtjislattrf lnt*ri; ////. made under pressure. The public will give away its pro- perty as trustees of a rich charity do, who relieve any applicant, deserving or undeserving, because the funds of the charity must be distributed to some one. Before this crisis comes it may be well to consider what the college endowments can do for the nation, whose property they arc. The remarks which follow are not an answer to the question " Of what use are college endowments as now administered ?" Did I propose to myself a defence of the universities against their censors, I might endeavour to show that they were of use. . This is not my purpose. The advocates of the chapters in 1832 took a confined view of their position, when they endeavoured to vindicate the cathedrals as they actually were. It would have been better to have admitted that the cathedrals had not done the work they might have done, and to have shown what that work was, and how chapters might be so remoulded as to do it in future. The friends of the universities might profit by this experience. They should not attempt to make a conservative fight for the colleges as they are, even though there is confessedly much to be said on their Ix-lialf. The following sheets assume that the English nation, in the existing phase of its history, wants a certain provision for the higher culture, and on that assumption offer sug- gestions as to how Oxford may be adapted to meet that want. If to any competent persons any of the sugirotinn-; seem to demand too great an alteration, let them show how the same end can be effected by an easier change. But it is no recommendation of a change that it is a little one, if it does not answer the end proposed. As one who owes to Of Legislative Intervention. 5 college endowments all that he has and is in life, the pre- sent writer could never turn upon his university in a spirit of hostile attack. But Oxford needs no indulgence or con- sideration of filial piety. Her defects are, I think, defects not hers, but those of our ecclesiastical and social condition and policy. Her merits, on the other hand, are her own. All her recent reforms have been the work of a minority, it is true, but still a minority of her own family. The move- ment commenced from within. Is it too bold to say that more enlightened views as to her proper destiny and worth are entertained by those whom she has trained, than are to be found elsewhere in that public opinion by which she is most seriously arraigned? Our temper at this moment should not be one of animadversion and cavil, but of honour- able ambition. There is a work sorely needing to be done for the social and intellectual welfare of a country which is rich, prosperous, powerful, but greatly wanting in mental and spiritual disposition and capacity. The universities are better able to do that work than any other extant machinery the universities, not as they are, but as they may be made. Will Oxford have the ambition to seize the opportunity to fill the vacant place, to break the bonds that bind her, and offer to supply that intellectual and moral nourishment for want of which we are in danger of starving in the midst of all our gold ? The public outside is desirous to take away or to undo, but not instructed enough to point out what should be added or substituted. In this university it is a minority only who are conscious of dissatisfaction with what we are. The great majority seem to think that we are going on pretty well, and that a few trifling alterations in the exa- G < \l' I.' (/inlotiri- Intermit nut. iniimtion-schools air the onlv elmngcs to IK* desired. Over and al>ovo what is apathy or shortsightedness, there is a strong feeling against interference by Parliament. It is said \\e have onlv jti>t leen reformed, we cannot need to he over- hauled a^ain: \u-inust wait to see how the new system works. We begin, tlien, by considering what it was that was done in 1854, and if effects of the Act of Viet. 17 and 18, cap. 81, are to be expected, which ought to be waited for before any further change is made in the constitution of the university. The intervention of the Le.i;i>latnre in \U'>\ \\;i- made by it, and submitted to by us, in an unhappy spirit, whieii, in a great degree, falsified the relation between the parties. After two centuries of neglect, the House of Commons had been brought to the point of considering the state of the universities. The movement was by no means a spon- taneous one on the part of the House or the Government. They were brought to it, reluctantly enough, by the patient persevering efforts of a minority of university men. Their reluctance to touch the case was intelligible, for it had all the characteristics which make a business distasteful to members of Parliament. It was wrapt up in new, intricate, esoteric details, requiring much study to master ; it related to the transcendental parts of education ; it involved re- ligious party and the Established Church. Ill understood, the question was ill cared for. So much of it as could be brought upon the platform was made into a party topic, and debated with excited temper and party exaggeration. The usual result followed. The House passed the Govern- ment bill, maiming it in vital points in its passage through committee. Of Legislative Intervention. 7 Our mode of receiving the measure was still less worthy of our character. The University of Oxford, remembering that its last appearance on the stage of history had been in resistance to the encroachment of the Crown, took legal advice as to whether it could not resist even the preliminary inquiry. Besides withholding all information from the commission, a great deal of foolish bluster was talked about interference with private property and the illegality of the commission. So great is the territorial influence of our great educational endowments that this unconstitutional language made an impression. The House of Commons only touched the ark of our property with half a heart. The Act nowhere asserts the rights of the nation over the national domain. The preamble can scarcely be ac- quitted of dishonesty when, in professing to recite what it was expedient to do, it omits to mention that the Act took powers to deal with college property. In the same temper the executive commission, when it came to divert college- funds to new uses, only diverted an insignificant fraction. It must be desirable that when the Legislature deals with our statutes or our property, it should do so with a clear conscience. Violence and confiscation, no less on a small than a large scale, must prejudice the moral interests of the country. The rapacious appropriation of the abbey lands probably overbalanced in moral effect on that gene- ration the gain from the abolition of the system. Mr. William Stebbing, M.A., of the Chancery Bar, has drawn up a statement of the legal grounds on which Parliament may divert college-estates to new but cognate uses. This argument is, by his permission, here printed : " A college, ex vi termini, imports a corporation ; and in 8 Of legislative /> invt> tin' demands of the residuum of the original constitutions imposed liy the founder. It may arise from tin- suppression of a family fellowship ; or it may arise fn>m the release of a college from the obligation to provide for the academical education of a county, to whose natives, now free of the foundations of other once closed colleges, such an asylum is no longer necessary; and a foundation in \\lii--h a eon of fellowships, confined, perhaps, each to one particular county, were but just enough out of which to pick the indis- pensable staff for carrying on the college duties, may now find a dozen open ones amply sufficient But in whatever way it may arise, having been created by Parliament, or assumed by Parliament to have been created by it, it is natural that Par- liament should attempt forthwith to deal with it. With a surplus due to the gradual rise in the value of property beyond the wants of the corporation, measured by the standard of the donor's intentions, and of its office in the State, it is a question rather of expediency whether or when the Legislature should in- terfere, so as to utilise the fund for charity, without deadening all personal interest of those who are to remain guardians of it still in providing for its beneficial employment ; and it appears a very proper occasion for the Legislature to interfere and appropriate such gradually -accumulated surplus to new objects when it is giving new objects to the institutions themselves. But, whatever the source of the surplus, or the right time for the State to com- pute and re-distribute it, the principles which we might expect Parliament, in conformity with its ordinary rules of action, to apply in appropriating it, when it does appropriate it, would be those by which equity supplements or interprets the inten- tions of benefactors of unchartered charities ; and while Par- liament merely puts aside obstacles to the application of equit- able principles to a fund for charity employed in maintaining an eleemosynary corporation, no greater violence is done, at any rate to the expressed intentions of donors in regard to their estates, than when the Court of Chancery dictates a Of Legislative Intervention. 13 scheme for the employment of charity funds to trustees, in whose discretion there is no reason to presume the donor did not confide as much as benefactors to colleges in those of their corporators. It would be confiscation, possibly capable of full justification, but needing special justification, for Parliament to appropriate corporate property, whether a surplus or not, to uses bearing no analogy to the old, as though it had come into its hands unearmarked, as it were, by the donor. It may equally be confiscation (as, in one sense, any deah'ng by the Legislature, where the municipal law cannot deal, with pro- perty against the will of its owners, however ample the pecuniary compensation provided a railway act, for instance, with compulsory powers always must be) for Parliament, even when its enactments do in fact enlarge the corporators' liberty of choice and action, to prescribe at all what a corporation is to do, or is not to do, with its corporate property. But the two kinds of confiscation are separated by several degrees in moral rank as confiscation ; and so long as Parliament does with the property of incorporated charities only what the Court of Chancery, in its inherent jurisdiction as representing the sovereign, the parens patrice, and proceeding on the express ground that it is thus compassing both the true intentions of the donor and the real benefit of the charity itself, does with the property of any private charity, the charge of confiscation is like an action for damages in which the defendant is proved to have overstepped his rights, but no loss can be shown by the plaintiff. "Although regard to the wishes of a donor to charity is' matter rather of courtesy than of absolute right (since a gift to a charitable purpose, which may from its nature last for ever, is a total abandonment of at least all beneficial interest in the property), the Court of Chancery, very properly, always acts as if it were his representative, and entrusted by him with the carrying out of his intentions. But, when not con- strained by his expressed will, it interprets his presumed in- 14 O Li-iixlntiri- luti-rrciitinn. tentions somewhat liberally, seeking, under its ty prJs \>\ -iix -ipl-s. what object* a person now wishing to benefit society would choose. It compels trustees for charity to pi-iform the trusts ; and, if no trustees have been appointed or have arn-ptrd, it nominates some itself. If the objects proposed by the donor be illegal <>r indefinite, or have berninc, through lapse of tinn- er change of circumstances, unfitted for carrying out the pre- sumable intention, it, or in certain cases, the sovereign's self by sign-manual, settles a new scheme. When there is, a general dedication to charity, but the donor has not duly assigned some particular interest in the property to any special charitable purpose, or the fund has since outgrown the requirements of the original scheme, the Court disposes of the lapsed revenues. It may in its discretion grant a proportionate addition to the remuneration which any of the objects of the trust receive for duties imposed upon them ; but it suffers in it In r trustees nor beneficiaries to enjoy the surplus as their right. It claims undoubted 'authority to alter the trust in the distribution of the increased revenues, if it thinks it expedient so to do,'* and ' not only to increase the objects of the charity, but to make an alteration in them.'t "We might expect, then, that Parliament, in settling a scheme for the application of the corporate , property of a college, would, if it accepts the principles which govern the i-.MTrir.i- of tin- ordinary charitable jurisdiction in equity, direct the expenditure of the fund first, for the purposes specified by the donor ; but if these were originally, or have since become, impracticable, unlawful, or too meagre for the resources of tin- charity, then secondly, on objirts i-xpressly next within tin- donor's contemplation ; or, if there be none such legal, practic- able, and advantageous to the society thirdly, on those whirl) it may be collected from the character of the originally designated * Lord Chancellor Eltlon, in Ail. -Ocn. v. Mayvr of Bristol, 2 Jac. and Walk. 319. t Lord Chancellor Hardwi. k.-, n,;,i. Of Legislative Intervention. 15 purposes, and from the presumption, without which no such appropriations of property would have been privileged by the State, of a general intention to benefit the country, that the donor, if he were living now, would be likely to select as, among charitable objects, the most generally beneficial at the present time. " The donor's primary intention, and that which governs or tempers all guesses after his subordinate and presumable intentions, was, as expressed in, or necessarily to be inferred from, the nature of the gift itself, to devote his estates to the maintenance of the particular corporation, doubtless to its maintenance as an instrument for the perpetual carrying out of the special objects stated in the charter or his grant, but at all events to the perpetual maintenance of the corporation itself. The property once given became absorbed in the cor- poration, and was bound to follow its destinies so long as, however revolutionised, that retained its identity. The failure of the special objects would not render the intention to main- tain and benefit the corporation nugatory or ineffectual ; and any change the abolition, for example, of the restriction, in the election to a fellowship, to the natives of one particular county is, provided that it leaves the enjoyment of the corporate property to the same corporation, altered as may be its consti- tution and objects, less violent in principle than would be a measure for taking away the fund itself from the formerly close but now open college, and applying it to the endowment of schools in the once favoured district. And Parliament did, in fact, pay absolute deference to the donor's primary intention, so far as it implied the enjoyment of his property by the cor- poration. Its directions for the employment of college funds in aid of the university professoriate nowise litigated against this primary intention. A professorship in the university might be endowed with the proportion of the corporate revenues which perhaps previously maintained a couple of Fellows of founder's kin. But the professor, while adding the 16 Of l.njixlnlin- of universit} rmk :mected the donor's expressed in- tention, so far as the objects specified by him were compatible with, and survived, the changes it had introduced into the constitution of the college ; and, so far as these surviving specified objects did not suffice to exhaust the corporate re- sources, it complied with the implied intention of the donor, that the college should enjoy the whole benefit of his bounty, by directing search to be made for wants and possible im- provements of the college and its own members, upon which to expend its remaining means, before diverting any part of the benefit to the enlargement of the basis of the University professoriate. Whether all in-college wants and possible improvements were or were not adequately provided for by the commissioners' ordinances in every case, is a question of fact ; but at least Parliament assumed that, in sanctioning an expenditure of college revenues on the professoriate, it was dealing with a surplus, with a fund which could not be em- ployed, with a reasonable prospect of advantage, on recognised in-college objects. " When there is a failure of direct objects of a charity, the Court of Chancery applies the fund to the benefit of a charity with similar ends and purposes ; and even on this simple principle, without more, might be justified the diversion to * On this subject, I allude to cases where the commissioners, under their parliamentary powers, appropriated to the professoriate college revenues not made chargeable at all by the founders with such duties. The apology for such an appropriation, win-re the founders themselves directed the delivery of lectures to the *ity at large, IB much simpler. Of Legislative Intervention. 17 the university professoriate, which, although the university itself is not an eleemosynary corporation, is of an analogous eleemosynary and educational character to the foundations of colleges, of college revenues, which the Legislature assumed to be incapable of profitable employment for direct in-college objects. But further, in fact, such an application of the corporate revenues did tend both to the general and indirect, and to the special and direct, advantage of the corporation which furnished them. It tended to the general advantage ; for the university, which profited by having its educational staff strengthened through college revenues, is, though a distinct corporation independent of the colleges, a body so closely related to any college whose revenues may have so been appropriated, that it might be presumed to have been within the donor's own contemplation in the grant he made to the college that is, to a society connecting, if not a place in, yet a certain very positive relation to, the university. It is of the college's very essence that, if not itself as a corpora- tion, yet all those whom, through it and as members of it, he had an intention to benefit, whether express as to the founda- tioners, or presumable as to the unattached members, however long afterwards adopted by the corporation, belong to the university and partake in the advantages it has to bestow. " The university is no rival of a college, as one college is of another. As it benefits by a benefit to a college, so, but much more immediately, a college benefits by a benefit to it, and is compromised by its bad discipline or ill repute. Par- liament, then, might as reasonably have taxed the surplus corporate revenues of a college towards the support of the educational institutions of the university, if only on the ground of this relationship and perhaps somewhat one-sided interdependency of the two corporations, as Courts of Equity grant to a ward, and with a view to his especial welfare, a more liberal allowance for maintenance out of his estate, on the ground that his family, a parent, a brother, a sister, or, it c 18 <{/' Lftjixltitiri- liiti-rrrii/inn. may be, a guardian, is poor ami necessitous. But this cation of college revenues to the e\ttn-i"ii >! ].:-.. t' teaching also, besides the p-n--i.il tendency. huiim -ipleg on which Parliament acts, was .supposed by Parliament to have, a special and direct tendency to promote actual college interests. If, as seems, whether rightly <>r \\niii-ly. tn have been thought 1-y the Legislature, the professoriate provides an instrument, for which no exjienditure on simple in college objects can be a substitute, and which is indispensable for ci>nipl.-tin- and crowning the kind of education for furthering which colleges may be said to exist and be privileged by the State, it was as proper to use spare revenues for supplying the want, uhirh the resources of the university were inadequate to supply, and which rise would not have IMTH .Mii'plied at all, as for im tiiiLC any other need of the college not espt-cijdly provided f..r l.y the founder ; and surely not the less proper because members of neighbouring societies might share in the advantages of the new educational machinery, to which indeed many of them in other but analogous ways were made to contribute in their turn." The suggestions, however, which are to follow do not rest on this basis. They do not require or imply the diver- sions of funds from the use of one corporation to that of another from collegiate tuition to the university profes- soriate. My endeavour will be to show that the n points of public policy, if such a right does not carry with it a corresponding obligation. Can the right of interference be projxjrly exercised as a sort of ap|>ellate jurisdiction only where a party interested is able to carry a ca-e as far a> tlii> lli<_rh Court '. The colleges arc cor- I>orations enjoying property to certain uses. If this were all they arc, Parliament, though it would still retain the right of interference, need not exercise the right till a ca>e of abuse was alleged. But though colleges are this, tlicv are more than this. They arc endowed corporations, through the medium of which the social body performs one of its vital functions. The State has accorded to the colleges, as it has to the Bank of England, exceptional privileges to enable them to discharge those functions. They not only share the protection of the Government in com- mon with all other sanctioned institutions, but they arc an essential part of that public machinery by which the national life is carried on. Protection is not enough. It must be among the duties of Government, under its responsibility to the nation, to watch unintermittingly over the univer>itv, and to see that it does in practice efficiently discharge the functions assigned it If the Legislature only steps in when crying abuses have accumulated, it is hardly possible that justice will be done by a popular assembly, heated with previous struggle between those who exaggerate in denouncing, and those who exaggerate in defending, the abuse. The university submits with discontent as to a tyrannical intruder, and the Legislature, unacquainted from disuse with the matter on which it has to legislate, gladly escapes from an unwelcome task by an Act, passed, it dismisses the subject for an indefinite period. Of Legislative Intervention. 21 This is the point at which the university question is found to be involved in that more general question which constitutes the governmental problem of the time, both in this country and in Europe at large, how to hold the balance, namely, between centralisation and self-govern- ment. Mr. Arnold (A French Eton, p. 74) has pointed out that neither State action nor local administration, as such, can be a principle in education. The limit of State interfer- ence with the universities must be the minimum of interfer- ence which will maintain the full efficiency of the institution which the State has established, or which it entrusts with public functions. " The citizens of a State are a partner- ship, a partnership in all science, in all art, in every virtue, in all perfection " (Burke, quoted by Mr. Arnold). Neither the university nor its colleges are a private enterprise, existing for their own purposes. Our independence and our self-respect must not be impaired, for they are elements of our success in the task assigned us. We must not, like a French mditre d'e'cole, be set to task-work. But a closer connection with the central power would quicken our zeal and concentrate our energies. The mediaeval system pro- vided a special organ of such connection in the Episcopal Chancellor; and the Court of Rome, the then central authority in spirituals, maintained a direct surveillance over universities. It may be true that there are no hands now in which the supervision formerly exercised by Rome can be lodged. Not in those of Parliament, as having too much else on its hands. Not in those of the Church of England, as having no proper organisation, and being, besides, too much of a party within the State. But why should the Crown not exercise such a function? Our L'J relations with tin- State mi'^ht be re-estaMishetl, in a i lc us little revolutionary as may be, by i:i\iii'_ r the Crown the nomination of the Chanecllor. He sli<>nle a lay person nominated for life, be unjmid, but haye a paid secretary an office through which all coiniuunieation> >hould An annual refwrt Hhould br laid l>iT<>iv him l.\ cadi university officer. It should IK; his duty to examine thoe reports, and to bring before the university Council any matters arising upon such reports. He should be ex officio a member of the Hebdomadal Council, and his motions, to be made aut per se ant per aliwn, should take precedence of those of any other member. I do not venture to make any suggestion as to what the relations should be between the Chancellor and the Government, as this could not be done without opening the question of an education-office. In compensation for surrendering its right of electing its own Chancellor, the university should acquire an official recognition in place of the unofficial and somewhat exparte championship expected of her Chancellor in his place as a Peer in Parliament. Official recognition in the Government would supersede for the future spasmodic and occasional efforts of parlia- mentary legislation. Such intermittent government is to be deprecated. But for the moment an appeal to Parliament seems to be unavoidable. The arrears of two centuries require to be cleared off. But the colleges once started on a new career, powers of internal legislation should be en- trusted to the university, which would enable it, under pro- per safeguards, to avoid for the future a repetition of the dead-lock which now necessitates an ap]>eal to Parliament. If this be a true view of the duty of Government to- Of Legislative Intervention. 23 wards the university, the Act of 1854 was by no means its discharge in full. It had at that time become urgent to re- lieve the universities from certain superincumbent disabili- ties which were crushing them. This the Act of 1854 did, but it could not and did not pretend to be a reform of the universities. The public and patent grievances which had been long urged by the minority above spoken of were 1. The incompetence of the governing body the old Hebdomadal Board of Heads of Houses and Proctors. 2. The close Fellowships and Scholarships. 3. Inadequate teaching the tutors being incompetent and the professors silent. 4. The enforcement of religious tests. These were the four points which had been always propounded by the reforming minority of enlightened academics. The Act of 1854 dealt with all four points. It treated 1 and 2 fully and confidently. 1. It abolished the Board of Heads of Houses and Proctors. 2. It abolished local claims for Fellowships, and partially for Scholarships. 3. It did little for No. 3 partly from the timidity in dealing with college property to which I have referred, partly also because it was hoped that the aboli- tion of close Fellowships would of itself raise the teaching capacities of the tutors. 4. What it did under this head was the result of a compromise between parties in the House. The subscription was retained for the M.A. degree. How little of principle there was in the retention was shown by the Cambridge Act of the following year, which abolished all subscription for degrees. J 1 Of (he Constitution of th* I It would be ungrateful to its framers and promote not to recognise heartily the great benefits which lu\.- been derived from the Act of 7th August 1854. Its indirect effects in stimulating the spirit of improvement among us have been no less important than the siwjcific reforms enacted by it The last twenty years have seen more improvement in the temper and the teaching of Oxford than the three centuries since the Reformation. This improvement has undoubtedly been vastly promote* 1 by the Reform Bill of 1854, or at least by one of its enact- ments. The abolition of close Fellowships has not only done more for us than all the other enactments of the measure together, but it is the only one which has com- pletely answered the expectations then formed from it. But the Act of 1854 never could claim to be a settlement of the university. It was merely an enabling Act, remov- ing two evils of long standing, and giving very inadequate relief from two others. It cannot be premature to apply again to the Legislature to complete the work begun, and only begun, in 1854. Beginning with No. 4, it may be briefly disposed of. I am happily dispensed from the discussion of what is a question rather of imperial policy than of academical arrangement, by the fact that it is now under the consider- ation of the Legislature itself. SEC. 2. OP THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNTVKKSITV. On the working of the new government of the univer- sity as constituted by the Act of 1854, twelve years have _ r 'm-n H, M.IIIC, if not a eonelil.-i\e. experience. As this Of the Constitution of the University. 25 memoir may be consulted by others than Oxford men, an account of the constitution of 1854 may not be superfluous. The University Senate called the Hebdomadal Council is an elective body. It numbers twenty-two persons. Of these four are ex officio members viz. the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor, and the two Proctors. The Chancellorship is a life office, the Vice-Chancellor holds office for four years, the Proctors for one. The other eighteen members are elected by a defined constituency out of three qualified categories six from the Heads of Houses, six from the Professors, and six from M.A.'s of not less than five years' standing. Of these eighteen half retire (but are re-eligible) at the end of three years. The vote is taken under a minority protective clause i.e. for three vacancies each voter gives only two votes. The constituency themselves compose a second and lower branch of our legislature. This is Congregation, a body of about 270 persons, and which may be said roughly to comprise all resident M.A.'s. All measures must originate in the Council, and, when passed by it, must be laid before Congregation. Congregation can discuss the measure as it stands, but cannot move or vote upon amendments. Nor may this body vote on the day on which it debates. There is yet a third legislative chamber, Convocation, which every measure must go through before it can become law. Convocation consists of every M.A. who has his name on the books of any college or hall, whether he is resident or not. Council. With respect to the Hebdomadal Council, those who recollect the hopeless stagnation of legislation under the old Board of Heads will, I think, admit that the ju Of the Constitution <>f the new Council has been a substantial train. I cannot any alteration in its composition or the mode of election. The question, however, has IHTII niiscd, Do we want an Elective Council at all? Cannot the business of the university be transacted directly by Congregation t.e.by the constituency itaclf, instead of the constituents meeting to appoint delegates? Mr. Goldwin Smith has urged this on the ground that the triennial elections themselves, with the caucuses, wire-pulling, and party spirit, which attend them, are an unmixed evil (The Elections to the Hebdoinmlnl Council, Parker 1800). He would have Congregation fitted for the purpose of academical administration, by ex- truding from it the non-academical element which forms 1 1 ic main strength of the present party domination. But if we may judge from our twelve years' experience of Congregation, it appears very doubtful if that body would be competent to the task of general administration of our affairs. The attendance of members is too fitful and ir- regular for the conduct of business. Nor would it be possible to enforce attendance by penalty, the most valuable members of Congregation being just those on whose time elsewhere exist the most, and the most imperative, demands. The business would inevitably fall into the handsof permanent delegacies or standing committees. These would necessarily be composed of the same class of men who now make up the Council, who would act without the sense of publicity and responsibility under which the Council now acts. Men like Mr. Goldwin Smith himself, whose time is engrossed by the literary or scientific studies proper to the place. cannot go into Council as it is, and would not in the other case be able to give the close and *///>/ attendance in ( 'on Of the Constitution of the University. 27 gregation which would then be necessary. The working tutor or professor- now is glad to be able to delegate his share of the drudgery of business to his representative in Council. At the same time, whenever a question of im- portance is passing through our legislature, he has the opportunity of offering his advice upon it in person in Con- gregation. As to the displays of party-spirit, which take place on occasion of every election to Council, they are con- fessedly one of the abuses of the place. But it must be observed that elections to Council are only the occasions on which a spirit, the existence of which is due to much more deeply -seated causes, shows itself on the surface. Elections to Council at Cambridge do not stir up theological passions. If elections to Council ceased to be at Oxford, the same passions would only break out with still more disastrous effect in nominations to offices. And if Con- gregation has not public virtue enough to be trusted with a vote for representatives, how can it be trusted with the direct administration of its own affairs ? I should wish, then, to see an Elective Council continue to exist. In adapting it to the other parts of the scheme, as proposed in these " Suggestions," the threefold division into Heads, Professors, and Masters, would have to be re- placed by a division according to the Faculties. But all councils have an inherent tendency to grasp at administra- tion beyond their competency to attempt to do too mueh. There is at least one department which requires a more special supervision than can be given by the Hebdomadal Council viz. the Studies and the Examinations. A body elected for general purposes is obviously not fitted for the conduct of such an intricate machine as our examination 28 Of the Constitution of the University. svstcin. Our treatment of (hi* department has hitherto been too minute for legislation, too lax for adminis- tration. Wo have attempted to regulate by statute, details too minute to be capable of being fixed e.g. even to enacting what books shall be used in the schools ; while, on the other hand, there is no concerted action between the several boards of examiners. The whole of this department, "Studies and Examinations," should be placed under a special delegacy. An organic statute passed, defining the competency of this delegacy, and as few other points as possible, the Hebdomadal Council would be relieved from all further responsibility in respect of "the schools," and the university would In- released from the anxiety of having the system of its studies always at the mercy of a party majority. Congregation. This body consists of all resident mem- bers of Convocation, with a few official persons e.g. the Chancellor, High Steward, etc. who are non-residmt. Residence is defined as residing twenty weeks within a mile and a half of Carfax. The number of persons thus qualified is at present about 270. This body forms at once a member of the legislature, or House through vhich all statutes must pass before they can become law, and is also the constituency by which Council is elected. This body was called into being by the Act of 1854, and was calculated to have been one of the most useful of its enactments. That it has not been so is owing to an alteration, seemingly trifling, which was made in the Nil in committee. Congregation was designed by Mr. Glad- stone to I.e an aeml>lv of the persons ensured in teaching a Senatus Acade miens. In committee this was enlarged Of the Constitution of the University. 29 so as to include all residents. This alteration added to the assembly about 100 members, not connected with the studies of the place, and waterlogged Congregation at one stroke. Had Mr. Gladstone's first draft been adopted, Congregation would have been a revival of the old distinc- tion between regent and non-regent masters. It would have been a notable example of what I believe will be found to be true, that, as the university revives, we shall find our- selves reviving old arrangements, not because they are old, but because they were the results of much experience. "All doctors and masters had originally a right to be present in the general assembly of the university. But after the middle of the thirteenth century, when these degrees no longer necessarily implied that the person holding them was actually engaged in teaching, the lecturers or acting masters only (magistri regentes) ordi- narily took a part in the general assembly " (Maiden, Origin of Universities, p. 25). Mr. Goldwin Smith has proposed a double reform of Congregation the exclusion of all residents engaged in any other profession than that of learning or education, and the inclusion of non-residents having only those interests. Both these amendments are desirable. The congregational franchise is a strictly educational franchise, and local residence can confer no right to it, any more than non-residence can disqualify. But in this case, as in that of all educational or fancy franchises, there will be a difficulty in finding a definition. How can we ascertain of any class of non-residents that in its mind the interests of learning and science will be paramount to theological party ? How can we say of any class of resident M.A.'s 30 Of (}<> CniixtitiitiiHt uf III, 1'iiii, rsili/. that it is not engaged in studv > Certainly this cannot be affirmed of the city clergy, tin- rl;i>s which is supposed to be most directly under discipline to the wire (Millers of tin- party. For every Anglican clergyman, when ordained priest, enters into on engagement that he \\ill " l>c diligent in praters, and in reading of the Holy Scriptures, mnl in sitch studies as help to the knowledge of the same" (Ordi- nation Service). An attempt of Mr. Gladstone's to confine Congregation to "students" was upset in committee in by this very difficulty of defining students. It was then found impossiMe to procure a definition which did not create as many anomalies as it removed a definition which shall exclude those who have no interest in know- ledge without also excluding the class, e.g., to which Mr. Gold win Smith himself belongs of unattached M . A . ' > iv> i - dent for purposes of study. This, however, may be a matter of detail. The important thing is to get the prin- ciple recognised in Parliament and elsewhere, that the franchise, as entrusted to Congregation, is an educational, not a local or a property franchise. The substitution of the words " all residents" in committee (in May 1854) was made on Sir W. Heathcote's motion, who argued that. " Congregation ought to be an epitome of ( 'oiivocation if it were to be useful at all." The policy of creating an inter- mediate legislative corps between Council and Convocation was, on the contrary, not to repeat Convocation, but to <<,,-,><( Convocation. This object of obtaining a more enlightened vote was defeated by Sir W. Heathcote's amendment. Congregation has been, what he de-ire. I to HOC it, "an epitome of Convocation." All that is now asked is that effect should be given to the original scheme Of the Constitution of the University. 31 of Congregation a scheme of which nothing but the name has ever been in operation. As if its usefulness was not sufficiently crushed by making it " an epitome of Convoca- tion," jealousy of its power went the length of (1), divid- ing the vote from the debate; and (2), denying it the power of amending. Both these disabilities should be abrogated. Congregation, purged of alien interests, ought to feel itself an integral and equal moiety of the legislature. When reconstituted as proposed, it would be a body not equal to the Council for the detailed conduct of business and shaping of measures, but likely to take broader views of principle and policy. Convocation. If Congregation were reinstated in its destined rights, it seems to follow that it would be necessary to put an end to the legislative functions of Convocation. This also Mr. Goldwin Smith contends for. He describes Convocation as " theoretically a body so large that scarcely a tenth part of it could get into the Convocation House, and scattered over the three kingdoms, which, if it could be brought together in a building large enough to hold it, and addressed by its most eminent members, might pos- sibly come to a reasonable decision. Practically, saving in the case of some theological Armageddon, it is some thirty or forty staunch partisans, who, having leisure enough to come up whenever they are called, have put themselves into the pockets of two or three wire-pullers, and thus enabled the wire-pullers to coerce Congregation whenever it presumes to come to a decision of which they do not approve" (Elections to the Hebdomadal Council, p. 12). Before we ask for this change, we ought fully to place before our minds how great the change would be. It 32 Of the Constitution of the University. appears to mo that this single measure, could it pos.sil.lv be carried, would be a greater revolution in the univciHtv than all the reforms of 1854, or than any other reforms that are thought of now. Without professing to be able to foresee all the results of a change so in nitons, is it not clear on the face of it that it would be to transfer at one stroke the foundation of the university from property to intelligence ? As long as Convocation subsists as it is at present, though it may be seldom appealed to, it always can be, and it retains in its hands the ultimate division on the whole conduct of the university, its internal govern- ment as well as its external relations. How is this body composed, in which is ultimately lodged the sovereign authority of the university? In discussions on the elec- toral franchise we always see the university constituency quoted as an example (and the only extant example) of the " educational franchise." It is so by contrast with the franchise which is founded on a combination of property and territorial circumscription. All the members of Con- vocation have this in common, that they have been educate' I at the university. But they have also other things in com- mon, which influence their opinions more than the common attribute which constitutes their qualification. The majority of the Oxford Convocation are clergymen beneficed clcrirv- men, or having a fair prospect of becoming so. Their vote is not a purely clerical or professional vote, but one, partly professional, partly governed by that rela- tion to the property of the country in which the bcne- lieed clergyman stands. Such a constituency is capable of being, among the constituencies in this country, a very valuable electoral body, and Mr. Goldwin Smith does Of the Constitution of the University. 33 not propose to deprive it of the parliamentary franchise, though he passes an indignant condemnation on its occa- sional employment of that privilege. The sovereign autho- rity in university affairs is, then, a body in which the educational element on which the qualification rests is very considerably tempered, or held in check, by profes- sional or territorial interests. Now, Congregation, as we propose to reform it, would be a purely educational body, entirely divested of such interests. Are we prepared to sever the ties which at present bind our national univer- sities to the country and its interests, and hand them over to intelligence ? Is our country ripe for such a measure ? I wish I could think so. I confess it seems to me there are possible risks in the attempt, which ought to be well weighed before the attempt is made. It is not, of course, meant that the conduct of the institution by an intelligent Congregation would not be greatly superior to legislation by a body composed as Convocation is composed. But would a great institution like Oxford, possessed of vast wealth, if its roots in the prejudices and interests of the country were cut at one stroke, and it was handed over to the conduct of a handful of intelligent men to manage upon rational principles, would it be safe for even a single session of Parliament? Intelligence is in a minority in this country in our general administration. It is aware that it is watched with fear and suspicion. It is prudent enough not to provoke a direct struggle between itself and the forces that resist it. Observers tell us that the culture of our highest class is not what it used to be. Mr. Arnold says " The culture and intellectual life of our highest class seem to me to have somewhat flagged since the last century. n : I Of tin- ( 'nntlitntiini f the University. Their value for high culture, and their belief in it> import - anre. is not what it u>ed to ln." He thinks " that this Hleep of the mind this torpor of intellectual life this dearth of ideas an indifference to fine culture, or disk-lief in its iu-rr->it\ is >preadiiiL r throii'_ r h tin- Imlk of our higher rlass, and influencing the rising generation " ( J-'n i-li Eton, p. 102). The dearth of literature in the country houses of England is a frequent source of complaint. I have heard it said that there is not now a single nobleman's man-inn in which the company and the tone of society is literary. If the country is thus going backwards in civilisation, the towns arc not going forward. Our middle class does not seem to have made any advances towards taking up the place which the aristocracy has abdicated. Dr. Donald- son's picture is of the man of business properly so called : " The man of business is prone to acquiesce in the con- sciousness of his own respectability. This, in some of its outward manifestations, is the idol of his heart. If he is ambitious to be fashionable or aristocratic, it is for the sake of appearances, and he is generally found to imitate rather th- expensiveness, than the refinements, of the rlass above him. If he lays down the law in politics or in n-li^ion In- is the nm ..n scions mouthpiece of some short-sighted utilitarian or canting bigot whom it is respectable to follow. When he sends his boys to school, he cares less for their improvement than for the credit which redounds to himself. When most satisfied with his own position he seems to care for little beyond tin- uncontradicted maintenance of the opinions he lias adopted from his newspaper or his preacher, his personal and domestic comfort, and the decencies of his outward appearance. Abun- dant meals and good clothes, and a well-furnished parlour, are the exU-nt of his wishes." (Classical Sdiolarnhip, etc., p. 88.) Of the Constitution of the University. 35 And a foreign observer describes us more generally : " L'esprit anglais est un des moins ouverts a la critique. Aucune nation dans le monde ne cherche davantage la verit6 qui a une utilite prochaine ; aucune n'a plus de secrets pour voir les choses comme elle les veut ; aucune n'est plus singu- liere et meme admirable pour faire la verit6 a son image et a son usage. Cherchez un peuple qui sente moins le besoin de connaitre ce dont il ne voit pas I'utilit6 actuelle : cherchez-en un seul qui subordonne plus volontiers ses libres et vigoureuses facult^s a cette utilite^ un seul pour lequel ce qui a et6 pens6 ailleurs ait moins de valeur et de poids. Prenez les 4crivains anglais depuis 70 ans ; assurement il y en a beaucoup qui ont cherch6 et exprime' le vrai ; mais combien y en a-t-il qui n'avaient pas de raisons de parti pour le chercher et rex- primer? Ont ils sou vent revendiqu^ un droit de la pens^e sans courir aussitot a la pratique ? Quand on travaille autant que le peuple anglais, on n'a pas le temps de penser, ou plutot un tel peuple pense en agissant, et sa pens^e c'est de 1'action." (Bevue des deitx Mondes, 1 Avril 1866.) The clergy are often treated as obstacles to the diffusion of knowledge. As a, profession, perhaps, they are at a disad- vantage from their want of proper professional acquirement acquirement which makes the practitioner of any other profession respectable, however slender his general attain- ment. But as a class, the clergy surely compare favour- ably with any other class in the country. Abstract the clergy from the rural parishes, and how much cultivation would you have left? Literary men who lead a metro- politan life are apt to think depreciatingly of the clergy as a class. They would do well to consider the immense advantage which England enjoys, in comparison with a Catholic country, from the possession of a territorially :t; Of fix' Constitution of tin r/mv/v*////. endowed clergy, and the riivim i-tanrc that the receive a general, not a pinl'i i..n;il, nlm-ation. Our imiiKHliate prospects for the moral improvement of the country must rest in great measure on this order. It is an error, I venture to think, on the part of educated and intelligent politicians, when they aim at social improve- ment without the clergy. Within the Church of England it -(If there is just now a strongly-pronounced tendency to t urn the English clergyman into the Catholic priest. It would be playing into the hands of this party to do any- thing which should break the connection at present sub- sisting between the clergy and the univc r>ities. Our hope must be in acting more powerfully on the clergy, and not in alienating them. It may be at this moment the interest of Oxford to be relieved from the dead weight of Convoca- tion. But in order to get an immediate benefit to the university, we must not risk the remoter hopes of the nation. The small minority of educated men exercise a great power in this country. But they exercise it on con- dition of remaining unobtrusive and invisible. They are not strong enough to contend single-handed as a party in a political struggle with the laity of the middle class and the clergy united, while the working class, ignorant of the merits, look on with indifference. If the Oxford Convoca- tion chooses to resist suppression, it is very doubtful if its suppression would be carried through both Houses of Parliament But it cannot be unwilling to hear reason, and to part with some of its powers. It must be obvious that a body of 4000 persons, from its mere numl>cr, cannot be competent to adjust and re-adjust the shifting detail- <>f a complex system like that which we have to work. Of the Constitution of the University. 37 ally is this incompetence felt in the teaching and examining part of the system. If the suggestions made above were adopted, and an organic statute passed for professors and examiners, Convocation might be called upon to vote the heads of such a statute, the arrangement of details being left to an administrative board. Convocation would also do wisely to surrender of itself its right of electing to certain professorial chairs. I have already suggested that the Chancellor should be nominated by the Crown. Vice-Chancellor. After the legislation comes the ad- ministration. The most important officer of the university is the Vice-Chancellor. I am unable to define the powers now lodged in the hands of the Vice-Chancellor. Probably no definition is possible. The statute (tit. xiii. iii. 2) begins by conferring upon him all the powers vested in the Chancellor. But the powers which had just before (tit. xiii. i. 2) been conferred on the Chancellor, including an etc. of consuetudinary privileges, are so large that no Vice- Chancellor ever thinks of exercising them. On the other hand, the Hebdomadal Council inherits from the old Board of Heads, or does in fact exercise, inclusively of the Vice- Chancellor, or as his assessors, administrative powers which limit the powers vested by the words of the statute in the Vice-Chancellor solely. In other respects the statute " De auctoritate et officio Vice-Cancellarii " is very meagre. It is a part of our statute-book which has never yet been submitted to the revision which has swept away so much else that is no longer applicable. It remains as Laud left it, sufficiently betraying its authorship by its petty inquisi- torial spirit. After a vague designation of the powers of :W Of the Constitution of (In /',//>,/.m;itirs powers which no Vice-Chancellor of this day could employ without exposing himself to the- imputation of detruding his office to be the instrument of party spite. Notwithstanding the meagrencsB of the statute, the attributes of the Viee-Chan- iv 1 1 or have become so multifarious, and depend to so great an extent on usage, that they may well have defied the sacrilegious approach of codification. In the presence of ancient privileges, which have come out what they are from the shaping hand of time, one is made to feel that a histo- rical constitution contains a seed of life and vigour which no paper organiser can imitate. Even the enactment of the statute of 1636, which for the first time deprived the M.A/s of their ancient right of electing their own Vice- Chancellor, did but incorporate into the written law the prevailing usage, which had been ratified by a usurpation of nearly a century. Under the year 1569 Wood mentions that the Earl of Leicester " took upon himself the right of naming the Vice-Chancellor sometimes without the consent of the Convocation, rarely or never done in former tiim >." The position and attributes of the Vice-Chancellor might l>c adapted to the requirements of our university without re- modelling the office. What is wanted is not to invest him with new powers, but to set him free to attend to what is important The Vice-Chancellorship has been choked by an overgrowth of merely formal duties. Rather, as in the last century university education altogether became almost a formality, the Vice-Chancellor shared the general tendency. Now that other parts of our system are awaking into life, it presiding oflicer>lioul< I undergo a corresponding Of the Constitution of the University. 39 revival. There has always been a sensitive anxiety to put the Vice-Chancellor forward in every business, till the attempt has defeated itself. He has now so much heaped upon him that, instead of being the guiding mind of the place, he is compelled to disperse his attention over details which can be better done by special subalterns. He should be set free from the drudgery of the desk, and from the transaction of purely formal business. The transfer of the finance of the university to proper officers will alone give considerable relief. The ceremonies attending degrees and presiding in Convocation might be delegated to depu- ties (pro- Vice-Chancellors). Instead of being an ex officio member of every delegacy, and so obliged to attend every sitting of every board or committee, it would be better that he should not be on any, but have reports made to him of the results arrived at when the work of detail had been accomplished. His higher energies would thus be set free for deliberation in Council, and his nominal presidency changed into a real one. His time would be more at liberty to cultivate the university relations with the world outside. For the purpose of entertaining strangers and foreigners, an official residence should be assigned him, with adequate appointments. The acting president of the Na- tional University should hold a position not below the highest officers of Church and State. This lofty station could excite no jealousy, as the existing usage might be confirmed by statute viz. that the holder of the office should go out at the end of four years. The commissioners of 1850 did not propose any alteration in the mode of appoint- ment, but wished Heads of Halls to be made eligible. I would leave the nomination with the Chancellor, but would l<> Of the Coimlitiitiwi <>f the University. extend his n ill. -TO of selection a- \\idek as could sil'elv l>e done. If proper security c:iu he taken that the Chancellor shall no longer be a party man, and make party appoint- ments, all limitation- on lib choice could IT removed. A t present the rotation among the Heads of Colleges, which rots partly on usage partly on statute, seems a nccosiry safeguard against party selection. When securities have been taken for the fitting selection of the Vice-Chancellor, I should propose to in\est him, to a greater extent than is now done, with the delicate task of selecting the men to fill offices. This proposal will be de- veloped further on. Financial Administration. I have been favoured by Professor Bartholomew Price with the following observa- tions on the present system of university Finance : "The 'business' of the University is not essentially dif- ferent to that of other corporations. As it possesses large and important privileges in reference to the city of Oxford, and to other external bodies, as well as to its own members, these require constant attention, and much injury lias }>. -n received by the University through want of proper care during the last few years ; for while valuable privileges have been conceded, advantage has not been taken of the opportunity for obtaining just and reasonable compensation. The most extensive part of the business, however, is the financial It consists mainly of (1) The collection of the revenue; (2) The distribution of the same ; (3) The keeping and supervision of the requUite accounts. A few words will be sufficient to show the im- portance of good management in cadi of these departments The revenue is derived from rents of lands, tithes, dividends of the public funds ; from fees paid at matriculations, examina- tions, conferring of degrees ; from dues paid annually by all Of the Constitution of the University. 41 members of the University, and from the Clarendon press. The corporate revenue is derived from all these sources ; and besides there are large properties held by the University in trust, for charitable and academical uses. The revenue is appropriated to the payment of University officers, of examin- ers, of certain professors ; to the general expenses of the Uni- versity, the repair of public and other buildings ; to the maintenance of the Bodleian Library, of the reading-rooms, of the Randolph Galleries, of the museum, of the night-police, of the public walks ; to the payment of preachers. The accounts are such as are necessarily incidental to all these items of revenue and disbursement, and require to be kept on that system which has been found to be most efficient, and to supply the most rigorous checks. A cash-book, a roll on the principle of charge and discharge, ledgers, balance-sheets, etc., are such forms as the principle of double entry supplies, and are what give the best security for accuracy and the greatest facility for audit. Without entering into details as to the sums, some notion of the extent of these accounts may be formed from the fact that the fees have to be collected from more than 2500 different persons, the annual dues (and these are collected quarterly) from more than 7000, and pay- ments made to more than 100. These are also exclusive of the funds held in trust by the University. Of these separate accounts are kept, which are also separately discharged and audited ; and great care is needed in these accounts, as they are exempted from the control of the charity commissioners. Parliament has trusted the University in this matter, and the University reciprocally has its trust to discharge. " Although the business, as this meagre outline shows, is large, yet there is in it nothing extraordinarily peculiar. The accurate discharge of it requires only that plan which is adopted elsewhere, and which alone affords the necessary securities for accuracy and promptness. Corporations, lay and ecclesiastical, guilds in the City of London, public institutions, i J Of the Constitution of the Univer*i/ ; /. give instances of such a mode of conducting business. In these systems tin-re are three department- i 1 A dire, tin- and controlling body ; (2) An executive officer ; (3) An examination or audit to test and certify the. correct neat of the accounts. Consequently the following organisation is re- quired : " The superintendence and direction of all the business of the University should be vested in a finance committee < it- delegacy. All receipts should be accounted to them ; and all payments made under their authority, with the securities against fraud or dishonesty which are usual with such bodies. This committee would meet at such intervals as the business required, would be large enough to give confidence, and not too large for the transaction of business or shifting of re- sponsibility. " They would require the services of an executive officer or secretary, who would be accountable to them and be their * man of business,' for he would prepare all the business for their meetings, make minutes of their transactions, collect the revenue as it became due, pay the University officers, etc., keep the books, have the entries in the cash-book duly posted into the ledgers, prepare the balance-sheets and abstract of the accounts, prepare all the vouchers for the auditors, and keep, of course, all the trust-accounts. As the secretary would thus be brought into close and confidential relation with the execu- tive of the University, he should also take charge of all the. documents and papers which come into the hands of the, executive, and e-ji. . ially of the Vice-Chancellor, so that they may be distributed and arranged for the purpose of subsequent reference. He would have an office, and be accessible at convenient times. He should manifestly be a gentleman of habits and taste for business, and if educated as a lawyer per- haps the better ; of a methodical mind, and acquainted with the most approved mode of book-keeping ; above all things, a man of good judgment and of prudence, a.- hi.- work would be Of the Constitution of the University. 43 to conduct the business of the University and to protect its interests such a person, in short, as the owner of large estates would select as a confidential adviser and manager of his business. " The accounts should also be submitted, with the books and their vouchers, to competent auditors, who should certify to their correctness after comparing the items with their vouchers, and should also certify the correctness of the abstracts and balance-sheets which should be laid before Convocation. The number of such auditors should be small perhaps there should be no more than two or three and they might be advantageously assisted by a professional ac- countant. " Such is a short outline of the mode in which the way of conducting business in similar institutions elsewhere may be applied to the University. Business of the magnitude and of the variety, which that of the University now has, cannot be properly conducted without adequate machinery, and the machinery above described is that which has been applied else- where, and offers more and greater guarantees for efficiency than any other. The adoption of it would be no violent innovation in the scheme detailed in the statutes of the Uni- versity. The delegates of estates, to whom is now entrusted the management and letting of the estates, would become the finance delegacy ; and, strengthened by the finance secretary, who would be their man of business, they would administer as an executive, the revenue of the University. The delegates of accounts, who are the auditors ' Delegati pro rationibus com- putandis' would continue the auditors, but the number would be diminished, and their efficiency, increased by the assistance of a professional auditor, would be augmented. The Vice- Chancellor, occupying an office of great dignity and honour, would be relieved of the burden and responsibility of the University accounts, which should not ever, as it appears by the statute, have been cast upon him ; and the members of 44 (If the Constitution of tin- the University resident in Oxford, the greater part of whom are devoted to education, learning, and science pursuitH emi- nently unfitting them for business would have tile assurance that their business and finance wore managed in a way the most approved and least liable to miscarriage." Tliis suggestion of Professor Price I would extend in its scope. "Why should not the colleges be relieved of the burden of management of their property, and throw their accounts into the same office, with proper provision for superintendence, in which the university business is to be conducted ? Proctors and Police. The " watch and ward " is among the oldest of university privileges. When the students outnumbered the citizens, or were that part of the popula- tion from which riot and disorder had to be upjm hcndt (!, the whole police was reasonably thrown upon the unhrr- sity. It was, indeed, rather a privilege than a burden, in times when, if you wished to be safe, it was necessary to protect yourself. Now, it is a burden unfairly distributed. The university alone, with a population of under 2000, bears the whole cost of the night-police, now about 1 !><)<> per annum. It is not an efficient force, and can never be made one, as the same constables must be out on duty every night This arrangement, which is without parallel, it is believed, in any other town in the kingdom, is de- structive of the health, and consequently of the morale, of the men. Even the liberal scale of wages, 21s. per week, is found insufficient to attract or retain efficient men in the force. All these evils have been long well known, and were dwelt upon in the evidence to the Hoyal Coninii i<>n Of the Constitution of the University. 45 of 1850. No steps were taken by the university till 1862, when the matter was considered by the Hebdomadal Council. A committee of Council reported in favour of consolidation with the county police. This scheme would certainly provide an efficient force, under Government superintendence, by one experienced and well-paid officer of high social position. It would cost less than the present inefficient force. But it would still be open to the objec- tion of separating between the day and the night service. The true remedy is the amalgamation of County, City, and university police into one corps, under an undivided authority. Even if the university were entitled to an exceptional position of independence, it would be greatly for its interest to waive its privilege. Partly from a con- servative timidity on the part of the university, and partly from the interested opposition of the City, which dislikes being expected to bear its proportionate share of the expense, nothing has yet been possible. No arrangement can be satisfactory which does not explicitly resign the ancient claim of the university to an exclusive police. The gownsmen must be amenable to exactly the same police jurisdiction as the citizens. This will become more especially necessary as the students lodging out increase in number, and houses of refreshment on a large scale, such as exist at Padua, and in other foreign universities, are opened for their accommodation. A stipendiary magistrate to hear the cases would be imperatively re- quired. I have reprinted in the Appendix (A) a statement issued by the Council, which represents the grievance at present inflicted upon the university. 40 Of the l-:n< " si\> an anonymous ,ilmer. " arc .u'raduallv losing their exclusive hold on the affairs of the univor-it \. The number of resident Fellows is diminishing ; the number of resident M.A.'s who are not Fellows is increas- ing. An important share in university business is now taken by men whose main connection is with the university itself. Some, indeed, are college tutors or lecturers ; but it is now not uncommon for a man to be a lecturer in a college of which he is not a member. Even in these cases the exclusive college connection and college feeling is very much shattered. Others of the resident graduates belong wholly to the university. They are simply professors and private tutors, whose whole connection is with the uni\rr- sity, who are bound to their colleges by no tie beyond that which they share with their non-resident members " (Satur- day Review, 2d February 1867). The University versus the College, then, though it may heretofore have served the purpose of ascertaining our rights, and awakening us to our duties, is no longer a rele- vant issue. The question seems to have passed into a further stage, in which we are free to consider the whole of our endowments in reference to their national destina- tion and utility. It is obviously beyond the scope of this memoir to Of the Endowments. 49 enter on the abstract question of endowed establishments. Their expediency is one of those points which the progress of political experience is considered to have still left un- decided. The fact of this indecision in the science of economics has an unhappy effect in practice which ought to be adverted to. A mass of opinion continues to exist among the public hostile to endowments, on principle. When, therefore, we have practically to deal with endow- ments we handle them as half ashamed of them, as if we must apologise for them, as if they could only be excused by being directed upon the most popular objects. We do not first propose to ourselves a social end, and then set about providing the means. We find a great national endowment, and we consider how we shall dispose of a sum which must be spent somehow. In this spirit the chapter property was treated in 1834, and the same feeling seems to have presided over the arrangements of the executive commission for Oxford in 1854. It is much to be desired that, when re-organisation of the university shall again be discussed, it shall not be under the paralys- ing influence of this impression. We must not then assume the principle of endowment. This would be to beg the question, and to raise our whole superstructure on a disputable basis. Let it be that history has accumulated a weight of experience against endow- ments, which is a set-off against their obvious advantages. But whatever may be the case in a normal state of society, an imperfect stage of national life requires other aids. No one will dispute that we are now in a transitional period of society in this country i.e., society is not now organised for permanence. When it shall be so organised we may E .-. Of the I-:,,,!,,,,- .,!*. then do without endowments. The nation will (lien \\ant nothing which it docs not choose to pay for out of the annual taxes. "If a government," says Mr. Mill, "is so wise, and if Un- people rely so implicitly on its wisdom as to find money out of the taxes for all purposes of utility to whit -h tin y could have applied tli- endowment, it is of no consequence whether the endowment be alienated or not . . . But all know how far the fact at present differs from any such supposition. It is impossible to be assured that the people will be willing to be taxed for every purpose of moral and intellectual improvement for which funds may be required. But if there were a fund specially set apart, which had never come from the people's pockets at all, which was given them in trust tor the purpose of education, and which it was considered improper to divert to any other employment, while it could be usefully devoted to that, the people would probably be always willing to have it applied to that purpose. . . . If it be said that as the people grow more enlightened they will become more able to appreciate, and more willing to pay for, good instruction ; that the competition of the market will become more and mop. adequate to provide good education, and endowed establish- ments will be less and less necessary ; we admit the fact And it might be said, with equal truth, that as the people im- prove there will be less and less necessity for penal laws. But penal laws are among the indispensable means of brin^inij about this very improvement, and in like manner, if the ]>eople ever become sufficiently enlightened to be able to do without educational endowments, it will be because those endowments will have been preserved and prized, and made efficient for their purpose. It is only by a right use of endowments that a people can be raised above the need of them" (J. S. Mill, Dissertations, L 31). The question we have to ask is not, What shall we do Of the Endowments. 51 with our endowments ? but, For a great national purpose which we have in view, how can we make the endowments go as far as possible in promoting it ? A disposition is too prevalent to insist upon getting some work done for the money, but to care little what, provided it be only " work." The public are in that frame of mind with respect to endowments, in which indignation against their being "sinecures," is the predominant motive. They shall no longer be sinecures, everybody shall " do something." They shall even be made to learn (or to teach) the Greek grammar, if nothing better can be found for them to do. Little can be hoped from a university reform which is undertaken with no higher views of policy than a determi- nation to put an end to sinecures. Full of a great and noble purpose to be effected, a statesman will at the same time not neglect to economise his resources. But no great or noble purpose can be answered by endowments when the national grantor allows them to subsist with a half suspicion that they are an abuse, and the grantee is compelled to vindicate his right to live by convulsive efforts to do something or other, merely as evidence of activity. I have not information which would enable me to state the total revenue of the university and the colleges. The information does not exist at present in an accessible form. The report of the commission of 1852 was defective on this point. Their statement (Report, pp. 125-127) of the university income and expenditure is not accurate, and on the property and revenue of the colleges they have few data. Each college probably knows its own resources, but no college knows, except by casual rumour, anything of f>2 Of the Endowments. its neighbour's im-ome. The decennial return of income to be made by each college, under the ordinances, has yet to be made for the first time. When made, it will be made to the visitor, and will not necessarily be before Parliament. Even if accessible, these returns, not being ordered to be made up on a uniform system, would probably require to 1x3 stated afresh before general totals could be calculated from them. When, in 1854, Parliament undertook to transfer a portion of the college revenues, it was not only robbing, but robbing in the dark. Before the Legislature again attempts a re-adjustment of the distribution of our income from endowments, it would surely be as well that it should be in possession of the exact figures. Rt -]> tf'ul treatment of the university cannot require that its accounts should not be examined, while, at the same time, its pro- perty is being dealt with. A parliamentary return mijjlit be ordered on a uniform schedule of the estimated value of the realised property of the university and the colleges, of its annual proceeds, and of expenditure such a return as is supplied to the Charity Commission by all trustees of charities. It is desirable even that such a return should be before the public as a guide in that public discussion which must in this country precede legislative action. If there be " danger " in this disclosure, surely discussion in ignorance, and therefore exaggeration of the actual amount, is still more " dangerous." A statement was recently in circulation that the col- leges would, in a given time, be in possession of 100,000 a year more than they could divide as personal income. (Each fellowship is limited, under the ordinances of the commission of 1854, to a maximum dividend of about 300 Of the Endowments. 53 a-year). This statement was inquired into by Sub-com- mittee I. ; but the inquiry was made in a vague manner, which resulted in the vague reply that " the college would not in the next twenty years acquire any surplus which it would not need for its own purposes." With a view to the considerations and suggestions now to be offered, it is immaterial what is the precise amount of nett revenue of the colleges, be it 100,000, 150,000, or 200,000 a-year. I have not to arrange the details of a new scheme, but to consider the general character of the actual and possible appropriation of our resources. First, as to the actual distribution of our income from endowments, considered as a national outlay for national purposes. If we had before us the figures representing the gross income of the university and the colleges of Oxford in one sum, it might seem to many to be a large one. But we must remember that the gross revenue of these bodies is subject to very heavy deductions before it becomes the nett personal income of the individuals forming the cor- poration. The property of the colleges is almost wholly land or house property. That of the university is so in a great measure. After deducting from gross rental the cost of management and the ordinary burdens on land, the re- mainder becomes again the gross income of the corporations. This gross income is then again subjected to fresh burdens. These burdens are partly in the shape of oppressive local rates, partly in the shape of edifices costly to maintain, and partly wages and salaries of officers and servants required for the local and material existence of the various corpora- tions. Under almost every one of the heads of local rate 54 Of the Kmhnnncnt*. the university has gradually been fixed with an unfair pro- portion of the burden. Even- one of these encroachments has a separate history of its own, forming to the historian a very curious sequel to the bloody Town and down l.attlcs of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Of the j>olicc system, under which the university, for a population of 2000, is content to pay 1900 a-ycar, against 600 paid by the city for a population of 30,000, I have already spoken. The incidence of the poor-rate and of the paving-rate seems to be equally to our disadvantage. The rent of college- rooms has not been raised anything like in proportion to house-rent, yet college-rooms are valued to the poor-rate at a fancy valuation far beyond their actual return. Not only so, but though much university property is exempt from rate as " public buildings," it has been ruled by the Queen's Bench that all college buildings whatsoever are private property; and our chapels, halls, and libraries, producing us no revenue, and kept up at a great cost, stand in the rate-book at prodigiously high figures. In this case we have at least the satisfaction of being mulcted by the law of the land, and not by the city. The law has, of course, good grounds for the distinction drawn between university and college buildings. Yet reason cannot help HI '.Tirol in-.: that as the college luiihlinir- arc fur the exclu- sive enjoyment of the members of the college, so the university buildings are for that of the wider corpora- tion of the Chancellor, masters, and scholars. None but academic! have access to them except by courtesy. And how can college property be at one and the same time a public trust for national purposes and private dwellings for the purposes of taxation ? The maintenance, Of the Endowments. 55 again, of fabrics ancient, and having an architectural character forms a far heavier percentage on the income of the proprietor than the maintenance of an equal extent of ordinary house-property. Some part of this cost of maintenance being for tenantable rooms, or otherwise en- joyed by individuals resident, cannot be considered as a deduction from gross revenue, but forms part of the per- sonal benefaium. Much as has been done of late years in the way of new, and re-, building in Oxford, far more re- mains to be done to arrest decay, or to fit the apartments to the purposes of modern civilised life. These demands must be borne in mind in making an estimate of our dis- posable means. As to the unequal apportionment of our other local rates, it has been a consequence of our local relations with the town. Our transactions with the city, instead of being conducted on a business footing, were for a long time managed as transactions between gentlemen and tradesmen. We were expected, and submitted, to pay a gentleman's price i.e., a little more than other people, and than the worth of the article. In return for this we obtained privileges from an unreformed House of Commons, an assembly of gentlemen whose sympathies were always with us. Things are now on the way to be put on a sounder footing. We obtain no privileges, and we want none ; but we should decline any longer to pay a gentleman's price for our police for our gas for our water for our local government. This class of coulage would be stopped at once if our finance, instead of being done by ourselves, was administered by an office like the income of any public company. These deductions made, the distribution of the nett ."' Aftititl Distribution of i'mlmi'im-nt /''mid. residue of university and collier revenue-- taken together mav be considered as taking place in three channels : 1. One portion, being the great bulk of our income, is laid out in subsidising education, in the shape of scholar- ships, exhibitions to students, and fellowships to graduates. 2. Another portion, of smaller amount, is expended in the payment of teachers i.e. t professors, lecturers, chap- lains, deans, or officers of discipline. 3. Lastly, a third, but inconsiderable, fraction of our income is appropriated to the maintenance and encourage- ment of science and learning, cauonries, headships, libraries, museums, etc. It will be observed that some of these institutions or persons serve more than one of the three purposes here distinguished. Five canons of Christ Church arc also professors. A museum is often so arranged as to be useful in education, rather than scientifically ; and a professor may, if his statutes permit it, devote himself to the study of his science rather than to its teaching. This overlapping of functions, however, is incidental. With my present object of ascertaining what national purposes arc actually realised through our endowments, it will be more con- venient to discriminate the purposes, rather than the persons. SEC. 4. ACTUAL DISTRIBUTION OP THE ENDOWMENT FUND. 1. Of Subsidies to Education. '. A-./-/ />////. Scholarships and exhibitions, being stijKmds enjoyed by students in the pupillary state, clearly Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 57 fall under this head. The sum of 35,000 per annum, or thereabouts, may represent that part of our income which is absorbed by undergraduate students during their course of study, preliminary to the degrees. This outlay upon students' pensions may, however, be made, according to the mode of its distribution, to answer three quite distinct purposes : (1.) It may be given as prizes to merit, and so serve to stimulate industry. (2.) It may be given to poverty, and so serve to give the means of education to those who would be otherwise unable to pay for it. (3.) It may operate as a bounty on a particular kind of education i.e., it may be a mode of creating an artificial demand for classics, or mathematics, while the natural course of supply and demand would lead to the establishment of other kinds of education. In which of these three directions does the sum ex- pended on scholarships, etc., really act at present ? Of all the proposals of the Commission of 1850, none was more generally acceptable than the proposal to commute fellowships into scholarships in other words, stipends to B.A.'s into stipends to undergraduates. For the complaint of the costliness of a university education is one of the oldest and most urgent complaints which has been standing against us. The reduction of college ex- penses was, at the time of the commission of 1850, a first object with the public. And an opinion was widely pre- valent that exhibitions were a mode of meeting this costli- ness. In 1846 a petition praying for "the foundation of exhibitions, to be conferred, not upon grounds of literary merit, but of poverty, character, and economical habits," came before the (old) Hebdomadal Board. In compliance ."H Actual Distribution of Endowment /'////te. and it never caine before Convocation. When the commission of 1K50 proposed a large creation of scholarships the public, who thought they saw in this measure a means of li;liten- ing the bunlen of maintaining their sons at Oxford, wel- comed the proposal, and that part of the reform movement hardly met with opposition from any quarter. It is true t he commission had left no doubt as to their intentions in the large augmentation of open scholarships which they recom- mended. " What the State and the Church require is not poor men, but good and able men, whether poor or rich " (0. U. C. Report, p. 174). They meant scholarships to be so administered as to stimulate the industry of the able, not to aid parents in meeting the expenses of the place. The result of twelve \ears' experience is that the intentions of the commission have been carried out, and the ex- pectations of the public have not been realised. Open scholarships have been multiplied on all sides with eager rivalry. The market is glutted. A scholarship open to competition is now, probably, within the reach of as low a grade of attainments as that which used to fill the old restricted scholarships. Yet university educa- tion is not cheapened. For what colleges have done in the way of reduction of their fees and charges with one hand, they have undone with the other, by la\Mi allowances to scholars. We have secretly supplied fuel to the fire we Mere engaged in extinguishing'. AVcll- to-do parents continue to make their sons the usual allowance, and the scholar treats his 80 a-year as so Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 59 much pocket-money, to be spent in procuring himself extra luxuries. It may be said that the increase of the matriculations proves that a poorer class have reaped some of the benefit of the creation of scholarships. It is the case that the number of entries exceeds that of ten years ago by about 150 (Ap- pendix B). But other causes are at work to increase the number of those who now seek admittance at the univer- sity. The rapid growth of general wealth, the rise of the middle class, the spread of the desire of cultivation, must ere this have shown themselves by a far larger augmenta- tion of our numbers than has taken place, but for other powerful counter-motives. But even if our increased num- bers be to a slight extent due to the increased number of open scholarships, this does not show that scholarships aid poor men. The question is not, Has the multiplication of scholarships drawn more men to Oxford? but, Has it brought the university within the reach of a class socially below the class who frequented it before? I think the answer must be that it has not. The class which enjoys the scholarships and exhibitions now is the very same class which monopolised them under the old system of close foundations. The difference is that the scholarship, instead of being a pension obtainable by interest, is now a reward for past industry and an obligation for the future. The open scholarship fund, then, as now dispensed, does not act as an instrument of university extension. It acts as prize-money. Scholarships are educational prizes. The national outlay under the head " Scholarships and Exhibitions " is so much prize-money distributed among the grammar-schools, the university being merely the com- 00 tal Distribution <>/' I:'n'nf /'//etont and impartial examiner. TocfTtvt this purpose, it U essential that all other considerations, such as family cir- cumstances, should be rigidly excluded from the award. otherwise the whole effect is destroyed. Merit <>n the one hand, and impartiality on the other, are conditions of a prize system. Taking, as it did, this view of scholarships, the Commission of 1850 has been justified by the result There can be no doubt that a most powerful impulse has been given to the grammar-schools by the opening of the scholarships. The same social class as before frequents the schools, but a direction and a motive have been sup- plied to their industry which were before wanting. On the university itself the effect has been no less beneficial. Even if it has not increased the numbers, or the amount of talent, it has brought that talent forward in a way in which it was not before. It has awakened dormant energies, and stirred the stagnant waters. A class of young men has been brought within the range of intellectual ambition, who were never reached by it before that large class who possess intelligence, but in whom intelligence is not a predominant faculty sufficiently powerful to urge to self-cultivation without extrinsic motive. The scholars constitute an order bound to study as much by the opinion of their fellows as by the tenure of their gown. The existence of such an order is beneficial beyond ite own pale by influence and example. Study, from being the peculiarity of an exceptional minority, is becoming, let us say with thankfulness, more and more the tone of a large proportion of the students in many colleges, though in too many others the traditions of Eton still give the law to undergraduate opinion. Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 61 Such results must be admitted to be worth having. They are results cheaply purchased to the national university by a small sum in school prize-money, into the actual amount of which we must not minutely inquire. And, indeed, there appears to be no difference of opinion so far. All are agreed that scholarships may be usefully awarded as prizes. Even those who contend for the " claims of poverty " seem to acquiesce in the large appropriation of funds now made to competitive prizes. No one is proposing to alter the present scholarship system. But there are two opinions prevalent as to additions which may be made to the fund now distributed under the head of " Subsidies to Education." 1. There are many university reformers who wish to see a further and large creation of prize scholarships. 2. There is an influential section of opinion which would not call itself reforming, which is in favour of a large creation of exhibitions, which should not be awarded as prizes, but given to " poor men." Each of these schemes requires a short consideration. 1. The fund from which it is demanded that more scholarships should be created is the fellowships. This opinion therefore is hi part due to a growing feeling of the waste of endowment occasioned by the existing administra- tion of fellowships. Here, it is said, is a channel ready provided into which the redundant waters of fellowship- endowments may be profitably directed. The scholarship system has proved its utility by experience. We have ex- perimented with a small suppression of fellowships, and it has answered well. We have but to go on in the same direction to reap a more abundant harvest. I am ready to admit that the fellowships as now Actual IHttriiHiti.iH of Kmlutnnntt /'///,/. .Ion,,! aii-\\rr anv pn.pcr purp.-e, and that the time luis come when tin- deMination (if that fund should he reconsidered. Hut even if this fund was wanted for scholarships, it is, as will be unwind further on, more urgently required in another direetinn. Hut it is not wanted for scholarships. There is in the nature of things a limit to the influence of pri/.e-. A pri/.e in education, whether honorary or pecuniary. is a Ktiinulant applic I'ril.e parent.- so lna\il\ to Id tlirir cliililivn enjoy it? But it will be said, It may be the best, and yet parents below a certain grade of culture cannot sec that it is so. Why not get the children here anyhow, so as you give them what is best for them? This is an economic:!! >o|ihi>m uliich is well understood to be so in the lower grades of schooling. It is highly expedient that all children should learn to read, write, and cipher, yet no government would ever think of filling the national and parochial schools \>\ paying wages to the children for attending them. There is no difference whatever in principle between payini: \\au r es for school attendance, and scholarships, when administered in such a way as to become an inducement to enter the university. It is quite an open question, and is even now under debate, how far it is the duty of a government to universalisc elementary education by means of compulsion. Here too the analogy between the lowest and the highest grade of training youth, between the village school and the university, holds good. There are weighty arguments for and against compulsory primary education. The very same arguments for and against apply to the case of compulsory university education. A university degree is made compulsory on one profession, the clerical. It is quite an open question if a university degree might not with advantage be required, as in Prussia, for large depart- ments of the Civil Service. If the question of compulsory university education has not yet been debated in this country, it is partly because of the expense, and partly because of the doubt which exists as to the real effect of the intellectual training given here. When the studies Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 65 shall be put upon a satisfactory footing, and the extravagant habits of the place have been replaced by a spirit of self- denying economy, who can doubt that " compulsory educa- tion " will become a favourite form in which " university extension " will be advocated ? Care must be taken, then, that the scholarship fund is so administered by the university as to act as a stimulus to industry, and not to pass the point at which it becomes a premium on going to school, or staying there a longer time. But even within these limits, even as a prize system, we must remember that we are in danger of leaning too much upon it. These competitive examinations, even while they urge to work, have a fatal tendency to falsify education. Open scholarships have not been an unmixed good. They have stirred up the schools, but they have also stirred up an unwholesome system of training the competitors for the race. The youth comes up with a varnish of accomplish- ment beyond his real powers. He has caught the spirit of his professional trainers. He has learned to regard his classics, not as the portals of a real knowledge, but as the verbal material of an athletic conflict. It is useless for real genius to enter the lists of competition without this training. It is easy for mediocrity, by putting itself under training, to reach one of the prizes. Thus a life has been quickened among us, but it is not a thoroughly sound and healthy life. Much remains to be done before the fund to be appro- priated to prize scholarships will be in proper working order. I venture to offer the following suggestions : (1.) The whole number of such scholarships bears too large a proportion to the whole number of students, and might be diminished with advantage. Should the total of Mi .\fttnil IHttrilmtioii ;/' l:'iiil.>,ri,,,i,t bo material I v increased Bay to 2000 the number of prizes luinually given might bo increased in proportion. (2.) The value of each scholarship U too large. This value lias indeed reached its promt dimensions by the . hll 111 :\ llivisioll "f lllf lllli\lTHt\ illli> illdeprlldmt. alld, for this purpose, rival, houses. Every college is desirous to have its rooms full, and every college is dc>iron> iF -how ing a- many university honoure as it can. Consequently the colleges outbid each other in the general market for talmt . If one college raises its seholarships to 100 a-year, the others must go as far in the same direction HH their means will allow, except where, like Balliol, they ean set off a pn -Ii j. ct |..n_' -!;ili.liiiL: ;i'_ r :iili-t a letieirne\ ill the >ti|ieml. (3.) Fewer Hcholarship-. and of less money- value, would, 1 think, have fully as great effect as at present, if, instead of being given away for the convenience of each college, they were organised on a footing common to the whole university. A fixed number should be vacant every year, assignable among the colleges in the proportions of their res|>eetive contribu- tions to the prize-fund. An examination might lie held twice in the year. It should be cond net ecrcentage upon the amount of prize- money distributed. These public seholarships, and these only, with the university scholarships, should entitle to the scholar's gown. The gown is not a mere badge of distinc- tion, but is valuable as a token of an obligation. For the Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 67 same reason, it seems better that the money-value, however small in amount, should be in the form of an allowance spread over the whole three years of residence than given in one sum. The head and tutors of the college should not merely have the power, but should be charged with the duty, to pronounce the scholarship vacant, upon failure of the scholar to present himself at the proper time for any of his public examinations, or on the ground of general in- attention to study. As the obligation to a course of study is a condition of the tenure of these prize-scholarships, there would be no hardship in enforcing resignation, even where ill-health or any other cause made study impossible. 2. There is an influential section of opinion which considers that the proper purpose of scholarships and exhibitions is to make the university accessible to the sons of parents whose incomes are too narrow for the scale of expenditure at present prevailing. The section of reformers who are desirous of converting fellowships into prize-scholarships are formidable from their influence rather than their numbers. The advocates of Poor Men's Exhibitions are numerous as well as influential. This latter scheme is probably, as a mode of " University Extension," that favoured by the largest number of those who usually interest themselves in our affairs. This always favourite scheme has been brought forward lately, strongly endorsed by one of the sub-committees on University Ex- tension. This was Sub-committee II., consisting of the following names : Provost of Worcester, Warden of All- Souls, Master of Pembroke, R. Michell, Professor Wall, J. Gilbertson, J. Rigaud, E. Palin, P. G. Medd. This SI Actonl Dittribntion of Endowment Fund. reported that tho best means of extending the university was " the foundation of l-'\liil>iti>ns for the , . f sin !i | EMM M MBM4 lUjpOrl) IMided, tlie I-XJH-IIXV- of a university education." A |.r..|p-;d so sup- ported demands an attentive consider.it ion. We all understand by " University Extension," not merely an addition to the numbers attending Oxford, hut the admission to its benefits of a class which has 1 -n hitherto excluded by social jwsition or income; for the-e two things arc not, in this investigation, quite the same. This diversity of the causes of exclusion had some share in the discrepancy of the reports of the various sub-commit- teea. For, while some of the recommendations aimed at draw in:: (< < Kford elacs whom other circumstance- rather than exjiense had kept aloof from the Universities, Sub- committee II. considered exclusively the case of small income. If there be a class which is excluded from supe- rior education by its costliness, but is at the same time eager to obtain it, that class certainly must have our sym- jKithies. Where our education is contemned or vilipended, we may be little disposed to recommend a trial of it. But where we see it prized and coveted, but placed out of reach by its price, it is a natural impulse to wish that some wealthy patron would come forward to aid talent in its struggle with the " re* angmta domi." Every one would desire to encourage any mode in which university exten- sion should be made to reach this class. Had the proposal of Bub-committee II. been merely that such exhibitions should be founded by private subscription, it might have {NMed unchallenged. But when they call upon the uni- versity for a heavy contribution (20,000) from its funds, Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 69 and go on to absorb the surplus of the college revenues into the same, it is necessary that their scheme should be submitted to a close scrutiny. Sub-committee II. ask for 20,000 from the university, to be met by contributions from college surplus they do not say in what proportion. But their expectations are not immoderate. The sub-committee is aware " that the obli- gations imposed by the ordinances are in many cases unful- filled; fellowships have not attained their maximum; professorships remain to be endowed, and open scholar- ships to be established. The expenses incident to the running out of beneficial leases are considerable; and if land has been let out on building-leases, the pecuniary benefit of the transaction will not be reaped by this genera- tion or the next. . . . Certain statements propounded respecting the wealth of colleges we hold to be entirely unsusceptible of proof" (Report of Sub-committee II. p. 6). In the first place, the university has not got 20,000 to give if it would. In the next, we see, from what the com- mittee says, that much cannot be hoped from the colleges. Could 20,000, if obtainable from the university, be doubled out of college resources? Surely it could not. But let us suppose that from all sources a capital sum of 50,000 could be got together for such an object ; out of this are to come the houses in which the exhibitioners are to live (Report, p. 10). There would have to be, if not as many houses as colleges contributing, at least several houses either rented or purchased out of the fund, and fitted and furnished also. 10,000 of the capital is the least that could be appropriated for these purposes. The remaining 40,000 would yield about 1600 a-ycar for stipends. "0 Acttial Distribution <>J I'. ' n-nn-nt /''mill. Something would have to lie paid for " sii)HT\isiou," \\hich is to bo provided in each hon-e. Hut Irt us sup po>e that as much a.s 1600 could bo given away in exhibitions. Tin- SulMwnunittco II. ha* not determined tin- \alne of their exhibitions. They arc to be in aid of the students' main- toMDOe, and not the whole of it We might in this way obtain from twenty to twenty-live annual purses distribut- able to poor men. An excellent work of charity possibly, but scarcely deserving to IH considered a scheme of " Uni- veniiy Extension ;" yet even this result is far l>c\ond the iiiran> sugfMled in tin- rrport of Sul. t-nininittcc II. Tliero arc, however, sources from whit-ii much larger means for the foundation of poor men's exhibitions may IT obtained. The sub-committee do not even hint at tlux- means, but others will not be so conservative or so reserved. Fellowship might IKJ appropriated on a large scale to the purpose. Fcllowshif>8 and canonrics have been converted into prize scholarships, why should not a further conversion of them be effected into poor men's exhibitions ? There are, as it seems to me, other and more urgent demands on the fellowships which will leave at present little margin l<>i such a purpose. But let us supi>ose that (say) 1 50 poor men's exhibitions were created at once by suppressing fellowships to the extent of 10,000 per annum and it will probably be conceded that more than this could not be obtained from any source we have to consider what would be the economical effect of such a measure. The exhibitions must bo tenable for four years. This would give, allowing for casual vacancies, a supply of somewhere under forty to be filled each year. There must IKS every year more than forty candidates for the existing prize-scholar>hip- Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 71 who could bring satisfactory evidence that they are in- capable, without aid, of supporting themselves at the Uni- versity. If, subject to this proof, the examination is to be competitive, it is clear that the forty new poor men's exhi- bitions will fall to the forty proxime accessits to the prize scholarships. We shall thus but have increased the number of the existing prizes, already too numerous, and failed in bringing up a single representative of a new and poorer class to Oxford. Instead of proof of inability to support, it may be attempted to institute comparison of means. But no practical person would dream of such an inquisi- torial proceeding on the part of a board of trustees of an academical charity. Any attempt of the kind must issue in a system of solicitation, under which the most needy are not the most urgent or successful applicants. We should be thrown back on the old system of nominations, with all its well-known abuses, so familiar to those who remember Oxford before 1854. The impracticability of any equitable gauge of poverty, either by testimonial or by inquiry, has been felt by Dr. Lowe a warm advocate of poor exhibitions. He has favoured me with some suggestions which indicate more matured reflection on the difficulties of the question than could perhaps be bestowed by a committee which was tied to time for producing its report. Dr. Lowe writes : " I would fence in these exhibitions from the encroach- ments of the rich. . . . They should be limited in value so far as neither to make them attractive to the rich, nor to afford an entire maintenance to the poor. Not being prizes in reward of eminent distinction, but granted as an encourage- ment to youth of promise, they should be given in aid; and taking the minimum of what college expenses ought to be to a ,~J Actual Distribution of I-lmlnrmrnl /'/<-/-/. nuui of humble moans, reckoning as such the sons of gentlemen poor enough to compete openly for eleemosynary assistance, the exhibitions might lw in proportion of a tliinl not more, I think, than tin- half of tin- \vh<>h>. But to meet cases often likely to arise, needing further help than this salutary n-tiir tion would allow, college prizes for special essays, or other work, might he annually offered from these public funds, which to a poor man might often come with untold value, as deciding the question even of a term's residence. I hold it essential that the.-e exhibitions should IM> known distinctly as eleemosy- nary. This would in it.-lf help to keep back many applicants, who would present themselves if they were regarded as hono- rary distinctions also. But besides this, the exhibition* is should be known to be poor men, in order to protect tin-in from the system of trad, -in. -n's credit. It might further be well that the benefit* of his exhibition should reach him in tin- form of reduced fees, in providing furniture or payment of a private tutor, rather than in actual cash. Battels above a certain amount should certainly involve censure, or, if neces- sary, the withholding of a term's Iteneficium " (A Plea for Poor Scholars, p. 10 : Parker & Co., 1867). The scheme as thus presented by Dr. Lowe is freed from the glaring flaw of the proposals of Sub-committee II. \i/.. tin- impos.-iliility of aseertainin<; poverty. His exhibi- tions are to be open to all. But it is supposed that no one will geek them who is not driven by pecuniary necessities. The position is to be made sufficiently unpalatable to the taste of youth, so that no one will submit to it who can possibly do without 60 a-year. J)r. Lowe's pr<|n.-:il k in fact, a proposal to restore the sizarships and senitor- HhipH of a past age. Indeed, it is only within the last 100 years that the M li.l.ir'> _ro\\n. now a rol>e of honour, ua- ;i bodge of social inferiority, and exposed the wearer to the Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 73 nickname of " charity-boy." It is not so much we that have abolished servitorships, as time and manners that have made the position untenable. The change has taken place in the country, and the university has but conformed in this respect to the state of things outside its walls. This is a fact in which we must acquiesce even if we do not like it. We cannot institute a social rank in the University which shall be outwardly stamped as "poor." For my own part I do not regret the abolition of the graduation of rank. This is not from any preference of the modern indefinite gradations of income to the old defined hierarchy of rank from the " nobleman down to the servitor," but because, whatever may be the feelings of a commercial community out of doors, I think the univer- sity is the one spot where the material estimate of worth should be redressed by a moral standard, and where no gradations should be recognised but the academical gradu- ation which is the summit of faculty and attainment. It would be vain indeed to hope to isolate in the middle of modern society a philosophic Utopia into which no con- siderations of wealth and its advantages should penetrate. But we should at least abstain from stamping such in- equalities of fortune with outward marks of our approval, as was done under the old system of matriculation. By the abolition of the rank of " nobleman," as proposed in the recent award at Christ Church, the last remnant of the caste system will be swept away. I cannot, therefore, think with Dr. Lowe that it would be possible to begin again to revive an order of poor men, under the idea that when recognised as poor they would be respectable as such. There seems to underlie this proposal a view of " poverty," 74 I ' - ' which, whatever may lx* it^ juMil'u -ation in Middle-ago theology, has no standing-ground in stxneties where it is known that lalxmr is the one and only source of wealth. Dr. Lowe thinks that their status as poor men would pro- U them aguinsl iln- tradesmen. l'ut all the mM lla- grant instances of abuse of credit of laic years have been in the case of men who arc relatively " poor." Nothing, indeed, can Ixj more respectable, nor dor- anything secure more profound rcspert amoiu; us. than the cues (would that they were more numerous!) where a youth of humble origin, from mere love of learning and intellectual aspirations, undergoes bodily privations, hard- shi|. and, harder still to bear, the contumely of the world of flunkeys. It would be very desirable that there should be in each college a small reserve fund outofwhieh -u!>- sidies could be granted to meet such cases when they occur. But it is quite a different thing to create a set of exhibitions which shall invite applicants on the ground of poverty. We may predict with certainty that such exhibi- tions would never reach the class of men for whom they were intended. The number of those who seek education by means of the university is very small compared with the number of those who seek the degree and the social status it confers. Poor men's exhibitions would 1x2 besieged by applicants of the latter character. The social position of clergymen of the Established Church is, it mu-t not be forgotten, an object of ambition among families of small means. To obtain ordination as a literate is some- thing, but it is more desirable to obtain it as a B.A . of the university. Exhibitions, awarded not for merit, but for poverty, would probably fall to this class of candidates for Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 75 orders. Of the interests of the Established Church as involved in this question, this is not the place to speak. But it can hardly be maintained that academical funds can with propriety be applied in aid of a social ambition, at least when the social ambition is divorced from any intel- lectual aim. The question of university extension has been debated much among us of late. The general authorities of the university have at length taken alarm at the fact, which has long been matter of remark by thoughtful observers, that the increase of the numbers of our students has not kept pace with population, with wealth, nor, what is most alarming of all, with the spread of the desire of cultivation. A searching inquiry into the causes of their deficiency an inquiry which should not shrink from probing matters to the quick is a necessary preliminary to a discovery of the remedy. We naturally wish to keep up our numbers. No scheme for the desired end seems to find favour but the crude scheme of bounties. Already, nearly one-third of the whole number of students within our walls is being paid for coming here. We have very much increased the number of our exhibitions in the last ten years, and we have increased our students in that proportion. And the cry still is for more exhibitions. Now it is certainly true that its expensiveness is one of the causes which limit admissions. Further, one of the modes of meeting the objection of expense is the endowment of exhibitions. But it is only one of the modes, and requires to be subjected to carefully-watched conditions, so as not to encourage indolence or foment extravagance. And it is a mode of meeting cost which, even when most lavishly employed, ,V, .1 ' >>' l>ifr'il>"!iii <>J' i'.inl'ir, iii.il l-'iniil. can onlv add to our nitinlicrs by tens. It can never " extend " the univrrsit v to a new and lower class of Kiiulish society. If this is to bo done, the expensiveness must bo itself attacked in its causes. Instead of >ul>- hidising the poor student up to the level of our expenses, we ought to bring down the expenses to the level of the poor. It is idle to say we cannot We have never tried. For what we hare tried to do is, to restrain those who have money to sjK'iid, from extravagance. Something, but not mill li, ean !< lipi',l in tlii- \\,-i\. Sumptuary la\\> \\ill In- evaded by the rich. We cannot much beat down what. those will spend who can spend, though it is desirable, for example's sake, that extravagance should be discouraged in every possible way. But what we can do is to make it possible for those who choose to live here economically. There arc in the London hospitals 1350 medical students. The whole cost of preparation for the profession averages about 150 to each. The cost of a student at Oxford, at the most economical college, is calculated at 120 a-ycar i.e., for his whole residence, a sum of 500. It is clear that the price of education is artificially enhanced. That this enhancement is due mainly to the college and tutorial system no one will deny. Let students be allowed to matriculate, not subject to that system, and there is no reason why an Oxford training should cost more than a medical training. It is true that the article purchased for, say, a sum of 200, will be a different article from that which now costs 6*00 or 800. For it is truly urged that the collegiate life and domestic discipline are what make Oxford what it is. NVliat the B.A. at present carries away with him is male up of a small modicum of acquired Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 77 learning, and a peculiar stamp which remains upon him through life, and which constitutes undoubtedly a relative social advantage, whatever its intrinsic worth may be. Let parents clearly understand that they may buy the degree for 200, but that they do not buy this social stamp along with it. The question of university extension will then be much simplified. The existing domestic system would then be continued, but as a social luxury, like the first- class carriage in a railway, for those whose fortune warrants their having the indulgence. But the lecture-rooms, ex- aminations, and degrees of the university, should be as open to all comers as a London hospital. The true nature of the exhibition scheme would then stand out in a clear light. The effect of an exhibition would be to help the student whose own resources would enable him to have all the intellectual benefit of the university, to have, over and above these, the social benefit of the college to help him out of the second-class carriage into the first. Will it be replied that the influence of collegiate discipline is not merely or mainly social, that it is also moral, and therefore a part of education in the highest sense of the word ? In discussing the same subject in 1851, I endeavoured to show that the collegiate influence resolved itself into two parts (1.) the tutorial, and (2.) the domestic influence. While the tutorial influence is one of the most powerful momenta of university life, the domestic influence can- not be rated highly as a moral agency. " A college was (then) not divided into tutors and pupils, but, like a Lacedemonian regiment, nav a^ovrtg ag^ovruv slav, all were students alike, only differing in being at a different stage of their progress. Hence their life was long a life in ~l\ .\i-tual Distribution <>f common, with a common direction ami o,vn|Mti-.ii. ami subject to. one Uw. The seniors were at once tho instructors and example of the juniors, who shared tin* same plain food, simple life, and narrow economy, looking forward themselves to no otlier life. And in that mode was obtained that which con- stituted the truly invaluable element of the college system the close action of tho teacher on the pupil, of tin- niatuivd lllilHilni on the unformed, of tho instructed on tin- l.-aniin- mind, not without a very beneficial reaction of the young on the aging man an influence not unknown to the great and \IN rienced men who originated and promoted colleges. Tins insensible action of the teacher's character on the pupil's is the most valuable part of any education ; and any scheme which involved the loss of this influence would be much to be deprecated. But it is contended that this influence is not now excited by the body of the fellows on the undergraduates. College-life has ceased to be the life in common, even for the fellows, that it once was. As between the fellows, as a body, and the student, it creates no society whatever. Our existing system of college habits so far separates the undergraduate from the fellow, that his merely being lodged under the same roof, makes him no real member of the family, brings him into no contact with his seniors. The young men associate with and form one another's character mainly. The ha Kits and manners which gave the conventual system its good effects being changed, we must not think any virtue resides in its mere forms " (Oxford University Commission. Evidence, p. 43). Many things have changed in Oxford in nixteen yeara. Theao relation* have, unless I am deceived, nut changed. The relation between tutor and pupil i not become h \alual.le. Tin- iloim'stir influence of the < not more ascetic and purifying than it then was. I thru ventured to urge, and stood almost alone among the Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 70 residents in doing so (H. H. Vaughan, then Professor of Modern History, and Professor Wall, argued on the same side), the abrogation of compulsory residence within college- walls. Though the Royal Commission reported in favour of a modified form of the same proposal (lodging-houses under due superintendence), it was not adopted. Influential persons of all parties threw their weight into the scale against it Archbishop Whately and Dr. Pusey, Dr. Temple and Mr. Hayward Cox. The system of private halls, of which I then said that it would prove " a slow, cumbrous, and inadequate means of university extension," was pre- ferred, and has more than verified the prediction. We are now back again, after fifteen years' delay, face to face with the inevitable conclusion. Compulsory residence within college-walls must cease to be the law of the university. So certain indeed is it to come, that it is better to regard it already as a fait accompli, and to consider what the situation will carry with it. One correction of the opinion which I gave in 1851, in favour of out-students, I desire to make, and to embody in these suggestions. What I contemplated in my recom- mendation, at that time, was out-students only as attached to some college or hall. But such legislation would be simply legislation in favour of the fashionable colleges. If every college could admit pupils without stint, and lodge them in the town, all the other colleges would be deserted in favour of the three or four which happened to be the fashion. This would be no evil, it would be a positive advantage, if resort to a college was governed by its repute for discipline and work, or by the presence in it of some distinguished tutor. In this way a small university in 80 Actual l)i*trilmt!'ni <;/' /.'- Germany suddenly rUo in'<> notoriety by retaining one eminent professor. Hut with us in < Kl'onl it i- nt -<>. The reaort to a college is numerous in propom,.u to the social standing of, uiul the money *]n-\il l.y, tin- tiiioVix r ni-urc for admittance upon the I ..... k> of pre- cUcly the most expensive colleges. It follows that any measure which auhuitteil lodging-out only in comm ti<>n \\l\\\ a college, would be a measure of encouragement to the cxpensiveness of Oxford. It is therefore oxntial to any mcatiure of university extension meaning by the term the inclusion of a poorer and lower social class that ]>er- mission to lodge out in the town should not be fettered l>\ any obligation to belong to a college. 1. Under a system of unrc-t rirtnl lodging-out a student will have the opportunity of obtaining an M.A. de^ivr at about half ite present cost, say for about 250 or 200. 2. He will lose certain social privileges the association with gentlemen, the opportunity of forming duniMe con- nections, the sense of common membership, and the other incidents of life within the same walls. 3. He ought not to lose tutorial guidance; and it \sill be proposed elsewhere that every student should enter under an M.A. as tutor. This then appears to me to be the true direction of university extension. The erection of a new college, and the creation of exhibitions at the old colleges by private munificence, though on no account to be discouraged, Mill effect, and are perhaps intended to effect, other objects. The question remains, Will unrestricted lodging-out cflri t its object that, namely, of opening the university to men Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 81 of smaller incomes ? In other words, will the middle-class give three years of life and a sum of 200 for the M.A. degree when that degree is shorn of its present social distinction ? Let us go on to say that in order to induce them to do so, it must be made clear that it is worth their while to do so. In plainer words, to cheapen the cost of a university education is only one-half of university extension. The education given must be better adapted to the wants of the class intended to benefit by it. Let Oxford become, as nothing but artificial legislation prevents it from becoming, the first school of science and learning in the world, and at the same time let it be accessible at the cost only of board and lodging, and it will attract pupils enough. If what we have to teach requires to be bolstered up by bounties to the taught, that is evidence that what we have to teach is not recognised as of intrinsic utility. If what the public is calling for under the name of university extension means certain social advantages, at the university and afterwards, for their sons, let them understand that these advantages cannot be had cheap, and if had, ought to be paid for by those who get them. Exhibitions are a means of extending to a small additional number a favoured few this pri- vilege. But aristocratic society must always remain a privilege, and always be costly. Social combinations apart, the necessaries of life cost no more in Oxford than in other towns of the South of England. The inducement to spend three years here can only be found in improving the instruc- tion. The true solution of the problem of university extension is to be found at last not in expedients for recruiting more students, but in raising the character and reputation of the body of teachers. o :;_' Actual Dulrilmt It will IK' understood that those of us who advocate " lodging-out " do not do so its preferring it in itself t<> a conventual discipline. Lodi_ r iir_: -out is to he pcrmissiu- only. It is to ln % OJH-U t< those who choose it. Probably most parents will eoiitinue to prefer a rt'sidence in a college to private lodgings. While I quite agree with ih-r \\lio think that much advantage is, or may be in a wcll-dJadpiined college, obtained by a life in common, I only uiye that college residence should not be compulsory on those who do not choose to pay an enhanced price for these advan- tages. Tlie education and the degree should he to he had not bound up with the social advantages. \Ve are not proposing to substitute lodgings for colleges, but to leave the choice open. Let the experiment be at least tried. If the present college-life is really vastly superior to life apart in lodgings, it will maintain itself. I may repeat what I wrote in 1852: " Instead of guessing in the dark at the probable effect of these plans, let us make the experiment. What is urged is not the creation of any new machinery, hut that an oppi. restriction should be removed, and the field thrown open to private enterprise and energy. "Whi-n five, this will speedily run into the best channels. Let us have halls and r.,||.-p-s old and new, all with unlimited liberty of admission, to \vnrk together, and trust in the ]>ower of self-adjustment in things which will bring to the surface the capabilities of the several methods. It is incumbent, indeed, on a university to bo cautious ami d-liher:it- in all its proceedings. But experiments are not necessarily rash there are wise ones there are even wise experiments in legislation which do not answer, and then to desist from them inviilves no disgrace. . . Untie our and open our gates, and let us at least try if we can Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 83 attract here, and can usefully deal with, that larger circle of youth whom, we are told, we ought to have here. The ideal of a national university is that it should be co-extensive with the nation. It should be the common source of the whole of the higher and secondary instruction for the country. . If we can only draft in 500, say 300, students (additional) from a class whose education has hitherto terminated with the com- mercial school or the academy, ' the good that would be effected by acting even on this moderate scale cannot be re- presented by figures. It would be the beginning of a system by which the university would strike its roots freely into the subsoil of society, and draw from it new elements of life, and sustenance of mental and moral power ! ' " (0. U. C. Report, Evidence, p. 44). All opinions to the effect that academical life within college walls is a more valuable moral and social discipline than a solitary lodging, however true, cannot prove that it should be made compulsory. Nothing would give us the right to coerce all the students within college walls but a proof that order and discipline could not be otherwise maintained. That a youth incurs peculiar dangers in an Oxford lodging, which do not equally beset him elsewhere, is an allegation which cannot deserve serious discussion. The 1350 medical students in London live where they like, and select their own lodgings according to their means, taste, or notions of convenience. When the student has entered them his landlady is the only person who can place any restriction on his choice of company. If it pleases him to do so, he may have a card-party every night in the week, and there is no human power to drive him to church or chapel against his will. Under these circumstances, it might be supposed that he would abuse his unrestricted freedom of 84 ml Distribution of Endoirim'iit /'///c \\ho know thorn. If blaek sheep arc occasionally to be found among them, where is the college in the Univor>it'u - which has not also its percentage of yonthful sots and l)cardlc>s I toys with shattered nerves ? (see Dr. Temple Wright, MY//V"/ N/m/f Kinl>nnn,nt /'/hop,and those whom tin- premium of the scholarship ami fellowship attract-, the small remainder will represent tin- numl>er who are drawn here purely by the deairo of education ! \\Y mav look to improved eon- ditiotiHof study rather for an improvement in the intellectual tone of the -indents than for the influx of numbers. At the same time it limy be fairly expected that the numbers will also be increased. The shallow literature and lla-hy lectures, " whieh ore now HO abundant e\< -nwlu -re, " mav have little intrinsic value, but they awake intellectual tastes and the and popular lectures may become in one generation the pioneers of a systematic culture in the next. They could not be expected to leave remunerative callings, but they might spare two or three years before entering ujxni them. With the growth in wealth grows the di>po>ition to |Hsti>one the entrance upon business or active life till a later age. With the accumulation of capital the rate of profits sinks, and the counter temptation of fortunes rapidly accumulated is removed, while a larger number of persons are in the enjoyment of a moderate realised property. 6. Fellowships. The number of fellowships, when the new ordinances have fully come into operation, will he somewhat over :". ' a-\ear has IHXMI taken as the maximum dividend, this would Lfi\e an annual distri- Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 87 bution of 90,000. It may, perhaps, be objected that the fellowships cannot be placed under the present head of Subsidies to Education, that they belong to our third appli- cation of endowments viz. to the Promotion of Science and Learning. We must, then, inquire what is the public purpose which is now promoted by the actual administra- tion of the fellowship fund under the reformed statutes. An endowment fund may be applied to encourage any direction of the powers of the understanding in one of two ways (1), it may be bestowed as a stipend on condition of services to be rendered in the future, during its tenure ; (2), it may be conferred as a pension, in recompense or acknowledgment of meritorious exertions in the past. This method of pension has this advantage, that successful activity of the intelligence being once ascertained to exist in any individual, we have a guarantee of its continuance, not only because his own antecedents constitute an obliga- tion noblesse oblige but from the force of habit and spontaneous activity. If we turn to the statutes of the colleges, as amended by the ordinances, to see on which of these two principles fellowships are bestowed, we find it is not upon the first of them. We find the ordinances in almost every college repealing the old obligations, and not substituting for them any new ones. It is true that any assertion about what is, or is not, statutable in any college, must be made with diffidence. For the commission of 1854, instead of abrogating the old codes under which they found the colleges governed, and introducing new codes in their place, were content to issue general ordinances, leaving the old statutes in vigour, except 88 Actual Distribution of Endowment Fnn tin- onlmamvs. Hence no college can undertake to say what is or is not n<>\\ statutablc, without invoking a Visitor's decision, or a legal adviser's opinion. Three colleges only (Exeter, Lincoln, Corpus) poeaeas new bodies of statutes, yet it would seem that in Corpus the old code is still in vigour, having been only repealed so far as it is repugnant to the new. Besides this, the ordinances in some cases entrust the society uitli the )K>wcr of framing new regulations. Though the statutes and the ordinances arc accessible in print, any new regula- tiom 10 made arc not But I do not apprehend that the colleges received the power of attaching duties to fellow- ship as conditions of tenure ; and I have no reason to believe that any regulation of this kind has been attempted in any college. Subject to any doubt which there may be as to the interpretation of conflicting documents, it may be asserted that no duties are at present attached to fellowships. Now, the old statutes of foundation had in almost every instance imposed very strict conditions of tenure. For they had, in almost every instance, required the fellow to proceed to the superior degree in one of the faculties. Failure to do so was to forfeit the fellowship, ipso facto. The effect of this requirement, under the old university system, was to impose upon the fellow, as the condition of his tenure, a prolonged course of study, of from twenty to twenty-five years, in a special branch of knowledge study not merely private and uncertificated, but evidenced by a regular appearance in the public schools for disputation, and by the perform- ance of other public exercises. These exercises had been long disused by the university, and dis(>cnscd with f>r the Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 89 degrees. The college fellow was unable to perform the public disputations, and was content to take the degree. In many of the larger foundations the college statutes had not merely imposed the faculty degree, with its necessary course of study, but had superadded private courses of study for the fellows, with extra disputations and exercises, as tests of proficiency to be given within the college walls. These had fallen into desuetude along with the public exer- cises. For the public university, and private collegiate, ap- pearances and exercises no substitute had been provided. These exercises and disputations were, however, only the outward tokens, the tests, occasions, and evidence of the study, or continued pursuit of acquirement ; they were not that study itself. Though the opportunity of publicly proving his proficiency was taken away from him, the fellow still remained under the same obligation to the study which had constituted the whole purpose of his foundation. This was the statutable state of things when the Act of 1854 and the Commission intervened. According to the sufficiently defined mode of proceeding in a court of equity in dealing with a charity, either modern tests and evidences of continued pursuit of science, analogous to those prescribed by the founder, but now obsolete, should have been imposed on the fellowship ; or if this was im- possible, the endowment should have been diverted to an analogous use. The Commission did not adopt this course. The ordinances in every instance abolish the statutable regulations of studies and exercises, as well as the obliga- tion to proceed to the superior degrees. In no instance do they attempt to substitute an equivalent. But though no duties are provided for him to perform, the fellow is '.HI Actual l>i#trilnitinii \ment of liis -tiprnd and emolu- ments. In other words the ordinances _' Actual Distribution <>/' /^nfmnncnf tingled "lit IV. in tin- \\li<>lr niimltrr of mm -iv-iilrnts, woulil be manifestly an act of arbitrary rigour. If iv-itlrnrr in to bo compulsory, it must be equally roiujmlsory. A statute which entrusts to the majority of a college power to deny to one of their number a liberty which in enjoyed by all the rest, ought to remain a dead letter. The person so selected would be in fact a scapegoat offered on the altar of justice by his fellows, to enable themselves to retain their fellowships unmolested. But not only would no college act thus harshly it never feels the necessity which might excuse liai>hm .. The attractions of college tuition are sufficient in them- >cl\r> t !r_ r .i- r <' mm in llir MTVKV. Classical studio yield to no other studies in intrinsic attractiveness. Those, again, who arc not within the reach of the genuine inspira- tion, easily prefer the occupation of teaching what they have just learnt, to engaging in a new and repulsive pro- fessional study, and going, as it were, to school again. And if the supply of tutors runs short in one college, it can be made up out of the abundance of its neighbour. Economically considered, the income of the fellowship is no more part of the payment for the tutor's services than it is part-payment for the services rendered by the young counsel to his client, or by the country curate in his paro- chial charge. The 300 a-year was entirely at his disposal ; he might have carried it to Calcutta or California, or amused himself with it in the picture-galleries of Italy. If he chooses to be a college-tutor it is because he finds his account in being so. It suits his tastes, or his interests. Will it IK* said that the salary of a tutor would IHJ insuHi- cicnt if it were not eked out by the emoluments of a fellow- Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 93 ship? This is to confound together two very distinct questions. The question, Can the amount of teaching re- quired in the university be adequately paid for by fees levied on the pupils, is one which will be considered else- where. The fact that the dividend of the fellow is no part of the remuneration of the tutor's services is all I am now concerned to point out. Endowments may be applied in aid of fees, as payment of teachers, as in our endowed schools. But the annual proceeds of his endowment are only receivable by the master of a grammar-school on con- dition of services rendered. The income of a fellowship transportable everywhere with the fellow, wherever he moves, can form no part of the inducements which may have led him to fix himself in Oxford. Tuition is a pro- fession having its advantages and its drawbacks There is no other tie between the fellowship and the profession of tutor than the circumstance, that the qualifications re- quired for election to the fellowship are partly the same qualifications as are required in a tutor. Tuition is a profession, and the only one, in which the fellow can en- gage at once, without fresh study, a new apprenticeship, and additional expense. This would always insure there being fellows ready to take the oflice of tutor. But the income of this fellowship forms no part of the considera- tion paid for tuitional services. If fellowships did not exist, tutors would be obtainable on the same terms as at present. The average pay of a tutor (without the fellow- ship) is better pay than curacies, or than the expectancy of briefs or fees. I am not arguing, it will be remembered, that tutors are now "sufficiently" paid. In the scheme proposed in these pages, the position held by the academi- '.i I Actual Distribution <;/ /.',"//'///// l-'mnl. eal teacher is a very different one from that no\\ occupied l\ tli, (,>li, _', til!"!'. All I am n<>\\ cinicenied I" point out i-. that the fellowships aro not part of the fund all, , tr.l t" the endowment of tcacher>. Thus it appear* that fellowships arc not o inferred on the first of the two principle.-* alio\e Mated, as the only principles on which endowments can lie applied to pro- mote any given form of mental endeavour. They arc found not to be stipends paid in return for service*. They are clearly besto we* 1 on the second principle; they arc pension*! conferred in rccoiujKHisc or acknowledgment of meritorious exertions in the ]>ast. This is the ground on which the new provision > distinctly place them. The commi^ioiiers transferred the fellowships, whether intend- ing it or not, from the first category to the second from the category of benefices entailing duties, to that of sine- cure benefices obtainable by qualification. The old quali- fication, viz., birth in a particular locality, had become a crying and intolerable evil. It was justly abolished by Parliament The commission substitute for it "intellec- tual qualifications." We shall not find in the ordinances any definition of the " intellectual qualifications" to be re- quired; but their nature is indicated by a provision that fellowships arc to be accessible to " excellence in every branch of knowledge, for the time being, recognised in the schools of the University," (Onlimntcea, passim). In abolishing continued obligation, and making the condi- tions of a fellowship retrosjHJctive, more care might have been bestowed on ascertaining these conditions. Every- thing in intrusted to the honour und discretion of a sclf- electing board. As the statutes and ordinances do not Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 95 determine more precisely what " excellence " shall be suffi- cient qualification for a fellowship, we must turn to the actual practice of the colleges to discover what it is at this moment. The range of subjects is as ample and compre- hensive as could be desired. It embraces, as far as words go, all the subjects of all the four schools classical litera- ture ; mathematical and physical studies ; modern history and jurisprudence; natural science. Pensions of 300 a-year awarded for " excellence " in each of these subjects, might be a most powerful stimulus of science and learning. Indeed, without the pension, the public honour attaching to the possession of one of these national prizes might alone make them objects of as eager competition as are the chairs of the Academic Frangaise. But when we come to the actual practice, we find in it two circumstances which limit the ample range seeming to be opened by the words of the ordinances. 1. The competition is not be- tween men of mature age and scientific reputation ; nor is it even between younger men, say from twenty-five to thirty, who, though yet unknown, have been devoting some effort to master some one of the greater " branches of knowledge." The candidates are practically quite young men of from twenty-one to twenty-five, who are fresh from the schools, and have not yet entered upon the study of any "branch of knowledge." It is a disadvantage to a candidate to have devoted any time to special knowledge. Even if an older man, say of from twenty-five to thirty, should be among the candidates, he must, to give himself a chance, have postponed the commencement of scientific study, and remained in the practice of his school exercises. For the competition is not an examination in acquirement, '.'; Actual Distribution >/' I-'inlnminil /'//crformam'e of exercises. Klec- t..r> u'ciicrally prefer the younger competitors, or rather the examination is so arranged that the yon up T man has l'i. !><-( chance in il. ('.. lifers contrive to li\ llu-ir times of election so as to catch the mrn who arc just out of the schools, OH giving them a better field to select from. 2. AH are the candidate-, Mich arc the awarders of the prize. The whole body of fellows arc electors, who, if not mainly young men, an*, as we have seen, men who, as fellows, have given no guarantee of excellence in any "branch of knowledge." They naturally examine in what they knou, and the conduct of the examination usually falls into the hands of the youngest on the list, as himself most fresh from the performance of the exercises in which the com pe- tition chiefly consists. A fellowship examination is thus a mere repetition of the examination in the public schools, by a less competent board of examiners. It is entirely meaningless. It does not give opportunity for any ad- vance in positive acquirement after the B.A. degree, even if it does not discourage it A young B.A., when he has finished his liberal groundwork, his iyxuxX/o; raiMa his humanities may wish to devote, at his own expense, a year or two more to the study of positive knulc(L r e in any direction in moral science, in philology, in history. He may do so if he can find out how but the University affords him no guidance, prescril>es no path, holds out no rewards. He roams about the libraries at his will, and devours, as his curiosity prompts, much miscellaneous read- ing. He must go for instruction to Berlin or Bonn, or even to Catholic and arriert Vienna ; Oxford cannot give it him. But if he engages in the higher scientific study of Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 97 any " branch of knowledge," in proportion as his insight deepens, in that proportion he sees his hopes of a fellow- ship vanish; he will be easily distanced in "Latin com- position " by a junior competitor warm from his feats of boyish rhetoric, or ready with reams of speculative declama- tion on "philosophy." These remarks it is hoped will not be misunderstood. So far from underrating the Oxford training, I believe it to be the best to be had at this time in Europe. When it is attacked by scientific men without culture, or posi- tive philosophy which ignores the world of imagination, it is right to point out how much more complete our scholastic curriculum is than anything which is pro- posed in its place. But as training, as education merely; science it is not; knowledge it is not. It is but the instrument, the preparatory stage, the portal of know- ledge. Merit in this preparatory stage is what the B.A. and the honours in the various schools are (or were) supposed to denote. The fellowships seem to be as- signed by the ordinances to a further stage of intel- lectual growth, to excellence in some branch of know- ledge. But the actual practice reverses this enactment, and perhaps it was not even the view of the framers of the ordinances. At any rate, present practice awards the fellowships, or the great majority of them, to the same merit, and the same stage of education, as that which the honours in the final schools are contrived to reward. No one can now obtain a fellowship unless he has gone through with some success the three years' honour course prescribed by the university. Speaking roughly, we may say that the twenty or thirty fellowships which become vacant every H 08 Actual I>ixtribulu)ii of Endowment year are filled up l>\ as many of the m<>-t t>f the student* of that year. It is then clear into which of the three channels, in which our endowment* are distributed, the fellowships flow. They arc not part payment of instruction ; they do not promote learning and science. They arc educa- tional prize*. The fellowships, art now administered, are to the academical course what the scholarships arc to the grammar-school, so much prize-money offered for com- petition among the scholars. Of their effect as prizes, the same must be said as was said of the prize scholarships. AH at the commencement of the academical course, so at its close, the pri/.e> are too many in number, and too great in value. The pri/.e system is overdone. Prizes arc multiplied beyond the only end for which prizes arc useful in education, that, \i/. of M miniating industry and awakening intellectual ambition. Beyond this limit all the fellowships that are given act as a bounty on a particular kind of education. A small number of prize-fellowships, awarded after a vigorous competition to the two or three best students of the year, would, in combination with the honour lists, (all into play all the emulation which is necessary, and as mueh aa is stimulated under the existing system. All that is beyond this serves only to draw students to the universities, and creates an artificial demand for a drill, the educative power of which is thus greatly in i pa ired, in- asmuch as its adaptation to the demands of life is
  • t<>rtl or destroyed. Here it is necessary to revert to a consideration which has already been touched U|N>M in speaking of the scholarships. Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 99 Scholarships, exhibitions, fellowships, every form of subsidy to education, over and above their stimulative eifect as prizes, go to form an " avenue to Me." They are steps in the broad road which leads from the cottage up to the highest employ- ments in Church and State. A recent writer says : " The university might render a vast political service by bringing out the talent of the nation. At present there is no way upwards save by money- getting. The university might be to the nineteenth century what the priesthood was to the Middle-ages. In no country is the area from which men rise into public life so small as in our own. Compare France with England in this particular. Among us, without wealth no man has any hope of public life. The dislike of " adventurers " so general in Parliament, if probed to its real foundation, will be found to rest on a vulgar admiration of money. In no other country does such a dislike prevail ; and the consequence is, that in no country are politics so seldom studied as a profession as in ours. We are apt to think this an advantage. It is on the contrary a great evil. It restricts the supply. If we could extend the field of our choice over 100,000 of the middle and lower classes, should we find no available ability there wasted 1 And the area is narrowing every day. The times of patronage and small boroughs have passed away, and with them has gone many a chance to poor ability of an entrance into public life. Politics are now, as literature was in the days of Dr. Johnson ; patrons are gone by, and publishers are not yet. The Univer- sities might be the publishers of political life" (North British Review, March 1867). This is a function of endowments as "subsidies to education " which deserves the most watchful care. It is truly a national interest. The universities are eminently nurseries of talent for the public service. However else they may aim at ministering to general culture, it must not 100 Actual Distribution of /-'mloirnnn/ A'/W. interim- with their In-in^ seminaries for public life. Will a vast diminution of the munlicr of prize-fellowships inter- fere with this funetion ? will it narrow the rood, and lessen the opportunities now afforded to the poor man of com- peting with the rich in the path of honour ami public service? I think not And the writer juHt quoted i- complaining that Oxford does not at present do what he is suggesting. Tlie existing system by which twenty or thirty life pensions an given away to all the young men of promise evcrv vcar, dod not answer the purpose. We may, therefore, with safety to that purpose, divert these funds in another direction. The truth is, that the fellowship ha* never l>een the direct and straight road to the public sen ice, the path that leads from the Cumberland cottage to the woolsack, accor- ding to the popular belief. A few distinguished names can be pointed to in the Church, in law, in literature, and other walks of life, who, perhaps, would never have been heard of but for college endowments. But such cases have been the exceptions, and must always remain so. Were it not that a false notion of endowments is still so deeply rooted in large sections of society connected with our old Univer- sities, it would be idle to keep on repeating, as we arc obliged to do, that poverty, as such, constitutes no title to academical funds. Ability based on force of character, on tenacity, and industry, is what educational endowments seek to find and bring out We must keep the fellowships a* well as the scholarships free from the taint of a system which invites men to come to the universities, simply because they are poor, and because they see in them a way to a good pension on easy terms. To do this the prize- fellowships must be restricted in numbers, and rigidly Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 101 bestowed so as to bring out the greatest amount of exertion. So administered, they might perhaps occasionally be a stage in the broad road of ambition, at once designating and aiding an aspirant for the highest political employments. The equal high-road for humble talent should lie through the universities, but not necessarily through a fellowship. The next stage to the scholarship should be a post in the public service, with prospect of promotion by merit. The fellow- ship endowment has surely other objects than to pension an ambitious man while he is trying to establish a Parlia- mentary or professional position ! Next to a regular connection between the public service and the university course, a re-establishment of the local grammar-schools would be necessary if we are to keep open this highway. The first step of the ladder is as essential as the last. The decay of the local grammar-schools had cut off the supply of men to the universities at its source. But that decay itself was only one of the minor symptoms of the social revolution in progress. The youth of the lower middle class left the grammar-school because it no longer taught them what it was their interest to learn. The commercial schools grew up, which taught nothing well, but which professed to teach the things they wished to learn. The public, which judges by profession, and not by performance, adopted the commercial academy. The local grammar-school decayed, or turned itself, in order to live, into a commercial school. Our middle-class youth passed into life without approaching the universities, with- out the faintest trace of the culture which still remained the traditional culture of the nation. The whole com- mercial and moneyed class from the great capitalists 109 Actual Distribution <aMc u'tilfof education from the professional classes. But mark well the reversal of social imjwrtancc which hail aecomjMUiied the growth of this separation. Down to the end of the ware of the French Revo- lution (1816), the aristocratical, political, professional, ami clerical sections of society had been e\ entiling in social considenition. These classes had clung to the traditions of liberal education. The career of Knglish life lay, accordingly, through the grammar-schools ami universities. But the enormous development of com- merce and manufactures since 1815 has opened a new world to energy. The career opened by commercial enter- prise to the middle class is a far more tempting career to ambition than those opened by the old road of the profes- sions ami public life. The thousands who tread this path go without any education properly so called. Yet thc-c ri .:--,- arc in |H> i ion >{' irrcat political poucr ami >ocial consideration, which throws that of the professions int.. the shade, and almost balances the power of the territorial aristocracy. What is the consequence? It is that these moneyed classes, containing the better half of the nation's wealth and life, lie outside the pale of our educational system. What they have not <;ot thev dc-pi-c. Liberal education confined to one half and the least energetic half of the wealthy classes, is depreciated. The great highway of successful life no longer lies through the uni- versities. We wish to restore the road, and maintain one broad-gauge line of refining education, along which all our youth, the aspiring and enterprising, as well as the fanicanf Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 103 aristocrat and the apathetic dullard, shall be willing to travel. It is impossible seriously to propose that this shall be done by pensions. What would 100,000 a-year distributed in pensions do, if tried as a set-off against the prizes that await skill and energy in business? Our endowment-fund is considerable, but I believe it is not equal to this task that of buying up the best talent of the country. If we can succeed in making the education given meet the demands of all classes, all classes will desire to have it. If we want the old road to be travelled, we must repair it, not pay pilgrims so much a head, like a starving Swiss innkeeper, for going our route. We have thus traced one the most considerable third of our endowment-fund to its destination as educa- tional subsidy, expended upon or earned by students during their three years' course. An annual outlay of somewhere over 120,000 is applied prospectively as scholarship, or retrospectively as fellowship to extract from the pupil the amount of mental and moral exertion put forth by him in a three and a-half years' course. We have seen that, as now administered, this fund operates on edu- cation in three ways : 1. As a pecuniary aid to poor talent: 2. As a prize system stimulating industry: 3. And this is its chief effect, as a bounty, attracting within the scope of the education many who would not care to have it without a pecuniary inducement. 2. Of Endowment for Instruction. In the tripartite division of the proceeds of our aggre- gate endowed fund, one-third share is employed in provid- ing instruction. The endowed teachers are as follows: lot .\ctiHiI Distribution of /'//. Ecclesiastical history Pastoral ..... Hebrew . . . . K\. ->!> . . . Grinfield Total * . 9445 Mathematical, physical, and medical Savilian astronomy . 4 . 600 Savilian geometry . . . GOO Sedleian reader .... 570 Experimental philosophy . . 500 "Waynflete chemistry . . . GOO Linacre physiology . . . MIO Botany . ... . 300 Geology ... . . 400 Mineralogy . . . . 250 Hope zoology . . . . 300 Sibthorp rural economy . . . 200 Regius medicine . . . . 400 Clinical 200 Total 5720 3. Law. Regius civil law Vinerian Indian law reader . Chichele International New chair at Corpus Total Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 105 3. History and philosophy. Kegius modern history . . 600 Camden ancient do. . . 400 Chichele history . . . . 750 Waynflete metaphysics . . . 600 White moral philosophy . . . 400 Logic 400 Political economy . . . . 300 Poetry 140 Total 3590 4. Philology. Kegius Greek . . . . 500 Corpus Latin .... 600 Boden Sanskrit .... 1000 Arabic 300 Taylorian, modern . . . 500 Anglo-Saxon 300 Teachers French, German, Italian, Spanish 600 Teachers Hindustani 150 Total 3950 To obtain the total endowment of instruction we must add, besides one or two miscellaneous items (as, e.g., the professor of music), small ancient endowments which each of the colleges possess for readers, lecturers, etc., and recent grants out of endowed funds for lecturers in science. The aggregate of such annual sums may be about 1500 per annum. Some of the above figures are not exact, but they are sufficiently so to give a general view of the distribution of the sums devoted to instruction out of endowments. The first thing which strikes us is the 106 Actual Dittribittit'ii <>f r.mln (he Hiibjcct of divinity. This is BO, however, only in .ippearancc. The four or five great theological chairs arc canonrics more than they ore professorships. As such they belong to the third class of endowment that for the maintenance of learning. The regius professor of theology, who was once bound to lecture twice a week throughout the entire year, has been, by a modern statute (1839), released from the mere drudgery of teaching, and allowed to devote nearly all his time to the higher objects of sacred literature. The other divinity professors arc indeed under more stringent, but not onerous, requirements to teach. But the whole of these chairs must be regarded as having a double position, a position in the Church as well as in the University. No one, who wilhai to sec the Church of England maintain its character in the country, will think an endowment of 9000 a-ycar an extravagant price to pay for the encouragement of sacred learning. It should be remembered, too, that the wealth of the chapters being now dispersed in dust over the face of the country, the theological chairs at the universities arc the only preferment in the Church for which learning is a qualification. The dean of a cathedral may be, and sometimes is, a man of learning, but he may also owe his promotion to other considerations. The divinity professorships may thus be regarded as sen-ing two purposes, and we might therefore deduct 600 a-ycar for "services" from each canon ry, and consider the remainder as an endowment of learning. This would leave, as the teaching endowment of divinity, a total of only 3000. The distribution among the several branches of teaching is then at present as follows : Actual Distribution of Endoivment Fund. 107 Teachers of theology . . . 3,000 science, including medicine 5,420 law . . . . 2,250 history and philosophy . 3,590 philology . . . 4,000 College lectureships . . . 1,500 19,760 These figures represent, not accurately, but accurately enough for the purpose, the endowment of teaching, or the teaching that the university has the means of offering gratuitously. To ascertain the whole outlay upon instruc- tion, we must add to this the sums levied by fees. The fees for college tuition have been estimated at 25,000 a- year. What is paid for private tuition is matter of con- jecture. Dr. Peacock estimated what was paid to private tutors at Cambridge at 50,000 a-year (0. U. C. Report, p. 89). Nothing like this sum is spent here. It is pro- bable that the expenditure on this item is still diminishing, as it is certainly less than it used to be. In putting it at 5000 a-year I shall be below the mark. Thus, the total outlay in the University on instruction from fees will reach the sum of 30,000 per annum. I may remark, by the way, the curious coincidence that the sum paid out of endowments to students exhibited, and the sum levied back from them in the shape of fees for tuition, public and private, nearly balance each other. Scholarships, exhibitions, etc., to undergraduate students 35,000 College tuition fees . . . 25,000 Private do. ... 5,000 Examiners' do. ... 2,000 Professors' do. ... 32,000 lOtt Actual IHstrilmtinn oj ,,n-nt IB this uniount of grat niton-, clur;iii..n little or inurli >. This, again, is a question impos-iMc to !.. ;m~\\ nv.l. The sum paid for it is no indication cither way. It might l>c argued that at least the wealthier classes of tin- public arc tolerably satisfied with what is done, as they arc con it -nt to meet an endowment of 35,000 a-ycar with voluntary fees to the amount of 32,000. But, as before observed, it is vain to attempt to get at the ralue of the work done here by the amount spent upon it Any sum, however small, is too much to pay for a bud education. If the opportunity of a really good education be given here, the largest outlay is, to a wealthy country, absolutely insignificant The arrangements of the profes- soriate will be considered under its proper head. The sub- ject of the incomes of professors and tutors will come before us again under the next section. 3. Of Endowments of Science and Of our total endowment fund, one, and the smallest, third is affected to the promotion of science and learning. Under this head come the libraries, so much of the pro- feasoriul endowment as is over and above what can be con- sidered as payment for lecturing, and so much of the endowments of heads as remains after deducting services. Of the professors there are only the canon professors, with, perhaps, the professor of Sanskrit, who have any margin, after deducting salary, which can be set down to this head. The duties of the heads as gathered from the statutes are pretty much alike in all the colleges. They are, in general terms, the government of the society, its prc-id- Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 109 ency, and general superintendence. The head is usually bound to residence during term (i.e., seven months in the year). When not so tied by express enactment, an active discharge of his duties, and attendance at the college prayers, imply residence. There is, however, in all cases, a vice-gerent, who in the absence of the head exercises his powers. Even when the head is present the discipline of the undergraduate body is usually administered by the vicegerent, who must consult the head. As each college has one or more bursars who administer the finances, a head is able, if he chooses, to devolve the greater part of his administrative duties within his college upon his subordi- nate officers. The qualifications required for election to a headship are, the M.A. (or a superior) degree, and holy orders, two or three colleges excepted, where laymen may be chosen. The election of the head is by vote of majority of the fellows, who are required by the ordinances to choose the person " who shall be most fit for the government of the college as a place of religion and learning" (Ordinances passim). But the fitness thus vaguely described is left expressly to their judgment. In one college (Cor- pus) it is required that the head be " a man of ability and experience in all that relates to produce, rents, build- ing, and the letting and leasing of property, etc.," and at the same time one who is " devoted to the study of the liberal arts and sciences " (Statutes of Corpus Christi, cap. 1), And in Exeter College he is to be of ability to pro- mote " the literary, educational, and financial interests of the college " (Statutes of Exeter College, ii.) These are, I think, the only vestiges of purpose in respect of the office of heads to be found in the new ordinances. 110 . 1 / an / Distribution of Kndowme* There arc im rrturns of the income of tin- headship-. It will pmbalik not U far from the mark t put the col- lective income of the nineteen heads of colleges lit l2H,000 a-ycar. Perhaps -.<>me deduction would ha\r to be made from this in respect of outpoint:* and incoinenicncc arising from the nature of the endowments. eon>istiii'_r in annexed cnnonries or livings, in order to arrive at the nctt amount. Of this nett ineome, a part being jMiyinent for sen ices remlered in the management of the eolle^e, must IHJ eR-tlited to our second division of the endowment fit ml, as an outlay on education. All that is over and above remuneration for superintendence appears, as far OH the language of the statutes serves to determine, to be as much a sinecure pension as a fellowship. There arc, how- ever, purposes answered by the endowment of the head, which, though not enjoined by statute, are inevitable obligations of the position. The head is for the college what the Vice-Chancellor is for the university, its repre- sentative officer. All that is implied in representation constitutes his real duty far more than the details of administr.it ion. He is the sovereign of a constitutional state who reigns but does not govern. Tin- sni_ ri - f eMioii that it is desirable that the Viee-( 'hanccllor should be relieved from the drudgery of detail by which he is now oppressed, in order that he may the better represent the corporate body, is equally applicable to the head of a college. The requirement of the Exeter and Corpus code-., that he >honld be experienced in land-agency, may seem in not unreasonable. Hut where this requirement is coupled with a demand that he should be "devoted to the study of the liberal arta and sciences," the impossibility of Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. Ill such a union of qualifications in the same man becomes manifest. To compel the head by statute faaxoveft rgavs^a/s is at once to interfere with his proper function, and to have the bursarship ill administered. As colleges now are, with possibly a majority of non-residents, and certainly a majority of young fellows unacquainted with the antecedents of the estates, and even with the general nature and obligations of landed property, it is necessary that there should be one man of age and experience at their deliberations. But the scheme now offered provides a special office for estates and agency (see p. 44), and under it business qualities need no longer be demanded of a head. This would release the electors from the perplexity which a double qualification always occasions in choosing a man to fill an office. Scientific and literary qualifications, are, as we have seen, exacted only in the codes of two colleges. If we look to the actual practice, it is necessary to remember that no headship in Oxford has yet been filled up by a body of electors who have themselves attained their fellow- ships under the system of open competition. And after making the deductions above enumerated, there remains no large part of the whole headship endowment -fund of 23,000 which has to be credited to the category of endow- ment of science and learning. The apology for bringing it in under this head is, that besides the two colleges, the statutes of which strictly require learning, in all the colleges the elec- tors, even now, have the opportunity of giving this direction to this part of the endowment fund if they choose. If they have not so chosen, it has been in part that their freedom has been hampered by the requirement of business qualifi- 1 1 J Actual Distribution <>f Kmltnnm'itt i-ations. The nere-it\ for looking f..r that 0,11:. lit\ !>einu' removed, and tin- old tradition^ of eleetion I.eeomintr e\- tinct, aa the body of electors is recruited on the present system, we cannot doubt that scientific and literary merit would IK; more regarded, and that tlie>e poMs would lc filled by more di-tin^uMied men. e\en if no change were made in the elections to fellowships. As, however, the present scheme proposes to convert the whole of the fellowship endowments from educational prizes into en- dowments for science and literature, so I would propose to include the endowments of the headships in the same category. Instead of IxMiig vaguely mentioned, eminence in science should be made the one statutablc condition. In the cases of those colleges which are to be dedicated to the cultivation of one special faculty, the electors should be placed under as strict an obligation as can be drawn to choose the man best learned in their faculty. As endowments of science and teaming, it will be necessary to remove the limitation of these dignities to clergymen, in those colleges which still retain such a con- dition. In proposing this, I desire not to lose sight of the importance to the nation of maintaining a learned church. At that moment in our annals when we seem in greatest danger of foregoing this benefit, it may l>e said it would not be wise for the Church to give away what seems to be the last refuge for theological learning, which has been almost chased out of the cathedrals. It must be replied that the destruction of the canonries as the homes of learning, if a necessity, was a deplorable necessity. Some- thing, however, was saved from the wreck ; and by a better of the chapter- for the pnrpo>e, endowments Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 113 may yet be obtained for theological science which will more than replace what it may lose in losing the head- ships of the colleges. But whether such a reorganisation of the cathedrals is attempted or not, the headships can- not, on the principles of academical management on which this scheme proceeds, be retained for the theological faculty. If the objection means not to claim them for theology, but only for learned clergymen, my scheme does not close them to clergymen, but only opens them to lay- men. Clergymen, eminent in any learned pursuit, may still hope to fill these posts, as even in France a bishop may have a fauteuil in the Academic. The relation be- tween the head of a college and the undergraduate student, again, will no longer be such as to imply the pastoral office. A notion has found supporters here, chiefly among the college-tutors, of making the head of the college into a sort of senior tutor for the undergraduates. This notion seems to originate in the desire to utilise somehow the endowments of the head, rather than in an enlarged view of the purposes of a college-foundation. It implies that the colleges are to be schools, and the University a locality in which twenty such schools happen to co-exist side by side. If this idea be carried out, which is not unlikely, the head would naturally become a head-master, and his duties would consist in the superintendence and instruc- tion of young men. On this scheme the headship must remain restricted to clergymen. He must also be armed with despotic authority, not only over the pupils, but over the other teachers. The condition of a successful school is the concentration of authority and responsibility on one head. He must appoint and dismiss the other tutors, and i 114 Actual Distribution qf Mndotr HI nit the college equality must be broken up. The present indcixHidcncc of the college fellow is the great impnli- inent in the way of the success of a college M a scli<>l. Any college in Oxford might in a few years l>e made into a trade success by an energetic head, if he could override the resistance of the fellows. Nothing could be easier, at the present crisis and in the present temi>er of the public, than to give this direction to college endowments, and to confirm and complete by legislation the process which has long silently been going on, of the conversion of the college into a grammar-school, even if the conversion has not already taken place in fact If the position of a head of a college in Oxford, as it is, is unsatisfactory both to himself and to the world out- side, it is owing to this, its ambiguous character. This ambiguity should be determined in one direction or in the other. He cannot at once be an active and successful master of a school, and also eminent in some branch of science. In the present " scheme " this equivocal charac- ter will be put an end to. For in our arrangement the colleges are divided into those which, ceasing to receive boarders, will be appropriated to one of the incorporated faculties, and into those which will remain boarding- houses. In the former, or colleges properly so called, the head will be the dean of his faculty, or the president of a learned body. In the other class of colleges, which would be more properly called hostels or hospitia, he will IHJ the acting master and administrator. It may be a question whether he should also teach, as does the master in an English grammar-school, and the dean (Dccari) in a Ger- man University, or whether he should only govern as a Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 115 French rector. He should be advised by a council of tutors, but not controlled by them in his decisions. Libraries. While nearly the whole of the endowments have been gradually withdrawn from the promotion of learning to which they were once devoted, one institution has been growing into an importance of the first rank in the learned world. The foundation of Sir Thomas Bodley, says Hallam (Literature, iii., 231), has been one main cause of the literary distinction of Oxford. A corporate body which has created such a collection must, it would seem, have been inspired by the love of letters. Yet the Vati- can contains the largest accumulation of Greek MSS. in the world, though Rome has not for generations been able to show a scholar capable of editing a page of Greek. The riches of the imperial library at Paris, uncared for by their proprietors, are explored by the Germans. But the Vatican and the Paris are old collections, which are not now augmented, and are but monuments of bygone periods, when Italy and France respectively were the classi- cal centres. The Bodleian has been in steady and con- tinuous growth ; a growth hardly interrupted even in the worst times, and which has even been most rapid during the last fifty years, a period during which the general movement in the university has been in a direction opposite to that of special attainment. All parties in Church and State have been contributors ; Laud and Fairfax, Cromwell and Charles I. have helped to realise the confident prediction of the founder in 1604, that " the European world would never behold a repository more amply stored with all resources for the promotion of good 110 Actual Distribution <>J ' I nil. learning " " Quo Orbis iste Europcus nulluin absolutius instruct iusque ml bonas litcrns pro movendas, Deo au-|u- cantc, unquam visurus cat " (I*refat. Sttitut. Itibl. 7>W/. 1010). Rome IMJS.SOJWCS her Vatican by inheritance. \\ e not only possess, but have ourselves formed, our Bodleian. Here, however, our merit end*. Like the bees, we have gathered for others to use. A very small fraction of those who arc in the enjoyment of the income of the endow- ments will be found among the frequenters of the library. It should indeed be said that the recent formation of a scientific library at the Museum a library which, though on a very small scale, is a model of arrangement has withdrawn from the Bodleian one considerable class of students. Tin- | rinri| >;il recommendations of the Royal Commis- sion of 1850 were 1. That books and MSS. should be allowed, under cer- tain restrictions, to be taken out of the library. 2. That a reading-room should be annexed to the library, in which books might be read after the library was closed. 3. That by an arrangement among the managers the resources of the other libraries might be econ<>mi>l, and made to supplement, rather than to repeat, the Bodleian. Of these recommendations the second has been since acted upon. In the first recommendation I think a distinction ought to be drawn between books and MSS. MSS. may, without detriment, be lent out The conditions, however, ought to be very precise, and strictly observed. The per- son applying ought to be required to show that it is im- possible for him to come to Oxford himself to make his Actual Distribution of Endowment Fund. 117 collation. Applications might be limited to those Univer- sities or libraries which were willing to give reciprocity. The MS. should not be lent for use in a private dwell- ing-house, but in the precincts of the public library fre- quented by the borrower. Books ought not to be lent out of the library under any conditions. Recommendation No. 3 has not been adopted, but I believe it is under consideration at the present time. The enormous increase of publication renders some such arrange- ment yearly more necessary, merely on the ground of space. Since the report of the Royal Commission was issued new vigour has been given to every department of the library by the appointment of the present librarian. The arrangements of the Bodleian may now challenge com- parison with those of any public library. In more than one point it is superior to any known to me. There is no other library of anything like the same extent in which the applicant is so quickly served with the volume demanded. If there yet remain desiderata in the management, we may be sure that there are insuperable difficulties which stand in the way. I may be permitted, perhaps, to express a wish 1st. That the risk of fire arising from the heating apparatus may not merely be minimised but annihilated ; when this has been effected, and not before, it might be considered if the MSS. collections of the separate colleges would not be better placed in the Bodleian building. 2d. That an assistant, qualified by professional biblio- graphical knowledge, be placed in the library at the service of readers. No system of cataloguing, or arrangement on the shelves, can supersede the necessity of such an officer. The principal librarian has far too much on his hands to 118 /.' 7>/.-7 r//m h'o/J of give, an he now does, the bibliographical aid demanded by each -indent. How far the finances of the library cmiM support additional burdens I do not know; but certainly the services of an accomplished bibliographer could not be r\|'ivtrl t> IT >rclirnl for ;i >;il:irv of I'.'KM) ;i \c;ir. \vliicli is all that the assistant-librarians at present receive. Biblio- tlicks-tri9enchfift is one of the sciences which it would be desirable to naturalise in the University. .'{/. Stillness and silence cannot be absolutely secured in any much-frequented library. In the Bodleian, the comparatively small number of readers would allow of our obtaining these desirable conditions of study in an unusual measure. We do not attain them. In spite of repeated prohibitions, the incessant stream of sight-seers continues to flow through the reading-room, the public business of the library to be transacted, and even the news of the day to be discussed, there. Some students may be able to overcome the distractions thus created. To those who cannot, the library is not now a place of study ; and for them its use is limited to purposes of reference, collation, transcription, or such other work as is purely mechanic -;il. SEC. 5. OF THE RE-DISTRIBUTION OF THE ENDOWMENT FUND. 1. General Considerations. We have now reviewed the actual distribution of our endowments into four portions : 1. Costs of management, salaries of agents, college offices connected with property, law-expenses, University charges, extra rates, maintenance of fabric, etc. Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 119 I have not the means of ascertaining the aggregate amount of this burden on our gross revenue. It must always remain heavy, but its present amount may possibly be capable of reduction by a central system of manage- ment. 2. Prize-money distributed among the students, as earned by them during their school and college course, usually before set. 24, 120,000 per annum. 3. Payments to provide the same students with in- struction and supervision gratuitously (say), 29,000 per annum. This is thus computed : 24 professors at 600 . . . 14,400 Other professors and teachers . 2,000 College-endowed lectureships, etc. . 1,500 19 heads at 600 . . . 11,400 29,300 4. The remainder, being the surplus income of the pro- fessors and heads, endowments of libraries and museums, etc., may perhaps be considered as affected to the promo- tion of science and learning. The actual amount of this outlay is not easily stated, but it cannot be set down at more than one-half of the last head (No. 3), if we make, as it would seem we ought to do, a further deduction from the income of the headships for costs of " representation." The figures given are, it may be repeated, offered as approximative only. They are sufficient for the purposes of this memoir, if they exhibit the proportions in which the distribution takes place. To endeavour to arrive, d priori, at a rule of propor- tion for the distribution of any endowment-fund among its l_'i> Re-Distribution of Endotrment Fund. possible objects would be futile. Tin- MMidflntfao, how- ever, which is the only one to which I wish to draw atten- tion, is one which is forced upon us at the first view of the figures as they stand. It involves the fundamental question of what is a University ? This consideration is that the great bulk of our endow- ments so large a part that we may almost say the whole is expended on youths under the age of twenty-four i.e. that it has an educational effect Wlmt is expended on promoting science and learning is, by comparison, trifling in amount, and, from the peculiar mode of its bestowal, almost unproductive of any fruits. This is the actual direction taken by the national endowment fund. And it stands in direct contrast with the original destination of that fund in that period of our history in which the institu- tion of colleges had its birth. The endowments, in the design of the founders, were endowments for men and not for youth, and were not directed to education as a pre- paration for life, but to knowledge as a peculiar profession which withdrew men from the ordinary professions, and all those careers which are self-paying, and which could there- fore only be supported by way of endowment. It may be as well to preclude misunderstanding by repeating that it is by no means to be assumed that the destination given to these endowments by their founders was, or would be now, wise and politic, and that the actual reversal of that destination now prevailing is unwise, merely because the one is ancient and the other modern. Nor let us for one instant submit our minds t< Hie superstition of the law-courts that a man can exercise rights of property after his death to all time, and that a use and Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 121 direction, once impressed upon property by a founder, must be obeyed for ever. Let the national trustee be considered to be entirely unfettered in the exercise of his trust. Let us address ourselves to the consideration of re-distribution as if the fund to be re-distributed had no lien upon it. I make no claim for the restoration of what once was, and has ceased to be, merely because it once was. I only seek to have the real issue clearly brought out before debate on university reform is the order of the day. No questions of detail can be entered on, or particular applications of funds determined till we have settled the relative claims of education v. science. Let it be understood that our endowment, once an endowment of knowledge, has become an endowment of education. The previous question will then be, Shall the existing application of the national fund be ratified, developed, and completed, and shall such anomalies as have arisen from the continued subsistence of fragments of another and older state of things in the middle of the new be removed ? An historical inquiry into what Oxford was is beyond the scope of this memoir. In recurring for a moment to the origin of colleges, the object is not the critical establishment of a fact, but only to enable us to realise the difference between an endowment for science and an endowment for education. It is a vulgar error that colleges were in their origin establishments of priests to say masses for the souls of the founders in purgatory. The founders of the thirteen colleges which were erected before the Reformation were almost all of them exceptional men who shared indeed the religious ideas common to their age, but who were ani- 1 JJ fte-Dtstribution of Endowment Fttncriod it is only included. as an assumed condition, but as experience of the utility of such foundations gathers, it grows to be the governing purpose of the legislator. The statutes of Devorguilla (1282) simply direct her scholars " diligenter scholas exerceant," and " studio intendant." The more ample code of New Col- lege (1400), afterwards (1479) copied for Magdalen, assigns as the purpose "ecclesia? sancta3 profectum, divini mini-, libcraliumque artium, scientiarum, et facultatum augmentum." The life of prayer and praise was carried over from the monastic rules into the colleges, as the best, if not the only conceivable, condition of a life of learning. The grade of study which the college was intended to promote is marked with precision. The university had laid out an ascending scale of knowledge and its public profession, commencing with the rudiments of grammar, and terminating in the apex of the Doctorate. To pass through the whole of this course, which was adj listed to a Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 125 graduated scale, whose successive steps were called de- grees (gradus), required at least twenty years. During the whole of this lengthened period, or till the Doctorate, the candidate was a student. Not that when he became Doctor he ceased to be a student. The statutes of Whit- gift (1570), which relax the severity of the older practice, say, " After having undergone so great toil, so many perils and examinations, we are loth to impose more labour on the doctors than they are willing voluntarily to take upon themselves " (" Post tantum laboris susceptum, et tot pericula atque examina, nolumus plus laboris doctoribus imponere quam ipsi volunt sua sponte suscipere " Cam- bridge Statutes. Hey wood's Cambridge Transactions, i. 9). After the Doctorate he was released from the compulsory exercises. Below the Doctor's degree his studies had not been merely private and voluntary, but tested by public appearances and indispensable exercises in the presence of severe seniors or of rivals. The twenty years of compul- sory studentship fell into two periods : 1. That spent in the study of arts. 2. That given to the special studies of his faculty. The arts course, which answered to the elements of general literature and training, was common to all. When these had been acquired in a seven years' apprenticeship, the scholar was allowed to turn to the special studies of his faculty. In these studies he con- tinued for nearly double the time of the preliminary course of arts. If now it be inquired which of these two periods of the university curriculum it was the object of college endow- ments to assist, we shall find that it was the later period, or fourteen years of special study, and not the earlier 1:J6 Jit-Distribution of Endowment even years spent in arts. New College and Magdalen combined an endowment for both periods. But in the majority of the colleges, though fellowships might be con-; fcrrcd on B. A.'s, yet this practice was not favoured, and it gradually grew into a custom to prefer M.A.'s. Before adopting a clerk to enter on the study of law or theology, it was felt that there should be some knowledge of his disposition and ability. The colleges thus were, in their origin, endowments not for the elements of a general liberal education, but for the prolonged study of special and professional f;u-ultic> by men of riper age. The university embraced both thoc objects. The colleges, while they incidentally aided in elementary education, were specially devoted to the high- est learning. They aided collaterally the art studies, by including sometimes junior students as a subordinate part of the foundation, and because the Magister Artimn, while going on to his faculty degree, was at the same time perhaps a regent, or teacher, in the schools. But so far from it being the intention of a fellowship to support the Master of Arts as a teacher, it was rather its purpose to relieve him from the drudgery of teaching for a main- tenance, and to set him free to give his whole time to the studies and exercises of his faculty. The arts course was sufficiently in request to support itself; the higher facul- ties demanded the aid of endowment. This was the theory of the middle-age University, and the design of collegiate foundations in their origin. Time and circumstances have brought about a total change. The colleges no longer promote the researches of science, or direct professional study. Here and there college-walls Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 127 may shelter an occasional student, but not in larger pro- portions than may be found in private life. Elementary teaching of youths under twenty-two is now the only function performed by the university, and almost the only object of college endowments. Colleges were homes for the life-study of the highest and most abstruse parts of knowledge. They have become boarding-schools in which the elements of the learned languages are taught to youths. Yet the legal identity of the corporation has been con- tinued. Those who in 1854 declaimed against the " spoliation " of the colleges, were able to base their argument upon a legal footing, and talked glibly about the designs of founders, without reflecting that time had long ago repealed and reversed those designs far more effectually than any Act of Parliament. Time not of course without the agency, the faults, active or passive, of man. Who is in fault for the renunciation by the university of her high vocation, and her having taken up with the easier business of school- keeping ? Not, most assuredly, the university itself. This opinion is almost universal; but it is a historical error. It is, indeed, an error of long standing, but perhaps the articulate enunciation of it was not made before the celebrated attacks on Oxford in the Edinburgh Review, and particularly in an article " On the State of the English Universities," in June 1831. At that time, the history, in fact, of Oxford, and the theory of university education, were all but unknown in this country. Sir W. Hamilton, with an antiquarian learning on the subject which is still unequalled, and with a firm grasp of the principles of education, came forward, and in his masterly essays put u: fit-Distribution of Endowment Fit ml both the theory and the fact in a clear and striking light But his righteous indignation at the degeneracy of his own university led him into one great and striking injustice. He argues throughout (Hamilton, Discussions, "Education, Art. iv.) that the higher courses of the professors were discouraged, and finally put down, by tho heads of colleges, nn -\>triu, from nmtiu's of srlt'-intnvM, in onlrr to give the monopoly to the fellow-tutor. This is certainly not the history of the sinking of the level of instruction in Oxford. The level of learning fell in the Universities because it first fell in the National Church. It fell in both, because the sovereign authority used its power over both Church and Universities for political ends. The proof of this assertion would require an examination of the ecclesiastical policy of Elizabeth and the Stuarts, for which this is not the time. It must be enough for the present to have drawn attention to the fact that there was an abundance of new life, and a promise of a glorious classical revival in Oxford, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, vlu-n Corpus and Cardinal Colleges were founded as homes for the new studies. Erasmus's words, in 1497, though the style is coloured with the warmth of young enthusiasm, point to an undoubted fact : " Minim est dictu quam hie passim (i.e. Oxford), quam dense, vetcnim literarum seges cftlorescat . . . tantum eruditionis, non illius protrite ac trivial is. sed recondite, exacte, antique, Latin, Gnecajque, ut jam Italiam, nisi visendi gratia, haud multum desidcrem." (Ep. 14). These prospects of a new life were crushed in the next century, not by any malfaisance within, but by the violence of the ecclesiastical revolution without So far from the death of learning in Oxford having been Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 129 occasioned by the corrupting influence of over-endowment, it died hard, and yielded up its breath not without many a struggle. The grasp of ecclesiastical tyranny was on its throat ; and the twenty-three years of Leicester's chancellor- ship (1565-1588) left it pretty much what it remained up to the present century, without independence, without the dignity of knowledge, without intellectual ambition, the mere tool of a political party. It may be that the statesmen of that day were not without excuse ; that they were themselves the victims of a higher political necessity. This is a question for the historian. It is sufficient for us that it was the Government, and not the university itself, which crushed that academical freedom, without which learning cannot flourish. It was the Government which closed our gates to nonconformists, and compelled us to forget our proper duty, by occupying us as a spiritual police to maintain an arbitrary juste milieu of church government and doctrine. When Sir W. Hamilton pre- tends that it was the Board of Heads who in the seven- teenth century silenced the professors, he forgets that, long before the Laudian statutes of 1636, the professors had ceased to have a class, because there were no longer any students sufficiently advanced to attend them. The stand- ard of teaching is ruled by the standard already attained by the taught. Had the public lecturers of the university continued to teach, they must have lowered themselves to teach the rudiments. The very same taunts which were levelled by Sir W. Hamilton against the tutors of the colleges, would then have been equally applicable to the professors ; for long before 1636 it was found impossible to retain any students in the university after the B.A. degree. K 130 Re-Distribution of Endowment Ftnul. Passages referred to by Sir W. Hamilton himself sufficiently prove this. In 1530 the university thus addressed Sir Thomas More : " In old time we had each of us separate stipends, some from noblemen, some from the heads of convents, and a very large number from the incumbents of the rural parishes. Now thaw revenues are being cut off. Abbots are ordering their monks home, nobles taking away their sons, and priests their nephews and kinsmen. The number of scholars is decreasing, our halls are going to decay, and all liberal studies waxing cold. The fellows of colleges are of most the only residents left. They have only just enough to maintain themselves. If they are to be taxed, the colleges must go to the ground, or some fellowships must be declared vacant" (A. Wood, a. 1539, op. Hamilton Discussions, p. 430). For Cambridge, the interpretation of 1608, by which residence of the B.A- degree was made dispensable, is sufficient evidence. For though this interpretation was given by the Board of Heads, it was rendered necessary by the actual practice already existing, and is grounded by them upon the fact of that practice. It was, indeed, but legalising the abridgment of study which had taken place in usage, and which could no longer be prevented (Hey- wood's Cambridge Transactions, ii. 229). In this state of things the fellow-tutor came into fashion, as really better fitted to teach the only pupils that were forthcoming than the jimiJMMf The professor found himself without a clam, unless he were to stoop, as the professor in a Scotch university is compelled, to do school-work. Of this con- dition of things in Scotland no one complained more than Sir W. Hamilton himself. Yet in Scotland the professors Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 131 had neither been silenced by the heads, nor superseded by the fellow-tutors. In 1831, when Sir W. Hamilton came forward as the champion of learning, the heads in Oxford had already begun to attract to themselves that public odium which twenty-five years later overthrew them, and which would have overthrown them earlier but for the theological agitation which arose about that time, and drew attention away from educational reforms. Every evil felt in the university, even those of which they were innocent, was laid at their door. The extinction of superior educa- tion in the universities was a public calamity which had not been brought about by any academical rulers, or by incompetence of college tuition, but by circumstances and a policy operating on a much greater scale, and going back to a very early time. How would Whitgift, e.g., have brooked a public handling by professors of Greek history or philosophy, when he doubted (1580) the expediency of printing being continued at Cambridge, and recommended that no books should be published there until they had first been allowed by lawful authority? (Heywood, Cam- bridge Transactions, i. 381). The evil, indeed, is of so long standing that not only the public but we ourselves have tacitly acquiesced in its continuance, and have directed our efforts and our wishes for reform another way. We are content that Oxford should be a school, and we are laudably anxious to make it as good a school as we can. Our whole legislation, since the first enactment of the examination statute in 1800, has had this one object. How entirely the idea of school-teaching has expelled every other conception of a university from among us may 132 /.' Attribution ///// /'/'///. be instanced in the case of a foundation lying outside the line of the school examination*). In 1835 the uni- versity came into possession of a legacy from a munifi- cent benefactor, Sir Robert Taylor, who died in 1/88. The proceeds of this bequest were to be laid out in pro- moting the study of " the modern European languages." Here was an opportunity for naturalising in England the rising science of comparative philology, and acquiring for Oxford, without touching endowments already affected to older studies, a new literary celebrity which might have atoned for many years of disgrace and contumely, ^"licn this was found too " unpractical " for England, and when it was resolved to be content with a school of living languages, what languages would a learned university have thought of for endowment ? A recent French writer, arguing for the establishment in Paris of an Ecole des Langues Virantes, says : " Bien entendu que cela signifie cole des langues vivantes rares et pen abordabbs, car il ne saurait y etre question de ces langues courantes, usuelles, dont chacun peut se procurer des lemons pour son argent .... a coup sur personne ne songe & faire fonder la des chaires d'allemand, d'anglais, ou d'espagnoL Ce serait une moquerie. Mais tous les idiomes qu' il est chez nous ou impossible, ou du moins tres difficile de se faire en- seigner." [He goes on to propose Tamul, Berber, Basque, Magyar, Finnish.] (Baron de Dumast, Sur TEnseignment Superieur, p. 39.) What would be deemed an " absurdity " even in France, where all scientific institutions must be popular, VM gravely committed by a university calling itself learned. We employed Sir Robert Taylor's bequest in Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 133 providing gratuitous lessons in French, German, Italian, and Spanish, the languages of society and travel. The literature and the philological study of any one of these languages might have made by itself a very proper subject of a learned endowment. But this is not the design with which the Taylor statute endows those four languages. It distinctly intends to provide for the university students just those colloquial accomplishments which are provided by every school or lyce'e. As characteristic of the feeling prevailing among us at the time the original statute was made, it may be noticed that each teacher was to teach for four hours a-day, and for this he was awarded 150 a-year ! The lowest grade of teaching, and as much of it for as low wages as possible these seem to have been the principles of the framers of the statute. In 1857 it was the same. The mania for prize scholarships, then epidemic, infected the curators of the Taylor Institution, and they would have scholarships, of course for the languages learned in the institution. And they ordered an examination for these prizes, not critical and historical hi the literature, nor philological and scientific in the language, taken as a whole from its birth to its extant form, but in the grammar and current idiom as spoken an examination, in short, such as would be useful to a courier or a foreign clerk, or to a gentleman setting out on his first tour on the continent. That has happened which might have been certainly fore- told, that the Taylor scholarships have always fallen to the lot of young men who had been bora abroad, or whose parents had lived in Paris or Bonn, and who win their scholarships by what they had picked up in the nursery or the gymnasium. One service, indeed, the Taylor foundation 134 fit- Distribution of Endowment Fund. has rendered to science: It has made Oxford the home of the most eminent comparative philologist living. This mav atone for much. We have entirely ceased to consider ourselves as learners. Every resident looks upon himself, or wishes himself to be looked upon, as a teacher. Indeed, we have ceased to be anything more. The canons of Christ Church were all converted into professors by the Cathedral Act, 3 and 4 Victoria, c. 113, except three. Of these three two were suppressed as useless by the ordinance of 1858, and their revenues applied to augment the already overflowing fund of educational subsidy. No fellow of a college thinks of residing except those who are engaged in earning an income by tuition or by parochial cure. In the election of heads the disposition is to regard business qualifications. The heads of colleges are chiefly occupied in the conduct of university business, or in looking after college property. The heads of halls are engaged in the tuition of the students resident in the hall. We have created a few new professors Logic, Latin, etc. ; our idea of a professor's functions seems to be that he is a schoolmaster, and he continues the old Latin and Greek exercises, the practice of which was begun at Marlborough or Rugby, ssi. 12, and the persevering reproduction of which will never cease till, at ;i-t. 22 or 23, the B.A. is turned out of the final school with his education finished. When we desire to know what the public thinks, where should we look but to the Times. There we find ourselves thus ticketed : " The other view regards the university as mainly a place of education for young men just before they enter upon life, Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 135 and would confine its whole administration to this practical aim. These two views are directly contrary to each other. An atmosphere of discovery is not the best atmosphere for instruction. The men who are the most skilful and bold in speculation are not the best teachers. . . . We are con- fident that the latter of these antagonistic views, and not the former, is the one from which Englishmen in general regard the universities. They look upon them as places of education for their children, and if measures should be hastily passed which had the effect of subverting this character, the universities would soon suffer by the withdrawal of undergraduates. To some extent, it is to be feared, the universities have already ex- perienced a change in this direction; and, at the same time, nothing is more common than to hear parents complaining that the education of their sons is not conducted with the care they expected. It is a growing subject of discontent among the public that the tutors and professors of both our univer- sities are becoming more and more absorbed in their own scientific pursuits, etc." (The Times, 8th March 1867). When we adopt, and acquiesce in, this view of our- selves, we cannot complain if the public take us at our own valuation. If you are a school, the public not un- naturally argues you are a very costly school. All those extensive buildings, those magnificent endowments, all those canons, heads, professors, fellows, tutors, to educate some 1700 pupils ! The British soldier is said to be the most costly in the world, but we have the satisfaction of knowing that he is also one of the most efficient. Certainly the Oxford B.A. ought to be the most finished specimen of education in the world, if cost of production is the measure of value. 120,000 a-year applied as prize-money or bonus distributable among scholars, and another 50,000 a-year I.:.) on teachcre and masters out of endowments, besides nearly another 50,000 levied in fees by tutors private and public i It is evident that a struggle is now at hand with public opinion on the application of our endowments. Of a resistance by the university to the popular will not a thought can be entertained for a moment But in a con- test with public opinion much will depend upon our hav- ing a good cause and a clear view of the right "When the central authority was strong it oppressed us, and bent us to purposes of government The central authority in this country is in abeyance, and our danger now lies on the side of the popular will. Our lower middle class is now, for the first time, brought face to face with Oxford, such as the reforms of the last fifty years have made it It has been determined that we are a school, and that we shall be nothing else. Tried by this standard, the public, as soon as it looks into our affairs thoroughly, will imme- diately discover two facts 1st, That we are not the right sort of school for its purposes ; 2d, That such a school as it wants could be conducted for probably a fourth of the cost, and that the other three-fourths of the endowment are superfluous. That we are not the sort of school the public demand, that we do not teach the things they think ought to be taught, is what we have been long in the habit of hearing. For the schooling hitherto given in the university has at least had one merit ; it has always involved the idea of culture for the sake of culture. It is therefore in direct opposition to the popular notion of education for success. It is founded on a totally different view of human life, and Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 137 its relation to the external world. Besides the highest culture is, or is supposed to be, the privilege of the few. And the modern spirit abhors privilege; it will favour only that in which all can share. Culture requires fortune and leisure ; it is a luxury of the rich ; let them pay for it. The national university enjoying the national fund must furnish only such an article as shall be useful to the whole nation. Oxford has hitherto been monopolised by a small class in its connections, if not in itself, aris- tocratic. Hence the learning in vogue there has been necessarily the learning which that small class favoured. Now that the nation is going to reclaim the universities for its own use, it will have such teaching as suits its purposes. The classes now approaching us are not insensible to culture, but they esteem it for its bearing on social pros- perity, not for its own sake. A very large part of the in- creasing desire for liberal education is only a desire for its material results. A better social position, access to the highest employments, a certain power and influence in deliberation and debate, and even a higher scale of re- muneration for services, are seen to be necessary attend- ants on this education. These things are coveted, and therefore the education which gives them is desired. The universities, as soon as they are found to be generally accessible, will be conceived of as forming a bridge by which talent, born in lowliness and poverty, may make its way to an equality with rank and wealth. Probably the majority of the middle and lower classes would be content if our universities were remoulded in this sense. The fate which overtook the University of Paris in the storm of 138 lie-Distribution of Endowment Fund. revolution is not likely to be our fate. It is not dc>in <1 to destroy us, but to make us useful. If the pul !!<-, which believes in newspapers, were to take us in hand now, it would no doubt try to set up a school of liberal education for its youth, in which the measure of attain- ment would be what will get him on in life. And the measure of life would be an empirical one not life as it might be, but life as it is. Thus the type of our middle class, such as it now is, would be perpetuated. Educa- tion, instead of an elevating influence, would become, as in China, the stamp of a uniform pattern. At the same time, it is probable that the first result of such a principle of reform would be an increased efficiency of Oxford as a school. We should have a varied staff of masters, under whom every sort of accomplishment might be acquired in little time, or at little cost, and youth prepared to pass unnumbered competitive examinations in any subject. The hive would be purified ; the drones would be driven out The danger on which the Times dwells, that we are getting to know too much, and to do too little, \\<>ule abated. Every one would be doing a day's work, and receiving a salary in proportion. Before this catastrophe overtakes us, can we do anything towards averting it ? We are, indeed, ourselves in a great measure responsible for the situation. In our dissatisfac- tion with ourselves, and the work we were doing, we have encouraged the agitation, and invited the interference of the outside public. We have thought it a more whole- some life to live under the surveillance of the press and Parliament, than wrapped in our aristocratic seclusion, ami polishing our Latin verses. Now the press and Parlia- Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 139 ment are coming in upon us, and threatening to mould us to their own ideas. This indeed would be a disastrous consummation of our agitation for reform. Can we save the endowments, not for ourselves, but for our country ? There is indeed a mode of " saving " the endowments, which we have practised once already, and might attempt again. We may fall in with the public conception, and turn ourselves at once into a good working school. By vigour in doing this, and by another grand holocaust of fellowships, we might perhaps purchase another respite, and retain the remaining emoluments on their present footing. But would this be worth doing ? Surely not. Many of us had rather that the endowments were not " saved," than that we should remain as we are. There remains only one thing to be tried : we must engage in a grapple with public opinion, and endeavour to graft upon it, by discus- sion and by the reason of the thing, an idea of the purposes and possibilities of a university, which is at pre- sent wanting alike to its conception, and to our practice. We must do nothing less than ask that the college endowments be restored to their original purpose that of the promotion of science and learning. It will not be supposed that this proposal is offered without a consciousness of its unpopularity. It is an employment of endowments which will appear to the large mass of Englishmen of the middle class as a scheme proper only for Plato's Republic. And even scientific men, who might secretly be favourable to the measure, will probably consider it a Quixotic and hopeless proposal to be brought before a House of Commons elected by 140 Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. universal suffrage. From both points of view, it is to be condemned as unpractical. Before, therefore, explaining the mode in which it is now proposed to restore the endowments to their original purpose, a few reasons may be stated why it is not really so hopeless, as it may seem at first, to urge the suggestion. (1.) In the first place, it is not a question of a new item in the budget, of paying for science out of the general taxes. Even were it this, I do not believe it would be hopeless. Sir Robert Peel persuaded the country (i.e. Great Britain) to tax itself to the amount of 30,000 a-year for an entirely novel institution, the Queen's Colleges in Ireland, because it was believed it would promote the civilisation of that island. It is true that the House of Commons of the future may possibly be an assembly of a more vulgar intelligence than it is at present M . Re'nan, who takes the most flattering view of democracy, confesses some misgiving as to how it might be possible to preserve a chair of the higher mathematics, e.g., supposing it to be necessary to its preservation that the tax-payers should comprehend the bearing and utility of the science : "Si un jour les contribuables, pour admettre Futilite" du coura de mathe'matiques transcendantes au College de France, devaient comprendre a quoi servent les speculations qu'on y enseigne, cette chaire courrait de grands risques " (Revue de deux Mondes, 1864). But this is not a question of a new tax to be levied. The college property indeed is national, and, as such, the nation, or its government, is under an obligation to lay it out to as much advantage as if it was a sum coming out of its own pocket But it does not come out of its pocket Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 141 It is already in hand, and has not to be voted. It must be disposed of, and cannot be disposed of by distributing it viritim. More than this : the annual revenue in question is not a tax on the industry of the country; it is in the form of rent. If the college estates were sold in small lots, somebody would be receiving the rent. They might become private property, and the rent would be spent in the purchase of enjoyment for a number of private individuals. Now, an endowment out of rent is not the subtraction of so much from the general wealth of the community. The expenditure has precisely the same economical effect, whether made by a private freeholder or by the members of an eleemosynary corporation. But whereas from the expenditure of the private landowner society reaps no moral benefit, the expenditure of an endowed corporation may have conditions attached to it which make it yield a moral and intellectual benefit for the general body. The gross annual value of real property assessed under schedule A is nearly 150,000,000. If of this gross value no more than 100,000,000 are net rental, what, by the side of this, is the 100,000 or 150,000 of our university endowments now under debate? 100,000,000 of rent are spent by private persons, under no condition or responsibility, but solely for their own individual enjoyment and benefit. To appropriate out of this sum, say 150,000, in such a way as to secure a public benefit for all viz., the promotion of our social culture, instead of being munificence, seems a most penurious provision for the public. We are most jealous of the rights of individuals, and careless of the common welfare. Instead of seeming to be asking much 143 Ik-Distribution of Endotrmrnt Fit ml. in a -kinu' an endowment of science out of the rental of the kingdom to the extent of 150,000 a-ycar, one IVrN ashamed to be earnest in contending for what is BO insignificant by the side of the vast accumulations of wealth in private hands. (2.) In the next place, not only is the endowment in exist- ence, and already expended, but, as I contend, the mode of its present expenditure is not merely useless, but actually hurtful. The greater part of the sum, as has been shown, is at present distributed in prizes to learners. Pri/rs to the learners, beyond the point up to which they serve to encourage diligence and stimulate exertion, have the effect of a premium on the thing taught. Adam Smith was, it may be granted, led by the social condition of Europe before the great revolution into an indiscriminate con- demnation of endowments for any purpose. But the prin- ciple on which he reasoned can hardly be controverted. That principle is, that the endowments of schools and col- leges diminish the necessity of application in the teachers, their subsistence being secured by a fund, independent of their success and reputation in their profession : " Whatever," he says, " forces a certain number of students to any college or university, independent of the merit and re- putation of the teachers, tends more or less to diminish tin- necessity of that merit or reputation. . . Were there no public institutions for education, no system, no science would be taught for which there was not some demand, or which tin circumstances of the time did not render it either necessary or convenient, or at least fashionable, to leant A private teacher could never find his account in teaching either an exploded or antiquated system of a science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally believed to be a mere useless and Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 143 pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense. Such systems, such sciences, can subsist nowhere but in those incorporated societies for education whose prosperity and revenue are in a great measure independent of their reputation, and altogether in- dependent of then- industry. Were there no public institutions for education, a gentleman, after going through, with applica- tion and abilities, the most complete course of education which the circumstances of the times were supposed to afford, could not come into the world completely ignorant of everything which is the common subject of conversation among gentle- men and men of the world" (Wealth of Nations, b. v. c. i. 3). There is a weakness in this line of reasoning that, viz., of assuming that the subjects of conversation among men of the world can be the criterion of the subject-matter of educa- tion. But I cite the passage for that in which it is strong, and not for that in which it is weak. The reasons assigned by Adam Smith against endowments in education bear with their full force only against endowing the teaching of given subject-matters on given methods. The payment of the teacher by endowment is not only allowable, but is neces- sary in all the higher branches of education. All that education, which has culture and not professional success for its end, must in an average state of society be supplied. The demand, though real, is not imperious enough to create the supply to call the education into existence. We may, we must, endow the teacher ; we ought not to annex the endowment to methods or matters to be taught. It must be conceded to Adam Smith's reasoning that, even in the endowment of the teacher, there is danger of inducing supineness and indifference to reputation. But this danger must be incurred, as without the endowment the article 144 /.' Distribution of Endmnneut Fund. cannot be had at all. It is not a matter of choice as to which of two methods we shall adopt of Mipplying om>el\es with the 8U{icrior education by that of endowment or that of free trade. The ordinary laws of supply and demand have never given it existence. But beyond the endowment of the teacher we cannot safely go. The risk of supincncss on his part becomes a certainty when, besides providing him the whole or a part of his salary, we go on further to provide him with pupils by paying them to attend his school. To endow a professor in a university is as allow- able, as necessary, as to endow a minister of religion. To attract pupils round the professor by largesses of money is as little allowable as to pay people for going to church. We have, in our recent administration of our endow- ments, run exactly counter to this principle. As soon as we seriously took the alarm at the deficiency of our num- bers for not to have grown with the growth of wealth and population is to have fallen off we set about to remedy it by recruiting and a system of bounties. This application of our revenues is useless and hurtful. It is useless, because our endowments, large as they may be when confined to certain purposes, are quite insignificant when used to compete for the purchase of talent in the market of enterprise. It is hurtful to the learner, because to be paid for learning enfeebles the moral effect of the education ; to the teacher, because an artificial supply of pupils deadens his sense of emulation; to the methods of teaching, because the uncertainty now reigning in Europe as to the relative merits of science deductive, sciem-e applied, and language, as instruments of training, requires Re-Distrihution of Endowment Fund. 145 for its settlement the free play of public experiment and the demands of civilised life. (3.) Our middle classes, notwithstanding the pre- vailing want of refinement, the selfish and material in- terests, the worship of wealth, the weakness of ideas, and the denominational habits of judging which still enthral them, have undoubtedly made progress. They have reached that point where they are able to recognise a culture which they do not possess. The growing demand for education is a phrase in everyone's mouth, whatever it exactly intends. Now, it certainly is at present a demand for an education which fits for life, and for life as those classes in England conceive life i.e. rising in the world. Still it is a demand for education ; and the higher educa- tion, even when directed to a false ideal, has a tendency to purify itself. We have ourselves hitherto fallen in with the notion that we should educate for life, and for English life as it is, and have laboured to prove that our Latin and Greek were useful. We have pointed to Mr. Gladstone and Sir Roundell Palmer, and told with pride how one was Ireland scholar, and the other a double-first. This line of argument has misled the public, and done injustice to our cause. We shall have a better chance of a hearing, when we take our stand on the clear ground that the highest form of education is culture for culture's sake. It must stand not in opposition to professional life, but above it. The energy of a secular success is one only of the conditions of moral life, and not the whole of it. Refine- ment, if not actually a subtraction from public energy, is not a basis for it. Education is to be a preparation for life. Be it so. But then life is not all fighting. When L 146 // --IHntributum of Endowment we shall dare to say these things, and can show an educa- tion which, while it fits for the struir-jlr. \rt leads up to a view of a life which is above the struct 1 , our position \\ill not be confused by a cross issue, we shall not be coming before the world on false pretences. (4.) It is ignorance, and not ill-will, that directs the popular discussions on the subject of the highest education. Men in general cannot imagine what they have seen no example of. When the British Association was first formed, it had to encounter a storm of vulgar raillery from our middle classes, not because they were against science, but because they were unable to conceive the use of organ- isation and concert in science. Lake everything else in England, science had been the work of individual enterprise. That it could be promoted by association was a new idea, and as such not only false but ridiculous. A permanent organisation of science, a home where the cultivation of knowledge for its own sake shall be a profession, a life- business, will be also a new idea which a vast number of Englishmen will be loth to believe in at first To them " college " has always meant a school which youths leave when they have finished their education, and of which heads, fellows, and tutors have been the machinery a machinery cumbrous and expensive, but, after all, sanctioned by long usage, venerable from an ancient pedigree, and generally acquiesced in. To expect that the public should at once admit the idea of the universities becoming the intellectual and educational metropolis of the country, would be quite unreasonable. The public recogui>r- results. In the last fifty years the physical sciences have filled the world with their man-els. Gas, steam, locomo- Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 147 tion by land and water, telegraphy, needle-guns, the sun's rays employed in the service of art these things strike not only the vulgar, but all, with admiration. It might not be impossible to bring home to the public conviction the real connection which exists between these striking conquests over the material world and the abstract study of the laws of that world. The idea of such a connection is one already familiar to all persons of education. To a perception of this connection is owing the pressure which exists for the introduction of physical science into schools and colleges. To have made this step is itself a grade in education. The uneducated man eats and breathes, and despises a statement of the laws of digestion and respiration as a superfluity. To get a general recognition by the middle- class public of the value of abstract exposition in any sub- ject is to have gained a great point. Those who are ready to flout the popular disposition to (as they think) over- estimate physical science, hardly consider how much such an estimate implies. If it does implicate an undue attraction towards a special field of observation, it contains at least this precious germ, that it is a recognition of science i.e. a recognition of the abstract, a recognition of the supremacy of mind. It is unphilosophical to talk of the materialist tendency of natural science a superficial inference from the fact that what is known is matter. What is known in science is not matter, but the laws of matter ; and law is ideal, is an abstract cognition. "Undoubtedly the first thought which suggests itself to the mind is that a material force, and a moral and intellectual force, are essentially different. But such evidence as we have is all tending the other way. The conclusions forced upon us 148 Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. ' - /' '. Thai the man pg buffi rf Mian the more certain it appears that a multiplicity of separate forces does nut exist, but that all her forces pass into each other, and are hut modifications of some one force which is the iource and centre of the rest. Seftmdly, That all of them are governed in their mutual relations by principles of arrange- ment which are purely mental Thirdly, That of the ultimate seat of force in any form we know nothing directly. And Fvtirthly, That the nearest conception we can ever have of force is derived from our own consciousness of vital power " (Duke of Argyll, Reign of Law, p. 296). This step may be considered gained. We have no Iniiirer the difficult task of justifying science in the eyes of the nation. It is willing to have schools in which an abstract teaching shall be given. But it inclines, naturally enough, to such science, and so far, as it sees pregnant with tangible results. What if it does? Even in this demand the public is more than half right We are all justly suspicious of what we do not quite understand. When a statement goes beyond my apprehension, how am I to know that it is not nonsense? There has been in the world at various times BO much idle speculation, so many frivolous applications of most keen intellect, so much Hijer>titi>us veneration of fantastic combinations of thought, that some check on knowledge is highly necessary to prevent it from running riot in the wantonness of its own wealth. To keep our abstract tendencies to their bearings, their practical applications must be watched. On the side of character, too, the suspicions of the public are not entirely unfounded. A dilettante fastidiousness, an aimless inertia, an Oriental lassitude of habit, are not seldom seen to be the consequence of high philosophical Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 149 training. The tendency of abstract thought and various knowledge to enervate the will is one of the real dangers of the highest education. It is a valuable element in the popular discernment that it has its eye strongly fixed on this danger. It is not a vulgar prejudice against know- ledge, but a true though rough impression of one of the consequences of cultivation. M. Re'nan thinks that scientific truths of a high order will be appreciated by the people when properly presented to them. " The popular expounders of science," he says, " commonly err in attempting to lower themselves to the level of their public by the introduction of anecdotes, superficial analogies, telling experiments, trivial applications. They would have better success if they attacked the topmost summits of know- ledge, the points where truths converge. I would not attempt to initiate the multitude into our subtleties and technical dis- tinctions ; but I maintain that there is no truth so fine and delicate as to be beyond the general apprehension. The pro- cess by which the results of philosophy are rendered popular is not one of attenuation but of translation. It is a capital error to treat the people as a child. They ought to be treated as a woman. An address delivered in the presence of women is better than one held where they are not ; it is under stricter rules, and submitted to more severe exigencies. What is written for the people ought in like manner to be distinguished by greater care. One may say everything, but on condition of saying nothing that can be wrongly conceived" (R6vue des deux Mondes, 1864). Democracy has certainly not hitherto shown itself so favourable to science. The two countries which at this moment exhibit the most developed democratic feeling are France and America. 150 /.' l>i.*trilniti In America scientific culture has never been intro- duced. It has no universities, such as we understand by the term ; the institutions so called being merely places for granting titular degrees (Appendix C). Yet some of the Northern States have a system of ]>opular education more complete than anywhere in the Old World, and which may well be envied by this country, where we have emerged from the feudal stage of serfdom only to land in the bar- barism of a pauper proletariate. In France, the revolution destroyed the university. The empire made an attempt to organise it on a new basis. But the Imperial University was only an associa- tion of the upper schools and colleges, and what little life it ever had animated only the schools. It had no dei>artment for the cultivation of any knowledge beyond the school level. This was not wholly owing to demo- cratic tendencies. It was partly the jealous spirit of the imperial regime. A government, by preventing free asso- ciation and competition, may prevent the organisation of knowledge. It cannot create it. It was in Tain that Napoleon I. decreed the existence of a university in his grandest style : " The emperor wants a body whose teach- ing may be free from the influence of the passing gusts of fashion, a body that may keep moving, even though government be lethargic " (Arnold, Education in France, p. 35). To this day the "fortes etudes" are confessedly weak in France. That they arc sustained in any degree is not owing to the university so much as to extraneous sub- stitutes for a university. The traditions of learning are kept up in France, so far as they arc kept up at all, by the Institut, by the College de France, in the Cours attached Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 151 to the library, in the Ecole des Chartes, etc. It is by what may be called secondary intellectual interests, rather than by the highest intellectual tension, that the influence of France in Europe is maintained. The natural quickness and genial capacity of the people for ideas make them the readiest recipients of every discovery or suggestion made by others. " The habit of intelligence," says Mr. Arnold, " continues in the French people to be active, and to en- lighten." M. Guizot says, " C'est la grandeur de notre pays que les esprits ont besoin d'etre satisfaits en mme temps que les interns." These real and valuable intellec- tual influences at work in France cannot hide from us the fact that the highest development of scientific culture is not found in that country. It is weak on the side of its university, and that weakness distinctly affects the na- tional character, the position of the country in the world, and its power as the leader of European civilisation. There is a superficiality about the products of French genius which marks the clever but second-rate mind. Clever writers, incomparable talkers, their assertion never carries with it the weight which is derived from known habits of patient and exhaustive investigation. To edit the thoughts of others is their business ; the real progress of knowledge is conducted elsewhere. The presence of single names, such as De Sacy and Villoison, Boissonade or Burnouf, proves nothing. They were isolated in their age and country. A free university, such as Napoleon I. wished for, in which might be seen an example of severer studies, of exact science, of profound learning, is now an object of desire for their country among thoughtful Frenchmen. M. Re"nan, in the essay already referred to, !">_' Rf-Dlttribntion of Endowment Fund. endeavours to impress upon his countrymen the desirable- ness, nay the necessity, of such an institution, if France is to maintain its position, and continue to exercise the in- fluence in Europe which it did in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He would do this through the in- strumentality of the College de France. He would revive in the College, which is now too much given over to popular cours, the spirit of Francis I. and Henri II., and call to it creative minds in the various sciences : " Qu' aucune branche nouvelle d'etudes ne se manifesto en France sans qu' immediatement elle soit represented au college. 11 n'est nullcmcnt neccssaire que les chaires du Colldge de France repre'sentent le cadre encyclope'diquc de 1'enseignement. Ce qui est essentiel, c'est qu'il reprd- sente IVStat present du movement scientifique. A cote" des e'tablissements ou se garde le ddpOt des connaissances acquires, il est ndcessaire qu'il y ait des chnires indepen- dantes ou la grande originalite", qui dans I'enseignment proprement dit n'est pas une qualite* indispensable, trouve sa juste place." These aspirations of M. R^nan, prompted by the intellectual aspect of his own country in 1864, are identical with the wishes expressed by the Oxford Commission of 1850, after a survey of the position of the university. " It is generally acknowledged," they say, " that both Oxford and the country at large suffer greatly from the absence of a body of learned men devoting their lives to the cultivation of science, and to the direction of academi- cal education. It is felt that the opening of such a career within the university would serve to call forth the knowledge and ability which are often buried or wasted Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 153 for want of proper encouragement. It is evident that, for literary men, academical rather than ecclesiastical offices are the fittest rewards, and most useful positions. The fact that so few books of profound research emanate from the University of Oxford materially impairs its character as a seat of learning, and consequently its hold on the respect of the nation. The presence of men eminent in various departments of knowledge would impart a dignity and stability to the whole institution, far more effectual against attacks from without than the utmost amount of privilege and protection ; whilst from within it would tend above all other means to guard the university from being absorbed, as it has been of late years, by the agitations of theological controversy. If the professoriate could be placed in a proper condition, those fellows of colleges whose services the university would wish to retain, would be less tempted, and would never be compelled, to leave it for positions and duties for which their academical labours had in no way prepared them ; but would look forward to some sphere of usefulness within the university, for which they would have been fitted by their previous occupations. A professorship would then, in fact, become a recognised profession " (0. U. C. Report, p. 94). So the commissioners argued, endeavouring apologeti- cally to establish a broad ground of expediency for what they, in common with the public, believed to be a confisca- tion, or at least a diversion, of college endowments to the purposes of a professoriate. It had never occurred to them to ask the question, What purpose did college endowments originally serve ? What is their present effect ? Had they done so had they read the statutes which they 154 fit-Distribution of Endowment /'//////. edited they woulses, whatever may be the 8)>ccial direction which his researches have taken. "II n'est nullement necessairc," says M. Ilonan, " que lea chain* rcprcHentent le cadre encyclope'dique de renseigne- ment Ce qui cut esscnticl c'cst qu'il reprdsente 1'etat present du mouvement scientifique." The problem of university patronage is how to find an electoral body which shall be competent to look out for and to select true eminence in specialty, notwithstanding the misleading glare of popular reputation. The suggestions to be made on this head must be made in connection with the con- sideration of No. 3. 3. Security must be taken that, when appointed, the fellow shall devote himself to the pursuit of his science. This is undoubtedly a great difficulty, and yet the whole utility of an endowed body of learned men rests upon the possibility of obtaining such a guarantee. If this difficulty cannot be surmounted, it would not be worth while to propose a reapportionment of the fellowship fund, with the certainty that it would soon relapse into the same un- productive expenditure which it now is. We have seen how the college, in its original design, elaborately provided against the tendency of human infirmity to sink into in- dolent enjoyment. (1.) The college was established within the limits of a university which rigorously exacted a long probation for its degrees, with public appearances in exercises and dis- putations. These exercises were no mere forms, but the serious occupation of keen-minded men, who were daily Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 159 passing out into the world to take the most responsible business of political life or ecclesiastical government. (2.) The statutes of each single college compelled its fellows to proceed to the higher degrees, and thus to con- tinue in the practice of these public appearances before the university. But, besides this, they enacted an interior system of private exercises of the same kind subsidiary to the public appearances. It was the monastic common life and mutual surveillance brought to bear upon study, instead of upon ascetic mortification. Every fellow was a check upon every other. And the first duty of the head was to enforce diligence upon all. Both within and with- out the college all concurred to keep alive an intellectual rivalry, and sloth was shame. (3.) If wealth be a temptation to indolence, the tempta- tion did not exist for our collegiate predecessors. Their life was the life of the poor labourer. It was a life of self- renunciation for the sake of learning. The Oxford scholar came not from poverty and want to fulness and ease, but to prolonged poverty. For it is a historical miscon- ception on the part of those persons who contend for " the claims of poverty " to imagine that they would be fulfilling the founder's intentions by electing " poor men " to fellow- ships. The expression " indigentes scholares " of college statutes implicated not only the antecedents of the fellow, but his life after his fellowship was obtained. He is, in view of the founder, to be as poor after election as before it. The indigence contemplated by the statutes is not indigence with 300 a-year pocket-money. If the advocates of the " claims of poverty " really wish to restore the state of things in this respect as designed by founders, they must 160 Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. keep down both Hides of the account. They must not merely ascertain that the candidate for a fellowship is ' indigent," but they must keep him " indigent" after he has I vrome fellow, and give him only his chamber, his clothes, and two scanty meals per day. This was the system of safeguards against inactivity which was provided in the Middle-age endowment of science and learning. These securities are not only obsolete, but impossible now. It is not a question of what we may wish, but of what can be. A fellowship cannot be a coenobitic life under a vow of perpetual con- tinence. The university has ceased to enforce any public test of proficiency after the B.A. degree. The miserable forms which were long kept up, of " dispensing " with exercises, are now abandoned in the case of all the faculties, except the theological faculty, which reform has not yet reached. No one could seriously propose to revive public exercises for the higher degrees. Proposals and attempts have indeed been made for imposing an examination-test for the higher degrees in the various faculties. But all such attempts have inevitably failed. An examination is not possible where the prohYiem-y is great, for who is to examine? " The relation of examiner and examinee is always offensive and unnatural where it is not characterised by great differences of age or of attain- ments" (Peacock, Statutes of Cambridge, p. 148). The commission of 1850 therefore rejected all examination- tests for the superior degrees, but recommended that they should remain as titles to designate academical standing (O. U. C. Report, p. 85). This was in effect to give their high sanction to one of the greatest scandals of the English Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 161 universities, the sale no other word describes the trans- action the sale of our degrees. Neither a revival, then, of the old system of disputation, nor an extension of the modern system of examination, are possible as means of exacting continued application from men of mature age. A " certificate " of study was pro- posed in 1854, as a qualification for a vote in Congrega- tion. But it was laughed out of court as soon as men- tioned. It was asserted that the habitual " study " of the Times newspaper in the common-room would be a ground for applying for, and receiving, the necessary certificate. The exaction of a written dissertation on a given thesis, as is done for the degree of M.D., seems likely to be effica- cious only where the writer's reputation in a practical pro- fession is at stake. As a condition, or test, of the tenure of an endowment, it is defective as not being continuous pressure. To pension men of science, again, when advanced in life, would be safe, because their work would be already done. But it is not what is wanted. "What is wanted is to enable men to devote their youth, and the meridian of their powers, uninterruptedly to knowledge, to take them up as early as possible, and to open a career to theoretical science, which shall be as well defined as those now open to the practical professions, and, at the same time, make an equal demand for energy and exertion. There remains but one possible pattern on which a university, as an establishment for science, can be con- structed, and that is the graduated professoriate. This is sometimes called the German type, because Germany is the country in which the system has most recently borne M 102 /.' DMbntion of Endowment the ID. t signal fniite. The education given in German schools and universities is not 8ii}>crior, even if it be equal, to what is attainable in England or France. As teaching institutions, their universities have great merits and equally great defects. But as establishments for the cultivation and encouragement of the highest learning, the German universities have left everything of the kind at this moment existing in Europe behind them. Though known to us as the German system, there is, however, nothing peculiarly Germanic in the arrangements of their universities, so far as their commanding reputation is due to those arrangements. The only peculiarity which they derive from country is one which may possibly be lost to them before long. The rivalry between a number of petty states, ambitious to compensate for their political insigni- ficance by distinction in science, has been at least one cause of the eminence which the German university system has now attained. However this may be, it is not as schools, but as centres of mental activity in science, that these institutions command the attention of Europe, and have become the referees to whose verdict every product of mind must be unconditionally submitted. The German university, Dr. Dollinger goes so far as to say, has nothing but the name hi common with the university of France, or the universities of England. It is an association of men of learning and science, under the title of professors. The position created for them is such as to place them under the most powerful inducements to devote their whole mind and energies to the cultivation of some apt-rial branch of knowledge. In a large university, such as Berlin, every science, and almost every subdivision of Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 163 science, is represented. Of teachers of various grades, Berlin numbers now about 170. These are not endowed out of Church property, or out of rent of land in any shape, but are paid out of the annual taxation. This is not certainly an advantage either to themselves or to the country, but is mentioned to show what sacrifices other countries, not so rich as ourselves, are willing to make for an object which we have not yet come in sight of as a desideratum. The reputation of Berlin rests not upon any education given to its 2000 students, but upon the scientific industry of its professors. " The life of a pro- fessor " (Professor Ritschl is reported to have said) " would be a very pleasant one if it was not for the lecturing." Such an institute has nothing new about it except the name " professor." The principle of the graduated profes- soriate was already matured in the fourteenth century. Two centuries of experience of high schools had led to the collegiate system. The unendowed regent master, who was paid by fees, and taught only as long as he could attract pupils, gave way to the endowed clerk, who was to combine the functions of student and teacher in his faculty. In proposing the German University as the model to which we must look in making any alterations in our own, I wish to confine myself entirely to this single point of view viz. of a central association of men of science. No comparison is intended between English and German education, between the effect of the respective systems upon the students who pass through them. So far from trying a university system by this test, the aim of the present writer is to insist that we shall never place our 104 Re-Distribution of Endowment university on a sure footing as long as \ve regard the undergraduate alone as the end and purpose of tin- institution. A professor in an English, and still more in a Scotch university, is apt to make it his ground of com- plaiut that he has to teach the rudiment>. and to think that if he had but more advanced pupils all would be uell. What I wish to contend is, that the professor of a UK Minn university ought to regard himself as primarily a learner, and a teacher only secondarily. His first obligation is to the faculty he represents ; he must consider that he is there on his own account, and not for the sake of his pupils. The pupils, indeed, are useful to him, as urging him to activity of mind, to clearness of expression, to dcfinitcness of conception, to be perpetually turning over and verifying the thoughts and truths which occupy him. " The words of Pyrrhus to his Epirotes, ' Ye are my wings,' express the feeling of a zealous teacher toward hearers whom he loves, and whose whole souls take part in his discourse" (Niebiihr, Rom. Hist. i. p. 11). But we must go further than this : Even merely to be efficient as teacher, the university teacher must hold up to himself a higher standard of attainment than the possession of so much as has to be communicated to the pupil. There is a vast difference here between the elementary stages of education and that highest development which a univer- sity education aims to accomplish. A teacher of the elementa of anything language, mathematics, science, drawing may be an excellent teacher without posse.! 114 more knowledge than what he is actually required to communicate ; but it is no longer so in those higher regions of instruction which lie beyond the acquisition of Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 165 knowledge, or the practice of an art. Here it is not the substance of what is communicated, but the act of com- munication between the older and the younger mind, which is the important matter. It is an influence which passes, and not a fact or a truth. The mind of the learner can be acted on only on the condition that the mind of the teacher is itself active. This is the explanation of a fact which, to some persons, seems paradoxical : that investigations, the positive results of which have turned out to be false, have been most efficacious agents of exciting and directing the zeal and research of younger students. The theories of Wolf on poetry, of Niebiihr on Roman history, of Baur on the composition of the New Testament, are cited as telling against a professoriate, as evidence of a temptation to which professors are supposed to be liable to broach untenable hypotheses. But a fertility of ingenious hypothesis is a well-known condition of any period of scientific activity. The influence exerted by Wolf on philological studies, by Niebiihr on historical, and by Baur on theological, was quite independent of the truth or falsehood of any hypothesis started by them. The effect of the lectures of these great men is traceable to one cause viz. that what they said proceeded from fresh investi- gation, from a mind filled with the subject, with a belief in it, and a zeal for it. No teacher who is a teacher only, and not also himself a daily student, who does not speak from the love and* faith of a habitual intuition, can be competent to treat any of the higher parts of any moral or speculative science. It is not originality, but complete mastery of all the proper conceptions, which is here required. Nay, it is not so necessary for a teacher that his 166 lie-Dintribtition of Entl is tnir, Imt it is ;i vrrv partial arc-mint of the fact now stated. The subordination of the younger part of society to the older part is not a matter of depend- ence, or discipline, or police, but of force of character and mental superiority. In an age or country where the life of the citizen is intense and noble, animated by lofty aims, by adequate scientific conceptions of the present state of being, or by the anticipations which religious faith forms of the future, there will result, as of course, an education by the mere action of society itself. Life becomes an education. In the Puritan communities of the sixteenth century it was not so much any peculiar discipline ulii
  • intcd out the difference between the objects of " academics, and the uses of a university in this respect" "There are other insti- tutions," he says, " far more suited to act as instruments of stimulating philosophical inquiry, and extending the boundaries of our knowledge, than a university. Such, for instance, arc the literary and scientific academies, \\liidi are so celebrated in Italy and France, and which li;t\r frequently been connected with universities as committees, or as it were, congregations or delegacies, subordinate to them. Thus the present Royal Society, originated in Charles II.'s time, in Oxford. Such just now are the Ashmolcan and Architectural Societies in the same seat of learning, which have arisen in our time. . . Such is the sort of institution which primarily contemplates science it-. -If. and not students. . . The nature of the case and the history of philosophy combine to recommend to us this division of intellectual labour between academies and universities. To discover and to teach arc distinct functions. They arc also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person. He who spends his day in dispensing his existing knowledge to all comers is unlikely to have either leisure or energy to acquire new " (Discourses on University Education, p. x.) And Crerier long ago affirmed the same distinction : " J'OHC dire, que de tous les dtablissemens litte'raircs, celui den universitds cut le micux entendu. II vise tout entier a lutile; et le brillant ne s'y joint que comme 1'acconi- Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund, 173 pagnement inseparable du bon usage des talens de 1'esprit " (Hist, de I'Universite de Paris, liv. 1). 2. Outline of a Scheme. The distinction, just adverted to, between the dissemi- nation of knowledge and discovery, becomes important when we engage in an attempt to discover what branches of knowledge ought to be professed in a university. Were a university an institution for the promotion of science, its organisation would have to follow some approved scheme of arrangement of the sciences in rational order. But as it has not in view the interests of science, but the interests of the community in transmitting the traditions of know- ledge from the generation which is passing away to the generation which is succeeding it, we must look for some other principle by which to determine what knowledge shall be professed. Were, again, the university a merely educating body, in the limited sense of the term education, then we should only have to discover what disciplinal exercises experience had shewn to yield the best training for the young mind, and to take care that courses of lessons were established in them. But we have rejected this also as too restricted a conception of a university. It would seem to remain that no branch of human knowledge should be excluded, but that every subject, which it is for the interest of the com- munity to have preserved and diffused, should be professed here. Dr. Chalmers has expressed this idea : " Is it not better for the country," he says, " that at the great fountain- heads of its literature there should be rendered a supply of 174 B+Di*tribution of Endowment human knowledge in all its branches ; and that there should in the wide range of its professorships be as many affinities provided as might suit the peculiar aptitude and disposition of every genius ? In this way each master-spirit is furni.-lied with its own proper 8cicnce, and each science in the ency- clopanlia of human learning acts by its own magnetic charm on every spirit that is kindred to itself" (On Endowments, p. 90). The corrective to the seeming infinity of this cadre is supplied by the old classification of faculties, which is still known in Oxford sufficiently well to be capable of iv-u>ri- tation. All that is required is to adopt the old ;m aug- ment of the four Parisian faculties to the modern con- dition of knowledge to make it sufficiently useful for our puqx>se : Theology. Law. Medicine. Classics. Philology and Language. Historical and Moral Sciences. Mathematical and Physical Sciences. This will be a division sufficient for our purposes, and will have the great advantage of being scarcely at all a departure from existing arrangements. It is neither possible nor desirable to determine a priori how many, and what, subjects shall be professed under each head. Nor need any permanent assignment of chairs be made. Each faculty will \r. organised as a deliberative body on its own arrangements, and will recommend to the Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 175 Hebdomadal Council, from time to time, such modifica- tions in the material and number of its professorships as occasion shall require. An eminent investigator often creates a new subject, and a generation or two exhausts its interest. And it might be desirable just at first, till the standard of theological and philological learning among us shall be brought up more nearly to that which prevails in the inductive sciences, to invite one or more distinguished men from the continent to settle among us, and to create for them exceptional positions. The collective professors of each faculty, whether asso- ciated in one or more colleges, would form a general board or collegium, competent to make, subject to the organic statute (see p. 28), from time to time, regulations for the conduct of the studies, lectures, and examinations in their faculty. The senior professor, as dean of the faculty, would be chairman of the board. If the number of the professors in any of the faculties should be inconveniently large for meeting together, a standing committee should be formed, on which each professor should sit by rotation. From Germany we may learn the possibility of main- taining a body of men brought up to the life-profession of science. If a foreign country can lend to us an idea which we once possessed, but have lost, we, on the other hand, have retained a form for such an establishment, which is greatly superior to any they possess. Independent colleges, incorporated by charters, and possessing property of their own, could not be tolerated in an absolute or bureaucratic government. Such corporations exist in this country. They are located in the precincts of the university. They have at present no occupation. On looking into the 176 fy-Ditribution of Endowment statute* of these bodies, it is found that they were actually founded for the promotion of science and learning. \\'liai i> simpler and more natunil tluin that they should \>e restored to their original pnqxrae ? The colleges can \>c with the least change possible adapted to the faculties, and their subdi visions. 1. The theological faculty in Oxford at present is re- presented by five professors : Regius. Lady Margaret's. Pastoral. Ecclesiastical History. ExegeticaL Hebrew. The Hebrew chair is classed in this faculty, because the function of a professor of Hebrew seems inseparable from that of biblical interpretation. Could the theological faculty here be regarded from an academical point of view, there arc many suggestions which it would be obvious to make. The question, if some of these chairs should not be open to laymen, is a very weighty one. The creation of junior lectureships in tin- faculty, and the better demarcation of the matters assigned to each chair, illicit be touched upon. But, as the university is at present also a seminary for the professional education of the clergy, the theological faculty in Oxford holds a double position. The average level of theological instruction which can be at- tained for a numerous profession like that of the clergy of the K*tabli*hcd Church, is necessarily much lower than that which would be reached by the professors of the facultv, could they regard themselves as lecturing to a select da-s Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 177 of pupils. As it is of the highest consequence to the wel- fare of society that the clergy should continue to receive their education in common with the rest of the community, and not in clerical seminaries apart, the university is power- less to remodel its theological faculty upon merely scientific considerations. It can only act at all here in concert with the heads of the church. The authorities of the church, being themselves also academical men, cannot but share in the desire entertained in the university to raise the tone of theo- logical instruction, and with it that of theological literature in England. The difficulty of touching this matter at all can hardly be over-estimated. The present memoir being confined to university objects, I am glad to be dispensed from entering into further detail by finding myself on ground which is not purely academical. I will only add here a list of the courses which are given in this faculty, in one semester, in the University of Berlin, where the number of students is somewhat over 2000 : 1. Encyclopaedia of Theology. 2. History of Dogma. 3. Introduction to Old Testa- ment (Prof. Uhlemann). 4. The Psalms. 5. Syriac Version of New Tes- tament, select portions. 6. Introduction to Old Testa- ment (Prof. Vatke). 7. Prophecies of Isaiah. 8. Select Doctrines. 9. Introduction to Old Testa- ment (Prof. Hengstenberg). 1 0. Explanation of Isaiah. 11. History of the Passion. 1 2. Exegesis of Genesis. 13. Do. 2 Samuel 14. Do. Genesis. 15. Grammatical Explanation of 1 & 2 Kings. 16. Gospel of St. Luke. 17. Christology of the Old and New Testament. 18. Gospel of St. John. 19. Homiletics. 20. Epistle to the Romans. 21. Patristic. 22. St. Augustine Manuale. 23. 1 & 2 Corinthians. 24. Apocalypse. N 178 /'- />i'.*/ri7/M/i'iii nf Kmlnnnrnt I 35. (inltttwn*. KphuMans, etc. 86. ErAngvlicol Faith. 87. Innpiration of Gospels. 88. Biblical (kn^miphy. 89. History of M Unions. 30. Criticism of the Gospels. 31. Eochriartkal History, 1st part. 32. Rrlutiiin of Philosophy anil Theology. 33. Clm.-ti.m .Morals. 34. Practical Theology. 35. 36, 37, 38. Various courses of u exercises," .written es- says, pivpai-ed diticussions, construing, etc. 2. Law, history, moral and social science, etc. The professorships at present existing in Oxford in this faculty are : Regius Civil Law. Vinerian Common Law. Chichele International Law and Diplomacy. Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence [proposed]. Regius Modem History. Chichele do. do. White's Moral Philosophy. Waynflete Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics. Logic. Political Economy. We arc met in this faculty, in respect of the law-studies, by the same difficulty as in the theological faculty viz. that the university is not competent to make its own regulations with a simple regard to academical intercsta. Legal education has been wholly withdrawn from the English universities. It is subject to the exiirui- des of a practical profession, and it would be UK-IT quixotism to pro|x>se a law-establishment on the scale of the law school of Berlin, with its sixty-three courses of law -lectures, by twenty -three professors and lecturers. Whatever the university may be able to do in the way of Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 179 direct preparation of the legal practitioner must necessarily be concerted with the authorities of the Inns of Court. It would seem that the difficulties to be surmounted here are not less great than in the theological faculty difficulties created partly by coarse professional instincts of the Eng- lish lawyer, and partly by the exigencies of practice. All the more liberal minds in the profession seem to be agreed in desiring to get some short course of scientific and theoretical instruction before entering the conveyancer's chambers. Some few even dare to hint that there is such a science as jurisprudence, and are aware that for want of this science our statute-book is the " opprobrium juris- peritorum." The Roman jurisprudence, says Dr. Maine, has its place between classical literature and English law. " It would bridge over that strange intellectual gulf which separates the habits of thought which are laboriously created at our schools and universities from the habits of thought which are necessarily produced by preparation for the bar a chasm which, say what we will, costs the legal profession some of the finest faculties of the minds which do surmount it, and the whole strength of the perhaps not inferior intellects which never succeed in getting across (Cambridge Essays, 1857, p. 26). In what way law, as a scientific study, can be naturalised in Oxford, cannot be determined without the aid of the authorities of the law. Mr. Grant Duff, who has made more than one zealous effort in this cause, writes to me : " If Oxford were engaged in reforming herself, with a view to take that position amongst the learned bodies of the world to which she is entitled by her wealth and her prestige, there can, I suppose, be no doubt that she would establish a com- 180 fit-Distribution of Endowment /'///f r..nt'rn in- dflgMet" i //<.'.'. I The only part of this recommendation which has been adopted is that part which is of no importance namely, a preliminary examination for admission to the Inn of persons who have not taken a university degree. This is as futile as all entrance-examinations, merely putting the candidate upon wasting six months in cramming up a minimum of for- getable matter. The important part of the commissioners' recommendation, that there shall be examinations and degrees required for the call to the Bar, has slept. What might be done at Oxford in this direction does not depend entirely upon ourselves. But no course of studies can be thought of unless there is a largely increased body of pro- fessors in the faculty resident here. The due encouragement of the science of jurisprudence, and the critical study of the monuments of Roman and Feudal Law may justly claim no inconsiderable share in our endowments. Ten or twelve professor-fellows of recognised eminence in various depart- ments, incorporated in a law-college, would give a very different aspect to the question of a university law-degree as a qualification for a call to the Bar. A good beginning has already been made at All Souls'. The gross corporate revenue of the college was returned for 1850 as 9622. Be-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 185 Deducting charges (say 2000 a-year) this could scarcely suffice for the endowment of a complete law-college. It is possible that the rental may be capable of some increase by running out leases, and something would be realised by the sale of the advowsons, which are valuable. For history, the commission of 1850 contented them- selves with the recommendation that " there should be at least two professors in the wide field of Modern History, one for the History of England only." This was surely inadequate, even for the purposes of teaching. But for an endowment which is to sustain and encourage historical studies, we must contemplate a much larger application of our fellowship fund. In what are called the " Historical, Political, and Administrative Sciences," the following courses were given in the University of Berlin in the winter semester of 1861 : Philosophy of History. Encyclopaedia of History. Synoptical Review of Ancient History [Prof. v. Raumer]. Middle Age [Prof. Ranke]. History of Germany. Modern History from 16th century. Modern History from 18th century. Ethnography of Europe. History, Geography, and Political Principles of New World. Geography and Political History of Germany. Political Economy. Principles of Administrative Science. Science of Finance. Administration of Prussia. General Statistics in connection with the administrative system of Prussia. 1 :''. R*-Di*tribution of Endowment Fund. Historical View of Economical Systems. Administration of Prussia. Sanitary Police. These courses are exclusive of courses on ancient history, a subject which is classified in the Gcnnan universities under the faculty of " Philosophy," along with modern history. This is undoubtedly its proper place in a strictly philosophical arrangement of sciences. There is no break in the continuity of historical cause and effect. But as all professors of Greek and Roman history must necessarily be philologians, I have preferred to place them in the faculty of Language. To the ground thus covered by the University of Berlin, our connections with every part of the globe, our Indian and Colonial Empire, our relations with the East and with America, seem to require us to add largely. Nor can a nation, which at this moment conducts and reaps the profit of the commerce of the world, think that one professor of political economy is a sufficient representation of those vast and important subjects. The phenomena of capital and labour, of currency and exchange, not only involve practical questions of the highest moment, but questions which even the public see cannot be elucidated without science and theory. It is impossible, without an apprehension of the laws of these phenomena, to form any adequate conception of the world we live in. We can no more understand the body politic and its history without political economy, than we can understand the natural body without physiology. Oriel, which under the ordinances is charged with a pension to the Regius Professor of Modern History, might Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 187 be thought of for appropriation to these studies. But its available funds would hardly suffice for the endowment of a subject having so many ramifications as history. And the former reputation of Oriel Arnold is hardly an exception connects it rather with the moral and speculative sciences. Queen's would be more nearly equal to the requirements of this science; the new pro- fessor of modern history being transferred thither from Chichele's foundation, and Oriel being relieved of the Regius Professor. The college of Bishop Butler would provide a home for moral and mental science, merging in its foundation the present Logic, White's, and the Waynflete chairs, and extending over a wide field, which is at present wholly unrepresented in the university the Staatswissenschaft of German universities. 3. Most persons seem to be agreed in thinking with Dr. Daubeny that much might be done for medical educa- tion in Oxford without attempting to make it a place of clinical instruction. In medicine, as in law, our efforts must be confined to the preparatory courses chemistry, anatomy, physiology. Much has been done since the report of the Royal Commission in this direction. We have now, Dr. Daubeny said at the British Association in 1866, " a staff of professors as efficient, and means and appliances for the prosecution of chemistry, anatomy, and the like, as ample as are to be found in any other rival institution" (Report of British Association, Nottingham, 1866). This provision for the instruction of medical students has been made partly by the appropriation of collegiate endowments, but mainly by capital sums raised 188 /'< I>i*lril>ntion of Emlv its rstahlish- incnt* for printing Bibles. It has, however, 1'crn felt all along that the inductive Hoieneca were entitled, on their own merits, and not merely a* prrparatorv to a profession, to a home in the university. It in further evident that they will never become MO natu- ralised until they participate, in a fair proportion, in the endowments provided for the encouragement of learning. The Itoyal Commission of 1850, accordingly, recommended that some fellowships should be set apart for merit in the " new studies," as they were called. This has been done partially at Magdalen and at Christ Church. At Magdalen every fifth fellowship is to be filled up by " on examination alternately in subjects recognised in the school of mathe- matics and in that of physical science." At Christ Church, studentships have been filled up by science examination. The l>eginning thus made should be carried further, and the vicious principle on which these, as all other, fellow- ships are now awarded should be corrected. That is, instead of being bestowed as a prize for past " merit," the fellowship should convey a prospective obligation to the prosecution of the studies intended to be promoted by the endowment. We have at present a total of twelve professors for mathematics, natural science, and medicine. They are : Savilian Astronomy. Do. Geometry. Sedleian Natural Philosophy. Experimental Philosophy. Waynflete Chemistry. Linacre Physiology. Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 189 Geology. Mineralogy. Botany. Hope Zoology. Regius Medicine. Clinical. T , -D , f Anatomy. Lee s Keaders < ~, ( Chemistry. Against this meagre list of poorly-endowed professors of science, the University of Berlin could set in 1861 nearly forty names of teachers engaged on these subjects. And the following courses of lectures were being delivered by them : 1. Higher Algebra, and Cal- culus of Finite Differences. 2. Experimental Physics. 3. Meteorology. 4. Botany. 5. Botanical Meetings. 6. Experimental Chemistry. 7. Organic Chemistry (select parts). 8. Experimental Physics. 9. Physical Conferences (i.e., Lectures sine ulla solen- nitate). 10. Theory of Numbers. 11. Systems of Rays. 12. Analytical Statics and Dy- namics. 13. Theory of Elliptic Functions. 14. On the employment of Algebraical methods in Geometry. 15. Differential Calculus. 16. Algebra, 17. Continued Fractions. 18. Interpolation and Mechani- cal Quadratures. 19. Mathematical Physics. 20. Integration of Differential Equations. 21. Integral Calculus. 22. Analytical Geometry. 23. Mathematical Physics. 24. Solution of Physical Pro- blems (Optics, Electricity). 25. Mechanics of the Heavens. 26. Electricity. 27. Physical Geography. 28. History of Physics since Galileo. 29. Mineralogy. 30. Crystallography. 31. Chemical part of Metal- lurgy. 32. Organic Chemistry. 33. Introduction to Theoretical Chemistry. 190 It.-IHstrilnithni of I '.. ! irwrnt Finnl. 34. Of the Organic Baaea. 35. Organic Chemistry. 36. Physiology of Plants. 37. Special Botany. 38. Zoology, with Demonstra- tions, 39. Zoology and Zootomy (Prac- tical instruction in). 40. Entomology, General and Specific. 41. Special Botany. 42. Pharmacognosis. 43. Inorganic 1'hunuiiry. 44. Agricultural Botany, and Diseases of Plants. 45. Entomology of the Farm. 40. (Kr.nn.mii-* of Agriculture. 47. Breeding and Manage im -nt of Cattle. 48. Farm -management 49. Popular Organic Chemistry. 60. Analytical Chemistry. 61. Organic Chemistry. 62. History of Chemistry. 63. Chemical Im Mirations. 64. Chemical Confer- 55. Juridical Chemistry. 66. General Geology. 67. Natural Philnsophy of the Ancients (Aristotle). ALA The above list is exclusive of practical courses, laboratory instruction, etc. It is also exclusive of the lectures of the Medical Faculty. Where the same subject occurs twice, the course is given by a different professor in each case, and is probably adapted to students at a different stage of their career. But concurrent courses by two, or even more, professors, are not prohibited. Law already forms a separate faculty, and I have pro- pond that this faculty shall be localised in an endn\\l corporation in the existing foundation of All Souls' College. It is surely time that the inductive sciences should have a substantial recognition. Instead of a few fellowships and scholarships scattered up and down the colleges as they are, science has a right to a substantive part of our endowments. A new faculty of science is required, qualified to confer degrees. The professor- fellows of this faculty should be incorporated in a college, or the principal subdivisions of science in separate <<>!!' Corpus and Merton, as btt been already suggested, might Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 191 furnish the home for the biological sciences. If to Corpus and Merton were added the splendid endowments of Magdalen, the mathematical and experimental sciences would not be occupying a larger space in our establishment than their importance entitles them to. We must re- member that it is in respect of these branches of know- ledge that we have the heaviest arrears of neglect to make good. " Naturalis Philosophia," as late as the statutes of 1636, formed a substantive part of the requirements for the M.A. degree. Since that time, while the sciences have attained an enormous development both in number and magnitude, we have all but ignored their existence. So infinite are the subdivisions of science, that it will not be easy to find room for them all, especially if, as it seems fit in a place of education, we are to include practical applications of science, such as mining and civil engineer- ing, which may fairly claim to be represented here. 5. In Oxford, as in all the universities of the Parisian form, degrees in arts were not final or consummate degrees, but steps on the road which must be travelled in order to arrive at the " apex doctoralis," or doctor's degree, in one of the superior faculties. The first seven years of the whole period of study were employed on studies, which, varying in their nature in various periods of the university history, went under the common name of " Arts." The term denoted the contrast, fundamental in Greek habits of thought, between art and science. From Greek civilisa- tion the distinction was transmitted to the Middle-age university, which grounded upon it its arrangement of the curriculum of study, and the steps (gradus) of intellectual ascent. The degree of Magister Artiuin must be attained 192 //< -Dittriliution of Endowment Finn!. U'forv tlir study of one of tin- sciences could 1x5 com- menced. The two terms art and science have, in modem Knirlish, lost that signification of contrast, and :i umed another relation to each other. Hut the distinction formerly implied by the terms remains, and will always remain, as fundamental, in the theory of education, between the liberal and professional, between the general and the special. At the present time, preparatory or liberal studies occupy the whole period of the younger student's residence in the university, shortened, however, to three years ; and the graduates in arts i.e. in the preparatory studies are in possession of all but a fraction of the endowments. In the present scheme it has been proposed to deprive arts, or liberal studies, of a large part of these endowments, in order to provide for the protracted studies which are requisite for the sciences. The sciences, arranged into faculties theological, legal, medical, mathematical, and physical are to be incorporated into colleges for the pur- pose of maintaining men into mature age, to study, profess, and represent these sciences. When this provision has been made by the appropriation of the whole revenues of certain colleges, it remains that a similar position be created, and provision made, for all those branches of knowledge recognised among us, and generally considered as belonging to the faculty of arts. A name is of little con- sequence, and it may be convenient to retain the term " Arts " as the general designation of a number of very distinct branches of pursuit But the faculty of arts, if it ia to continue to be so called, must in every respect be placed on a par with the other faculties. It must be Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 193 advanced from being introductory and disciplinal, to be final and scientific. Its degree must rank by the side of the degrees of the other faculties, and no longer be the road to them. Other universities, to avoid ambiguity, have disused the term " Arts," and instead of " Master of Arts," give the degree of " Doctor of Philosophy." There must be at least three colleges, or incorporated, endowed, bodies of professors, in this faculty, call it what we will : 1. A College of Classical Studies. 2. A College of Comparative Philology and the Science of Language. 3. A College of the Theory and History of Art. The moral and political sciences, usually classified under this faculty, I have placed in that of Law. The classical college would require subdivision again into probably more than two sections. But the greatest flexi- bility would be desirable in the statutes of these colleges to enable them to adapt themselves to the fluctuations of discovery and the progress of knowledge. In the proposal to introduce the study of Art to a substantive share in the endowments for learning, many will see as great an innovation as in the introduction of the sciences, without as good grounds for the novelty. The sciences can plead ancient precedent, for though exiled for 300 years, there was a time when they formed an integral part of our occupations. But the study of Art would have to go as far back as the Greek /Aouaixq to find a justifi- cation in example. The claims, however, of Art to a place in university education cannot be set aside as fanciful, now 194 fit-Distribution of Kinlnirim-iit run, I. that they have received public recognition from Mr. Mill. In onlcr to shelter myself under his authority, I must introduce his worth* here, though all of us who oc< -npy ourselves with the question of university reform huve been reading them so lately. He says : 44 The education of the feelings and the cultivation of the beautiful are things which deserve to be regarded in a far more serious light than is the custom of these countries (*.. England and Scotland). It is only of late, and chiefly by a superii< -ial imitation of foreigners, that we have begun to use the word art by itself, and to speak of art as we speak of science, or govern- ment, or religion. We used to talk of the arts, and more 8)>ecifically of the fine arts. By them were vulgarly meant only two forms of art painting and sculpture the two which as a jK-ople we cared least about, which were regarded even by the more cultivated among us as little more than branches of domestic ornamentation, a kind of elegant upholstery. The very words "Fine Arts" called up a notion of frivolity, of great pains expended on a rather trifling object, of something which differed from the cheaper and commoner arts of pro- ducing pretty things, mainly by being more difficult, ami liy giving fops an opportunity of pluming themselves on caring for it and being able to talk about it. ... On these subjects the mode of thinking and feeling of other countries was not only not intelligible, but not credible, to an average Englishman. To find art ranking on an equality in theory at least with philosophy, learning, and science, as holding an equally important place among the agents of civilisation, and among the elements of the worth of humanity ; to find even painting and sculpture treated as great social powers, and tin- art of a country as a feature in its character and condition, little inferior in importance to either its religion or its govern- ment all this only did not amaze and puzzle Englishmen because it was too strange for them to be able to realise it, or Ee-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 195 to believe it possible ; and the radical difference of feeling on this matter between the British people and those of France, Germany, and the continent generally, is one among the causes of that extraordinary inability to understand one another which exists between England and the rest of Europe, while it does not exist to anything like the same degree between one nation of continental Europe and another" (Inaugural Address at St. Andrews, p. 42). Perhaps we shall have less difficulty in obtaining a recognition of art as an indispensable branch of a univer- sity foundation, than in coming to an understanding what is the proper function of a university in respect of art- teaching. Yet the line of demarcation is as clear here as in other of the professions. The practice of the art, or the teaching of drawing, belongs to the school, not to the university. This technical instruction is properly carried on in a special academy, supplemented by the ateliers of individual artists. This instruction, so far as it is obtain- able in this country at all, has localised itself in the metropolis, where alone are any considerable collections. More elementary teaching in any branch of art may now be had in any of the numerous art-schools scattered over the country in affiliation to the establishment at South Kensington. Such a school now exists in Oxford and is doing excellent work. But it can no more form a portion of the university than a grammar-school can. The uni- versity has its own work to do in art, as in the other departments of mental training. It should no more under- take to teach drawing than it should teach French, or German, or arithmetic, or the practice of conveyancing. We should only be doing over again what the art-school is 190 Jle-Dislribution of Endowment now doing, and not doing it so well. And we should soon have the usual summons to give scholarship!* and pri/r- t<> enable us to compete for pupils and keep our school full. But, without descending to the work of an art-school, the university may do much in its own sphere, which would operate upon the profession of the artist, to elevate and liberalise it The province of the university lies not in the technic, but in the science and archeology, of art. These are branches of knowledge which the English ;irti>t hitherto has either done without, or has had to pick up as best he may in other countries Tin- Item-lit eonfenvo! upon the profession of art by opening a sub-faculty in these subjects would react upon the university itself in its influence upon our classical and philological studies. In a university whose reputation is wholly classical, it may be doubted if there is at this moment a single scholar, who, if a monument of Greek art were placed before him, could give an opinion on its age. An endowed art-college might provide for (say) four pro- fessors: Two, historical, dealing with 1. Classical archaj- Ology, Asiatic. Kirvptian. etc., art : L. The period from the revival of art to modem times. Two, of the science and aesthetic, dealing with 1. Painting and sculpture, theory of composition, chiaroscuro, style, etc. ; 2. Architecture ; mechanics, proportion, balance, etc. The present chair of poetry, to which one of English literature might be added, might be incorporated in this foundation. 3. Income of Professor-Fellow. The subject of amount of stipend is a very imi>ortant Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 197 one, but it can only be properly considered by the autho- rity, whatever it may be, which shall be commissioned to arrange details. The principles to be held in view in such arrangement may be here stated. 1. Whatever be the scale of income intended to be created, it should not be expressed by fixed money-pay- ments. The Commission of 1850 gave an opinion, that " the fixed salary of the greater professorships should, if possible, be not less than 800 per annum, and ought, where possible, to be more " (Report, p. 109). In the fifteen years which have elapsed since their report was issued, the fall in the ratio of the value of the precious metals to the value of commodities, which is always insensibly proceeding, has made itself sensibly felt. In the ordinances framed by the Parliamentary Commis- sion of 1854, a similar error was committed in limiting the annual dividend of fellowships to a fixed sum usually of 300. Mr. Fawcett has intimated that a further and rapid depreciation of gold is " a contin- gency which it would be prudent to make some pre- parations to meet. The practical importance of taking such precaution has not, as yet, been recognised in this country. For instance, fathers who wish to leave a pro- vision for unmarried daughters, frequently settle upon them a fixed money-income, arising from an investment in the funds, and generally the investment . is settled upon them in such a way that the investment cannot be changed (Manual of Political Economy, p. 506). As the professor-fellow is endowed out of landed estate, there will be no difficulty in securing him against any such risks. I-.-;: R$J>i*tribution of Endowment Fund. "2. <>n what principle must the amount of salary, which r i> .i.'-iiMi.lc a j>n>l'cor >li..ull receive, he determined \ This is one of the most difficult parts of the problem of " endowments." One opinion on the subject, which meets with some favour among professional men, is, that the income of professors should be left, like the income of a practitioner in law or medicine, to bo determined by the action of the ordinary laws of supply and comi>ctition in the market ; in other words, that a professor should have what he can earn by fees and no more. Whether or no the law of supply and demand is directly applicable to superior education or not, I do not undertake to say. But even were it granted that it is so, it is only applicable to the teacher by profession, and cannot be directly ap- plied to the class of men which it is the object of these Suggestions to call into being in the university. The pro- fessor-fellow is to teach, but his business is to learn, not to teach. If it be objected that you cannot override economical laws with impunity, without originating mis- chief, the answer is, that such endowment of learning is not really an exception to the law of supply and demand. It is only an indirect application of the law. It is only because, in a civilised community, there arises a demand for theoretical science, that the community becomes will- ing to pay for, and creates the conditions of its supply- viz, independence and leisure. Were endowments per- iwtuities, absolute freeholds and not beneficial trusts, there might be weight in the objection. But as long as they remain under the watchful control of the community which creates them, they are only the form in which it finds it necessary to pay for an article which it desires to Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 199 consume. The proposal that professors should be paid exclusively by fees is, in fact, a proposal for the abolition of endowments. It is therefore beyond the scope of these Suggestions, for the purposes of which we have assumed endowments, not in principle, but as existing in fact. Dismissing as unpractical the doctrine that professors should be paid by fees only, it is however necessary to ask if the principle of partial dependence on exertion should not be applied to them, by allowing endowed professors to take fees ? This may be done in two ways : (1.) The pro- fessor may be sufficiently endowed sufficiently according to some standard to be settled but may be permitted to add to his income, if he pleases, by forming paying classes. (2.) Or he may be insufficiently endowed, according to the same standard of what is sufficient, and left to make up the balance by his own exertions. The second arrange- ment seems to be indefensible. It is unfair to precisely the highest class of erudition, to science just in proportion as it becomes special. Even in the more popular subjects, and the more frequented class-rooms, the tendency of this system must be to lower the standard of lecturing. This has been shown by experience to be its effect in the Scotch universities. The professors of Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, in the University of Edinburgh, long resisted all attempts to raise the standard of instruction in their classes, on the ground of the loss of income it would occasion them (Scotch Univ. Commission, Report, p. 3). The former of the two modes of encouraging activity viz. that of giving all professors an adequate endowment, but allowing them to make better incomes by devoting them- selves to class- work, is the only scheme which can be enter- Re-Dutribution of Endowment FmL taincd. This is, I believe, the German system. Two cir- cumstances recommend this plan (1.) Without any un- fairness to the professors of less popular subjects, it allows any professor who can do so to improve his income ; (2.) The student takes a keener interest, and attends with more assiduity, a course for which he has paid money than one which is gratuitous. It is true that any system of fees carries with it one inseparable evil : It leads to a rivalry among professors of cognate subjects, a rivalry determined in a wrong direction that, viz., of adapting their instruction to the demands of sonic examination. A system of fees is a pecuniary interest acting directly counter to a principle which it is one main purpose of these Suggestions to enforce viz. that the teaching -courses govern the examinations, and not the examinations deter- mine the teaching. If the taking of fees should be found, upon trial, to have an important influence in lowering the scientific level of the professor's lectures, it would become necessary for the university, as the least of two evils, to sacrifice the advantages derivable from the s\>tnn. 3. Since the Commission of Inquiry in 1850, something has been done by the university and the colleges towards the endowment of various chairs ; but in only one instance that of theLinacre professor of physiology has the standard of the commission, 800, been reached. Somewhere about 600 a-ycar appears to have been tacitly agreed upon by the university as the normal stipend of a professor. By what calculation this particular sum was arrived at, I am unable to say. It may have been by counting the professor as two fellows, the fellowship being estimated at 300 ; or it may have been only as a safe margin deducted from Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 201 the 800 of the commissioners. But then we do not know any more how the commissioners of 1850 came to fix on those figures. 4. The practice of foreign governments can afford us no help on this point. The whole scale of salaries for official persons in Germany is different from that which is found necessary in this country; and whatever the pro- fessors in a German university receive as salary comes out of the annual budget, and is not provided out of the rental of the land. 5. It has been said that the competition of the market is the only mode by which salaries can be determined. For what annual sum can you get good professors ? So much, and no more should be given. The reply is, that the fund out of which wages (or salaries) come, and the fund out of which our professors are to be paid, are totally different. The wage-fund is a portion of the profits of trade. The economical law which divides that portion among the labourers cannot reach that endowment-fund which we have to divide among our professors. Nor is it enough to say that you must give in each case that which the individual whom you desire to place in the chair will accept as an equivalent for the performance of the duties ; for a reference to our history will show that some of the most eminent names connected with Oxford have been glad to accept professorships of 100 a-year, while the most highly-endowed chairs are often filled by the least distinguished persons. This well-known fact is capable of an easy explanation an explanation not creditable to the patrons of our chairs. But the explana- Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. tion is irrelevant to the present purpose; the fact is <>nlv mentioned hero to show that what the recipient will take can be no measure of the liberality of the university. 0. A measure of the requirements of a professor is thought to be furnished by the ordinary expenses of house- keeping in the locality. This seems at first sight to afford a practical standard; but on examination will be found quite inapplicable. Probably at this moment examples may be found of families of university officials living at all rates of expenditure, from 500 up to 3000 a-year. There is no ordinary level of necessary expenditure such as can fix the scale of income. 7. With respect to the men who would, under an improved system, be sought out to fill the fellowships, it must be remembered that for their commodity there exists no market, no competition, no demand. This very endow- ment fund, if applied as now proposed, would be itself the only fund seeking to employ scientific labour. There is therefore no general economical law directly determining the value of that labour. The representative name, the man who has become the leader of his science for the time, is an entirely unique man, and not one of a class. He has no appraisable value. Such men, whenever they can be found, the reformed university would endeavour to incor- porate on any terms. The deputation sent by the States of Holland, at the instance of the curators of Leyden, to Scaliger, then living in France, stands in academical history as an ever-memorable precedent, applicable as long OH universities shall be a type of the spirit which will animate such a body whenever it is worthy of its hi^li vocation. In this country, the universities will be the only Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 203 bidders for such eminent qualities. The division of Germany into small states, each having its own university, which has hitherto caused a kind of competition for the possession of celebrated men, will probably cease to operate in that country, and has no parallel in the circum- stances of this. It is, however, highly probable that an improved standard of scientific attainment would bring about a more cosmopolitan feeling in our universities, and lead to an honourable rivalry among them. Already, and it is highly to their credit, more than one Scotch university has taken its professors from the south. Oxford has honourably followed in the same path, filling her chair of natural philosophy (1866) with a stranger, though not wanting abundance of her own of no common merit. The time may come when at Cambridge, in like manner, the claims of science may be recognised as superior to the college- tie. Even Trinity College, Dublin, may hereafter be drawn out of its national isolation, and be unwilling to see a scholar like Badham bury his learning in Australian exile, while it is filling its own Greek chair with a Dublin man whose name had never passed the precincts of his college. 8. Such leading celebrities must always be a small fraction of the whole number among whom the endow- ment is to be divided. The younger teachers, tutors, lecturers, professor-fellows, will constitute a class. And it is the object of the endowment to call such a class into being, and to provide for its regular supply. Some fixed scale of payment must therefore be adopted for this class. Without attempting to establish a theoretical principle, the practical rule will probably be accepted as sufficient, that, in order to make the profession of learning and science a Re-Distribution of Endowment Fttnrof>s>ion. If this lu-w i>nt!'c->i..n is to have only its proportionate share of the average talent of the count i \ , it in ust offer inducements to talent to embark in it not below the average. These inducements include income, but do not consist solely in amount of income. Position, distinction, the agreeable nature of the pursuit ; above all, leisure the indispensable condition of this profession, and the one by which it is distinguished from all others go to make up the total of its attractions, and to make possible a rate of payment below what is necessary to fill the other profu- sions. It is indeed a popular error to suppose that the life of the scholar or of the scientific man is an idle life. To overtake the ascertained facts, the extant knowledge, in any of the great departments of human thought, requires an assiduous tension of the faculties, prolonged through many years, which is more exhausting to the nervous powers than the exertions demanded by one of the active professions. Still, active minds not backed by the physical stamina requisite for public life, or the law, or medical practice, may compete in this new field. For these and other reasons a scale of salaries below what is necessary in the professions may be reasonably proposed for the universities. This scale must be such as will maintain the profession of learning, as a substantive profession, in efficiency. Hitherto, a university life has not been a life- profession. A fellowship and tutorship has been only held in transitu to a living. It is a principle of any reorganisa- tion of the university, a principle had in view throughout -* :__'< itioB^ I" 'iv.-t tradiiiiLT iind Icaniintr. in-cpar- ably united, into a life-profession, for which a young man Re-Distribution of Endowment fund. 205 may regularly qualify himself, and look forward to it as a maintenance. The professions are so arranged, in connec- tion with the university course, as not only " to assign a direction to scientific industry, but to provide the future means of bodily support. The university is designed quite as much to ensure the subsistence of the outer, as the glorified renewal of the inner man " (Kirkpatrick, Of the University, p. 80). Apart from any provision for learning, were teaching merely had in view in our arrangements, it would be quite necessary that the present anomalous position of the celibate tutor-fellow should be put an end to. 9. A new profession then, a profession which on its theoretical side has some specific branch of science for its matter, and on its practical side has teaching for its business, being erected, the candidate for its rewards and honours must see before him at least as good a prospect as if he were entering one of the old professions or any branch of the public service. Of the rate of salary thought necessary in public appointments a few quotations may be given : Deputy-Keeper of Rolls . . . . 1000 Clerk of Assize Midland, Northern, or Oxford Circuit 1000 Registrar of Court of Probate . . 1600 of County District Court e.g. Exeter, Manchester, or York . . 1200 Police-Court Magistrate 1 at . . 1500 22 at . . 1200 Land-Registry Office Assistant Registrar 1500 These are all salaries charged upon the consolidated fo-Dutribution of Endowment Fund. fund, or voted annually l.v Parliament, and may therefore be regarded as fixed as low as possible. Where the salary is payable out of fees, or suitors' fund, a more liberal scale of estimate is taken, e.g. Commissioner of Bankruptcy County District (Leeds) 1800 Registrar, do. . . . . . 1000 That this scale of salary is not unnecessarily extra- vagant is sufficiently proved by the fact that the same, or even higher, is offered by commercial undertakings. A buyer, or head of a department, in a Manchester warehouse, will often receive 1000 a-year, or even more. The manag- ing director of a bank has usually from 1500 to 2000, and occasionally even more. " It cannot be wise that county-court judges, police-magi- strates, secretaries to railways and public boards, should receive for the employment of their time 1000 to 1500 per annum, while university professors are asked to perform duties requiring great knowledge and abilities of a less common description, without half the remuneration. There should be secured to a competent professor such an income as will enable him to marry in his office, and look forward to continuance in it as the work of his life. The university, too, should be in a position to command the services of the most distinguished men in the several sciences, and to hold out to its members the university professorships as rewards to a career of in- dustry. . . When once appointed, the professor should feel his position (generally speaking) to be his home and his destiny, so that he may continue to concentrate his interests and exertions upon the subject " (H. H. Vaughan, Evidence, 0. U. C. p. 88). Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 207 An objection may perhaps be brought against any pro- posal to make science a profession, and to endow it with a scale of income not inferior to that which the other professions reach an objection founded on a difference between the pursuit of knowledge and all other profes- sions. It may be said that in all the other professions you pay for results, and only for results. The secretary of a railway board, say, has a definite quantity of work to do, a quantity the value of which can be estimated in salary. He has duties ; and it has been found by experience that the energy he will display in their performance will bear a ratio to the remuneration. Even men of power, when shabbily paid, are apt to content themselves with a corre- sponding style of service. And, it is urged, here the analogy between the professions and science fails. No pecuniary inducements can create, nor can penury repress, literary genius or scientific ardour. Where services are required for which the average ability of mankind suffices, money can command those services. But in science, art, and literature, nothing has value but what springs from high incommunicable gifts or inspiration, which it is idle to speak of encouraging by rewards. Even in the profes- sions the highest stamp of character requires higher motives. " Woe to the physician," says Hufeland, " who makes money or honour the end of his efforts ! He will be in continual contradiction with himself and his duties. He will curse a vocation which does not reward, because he knows not true reward!" (Dr. Bird, Address to the Harveian Society, 1852). This line of objection misplaces the profession of know- ledge, for which these remarks are contending. It would _'" :: Re-Di*tribution of Endowment />//- covery or providing for the progress of science. These are fact*, taking place in a region of intellect over which econ- omical laws do not extend. At least they do not direct I v apply. For indirectly it may be maintained, and is so by a recent writer, that " the love of wealth has not only pro- duced all trade, all industry, and all the material luxuries of civilisation, but has proved the most powerful incentive to intellectual pursuits. Whoever will examine the hi>t<>rv of inventions, of art, or of the learned prof c inn-, may convince himself of this " (Lecky, History of nationalism, ii. 316). But all that middle region which lies between original productivity and the drudgery of teaching, that region in which are preserved and transmitted the extant types of the best culture, that region in which the profes- sions have their roots, is governed by the same economical laws which regulate the ordinary conditions of life, and all the other known employments and occupations. At the same time it cannot be denied that there is a difference in this respect between the cultivation of know- ledge and other employments. Rich endowments Imu not been found in practice invariably provocative of mental activity. The corporate wealth of Oxford has not preserved it from a long period of torpor, a period of which we are now probably approaching the termination. That the wealth has produced the torpor is, I think, a mistaken inference from the facts; but it is a fact that they have co-existed. Mr. Gathorne Hardy, in the House of Commons on the 29th May (1867), jeered at certain " miserable philosophers who never gave anything out of their own Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 209 pockets for the furtherance of their views." Mr. Hardy is a man of great wealth, and " the philosophers " whom he was deriding are chiefly miserable in that they have to live upon fewer hundreds a-year than Mr. Hardy has thousands. For their littleness of mind in being satisfied with such an inferior income, they no doubt justly deserve his contempt. But, even if they were as rich and open-handed as Mr. Hardy himself, instead of being poor and stingy, it would be still true that they could not further their views by putting their hands in their pockets. Opinions can be directly propagated by endowments. But philosophic education does not consist, as the member for the univer- sity appears to think, in the adoption of any peculiar opinions. Its effect is rather to develop a power which resists opinion, to call into being an individual intelligence, a healthy organism of the soul, which enables it to outgrow the tyranny of opinion, under which the uneducated, or half-educated, live and act. Archbishop Whately used to say, that the true way to counteract Catholicism was not by trying to propagate counter-opinions, but by education. Handsome appointments will not provide refinement of mind, enlarged perceptions, devotion to the pursuits of abstract thought or abstruse calculation. But if it be desirable to create a school where these things may exist and be practised, the humbler conditions of such a school must not be neglected. The persons who are to labour in it must have a maintenance, leisure, and tolerable freedom from the anxieties of straitened means. So much is indis- pensable to the mere existence of a learned university. More than this cannot be demanded. But there can be no doubt that more will be cheerfully accorded by a country p 210 ^Distribution of Endowment Fund. not niggard in paying for what it values, an an appreciation of tin- importance of .such a profriun rains ground \\ith the advance of civilisation. Let the profession once but Iwrely exist as a profession, and leave it to conquer position and resj>ectal>ility by its own merits. A rich endowment of places for science, before there were men to fill them, or recognition in the country for them, even if it were possible, would be improper. " We do not think," says * recent writer, " that any legis- lation will much alter the demand for a university education. In order to make Oxford and Cambridge thoroughly popular institutions, there is required rather a change in the nation than a change in the universities. Our whole conception of the value of learning, and of the dignity of a learned life, must undergo a change before our universities will be changed to any considerable degree ; and before we alter our opinion as to the value of learning we shall have to alter altogether our conceptions of the nature of learning, and these alterations will take a very long time, and will be but slowly affected by Acts of Parliament" (Pall Mall Gazette, 6th June 1867). 4. Graduated Scale of Fellowships. While the endowment of the new profession of learning should be liberal, provision must be made for the encourage- ment of exertion, and guarantees taken, as far as may be, against the besetting danger of endowments mental stag- nation and apathy. This might possibly be attempted by a graduated system of promotion. Suppose that there were to be a fourfold scale of fellowships, rising in value : 1. Tutors. 2. Lecturers. 3. Professors. 4. Senior Fellows (or Heads). Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 211 There would be fewer lecturers than tutors, fewer pro- fessors than lecturers. Lastly, Class rv. would be limited to a few places, some twenty or twenty-five, which would be the prizes of the profession. Any M.A. should be qualified to act as tutor. The tutor to be paid wholly out of fees, or, if necessary, to have a small stipend in aid of fees assigned him. Any tutor to be qualified as candi- date for a lectureship in his faculty. The professor-fellow to be chosen out of the lecturers, but to be open also to other persons, even to those who are not M.A. of the university. The system of prizes recommends itself by the practice of all the professions, in which it has been found the most economical and efficacious method of dis- pensing reward. It is indeed in operation in the universi- ties now. Better men are obtained, under the actual system, as college tutors, than would be secured by the mere income of their office, by the chance which they run of the headship, or of the one or two large livings which may be in the gift of the college. 5. Patronage. Nothing is easier than to enact that promotion shall be by merit; nothing is more difficult to secure in prac- tice. And, in fact, in this country, the army, the church, whole departments of the public service, are carried on without any recognition of such a principle. These services, to use the consecrated phrase, get on well enough without. It is true that an extraordinary strain on any department as on the Commissariat in the Crimean war places hi a strong light the absurdity of conducting the public service on the hypothesis of the 219 of capacities. But only for a moment The I;UIL:IT pant, the axiom enunciated by the truly English iiiin. I of George III., that "every man in this country ia tit for any situation he can get," resumes its habitual sway. In a university, however, the question of patronage is a question of life or death " stantis aut cadcntis aca- demic." Pnmiotion by merit, and by merit alone, is " a condition without which colleges are nuisances, and uni- versities only organised against their end " (Hamilton, Discu&tions, p. 364). It may be said that the English universities are, then, the purest public bodies in the kingdom, inasmuch as thcv distribute the mass of their places viz. all the fellowships, by examination. But a little consideration will show that to give fellowships by examination goes but a very little way towards organising the service of the university on the principle of merit In the first place, it applies to none of the more valuable appointments headships, canonries, professorships ; secondly, it does not apply to the honor- ary distinctions the degrees, viz., which, from the M.A. t<> the D.D., the university bestows in consideration merely of an outlay of time and money ; thirdly, as has been >ail above, the examination for a fellowship is only an un- meaning repetition of the class-schools by a less com- petent board of examiners. The fellowship examination does not profess to ascertain a definite stage of progress beyond the point reached by the first class. Lastly, even were these examinations conducted on an iui}>n>\ril Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 213 system i.e., were they in the hands of a general board, proposing to test a prolonged period of study subsequent to the B.A. yet examination is a wholly inadequate test of scientific merit. Examination has its proper place in awarding honours and prizes to quite young men. As applicable to the public service, it can scarcely be held to have any other use than serving as an initial exclusion of incapacity, and a check upon nepotism. It cannot be the rule of promotion. In the reformed university, examination will continue to be the test employed to award : 1. All scholarships and exhibitions to undergraduates; 2. The honour-degrees (M.A., etc.) at the termination of three years of study; 3. The few (two or three) prize-fellowships yearly proposed for competition among the M.A.'s, etc. The mass of the endowments arranged in the ascending order as proposed (1. tutors; 2. lecturers; 3. professor-fellows; 4. senior fellows, heads) cannot obviously be awarded by examination. At most, examinations would be applicable in the youngest stage, that of the tutor; but at this stage it will be unneces- sary, as I propose that the honour-degrees (M. A., etc.) should of themselves form the habilitation for the office of tutor. Any one, on obtaining one of these degrees, may inscribe his name in the register of tutors and compete for pupils. It remains to be considered where the appointments to the other three classes, of lecturers, professors, and senior- fellows, should be vested. The modes of appointment at present in use in the University of Oxford are : 1. Competitive Examination. All Fellowships. 2. Computation of University Honours. Eldon Scholarship. 214 Re-Distribution of Endowment FnnJ. 3. The Crown. Dean and four Canons of Christ Chun-h. Four other Professorships Greek, Civil Law, Medicine, Modern History. 4. Election by vote of the Corporate Body. Heads of most College!. 0. Open poll of Large Constituency. Margaret Divinity. 6. Open poll of Convocation. Nine Chairs viz. Camden Ancient History, Sibthorpian Rural Economy, Poetry, Vinerian Common Law, Clinical, Anglo-Saxon, Political Economy, Sanskrit, Logic. 7. Board of Academical Officials. Seven Chairs viz. White's Moral Philosophy, Music, Laudian Arabic, Experimental Philosophy, Ireland Exegetical, Latin, Waynflete Moral and Metaphysical 8. Board of Extra-academical High Official Persons. Seven Chairs viz. Savilian Geometry, Savilian Astronomy, Sedleian Natural Philosophy, Chichele Modern History, Chichele International Law, Waynflete Chemistry, Linacre Physiology. 9. Board of Heads of Colleges. Exegetical Professor, Bamp- ton Lecturer. 1 0. Vice-Chancellor. Two Chairs viz. Mineralogy, Geology. 1 1 . Single Patron. Lord Almoner's Arabic. 12. Boards of Curators. Two Chairs viz. Taylorian, Hope Zoology. 13. Chancellor. Heads of three Halls. If we except Nos. 2, 10, 11, 12, which are only applied in six cases, there is not one of these methods of appoint- ment to offices which is not open to very serious objection ; not one which has not in practice failed to secure promotion by merit Of No. 6, or election by open poll of the whole body of M. A., it may be said, without fear of contradiction, that it is, of all the modes of appointment in use in the university, He-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 215 the least defensible. The pars sanior of the electors themselves are, I believe, quite aware of the unfitness of Convocation for the exercise of this responsible trust, and would willingly surrender it into other hands, provided they were once satisfied it was properly lodged. There is only one class of places which might perhaps be left to be filled by this body of electors ; non-resident professor- ships, of small value and limited tenure, by which some eminent person is retained to pay an occasional visit, and give his views to the public from the platform of a univer- sity chair, are by no means without their use. Such is the poetry professorship at present, to which might well be added a second professor of political economy, one of English literature, and one of the principles of art. These might still remain matters of popular election; but in respect of all the permanent and more valuable appoint- ments, it is urgently required, for the credit, well-being, and even peace of the university, that we should be relieved from the humiliating necessity of urging irrelevant considerations on a large body of electors, or even canvassing them under false pretences, in order to give a superior candidate a chance of success. While I write these lines, Convocation is preparing to elect two professors one of poetry, and one of political economy. It is scarcely credible, but it is a fact, that the chances of the respective candidates are depending not on their fitness for the office, on their reputation, or past services, but on the support or opposition of the great theological party, which knows of no merit but adhesion to its ranks. A board of official persons must either be composed of intra-academical or extra-academical officials. The petty 210 Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. intrigues, and the personal animosities for which, in the words of Schleicnnachcr, " universities, one and all, are infamous," make it impossible to entrust academical officers with the selection of their colleagues of equal rank. The worst fonn of patronage, according to Sir \\ illiam Hamil- ton, is the appointment of professors by professors. Boards of extra-academical high officers of State arc liable to the defect that the function of selection is an inferior appendage to a more important office. The appointment to a place in the university comes to rank in the eyes of a personage in such lofty station as but a portion of his patronage, whi< -h he distributes with the rest among the most hungry applicants. And for the steady maintenance of a scrupu- lous system of promotion, such boards would be wholly unfitted by the fluctuating nature of their composition. They are, besides, dependent for their knowledge of the character and services of individuals who are working in the place, upon information supplied from within the university iteelt If this information be given unofficially, he who has no powerful or dexterous friend will never be brought under notice at all. He who has friends is likely to have enemies, and the just expectations of years of laborious service will be placed at the mercy of some per- sonal ill-wisher or secret theological denunciator. If, on the other hand, the information be tendered in a responsible form, the elector loses his discretion, and is placed at the mercy of " Testimonials." Testimonials seem in theory an unexceptionable mode of obtaining information, and the extensive employment of the system in this country shows at least that it is found to answer some good purpose. Its defects, however, are many and well known. " Testimonials Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 217 are strong in proportion to the partialities of the testifier, and the lowness of the standard by which he judges" (Hamilton, ut supra, p. 381). Without referring to these defects, it is sufficient to say that it is a system which can only be had recourse to, failing other direct and personal means of acquainting the patron with the character of the persons among whom his choice lies. And to work efficiently a graduated scale of endowed fellowships, such as is here proposed, there must be a patron on the spot capable of observing for himself the working and the diligence of the whole academical personnel. The only other among the actual patrons who would be thought of as a trustee of academical appointments, on a large scale, is the Crown. The Crown acts as patron through the first minister. A comparison between the Crown appointments and those by intra-academical election, for a long series of years, would no doubt show greatly in favour of the former e.g. the deans of Christ Church, who are nominated by the Crown, have been on the whole more distinguished men than the heads of any other one college where the corporate body elect. But it is only by comparison with a system more faulty than itself that the exercise of the Crown patronage by the minister can appear in a favourable light. The minister is wholly dependent upon a parliamentary majority. He is therefore the organ of one of the political parties in the State. The necessities of his position compel him to seek strength by using his patronage clerical or academical in the interest of his party. It has come to be thought that he ought to choose by this test, and not by that of capacity or fitness. Hence, among the competitors for 218 fo-Di*tributio* of Endowment Fund. Crown professorshiiw, the road to preferment lina to be ^Mi-lit not by learning or diligence, but by political ser- vice**, or loud-tongued advocacy of some i>owerful theo- logical party. Much jealousy has been entertained in Oxford of Crown patronage as a danger to our corjx>rate independence. Its real evil lies not in this imaginary diuiger, but in the degree to which it has tended to cor- rupt public opinion within the university, and to give the sanction of the country to nominations upon other con- siderations than the single one of fitness. A patron may err in any particular selection. That is an error of judg- ment which is to be regretted. But if it be known that he intended and desired, to the best of his discernment, to appoint the fittest man, his error will have no bad con- sequences beyond the single failure. But an appointment avowedly made on any other principle than that of " detur digniori," exercises a corrupting influence through the whole university. No intelligence and no liberality of the individual minister can rescue him from a necessity wliirli is a necessity of his position. If any minister was ever in a i>osition to be independent of party, it is the present prime minister, Lord Derby. To intelligence and liberality, to ancient lineage and great wealth, is here united no ordinary degree of classical culture, and its consequence, sympathy with education. Besides this, Lord Derby is Chancellor of the University i.e., official head, not of the Conservative party in the university, but of the whole body, and trustee of the Chancellor's appointments for the good of the whole body. Yet, in the exercise of the Crown patronage Lord Derby could not dare to overlook party considerations, or to appoint the best man, if he happened Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 219 not to be a political Conservative. He may even have wished to do so, but he could not dare to do it. Public opinion would not merely allow him to regard his patron- age as a political instrument rather than as a trusteeship for the benefit of learning, but it would not allow him to do otherwise. It will be obvious, I may hope, to every reader that I venture on this personal allusion, not as criticism on any particular appointment, but as an illustra- tion, in a signal instance, of the fetters which political party have inextricably woven round the position of minister of the Crown fetters which make it impossible for him to fulfil the conditions of an academical patron. Nor would it make any difference were the patronage lodged with a minister of instruction, if that minister, like the rest of the cabinet, was dependent on a parliamentary majority. Even in Germany, where there is no such de- pendence, a minister of instruction is too often the tool of a theological party. In Saxony (Jena), Hilgenfeld has been more than once passed over, and even inferior men promoted over his head, from the pressure of party con- siderations. Convocation then, the Crown, boards of State officials, boards of academical officers, being alike ineligible as patrons, where are we to lodge this first and all-important trust ? I cannot profess to be able to offer a scheme which shall not be open to objections. Indeed it may well be that no such scheme is possible. Yet even if partiality cannot be, as no doubt it cannot be, wholly excluded, any system which shall profess the rule of scientific merit, to the exclusion of party connection, would be a great gain. Before, however, proposing a scheme of appointment, it is 220 Re-Distribution of Endoir,,,*,,! /'//,//. bO -''' tli' 1 principle- uliirli iniiM iv-_ r nl:itc tlic of a system of academical patronage. Thin subject has been examined with great care, and \\ieared in the Edinburgh Jterietr, 1834 (Hamilton, Ditemtnons, pp. 348-385). This masterly and lucid state- ment of the question exhibits principles which must pre- vail in the long run, if universities are to continue to exist at all. The conditions which should be practically fulfilled by any system of academical patronage are, according to Sir W. Hamilton, as follows : The patrons should be more than one, to obviate the errors of individual judgment, and to resist the influences that might prove too strong for a single will ; to secure the animation of numbers, a division of labour, more extensive information, opposite views, and a many-sided discussion of their merits. The patrons should be few, that the requisite intelli- gence may be possessed by each, that their responsibility may be concentrated, that they may understand each other and act in concert A numerous body can elect only out of those whom a situation suits ; a small body only out of those who suit the situation. The patrons should be specially appointed ad hoc ; the trust should not be an accidental appendage to a higher office. They must be selected, not for social status or general respectability, but from peculiar qualification for the discharge of the office. Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 221 They should be conditionally permanent i.e., not holding the office for life, but re-appointed from time to time if their conduct merit approval. For the due dis- charge of the functions demands experience, and con- sistency and perseverance in a course of measures. The patrons should have the recommendatory, but not the formal and definitive, appointment. This should belong to a higher authority. The patrons should not select from those who solicit their suffrages, or even permit themselves to be solicited. They should themselves, on a vacancy, look round for the person of highest eminence in the given faculty. To the conditions thus laid down by Sir W. Hamilton, the present scheme, which proposes graduated promotion through four steps, requires the addition of another con- dition. The patrons must be, if not resident, at least in such constant communication with the university as to be them- selves cognisant of the character and labours of all its working teachers. Their appointments must rest distinctly on their own knowledge ; they must not be able to throw off any part of their responsibility upon the representations of others made by " Testimonials," or in any other way. Two recommendations made by Sir W. Hamilton are here not adopted, intentionally : 1. That the patron should be also superintendent of the university. In the present scheme the superintendence is divided among the Vice- Chancellor, the Hebdomadal Council, and the Boards of the Faculties. Sir W. Hamilton's scheme seems only applicable to universities where the curatorium, or superintending body, is itself subordinated to a central minister of instrue- _'_'_> I!e-Di#tribution of Endowment Fund. tion. 2. Tlmt the patrons, with the report of their deci.i, >n, .sin 'ill. 1 IT required to make an articulate statement of the grounds on which their opinion has been formed, that the object of their preference is the individual best qualified for the vacant chair. I reject this as likely to lead to much rhetorical advocacy and counter-pleading, and as reproducing the sophistic of "Testimonials" in another form. To fulfil the above conditions, let there be a Board of five curators, to whom shall be made over the nominations to the whole of the endowed places for which learning. science, or literature, is the qualification, with any excep- tions which may be desirable. The curators shall have only the recommendatory nomination. They shall nominate to the Vice-Chancellor, who shall have the power of declining their nominee, stating the objection. It shall be an admissible objection, that there is another person, in the opinion of the Vice- Chancellor, possessing superior claims. The curators may repeat the same nomination a second time, but if again rejected by the Vice-Chancellor, such rejection to be final for that vacancy. The curators to be elected for seven years, to be reckoned from date of appointment, and to be re-eligible. Ineligible to the office of curator Peers, or sons of Peers; members of House of Commons; Bishops. Not more than two curators of one faculty at the same time. Before entering on their function, an instruction, passed by the university legislature, to be accepted and signed by each curator. This instruction should express, in the most explicit terms, the obligation imposed by the Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 223 trust, of bestowing each place on the most eminent merit obtainable. In excluding solicitation, it is not intended to prohibit applications. It is convenient that applications should be sent in, that the curators may know who are willing to accept the appointment. These applications are not to be specifications of the candidate's merits, but a short bio- graphy of himself, including a notice of the direction of his researches, and list of books, papers, articles, etc., written by him, and to be confined to matters of fact, to the ex- clusion of any promises for the future. The curators to be expressly charged in the instruction not to limit their choice to the applicants, but to make a tender of the office to the person, in their opinion, most qualified, even at the risk of being refused. Lastly comes the question of election. Upon the in- tegrity and judgment of these Quinqueviri will depend really the whole edifice of the university. If the right men, and none but the right men, could always be secured for the office of curator, the success of such a scheme as the present would be matter of certainty. But in no con- stitution, from Plato's Republic downwards, has the ques- tion, " Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ? " found a satisfac- tory answer. In every such construction, as in Aladdin's palace, there is one unfinished window. It is easy to lay down the maxims of good government, but no government can be good which is not administered by good men. The beginning of universities was not a place, or an institution, but a man. The men who, in the twelfth century, at Bologna or Salerno, came forward to teach what they knew, were not localised ; they could at any moment go JJI lir-Di*tribution of Endowment /'//-/. to another city, and open a school, which would become as frequented. " Tlie iKjrsonal influence of the teacher," says Dr. Newman, " is able in some sort to di-pcuM- with jui academical system, but the system cannot in any sort disjuMisc with |>ersonal influence. With influence there is life, without it there is none. ... An academical system, without the personal influence of teachers upon pupils, is an arctic winter; it will create an ice-lM>und, petrified, cast-iron university, and nothing else " (Newman, Office and Work of Universities, p. 112). To expect of any system, whether on paper, or de facto, that it si i all, I >y virtue <>f its own operation, secure a constant suc<-es>ion of the best men, is to expect what a system cannot do. No machinery that can be devised for the appointment of curators can, by its mere mechanism, turn out the right men. It may easily be that other methods of appointing the curatorium are as good, or better than the one about to be proposed. In Sir W. Hamilton's scheme, the curators for the University of Edinburgh were to be elected by a boan 1 < >f six delegates. These delegates were themselves rcpre-cn- tatives, returned, one by each of six public bodies viz. 1. The Faculty of Advocates; 2. The Society of Writers to the Signet ; 3. The Royal College of Physicians ; 4. The Iloyal College of Surgeons; 5. The Presbytery of K<1 in burgh (or the General Assembly) ; 6. The Town Council. Sir W. Hamilton himself, in later years, was inclined to think this scheme too complex, especially in that the principle of mediate election is not commonly practised in this country, and therefore not sufficiently understood. If indirect election could be employed, it Re-Distribution of Endowment Fund. 225 might here be beneficial, and the difficulties arising from complexity would be less in a university than elsewhere. But to avoid the charge of proposing the impracticable, we may be content, for the present, with a direct election of the curators, and enact as follows : One shall be nominated by the Vice-Chancellor. One by the professors of the faculty of mathematical and physical sciences. One by the professors of the philological faculty. One by the professors of law and history. One shall be coopted by the board itself thus elected. The nominee of the Vice-Chancellor to hold office only four years, in order that each Vice-Chancellor may have one nomination. He shall be nominated by the outgoing Vice-Chancellor just before laying down his office. The other four curators may hold office for seven years. The curators not to be salaried, but to have a paid secretary and a separate office. This cannot be called a complicated arrangement. Even were it so, complex and artificial methods of appointment are not necessarily difficult to work when the machinery is seen to be conducive to a result. The wisdom of the Venetian government was proverbial; it was entirely due to a system of appointment to offices. " In Venice," says Antonio Serra in 1613, " the method of choosing magistrates is in such perfection that no one can come in by corruption or favour ; nor can any one rise to high offices who has not been tried in the lower" (ap. Hallam, Lit. ii. 529). It is not, however, so much from this or any system of appointment that the regeneration of the university is to Q Rf-Diatribnti<>n of Kmloirnirnt Fiuul. be looked for. This can only come from a change in the spirit of the place a change which legislation cannot enact, and which, if it comes at all, must be very gradual. The bahuice in which men have been hitherto weighed has to be altered. In the storms of the sixteenth century, the university acquired a party character which it has never since lost It has always been assumed that university appoint- ments should be made with a reference to the interests of the church, or those interests as interpreted by one of the parties in the church. This false standard, which has hitherto perverted our judgment of men and things, has to be got rid of. In our effort to shake off the yoke of party, we have encouragement and aid from a public opinion outside a public opinion which is not hostile to the Established Church, but which is desirous to see it constituted on a more national basis. But it is not enough that a party standard of judging should die out here; it must be superseded by another and truer measure of academical fitness; and here we have the difficulty that there is no public opinion outside to aid. Beyond the circles of scientific men circles so isolated as to be infected in no small degree with the spirit of clique there is no public appreciation of abstract science or pro- found learning. The dependence of culture and civilisation on the maintenance somewhere in the body-politic of the theories of the various arts of life is not understood among us. We have in English no word by which to render the German Wissetwchaft. We mean by science that which admits demonstrative or experimental proof, as opposed to art, practice, or literature. But the German term is much more comprehensive, and is applicable to the methodical Studies preliminary to the Degree. 227 and abstract treatment of any matter whatsoever. Wissen- schaft expresses the purpose and aim for which a university exists. Not that in a university, any more than in the world at large, man is for knowledge. Much rather is knowledge for man. Not to enlarge the sciences, or to heap up libraries, is our object, but to maintain through successive generations an order of minds, in each of the great departments of human inquiry, cultivated to the utmost point which their powers admit of. Upon the prevalence and realisation of this idea depends the life of a university. But this is a conception which cannot be imported into Oxford from without, either by public opinion or the Legislature, because neither the public nor the Legis- lature can give an idea or a sentiment which they do not themselves possess. The idea, however, exists in germ in the university itself. It is sure to grow and develop itself under favourable influences. All that the Legislature can do is to create the conditions, or to remove the obstructions. SEC. 6. OF THE STUDIES PRELIMINARY TO THE DEGREE. I. "Pass" and " Class." In treating the question, What studies shall compose the curriculum for young men passing through a university ? one of two methods is usually adopted by speakers or writers. One mode of treatment is the abstract. The writer lays down a psychological principle of education. He will say, e.g., that the business of education is the communica- tion of that knowledge which has most value for the conduct (<> l/i of life. And from this he will proceed to deduce the rule that a university should teach all those brandies of know- ledge, the practical applications of which are required to guide or adorn human life. To this a counter-theorist will reply, that education should be, not initiative into truth, but disciplinal ; that its object is to develop faculty, and not to fill with knowledge ; that if you pour in truths before you have created the powers of assimilation, mental growth is stunted. And from this he will deduce the rule that a university curriculum should be laid out upon such studies as form the best intellectual gymnastic, irrespec- tive of their application. The other method of deciding the question is the empirical one. This is to recommend promiscuously this, that, and the other Mink, which, for any reason what- ever, has been found by experience to have value; to plant all these together in the university, and to let the student compose a curriculum, by taste or accident, out of any combination of these. Essays of great value have been produced upon both these systems. To confine myself to English names, Dr. Whewell and Dr. Newman, Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Mill, have contributed, from various points of view, most important element* to the discussion. A review of the controversy on the principles of complete education is not within the scope of the present " Suggestions." I am to confine myself to considering the existing arrangements of Oxford, and to proposing any modifications of those arrange- ments, which, without departing too far from our traditional practice, may tend to make that practice more consistent with itself, and less open to some serious objections, than Studies preliminary to the Degree. 229 it now is. The task to be here attempted lies midway between a philosophical investigation of educational prin- ciples, and framing the details of a statute of studies. That not merely a revision, but an entire re-cast, of the statute " De Exercitiis," commonly called the " Examina- tion Statute," is required, is, I believe, an opinion fast gaining ground among us. A labour so full of detail cannot be attempted by an individual. Nor is it one to which any of the existing machinery of our legislation is equal. It ought to be intrusted, not to a committee of Council or Congregation, but to a special delegacy constituted for the purpose, on the system of representing all the branches of study to be admitted here. In saying that the business of such a delegacy would be to re-cast the examination statute, it is not meant that all that now exists would be swept away, and a new course of studies inaugurated. What is meant is that, for piece- meal amendment, which has gone on for some time, should be substituted an articulate organisation, founded on principles of education which we need not be ashamed to avow and defend against assailants. But the organisa- tion would be an organisation of that which exists. Even the things studied would remain in great part what they now are. But they would be better arranged, classified, divided. What are the general principles upon which such a re- vision must proceed ? I must here assume that the reader has a general acquaintance with the courses of study at present pre- scribed for Oxford students. Those who desire more detailed information may find it in The Oxford Calendar, _':;<> Studies preliminary to the Degree. published annually, or in Education in Oxford, by Pro- fessor Rogers, or in POM and Class, 3d edition, an Oxford guide-book, by Professor Burrows. An historical account of the successive changes in the course of studies from 161*6, the date of the Laudian statute, will be found in the Report of the 0. U. Commission, 1852, p. 60, seq. In order to an understanding of what our arrangements actually are, a distinction must be attended to, the im- portance of which could not be gathered either from the examination statute or from any printed directions. This is the distinction between what is compulsory on all, and what is left to voluntary ambition the distinction be- tween " Pass " and " Class." The essential bearing of this distinction on the university question is not appre- ciated by the public outside. " The common impression is, that obtaining the ordinary degree is a very creditable and quite satisfactory achievement, while the class-list con- tains the names of some few wonderfully-clever and hard- working students, who are not uncommonly supposed to have ruined themselves for life by their exertions, and to be great fools for their pains " (Burrows, Pass and Class, p. 8). It is a great merit of Professor Burrows' guide- book that it insists on this distinction, and gives it its proper prominence. But because the " Pass " is a nullity, it is not enough to exhort the student not to rest satisfied with it We must not close our eyes to the fact that the honour-students are the only students who are undergoing any educational process which it con be considered as a function of a university either to impart or to exact ; the only students who are at all within the scope of the scien- tific apparatus and arrangements of an academical body. Studies preliminary to the Degree. 231 This class of students cannot be estimated at more than 30 per cent of the whole number frequenting the university. 2. The Pass Examinations. The remaining 70 per cent not only furnish from among them all the idleness and extravagance which is become a byeword throughout the country, but cannot be considered to be even nominally pursuing any course of university studies at all. For the pass-man, the university is but an unmeaning repetition of the school. Sent up here at nineteen, not having learned what he might have learned by sixteen, we have the option of teaching him nothing at all, or of teaching him over again what he has already been five or six years in not learning. The attempt even to do this is often vain, owing to a habit of dunce-hood which has been acquired by the v passive resistance of the mind to the reiteration of the same matter. It was at one time the fashion to say that the idleness of the pass-man was due to the narrowness of the university course. " Give them," said Sir Charles Lyell, " instruction congenial to their tastes, and let them see clearly that it has a distinct bearing on their future occupations and callings" (0. U. C. Evidence, p. 119). The university has admitted modern subjects. A small but valuable class of men has been withdrawn from inactivity by the new career thus opened to them. This is the class who, either from ill health, want of early opportunity, or other cause, had not a grammatical grounding early enough in life to allow of their entering as competitors in the regular classical competition. But their number is small. The total of J.tJ Stii.l!,* jtrJ'nninnnj to t/ />,,//,,. those who take honours in the other three non-classical schools together, only amounts to some 50 |>er annum. The bulk of the pass-men still remains to be dealt with. A favourite remedy for the evil with the first race of university reformers was a matriculation examination. " The very first step to university reform," says Archbishop Whately, " should be a university examination preliminary to matriculation." And the commissioners " fully concur with the general opinion to the same effect expressed in the evidence" (0. U. C. Report, pp. 68, 70). Since 1852, when this was the prevailing opinion, " Responsions " has been advanced to the first term of the student's residence, and has become, in fact, a matriculation examination. For though to pass " Responsions" in the first term is an option and not an obligation, yet the colleges endeavour to bring up the standard of their matriculation examinations to what is required by the university at " Responsions." With what success we learn from one of the masters of the schools, Mr. 0. Ogle. Out of 168 candidates in March 1863, fifty-one were plucked, sixteen took their names off after paper work, and 101 passed. Out of the fifty-one plucked, forty-three were in a state of unfitness to undergo any examination. "lam perfectly clear that the failure of all of that class whose work I have had the opportunity of examining was not owing to special ignorance of the particular subjects re- quired, but to ignorance of such a nature as to render them unfit to undergo any examination whatever, on any subject whatever. An ignorance of the easiest principles and rudiments of language, an inextricable confusion of thought, a perfect inability to do more than guess at the meaning of Studies preliminary to the Degree. 233 a question asked, an absence of ordinary facility in spelling or constructing a sentence in English these are the unhappy characteristices of the whole class. . . . Thus a large minority of the young men who matriculate are not only entirely unfit to satisfy the requirements of the place, but are in a state which renders it almost hopeless to expect that they ever will be fit to do so. Their hope and the hope of their friends is, not that they will rise in time to the standard, but that in time the standard will be low enough to meet their cases, and that, with luck assisting, they will so get through. And this is a perfectly legitimate hope as matters now stand. The standard has been sensibly lowered, and the proportion of plucks has sensibly increased. As a private tutor of considerable experience, I am bold to say that ever since the introduction of the new system . . . the standard of requirement in responsions has been falling lower " (0. Ogle, Letter to the Fice-Chancellor, 1863). A matriculation examination, then, for such the " Little- go " now practically is, has been proved by experience to be no remedy for the evil. That it must have failed as a remedy is a result which can surprise no one who has had the opportunity of observing closely the working of examin- ations. While a competitive system stimulates ambition and effort, a minimum standard of requirement depresses all to the level of the lowest. It is the difference between voluntary work for a prize and compulsory task-work the difference, so well understood in economics, between the value of free and slave labour. The paralysis of intel- lectual action produced by a compulsory examination is not more remarkable than its effect in depressing moral energy. For as examinations have been multiplied upon the unhappy pass-man, the help afforded him to pass them 234 Studies preliminary to the Degree. has been increased in proportion. He has got to lean more and more upon his tutor, and to do less and less for himself. It is become a favourite view with u- to pride ourselves upon our superiority to the last academical generation on the ground that the college tutors " work " so much harder. They do indeed work ; they drudge. For they aim at taking upon themselves the whole strain of effort It is a point of honour with them to get their pupils "through." The pupil has ceased to struggle, to help himself; more and more is done for him. The pupils mind is wholly passive. The old metaphor, "clay in the hands of the potter," is no longer applicable to the process. For no form is imposed upon the ductile material. Molle lutum it remains to the last The examinations have destroyed teaching, which may be said to be a lost art among us. The student is not taught the things in which he is examined. He is prepared to pass an examination in them a very different process. The first generation of Oxford reformers, represented by Archbishop Whately, may be pardoned for having overlooked the distinction betwvni competitive and compulsory examinations. This important difference naturally escaped notice in our first enthusiasm for examinations. Seeing the marvellous effects of the examination system inaugurated in 1800, in awakening life in this place, a belief grew up that examinations could accomplish everything. We now know better the limits of their power. The inertia of the pass-man is not to be overcome by multiplying examinations upon him, and taking upon yourself to find the additional power required to force him through them. A different remedy for the evil complained of has been Studies preliminary to the Degree. 235 recently proposed, and received among us with some favour to reduce, viz., the three years' residence to two. The fact alleged viz. that all which we now profess to teach in three years might be taught in two cannot be disputed. But, on the same ground, the two years might be reduced to one. For the final examination at the end of the third year does not exact a more advanced know- ledge of Latin and Greek than the preliminary examina- tion of responsions, passed in the first term. The books are changed, that is all. The undergraduate is worried by a succession of three examinations, but hi point of ac- quirement is left at the end of them where they found him. Accordingly, some more logical and hardy reformers have already asked, " Why should he reside in Oxford at all ? Why one year any more than two ? As preparation for an examination is all, let him prepare himself how and where he will ; provided he passes our test, that is all we need know of him." It will be impossible in the end to resist this inference, whatever compromise with time may be accepted for the moment. The university has placed itself in a position, with respect to the pass-men i.e. 70 per cent of her whole scholars hi which no reason can be shown why their presence in her lecture-rooms should be required at all. For as the pass-standard requires no special know- ledge, such as can be possessed only by professors, but is equally shared by hundreds of teachers, masters in schools, clergy, and others up and down the country, the preparation can be more conveniently and cheaply made at home. The university can still do all she does at present examine and give the degree. 230 Studies preliminary to the Degree. While time is slowly preparing this result that, viz., of resolving the university of Oxford, like that of London, into an examining body let us fairly face the question, Is this operation of examining against a pass-standard one worthy of a university, and is the minimum attainment required for a pass worthy of being denoted by a degree in arts? Nothing but tradition and habit could ever have reconciled us to such a degradation of our laurels. The progress of things, should it take the direction of the present "Suggestions," will answer this question. Let Oxford once resume its higher functions, let it become the home of science and the representative of the best learning of the time, and what is now called a pass-degree will be seen at once to be an incongruity. It is an incongruity which the examination system has served to place in a clear light. While the B.A. was conferred for residence alone, as was the cose from the Restoration to 1800, it denoted an unknown quantity of culture derived or deriv- able from four years of pupillary existence. When a pass- examination was instituted, was clearly severed from the honour- examination, and the quantum of attainment actually designated by the B.A. ascertained, those two letters lost their mysterious significance. It is now well understood that they denote no grade of intellectual cultivation, but have a merely social value. They are an evidence that a youth has been able to afford not only the money, but, what is impossible to so many, the time, to live throe years among gentlemen, doing nothing, as a gentleman should. It is thought by many university reformers that any proposal to revive the real meaning of degrees, higher or Studies preliminary to the Degree. 237 lower, is a piece of antiquarian pedantry. The degrees have become social badges ; men are willing they should remain so, and that the revival of the university should be sought by means which should leave its mere forms un- disturbed, to die out, or to continue as empty forms un- worthy of attention. I quite agree as to the impolicy of seeking reform by the method of resuscitating a bygone age. The folly of feudal revivals is a lesson not likely to be forgotten by those who remember events in Prussia twenty years ago. This is no question of a recurrence to a defunct past, of restoring meaning to decayed symbols, a mere ritualistic phase of academical reform. I would as soon think of proposing to prohibit by statute the use of the title " Esquire " by those not legally entitled to it, as of proposing that the letters B.A. should once more signify that the bearer had acquired the seven arts. But I cannot think that any academical reform will ever be a radical cure, which does not deal with, and remodel, the degrees both higher and lower. These " Suggestions " are revolu- tionary, not in any dangerous sense, but inasmuch as their aim is to transfer the whole fabric of the university from the ground of social prestige wealth, rank, and aristocratical connection on which it now stands, to that of science, learning, and culture. The university should say to the candidate for matriculation, in the words of Theophrastus, " i]roi rbv Xo'yoi' aiptTi, ToXyg ya^ 6 irwot, % x,aXu$ alirOj /",//',.> jtnliniiiuii-jf t aidiiiL: the growth in numbers and influence of the " reading men." Only public opinion among the under- graduates themselves can make ignorance and idleness disreputable among them. It is far from liopdi'ss to win over a percentage of the aristocratical idle to an interest in intellectual pursuits. There is much generosity of temper among them, and no lack of quickness of apprehension. In the " minor morals," they often contrast favourably with youths of inferior breeding. This is not a case for laws and statutes, but for individual enterprise. A reform of Christ Church, it has been said, would be half a reform of the university. If only the sympathies of a minority of the young aristocracy could be enlisted on the side of self-improvement, a vast step would have been gained. 3. The Examinatiom for Honours. It is with a sense of relief that we turn from the case of the pass-men to that of the honour-students. It is to turn from our most conspicuous failure to what is at least a com- parative success. The honour-students i.e., about thirty per cent of our whole number receive here an education which benefits them in intellect and character. As this re- sult represents the total product of the university as it is at present constituted, it is natural and desirable that it should be closely scanned and criticised. A just estimate of the qualitative value of an Oxford training is very difficult to arrive at It has been as severely censured by its enemies as it has been extravagantly lauded by its advocates. The value of the Oxford mintage is more than ever just now a topic of debate in speeches and pamphlets. It is no longer now, as in the days of Studies preliminary to the Degree. 243 Coplestone and the Edinburgh Review, an attack and defence of existing institutions ; it is a genuine desire on both sides to ascertain the true principles of a liberal education. As has been already said, these " Suggestions " do not embark on this wider philosophical discussion; but as there are some points in our system of examination for honours which seem to require emendation, it is necessary, for the explanation of such proposed emendations, to refer them to the principles on which they proceed. The compulsory examination and the pass-degree being supposed abolished, and a voluntary examination outside the university for youths under eighteen substituted for it, the next step follows as of course. The present standard of honours must become the qualification for the degree. The B.A. is superfluous, and may be dropped. The M.A. degree may be taken at the end of three years' residence by all whose names appear in any of the four classes in any of the schools. Residence must be at all costs preserved as a qualifica- tion. It is easy to foresee that the proposal for diminishing or abolishing residence will be received with growing favour as an easy solution of the university difficulty. It is one of those solutions which cuts the knot it ought to untie. It saves expense and time, it preserves from dangers and social contamination, but it does so by abolishing education. Mr. Goldwin Smith's scheme for allowing persons brought up in affiliated colleges to get the Oxford degree by examination, is an exaggerated development of the examin- ation system. So far from giving a farther extension to that system, it seems to me that the time has arrived when 244 Studies preliminary to the Degree. it is imperatively necessary to curtail it of the undue pro- portion* it has acquired among us. The system inaugurated, or rather restored, in 1800 has been to us a means of renewed life. But its work is now done. It ha* made us aware of the value of education, and given us energy to pursue it. But we now find that, after first encroaching on education, it has ended by destroying it Teaching is ex- tinct among us. Oxford is now, with respect to its candidates for honours, little more than an examining body. The professors, we are told, lecture to empty walls. The enemies of learning exult over this failure, which tliry pre- dicted, of the professoriate. What has caused this failure' > The tyranny of the examination system. This tyranny has destroyed all desire to leant. All the aspirations of a liberal curiosity, all disinterested desire for self-improve- ment, is crushed before the one sentiment which now animates the honour-student, to stand high in the class-list. Dr. Pusey has painted, for our avoidance, a picture of a German sophist preaching some wild and novel theory in order to attract a crowd of unfledged enthusiasts round his chair. That theories have power to attract, implies at least enthusiasm for knowledge, an enthusiasm with which we cannot but sympathise, however much we regret its mal- appropriation. No professor here in Oxford need fear to become dangerously popular by a similar course. If he wishes for any auditors at all, he must make himself sub- servient to the examination schools. That "enthusiastic veneration which young men of loyal and well-conditioned minds are apt to contract for men of intellectual eminence within their own circle" (Masson, Mod. Culture, p. 303), is not unknown among us, but it is bestowed, not on science Studies preliminary to the Degree. 245 or attainment, but on the trainer who has turned out the largest number of winning horses. Let it not be supposed that I am desirous of directing a diatribe against examination. Examination has its place in education, a place perfectly understood by us all in theory, however widely our practice may have deviated into extravagance. It is the sequel and supplement of a definite course of study. It is necessary to the student as " the only means of making distinct to him his knowledge and his ignorance" (Dr. Arnold, Letters). It is necessary to the teacher to find out at what point to take up his instruction. Coming at the close of the university curri- culum, it ascertains and proclaims to the community with what industry the course of study has been followed. It is only when the relative position of the two momenta of the student's existence is inverted when, instead of being questioned on the matters learned, he learns only how to stand being questioned, that examination becomes an evil. A sophistic art is found to have taken the place of a scien- tific training. A vague and windy rhetoric has supplanted solid acquisition. As early as 1838 the tendencies of an overdriven system of examination had become apparent in Cambridge. Dr. Whewell clearly perceived the danger, and laid down the just relation between teaching and examining : " By indirect teaching, I mean a course of education in which the student's exertions are directed mainly towards examinations, disputations, or some other public trial of his acquirements ; and in which he is led to acquire knowledge principally by the prospect of the distinctions, honours, or advantages, which attend upon success in such trials. I dis- 240 Studiet preliminary to the Degree. tinguish such teaching from that direct teaching in which instructions are given as claiming the student's attention on the ground of their own value ; and in which they are recom- mcndfd to him by his own love of knowledge, by the al\ ! and authority of his instructor, and the general sympathy of the body in which he lives. " In the English Universities there has always been a combination of these two kinds of teaching ; and such a com- bination is, I conceive, the best scheme of education. In the selection and management of each of these elements there are some considerations of grave importance which I will briefly state. ** The college lectures and other college instruction appear to have been, till recently, of the nature of direct teaching. The studies thus presented to the pupil were considered as sufficiently recommended by the injunctions of the college and the parental authority of the tutors, without reference to ulterior objects. The public disputations, and those which must be performed in order to obtain a degree, formed a scheme of indirect teaching ; and the college teaching was consistent with this, but was far from being considered as merely ministerial to it Several subjects were introduced into the courses of college instruction which have no reference to those public trials, and which were selected by the authorities of the college because they were considered as valuable for their own sake, and proper parts of a liberal education. But A strong dig]K>sition has manifested itself of late years, in the University of Cambridge at least, to give a great preponder- ance to the indirect system ; to conduct our education almost entirely by the means of examinations, and to consider the lectures given in the colleges as useful only in proportion as they prepare the student for success in the examinations. "The university must have tests of proficiency, to be applied before her degrees and honours are granted. There must therefore be university examinations. On the other Studies preliminary to the Degree. 247 hand, it must always be recollected that examinations are a means, not an end ; that a good education, a sound and liberal cultivation of the faculties, is the object at which we ought to aim ; and that examinations cease to be a benefit when they interfere with this object. " The knowledge which is acquired for the purpose of an examination merely is often of little value or effect as mental culture, compared with that knowledge which is pursued for its own sake. When a man gives his mind to any subject of study on account of a genuine wish to understand it, he follows its reasonings with care and thought, ponders over its difficul- ties, and is not satisfied till all is clear to his mental vision. When he studies for an examination, he does not wish to understand, but to appear to understand ; he cares not for un- solved difficulties in his mind, if the examiner detect them not ; he wishes to see clearly only, in order that he may ex- press himself clearly. What is acquired for an examination is likely to be soon forgotten ; the mind is bent upon it with an effort, which, though strong at the tune, is felt to be tem- porary, and is followed by a relapse into apathy and oblivious- ness. The habit of preparing for examinations makes other studies appear flat and insipid. The mind craves for the ex- citement to which it has been accustomed ; it becomes restless and volatile, and loses the appetite for quiet thought and patient study. If examinations become too frequent, all good courses of study are interfered with. It is impossible to arrange public examinations so as to point out a succession of subjects which forms a good system for all " (On the Principles of English University Education, 2d ed., 1838). Towards the meritorious working institutions for higher education which are rising up in our centres of population, at Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, fear, jealousy, or contempt are not the sentiments we can feel. Let us wish them all success in their efforts in the common cause, and 248 Studies preliminary to the Degree give them sympathy, and, if in our power BO to do, nii-l education. " Education is a high word ; it is nothing less than a formation of mind." It in impossible for those who enter into the significance of this dictum of Dr. Newman not to join with him in his indignant protest : 44 I protest to you, gentlemen, that if I had to choose be- tween a so-called university which dispensed with residence and tutorial superintendence, and gave its degrees to any per- son who passed an examination in a wide range of subjects, and a university which had no professors or examinations at all, but merely brought a number of young men together for three or four years, and then sent them away, as the univer- sity of Oxford is said to have done some sixty years since, if I were asked which of these two methods was the better disci- pline of the intellect mind I do not say which is morally the better, for compulsory study must be a good, and idleness an intolerable mischief but if I must determine which of the two courses was the most successful in training, moulding, en- larging the mind ; which sent out men the more fitted for their secular duties ; which produced better public men men of the world, men whose names would descend to posterity I have no hesitation in giving the preference to that university which did nothing, over that which exacted of its members an acquaintance with every science under the sun. And, paradox as this may seem, still, if results be the test of systems, the influence of the public schools and colleges of England, in the course of the last century at least, will bear out one side of the contrast as I have drawn it " (J. H. Newman, Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education, 1852, p. 232). This, then, is a principle to be kept in view in recasting our statute " De Exercitiis" viz., that the examination must be restored to its proper place, and that is one of Studies preliminary to the Degree. 249 subordination to the curriculum of study, whatever that curriculum may be. Instead of, as now, the examination regulating the student's preparation, and the examiner being supreme over the teacher, the position should be reversed. The examination should follow the course of study, arranged from time to time among the professors of each faculty, organised into a college of studies for that faculty. Here emerges the question as to compulsory attendance at courses of lecture. Are the students, as part of the qualification for the degree, to be required to attend given courses of lectures, and to produce a testamur of attend- ance from the instructor, along with a testamur of pro- ficiency from the examiner ? There is much to be said against this requirement. It seems to introduce in another form that compulsion to learn which we have said defeats its own end, and to avoid which we have abolished compulsory examination. Our own experience seems against it. The attempt, some years ago, to compel certificate of attendance on two (at least) courses of professors was abandoned after a short trial as a confessed failure. The experience of German universities is, I believe, not favourable. The Belgian reporter on the University of Berlin says : " Among us in Belgium, the student, on entering the uni- versity, finds his programme of study ready for him, and he has but to undergo it passively. In Germany each student forms his own programme, and displays in following it the ardour which might be expected in the pursuit of subjects of his own choosing. In the selection of his professors he enjoys the same entire freedom as in the selection of his subjects. J.M> Studies preliminary to the Degree. According to his tastes and his abilities he attaches himself t<> thi or that teacher. He is not even bound by the partition into faculties which serves as the basis of the teaching. Till the day of his examination he does not belong rigorously to any one faculty, but takes up with any professor or any course which happens to suit him. Thus, from the first days of his academical lit'.-, the German student is habituated to act and judge for himself, and thus is developed in him that sponta- neity which is the germ of true science. This is the secret of the high value which Germany has always attached to free study" (Banning, Rapport sur FUnivcrsite de Berlin ; Bruxelles, 186 3, p. 24). Horfreiheit, however, does not imply a liberty to attend o lectures, but only a freedom of choice as to what, and in what order, he will select In some universities (e.g., Jena, see rescript of 12th July 1852) students who have not, at the end of the first week of the semester, given in their names to any lectures, are to be summoned before the authorities and compelled to inscribe themselves. Faculty students, too, who are about to enter a profession, are obliged, before passing their public examination, to promt a certificate (abgangszeugnisa), on the face of which appears the courses they have attended. Zwangscollcgien, by which term is denoted given courses which must be attended, though an experiment often tried, have always been given up as failures. The utmost that is usually attempted is advice as to the order in which lectures should be taken. The experience of Erlangen, as reconlrtl by Von Runnier, may be taken as the general experience : " Here the rule used te> be that every student must attend in his first year courses on universal history, physics, logic, philology, mathematics, and natural history. At the end o Studies preliminary to the Degree. 251 the time the poor wretches were examined, all at once, on all these subjects, and till they had passed this examination they could not begin their faculty studies. These six courses were called derisively the Freshmen's courses (Fiichsen collegien). They were attended reluctantly and negligently, and were as oppressive and discouraging to the professors who had to give as to the students who had to attend them" (Von Kaumer, Geschichte der Padagogik, iv. 224). Fleisstabelle and fleisscontrole, or attempts to enforce diligent attendance, have also, though often tried, had to be abandoned. Where they are still maintained, they are easily evaded. Cases are said to be not rare where a student has obtained a certificate of attendance at a given course of lectures, while he was known to be not even re- siding in the place, or even to be engaged in some other occupation, such as private tuition in some nobleman's house. It can hardly be, as one hears sometimes alleged, that there are material difficulties in the way of registering attendance. There is, I think, a secret dislike, shared both by teachers and learners, of the restraint a dislike which makes the most stringent official rescripts and injunctions on this head inoperative. This is not from any ignorant impatience of control ; no people are more docile to police regulations than the German but from a keen perception of the inutility, as learning, of what is compulsorily learned. Taubmann long ago defined the student as "animal quod non vult cogi sed persuaderi." MM. Beer and Hochegger, in their criticism of the new system of studies, introduced into the University of Vienna in 1856, say " The rule prescribing a fixed and graduated course of pro- Studies preliminary to the Degree. greoave study for each year of the student's residence, has not, in our opinion, justified itself by its results. The unlimited choice of studies (sludienfreiheit), which is allowed in some other German universities, has in no instance been productive of any bad consequences. Nowhere has this liberty undermined (as it was urged it would) the order of sequence arranged for the public lectures. Yet, in other universities, youth is not less thoughtless nor less lazy than in the Austrian, if these were faults which ought to decide in favour of the principle of com- pulsory courses (lehrzwang). But, we may ask in return, has the system of compulsory courses anywhere been found to fill the lecture-rooms, or to call out scientific exertion in the stu- dent 1 Looking to the vast differences of individual capacity, can one common course of lectures for all be said to be the treatment indicated 1 We are convinced, for our part, that freedom in the choice of his courses can be allowed the student without material danger to the benefits of a university life. Let admission to the public examination for'the civil and other services be made dependent upon a certificate of attendance at a given number of lectures in the faculty of law and the poli- tical sciences, by all means. Require also that some courses of lectures in the philosophical faculty shall have been attended, but do not go on to exact attendance at any given course of lectures in any faculty. . . . Beyond fixing the number of compulsory attendances, all may be left to the student him- self. Should any individual pupil make a preposterous selec- tion of courses, he will be admonished by the deans and pro- fessors, whose duty it is. But there is little reason to fear this, since in all German universities there is a traditional order of -ion in which the MKDMQ HfetftkflQ, :ui\ -t-m had naturalised itself in Vienna even before 1855. We have had no rescript fixing the courses for the faculty of medicine, yet the common sense of the students has directed them to the proper order. It would never occur to a medical pupil to attend a clinical course before he had laid a foundation by Studies preliminary to the Degree. 253 courses on anatomy, physiology, and pathology. A system of guardianship and tutorial nursing is as prejudicial in science as in economics" (Die Fortschritte des Unterrichtswesens, 1867, vol. L p. 641). Experience and reason seem to be both united in favour of the "voluntary principle" as an indispensable condition of the higher education. But all liberty must be realised through law. We offer the degree, but on conditions. We exact residence ; we test proficiency by examination. May we not go further, and prescribe a curriculum of lectures ? I think we may, if such a con- dition is not arbitrary, but is founded in the nature of the case. The failure of our former enactment, requiring cer- tificated attendance on two courses of professors' lectures, was owing to this being an arbitrary enactment. It was seen to be intended to keep up the professors, and provide them with an audience. The professor was an excres- cence on the examination system. To compel the student to attend him did but demonstrate his uselessness. For the professor is there as a teacher of science, and the examination was to be passed, not by acquiring science, but by being crammed for passing it. Under the scheme now proposed this will be no longer so. A degree will be offered as a prize to the student on two conditions 1. That he has gone through a defined curriculum of study ; 2. That he has done so with attention and profit. The courses of lectures delivered by the public teachers will henceforward be the centre of the system. When the teacherships are filled by men of real knowledge, and who are imbued with the idea of science, the teacher will no longer condescend to be guided in what he shall say by _V, J >Y.//..< ///,/// //mry In tin an examination in prospect The trade of the sophist will be gone when examination in fixed text-books is abolished. It may be objected that this predominance of the chair over the examination schools, of the teacher over the examiner, may be attainable in the sciences properly so called, certainly in the experimental and progressive sci- ences, and possibly even in the deductive ; but that it can never be attained in arts i.e. in literature, where the book, the literary chef (Tcwvre, is the object of study, and the expositor must necessarily be subordinate to the author. In the study of the classics, e.g., chamber-study mu-t always be not only indispensable, but superior to any courses of classical lectures. I shall be reminded of cases like that of Friedrich August Wolf, who found Heyne use- less to him, and made himself what he became by shuttiii'j himself up in his lodgings and exhausting in solitude the contents of the Gottingen library. It might be replied that Wolf did not forsake the lecture-room till he had learned much from Heyne ; that he took care, after he had quarrelled with his teacher, to keep himself informed through his fellow-students, of all that was done in Heyne's classes ; and that there was in his seclusion more bad temper than conviction of the in- utility of oral teaching. But, apart from the merits of a single case, it must be admitted that the contemplation of literary beauty must always be chiefly a devotion of soli- tude. So far as literature enters into the curriculum literature as distinct from philology the class-room can do little; the man will mostly be less than the book. But this will be the case, I apprehend, in no other depart- ment If, then, it shall appear that the cultivation of a Studies preliminary to the Degree. 255 literary taste ought no longer to be the central occupation of the academical student, and that the study of classical models should henceforth form only a subordinate part, instead of nearly the whole, of the business of a student in arts, the objection to a compulsory curriculum of public lecturing will lose its force. Besides, the really objectionable part of compulsory attendance is to compel attendance on a given course, or a given teacher. It was this against which Adam Smith's censure was directed. When he stigmatised the privileges of graduation only to be obtained by attending certain lectures, as a " statute of apprenticeship," he was thinking of his Balliol experience, where, under the college system (1740), each student entered as the pupil of one tutor, from whom alone he was to derive all the instruction he got. This monstrous abuse, by which a university ceases in fact to be a university, still maintains, it must be remembered, a modified existence among us, inasmuch as the student is still a compelled attendant on the three or four tutors of the college of which he happens to be a member, and is not free to attend lectures in another college. Let this monopoly be destroyed; let the scholar be free to select his teachers, and we need not anticipate any difficulty in getting the candidates for honours to submit to a prescribed order of the subjects taught. If occasionally humour, or self-conceit, should lead to a contempt of methods and teachers, we may be confident that such cases will be exceptional ones. The fact that at present the student for honours neglects the professor's lecture-room for the private lessons of a tutor, only a few years his own senior, is an artificial necessity Studie* preliminary to the Degree. created by the present system of examination. Ix-t tin- pressure of that system be removed, and the instincts of ingenuous love of knowledge and liU'nd curiosity will resume their sway ; the student will seek to learn from those who know. Adam Smith says " Where the masters really perform their duty, there are no examples, I believe, that the greater part of the students ever neglect theirs. No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the attending, as is well known whenever any such lectures are given. Force and restraint may, no doubt, be in some degree requisite, in order to oblige children or very young boys to attend to those parts of education which it is thought necessary for them to acquire during that early period of life ; but after twelve or thirteen years of age, provided the master does his duty, force or restraint can scarce ever be necessary to carry on any part of education. Such is the generosity of the greater part of young men, that, so far from being disposed to neglect or despise the instructions of their master, provided he shows some serious intention of being of use to them, they are gener- ally inclined to pardon a great deal of incorrectness in the performance of his duty, and sometimes even to conceal from the public a good deal of gross negligence " (JVtalih of Nations, v.l). These assertions may seem at first sight not borne out by our own experience of the university student; but we must remember that Adam Smith wrote from an experience of Oxford before the establishment of an examination com- pulsory on all. The divergence between his words and the facts with which we have to contend may perhaps afford a measure of the alienation from knowledge brought about by our compulsory system. The spectacle presented Studies preliminary to the Degree. 257 to Adam Smith was that of indolent, easy-going tutors, and neglected undergraduates willing to learn, but with no man to guide them. It is highly probable that it is an expression of his personal feelings. A fact re- corded of him by M'Culloch, though not mentioned by his biographer Dugald Stewart, represents the authori- ties of Balliol as not merely neglectful of their pupil, but as seeking to check his aspirations after philosophy : " Something had occurred, while Dr. Smith was at Oxford, to excite the suspicions of his superiors with regard to the nature of his private pursuits ; and the heads of his college having entered his apartment without his being aware, unluckily found him engaged reading Hume's Treatise of Human Nature. The objectionable work was, of course, seized; the young philosopher being at the same time severely reprimanded " ( " Life of Adam Smith," in M'Culloch's edition of Wealth of Nations, p. 2). Our experience presents us with the reverse picture : tutors zealous, diligent, inculcating industry, and spending their strength upon their pupils ; the pupils, on the other hand seventy per cent of them languid, uninterested, with their intellectual instincts and tastes not only undeveloped, but blunted by school grind, and overborne by a gladiatorial appetite for feats of the cricket-field. A compulsory attendance at lectures, when enforced for the sake of the purse, or the convenience, of the tutor, or for the purposes of discipline over the student, this compulsion was justly condemned by Adam Smith. But education is the being passed through a prescribed course, and subjected to a discipline. We not only may lay down such a course, but, if we offer education at all, we must do so. It is a s 258 Studies jn-iliintiiiirit In /// 7>.atli> of learning; from the vast mass of all that may be leanied and may be taught, to select what should Iw taught and learned. As, on its scientific side, the university is to be the cultivator of real learning ami productive science, as distinguished from the IKMlantries of erudition, or the vain subtleties of a meta- physical philosophy, so, on its elementary side, it is to offer a systematic course of initiatory study, which shall be the result of all the experience of the past, of the long educational experiment which has been going on ever since reason and intelligence began to be objects of cultivation. The existing system of Oxford education, regarded in its principle, is an attempt at an adjustment between two conflicting claims. I speak here of the honour-courses, which alone come within the range of the higher education, or deserve consideration in a discussion on university t min- ing. The conflict of claim is that between the special and the general. Every man has either to earn his bread, or at least to fulfil his functiom in life, through and in a profes- sion or calling, and for this purpose he requires the special knowledge and accomplishment proper to that calling. Every man is also a member of civil society, a participant in a common humanity, is a soul or mind capable of a development or perfection of its own, and for this purpose he may be the subject of a general or humane training and accomplishment Every one of us is, consciously or un- consciously, working out this double problem, to combine specialty of function with generality of culture. Different Studies preliminary to the Degree. 259 times and countries have formed different estimates of the value of these two elements of life respectively. These different estimates immediately influence the conduct of the higher education. At one time it will tend towards becoming wholly liberal and propa3deutic, at another it will be absorbed in the acquisition of the details of knowledge for practical application. In the last generation i.e. thirty years ago, to go no further back the Oxford curriculum was wholly liberal. Professional knowledge, whether for the three learned pro- fessions or for any other, could not be had at the university. We continued, nevertheless, to bestow the insignia of ac- complishment in divinity, law, and physic, but we made no attempt to teach a knowledge of them. The titles of D.D., D.C.L., and M.D., were, in fact, sold at a fixed price by the university, for the benefit of its exchequer, to any one who thought them worth purchasing. But no instruction was given here except in the faculty of arts. Arts were not treated as a faculty co-ordinate with the other three, immersed in a special investigation, and issuing in a separate pursuit ; they had come to be considered as entirely disciplinal. A good deal of energy, though blind and ill directed, was expended upon the three (or four) years over which this course was spread. Looking back upon that course at a distance of thirty years, those who passed through it know that it was not inoperative. It was, on the contrary, a powerful agent in stimulating the mind to grapple with difficulties. It was not truly, what it claimed to be, liberalising. It was too often productive of a narrow self complacency, a supercilious disdain of all that lay outside its own sphere i.e. of the whole circle of 200 Studies preliminary to the Degree. real knowledge. But the old double-first, with it* merits and defects, is now a thing of the past. It is only cited here as exhibiting an education which attempted to liber- alise without instructing, to form without informing. The Oxford first-classman of that day was received by the out- aide public and by the scientific world with mixed feelings. They submitted to the prestige of his honours, were irritated by his presumption, and astonished at his ignorance. This latter soon l>ecume the i>oint of attack upon tin- system. After a long struggle with opinion we had to give way. In 1850 two new schools that of law and history and that of physical science succeeded in establishing themselves, but in a subordinate position to the school of classics. Fifteen years more (1865), and the new schools had thrust aside the once supreme classics, and become alone a qualification for the degree. Classics may now be dropped entirely at moderations. This is the adjustment between the general and the special which was spoken of above. Up to 18C5, for more than three centuries, Oxford education had been wholly general, preparatory, formative. In 1 805 half the university career was surrendered to special studies. General educa- tion may, if the student so chooses, terminate in his scorn. I year of residence. The remainder of his time he may devote to the acquisition of real knowledge. We have compromised with public opinion, which charged, not un- truly, the Oxford model man with being an ignoramus, by offering to confer the Oxford stamp in half the time, and to give up the remaining half to special studies. Whether public opinion in this country will be satisfied with the concessions it has extorted from us I cannot pre- Studies preliminary to the Degree. 261 tend to say. But I am sure that we ourselves shall not long rest content with the clumsy adjustment of the problem which we patched up two years ago. We have made a breach in the system of education through the " classics " which was introduced by the Renaissance. We must prepare ourselves to abandon that system altogether. The steps which we have already taken are, I venture to think, steps in a right direction, but to make them safe we must go on. Our present arrangement can only be regarded as transitional can only be satisfactory to those who consider them as a halt or stage to break the shock of revolution. What is meant by saying that the steps have been in a right direction is, that the recognition of special studies as qualification for a degree is in conformity with the true principle of university education. I believe that a differ- ent view is current among English university men, and has the sanction of great names. To mention only three Schleiermacher, Dr. Whewell, and Dr. Newman, represen- tative men of their respective universities, seem to inculcate that the function of the university is disciplinal and forma- tive only, and that special study belongs to a later time, and not to the period of education. They may not agree as to the fittest medium of such liberal education Schleiermacher holding it to be modern philosophy, Dr. Whewell language and mathematics, and Dr. Newman (if I understand him rightly) classical literature ; but they seem agreed upon the principle of general training (Schlei- ermacher, Gedanken tiber Universitdten, Werke, i. 561, etc. ; Whewell, Principles, etc., 2d ed. p. 37, etc. ; Newman, Discourses on University Education : Dublin, 1852). On the other hand, the German university exhibits a system in 202 Stutlieg preliminary to the I which the university course is almost wholly special ; the liberal and propaedeutic studies are relegated to the gram- mar-school. I think the arrangement to which circum- stances have driven us in Oxford to be in principle much nearer the truth. That is, we have opened the way for the division of the university curriculum into two stages. Wo assign, r.g. t the first year and a half, or three semesters, to complete and carry further the general training begun at school, and then allow the student to transfer himself to the professional study of some one of several distinct branches proposed to him. The vindication of the principle that the end and aim of the highest education must be the exclusive devotion of the mind to some one branch of science, cannot be attempted here. Such a vindication involves both a dis- cussion of our mental constitution, and a survey of the history of universities, either of which are much beyond my present limits. No one will dispute that, in the development of the mind, there comes an epoch where a discursive ranging from province to province of informa- tion must give way to the inverse process of concentrating the energies of the intellect in undivided intensity upon some one object The necessity for so doing is forced upon most men by the external pressure of a profession. Even to the favoured few whom fortune may have raised above such compulsion from without, the conviction is soon brought home by experience, that if they would know any- thing as it can be known, they must restrain their inves- tigations to narrow limits. The division of labour is the law of mental, no less than of manufacturing, production. " In every instance of genuine originality, a powerful Studies preliminary to the Degree. 263 mental bias in the direction of some one particular subject never fails to manifest itself along with that activity of the reasoning faculties which constitutes the essential charac- teristic of intellectual maturity. The most marked pe- culiarity in the practical education of manhood, when compared with that of an earlier period, is perceived in the fact of its being accomplished by means of specific and definite studies, instead of mere generalities " (Kirk- patrick, Conception of the University, p. 72). That this change in the direction of the mental powers takes place in life must be admitted as a fact. The only point that can be questioned is, Ought this change to be postponed till after education is finished ? Can the higher education be completed by general processes ? Can intellect be fully formed by formal discipline without special knowledge ? The old university system, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, answered this question in the negative. The practice of Oxford, for the last three centuries, since the introduction of the classics as the instrument of educa- tion, has been founded on the opposite theory. It is essential to the revival of the university that it should recur to the older system. The principle of the old university system was a combination of the general and the special. The Faculty of Arts was not a faculty co- ordinate with those of divinity, law, and medicine, but was a course of study introductory to them. It was disci- plinal, not scientific ; a means, not an end ; incomplete until carried out into one of the faculties. No one could commence student in any of the three faculties till he had taken the degree of M. A. The university is " founded in arts," was the old dictum; and, historically, the other 264 Studies preliminary to the Degree. faculties came into l>cing subsequently to tluit of arts, out of which they were developed. As tin- faculties grew out of art*, so the colleges grew out of the faculties; for a main object of founders of colleges was to provide the means for poor regent masters to " continue " (continuare) or go on residing as students of one of the higher faculties. Hence the usual condition of a fellowship in the older foundations was the proceeding within a time fixed to the degree of Doctor. The prolonged term required for the faculty studies necessitated a provision for the student during the process. The projwsal made in the first part of these " Sugges- tions," for the application of the college endowments, was in fact a proposal for the revival of faculty, or special, studies. The proposal provides for a permanent, or at least a continued, residence in the university of the recipient of the benefaction. It was therefore only a provision for after-studies, and not for education properly so called. Besides, the number of persons who could be employed as professor-fellows must be small insignificant in com- parison with the whole number of those who would be candidates for a degree. The principle I am now contending for goes further still in the direction of specialising study. I am contending for the introduction of definite, or faculty, studies at an earlier period of the curriculum, and for all students not for those only ulio become recipients of endowed funds. Here it may be objected that this is by no means the old university system, for that system gave seven years to the preliminary course in arts, before the faculty studies could be commence! 1 ; while what is now proposed is to begin, and, for the mass Studies preliminary to the Degree. 265 of students, to complete, the special studies within the three years. It might be sufficient to answer, that, of the septennium required for the arts degree in the old system the greater portion is now spent at school. The modern student does, in fact, give a greater, and not a less, time to general studies. For the B.A., which now terminates general education, is seldom taken before twenty-two, while it is probable that twenty-one, or earlier still, was formerly the usual age for the attainment of the M.A. But it will be understood that, in appealing to ancient precedent, nothing is further from my purpose than a mere restoration of the old for restoration's sake. That a practice was in force in the thirteenth century, forms no reason at all for recommending its adoption now. The necessity for founding the higher education on faculty studies lies in the reason of the thing, and not in the weight of authority or force of precedent. The higher education must be thorough ; it must take hold of the highest mental faculty, and form and develop it. This faculty is the scientific reason in its perfect form. The higher education must not quit its hold of the individual; nay, cannot be said to have taken hold of him, till it has developed in him the scientific habit. The imagination and the taste; the employment and discernment of language ; the perception of beauty by the eye ; to speak, to write, to argue, to reason ; all these are capacities or accomplishments to be improved, or formed by education at some period. But all these, beautiful as adjuncts, form only a superficial mental character, if the great work of education, the establishment of an exact habit of judgment, of the philosophical 260 Stmi;,-tt jH-tli'iniimri/ t I In' intellect, has not been achieved The acquisition of this habit cannot be made through generalities, or through literature, or by promiscuous reading. Still less is the scientific habit generated by the pantological schemes now so much in favour, which those who are their dui>c8 describe as "an adequate acquaintance with the funda- mental principles of all the principal departments of science." It can only be educed by setting the under- standing to investigate for itself the laws of some one chief department of knowledge, or division of objects. It is not the matters known that make science, but the mode of knowing. Popular language, which identifies science with physical science, creates much confusion in discussions on education. Anything whatever may be studied in a scientific spirit i.e. with a determination to know it exhaustively in its causes and mutations. " Science is nothing but trained and organised common sense ; and its vast results are won by no other mental process than those which are practised by every individual in the humblest and commonest affairs of life. The man of science simply uses with scrupulous exactness the methods which we all habitually, and at every moment, use carelessly" (Went- mimter Review, April 1801, article by Mr. Herbert Spencer). Hence no reception of truths as dicta on authority is science to the recipient ; and a man may be " acquainted " with the principles of all the sciences without having had a scientific education. Any object-matter constituting a distinct division of existences may become the object of scientific investiga- tion. But it is obvious that, not every such division of things that can be known is equally fitted for selection as Studies preliminary to the Degree. 267 an educational instrument. We cannot wholly neglect the results of knowledge in our selection. The special destiny of the subject of the education in his after-life must usually determine the character of the theoretical study to which he will attach himself. The higher education, as the portal through which the boy is to enter upon the duties of the man, must conform in its arrangements to those of the social system to which he belongs. Even the higher edu- cation, great as is the prerogative claimed for it, is not sovereign over life ; it must adapt itself to the requirements of daily existence. " An institution," says Mr. Kirkpatrick, " which stakes its whole credit and power in society upon refinement and intelligence, not evinced in any one particular form of efficiency, will inevitably disappear more and more from connection with a world of flesh and blood into a kindred cloud-land of unrealities and abstractions." Hence, in drawing up a curriculum for a university, or fixing the subjects to be studied, we must not be guided by the philosophical chart of human knowledge, absolutely viewed, but by the bearings of knowledge upon life. The old divi- sion into the three faculties of divinity, law, and physic, was a rude classification adapted to a simple state of society. It was true in principle. Our more complicated social system demands many more subdivisions of the uni- versity course, corresponding to the main lines of practical life as now open to the ambition of every Englishman. The church, the bar, and medicine ought no longer to be treated as peculiarly " the learned professions." There is no reason why every class of vocation in which intelligence and refinement are applicable, and in which a career of -V.;: Studies preliminary to the Degree. prosperity is opened to the practitioner, should not have a corresjxmding " Faculty" arranged for it in the university, where an appropriate training not practical and profes- sional, but theoretical and scientific might be had. Why should commerce and industry choose to remain under the stigma which the feudal system branded upon them, aa base employments, which necessarily excluded from the education which was reserved for the territorial seigneur and the cleric ? The London University now gives degrees in science (since 1858), in addition to those in arts, laws, and nmli- cine. The title is an absurdity. A degree in " science," which is no science in particular, is not an intelligible mark or designation. But the thing intended to be done is good, and the example ought to be followed by us. What the re-arrangement of the faculties should be, and of the schools and courses leading up to their respective degrees, is matter which will require profound deliberation by special com- mittees. Nor can it well be arranged by ourselves without the advice and co-operation of the Inns of Court, the Medi- cal Council, the Heads of the Government Offices, and other chief interests and occupations, which will in future come in for their share of liberal training. It will easily be understood that the degree in each of these schools, seeing it is to be obtainable at the cud of three or three and a half years, cannot imply any profound and exhaustive knowledge. Such a knowledge is not to be looked for till a later stage, and from those graduates who will continue in the university as teachers, public or private, with the view of becoming candidates for a lec- turer's place (fellow-lecturer) in their faculty. For the Studies preliminary to the Degree. 269 degree, we may adopt the words of the earliest examina- tion statute (1800) : " Nihil triste aut asperum molimur. Lenitati ubique consultum volumus, modo ne ea sit, quas junioram socordias patrocinari videatur " (Add. Statutt. tit. ix. sec. ii. 2, 1800). The class-list will not be more exclusive than it is at present. Indeed, with the enlarged choice of schools which will be offered, the various lists may be well expected to comprehend together a much larger total of names. The stimulus to be given by aca- demical reform is to be looked to, to add to the numbers of honour-students, not to screw up their exertions to an unnatural pitch. The efforts made at present by the best average students are probably as severe a strain as can safely be put upon the nervous energies at their time of life. The arrangement now proposed has in view to give a better direction to their studies, not to intensify the severity of the test. The examinations to be held in the new final schools, and the character of the preparatory study, will hold a place midway between the vague rheto- rical philosophising at present in vogue in the school of Literas Humaniores on the one hand, and merely technical and professional acquirement on the other. The faculty- student is not to be expected at twenty-two to have exhausted his subject; but he may have been initiated into an exhaustive method of learning it. He will not have become an accomplished philologer or a thorough phy- siologist; but he will have learned, by and through philology or physiology, what it is to know anything. He will have seen that " the highest excellence and no lower object can be proposed by him who is destined to accom- plish what is even creditable is alone to be attained by J7< Studies preliminary to the Degree. one who does not disperse, but gathers his powers of per- ceptions into a piercing intensity and singleness of view, enabling him to reach beyond the facile and commonplace into the dim and distant region of the undiscovered. The law of genial precognition in the subject is in the highest degree analogous with that of life and beauty in the object. In tensest unity is the soul of contemplation and ideal action, no less than of creative organisation " (Kirkpatrick, p. 75). 4. Faculty of Arts Honour Examinations. It remains to determine in what relation these facnltv- Btudics, and the degrees which terminate them, are to stand to the Faculty of Arts. Is the whole university course of three or three and a half years to be confined to the special faculty selected by each student to graduate in ? Or is the first portion of residence to be assigned to a course of general and preliminary studies common to all alike ? Do the conditions of the modern university require the recog- nition of a faculty of arts ? and, if so, what are the " arts " that should be studied in the faculty ? Turning to our existing practice, we find the arts degree in a quite anomalous state. Three schools stand side by side with the old school of Literee Humaniores vix. the mathematical, the physical, the law and modern history. In these three schools the studies are special so special as, in the physical and law schools (at least), to be of the nature of faculty - studies. In the school of Litene Huiiianiores, on the other hand, the studies are general, liberal, introductory to knowledge. Yet, by the present statute, the degree of ALA. ia given indifferently to the Studies preliminary to the Degree. 271 successful candidates for honours in all these schools. It is not that it designates equal proficiencies in distant subject-matters, which might be tolerable; but it is awarded indiscriminately as the title earned by a course of special, or by one of general, study. It would be more intelligible, as well as more conformable to usage, that the faculty degrees should bear each their proper name, and that the term " arts " should remain restricted to that course common to all the students before they have diverged into their several faculties. This common course of study is at present represented by the moderation and final school of Literse Humaniores. For pure mathe- matics are so little followed in Oxford, that the mathe- matical honour course may be thrown out of the account in describing our existing practice. The arts course then is at present entirely governed by the two schools Moderation Classics, and the final school of Litera3 Humaniores. Rather the student's whole time is taken up in preparing himself for these two examinations, under the guidance of his college-tutor ; for the university knows nothing of any course or " curriculum " of study. Under this guidance the honour-student usually confines himself, for the first year and a half of residence, to what is known in Oxford as "scholarship." In this process he perfects and brings to a head all that he has been six or eight years preparing at school. He extends his classical reading, but in the same direction ; the only addition to the school circle of study being the elements of logic. So far his training is wholly "formal," and almost wholly verbal. No real knowledge is acquired. But the formal education of the memory, imagination, reasoning, and Studies j>r, //',// nnn-ij In lln- I><<[r: analytical lowers, is well SUM n inn 1 and carried out A I'd r moderations i.e. at the end of one and a half or two years of residence the student in classics enters for the first time upon forms of thought which are new to him. He prepares philosophy and history for the final examination. A perusal of the statute, or of the directions printed in the Oxford Calendar for the use of students, will convey a very ini- ]>erfect idea of what is required in this school. For the classical authors there specified form in fact but a portion of the matters examined ujxm. The questions set have of late years ranged over a limitless field of logical, meta- physical, moral, and political speculation. Language is here subordinated, but not dropped. For though the Greek language no longer, after moderations, forms itself one of the direct objects of study, yet passages of Greek and Latin, set for translation into English, constitute an important item in success, and a large part of the learner's time is occupied in preparing what he calls " the text " of the books out of which these passages are taken. It is, as has been already said, difficult or impossible for one who is himself of Oxford to offer any general valuation of the results of this "curriculum." Any such estimate would require to be based on a wide acquaintance with men of every variety of class and training in more countries than our own. Without invidious comparison with other systems, one cannot fail to recognise in the tyi>c of cha- racter and understanding resulting from our training many valuable qualities, and an emancipation from some of the more common intellectual defects. Our system is not in- operative or feeble. It takes a powerful hold, and moulds the man towards a fine ideal. Studies preliminary to the Degree. 273 It may be said, How can one who so thinks desire change ? Is not, to grant so much as I have granted, to preclude all proposals for reform of the studies preliminary to a degree ? If we are doing such good work, is it not better to leave well alone, to persevere in a course which is already so satis- factory ? The answer to this is that I do not desire to overthrow, but to improve. He is an " unprofitable servant " who is content to do well where he sees his way to do better : ri l/Aof guv roxw. We have greatly improved the character of the work done here in the last thirty years ; but that is all the more reason for desiring to carry those improvements further. " The old English universities," Mr. Mill admits, " in the present generation, are doing better work than they have done within human memory in teaching the ordinary studies of their curriculum " (Inaugural Address at St. Andrews, p. 40). This is high approbation from a quarter certainly not prejudiced in our favour, but we cannot sit down and fold our arms, satisfied with having earned it. The principle of the improvement which appears to me possible in our system of studies is that of specialisation. The latter and larger half of the whole time of residence should be set apart for " scientific" study. This term is employed, as already explained, for want of another, in the wide sense of the German " wissenschqftlich" Any of the great departments of human knowledge may be scientifically studied, when studied thoroughly in its laws and their developments. Professor A. de Morgan has given an excellent exposition of this idea. He says " In looking over the various branches of human inquiry, I do not find that what is learned in a second period is merely T <> tin a certain portion added to that which was acquired in the first. If I were to teach geometry for two months, I conceive that the geometry of the second month would not merely double the amount which the student gained in the first, but would be, as it were, a new study, showing other features, ami .uh in:,' additional powers, with the advantage of its being evident that the second step is the development and consequence of the first Suppose that, instead of employing the second month in geometry, I had turned the attention of the student to algebra, would he have been a gainer by the change ? I answer con- fidently in the negative. " To carry this further, let us take the whole career of the learner, and apply the same argument. There is in every branch of knowledge a beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning, in which the student is striving with new and diffi- cult principles, and in which he is relying in a great measure on the authority of his instructor : a middle, in which he has gained some confidence in his own knowledge, and some power of applying his first principles. He is now in a state of dan- ger, so far as the estimate which he is likely to form of himself is concerned. He has as yet no reason to suppose that his career can be checked nothing to humble the high notion which he will entertain of himself, his teachers, and his sub- ject. Let him only proceed, and he will come to what I have called the end of the subject, and will begin to see that there is, if not a boundary, yet the commencement of a region which has not been tracked and surveyed, and in which not all the skill which he has acquired in voyaging by the chart will save him from losing his way. It is at this period of his career that he will begin to form a true opinion of his own mind, which is not done by many persons, simply because they have never been allowed to pursue any branch of inquiry to the ex- tent which is necessary to show them where their power ends. " For this reason I think that, whatever else may be done, some one subject at least should be well and thoroughly in- Studies preliminary to the Degree. 275 vestigated, for the sake of giving the proper tone to the mind upon the use, province, and extent of knowledge in general. . . . There should be in every liberal education at least one subject thoroughly studied. What the subject should be is comparatively of minor importance " (Lecture at University College, London, in App. to Modern Culture, p. 388). The dispute between science versus classics in education will not be settled on paper or by discussion. It will be settled, in fact, by the establishment, somewhere or other, and in some form or other, of a system of scientific educa- tion, the results of which will vindicate themselves. We may argue, and vested interests may resist, but the tendency of things is unmistakable the sciences will end by con- quering their place. It is, however, probable that the struggle will be a long one. I would gladly see, but can hardly hope to see, our own university, instead of being dragged ignominiously in the wake of practical opinion on this question, come forward, and, on grounds of theory, at once restore to science that place in our curriculum which of right belongs to it. For the instincts of the practical men are sufficient to make them right in their aim, though, when they come to argue their case, they lay themselves open to easy refutation by the defenders of the existing system. The form in which the claims of science to a place in the higher education are presented is too often that of " an acquaintance" (I believe that is the word) " with the fundamental principles of all the principal departments of science," science being in the mouths of most of the " scientific men," identified with inductive science, or with that portion of the sciences which are at present in the inductive stage. If this were only the ideal of the popular -T''- Studies preliminary to the Degree. lecturer on the question of " science," we might affonl to jMi8 it without notice. But it would almost seem that im other idea of scientific education is entertained even by our greatest men. It is with the utmost dismay and con>t T- nution that I read the following, endorsed by a name which I cannot write without an expression of the homage of profound veneration. Sir John Herschel, consulted about a scheme of instruction for a South African college, wrote as follows: " A good practical system of public education ought, in my opinion, to be more real than formal I mean should convey as much of positive knowledge, with as little attention to mere systems and conventional forms, as is consistent with avoiding solecisms. This principle carried into detail would allow much less weight to the study of the languages than is usually considered its due in our great public schools, where the acquisition of the latter seems to be regarded as the one and only object of education ; while, on the other hand, it would attach great importance to all those branches of practical and theoretical knowledge whose possession goes to constitute an idea of a well-informed gentleman as, for example, a know- ledge of the nature and constitution of the world we inhabit ; its animal, vegetable, and mineral productions, and their uses and properties as subservient to human wants ; its relation to the system of the universe, and its natural and political sub- divisions ; the constructions of human society, including our responsibilities to individuals, and to the social body of which we are members. In a word, as extensive a knowledge as can be grasped and conveyed in an elementary course, of the actual system and the laws of nature, both physical and moral" (Sir John Herschel, ap. Modern Culture, p. 365). The London University has actually established an examination which covers "as extensive a knowledge as Studies preliminary to the Degree. 277 can be conveyed in an elementary course of the laws of nature " viz. its examination for the degree of B.Sc. The error, however, committed at this stage, is redeemed at the next, and to some extent cured; the examination given, or proposed to be given, for the degree of Doctor in Science, implying a thorough and scientific study of one branch a course of mental effort capable of conferring not merely knowledge but training. Thus the examinations for B.Sc. may be regarded as a "preliminary examination," determining who shall be admitted to the final trial, and, like all other "preliminaries," doing no other harm than wasting a certain amount of time in cramming for it, while it has no influence on the vital part of the process of cul- ture (Appendix E). If, indeed, our choice lay between an education which aimed at a little encyclopedia of elementary " knowledge " of as many branches of natural law as possible, on the one hand, or, on the other, the fearful waste of time and labour which is involved in the system of Latin and Greek gram- mar, it might be not unreasonable to choose the first, as the least of two evils. Real knowledge is always respect- able, and may be useful; it is, at any rate, truth. But out of the barrack grammar-school are turned in the pro- portion, it would seem, of 70 per cent of the whole youths who have neither acquired the languages they have spent six or eight years in learning, nor any other knowledge ; but who have acquired the mental habits which render them for ever incapable of learning anything, their senses of ob- servation dulled, their curiosity extinguished, and a secret antipathy generated for all mental exertion. But though, in our recoil from the evil of the school-barrack, artificially 2/8 Slinln-n fn-tHiniinirij In tin' maintained by examinations, scholarships, and pii/ts, \\c might fall Iwek \\\*m the pantoln^ical schemes of "exten- sive information " which are so ]><>pular on the platform and in the press, when we sit down calmly to consider academi- cal organisation, we must reject any such " impotent attempt at polymathia " as not being within the KCOJH; of a university which is to exhibit the most perfect scheme of intellectual training known to its age. Whatever may be the ultimate direction given to school training in this country, it may be assumed that, for tin- present, it will remain classical. I believe no prudent ad- vocate of scientific instruction urges a revolutionary transfer of the school system from the Greek and Latin basis. We must accept it as a fact that liberal or preparatory training is to continue classical. The question, then, is, Is entrance at the university to be the point where the transition is made from the general to the special ? Is liberal education to end at school, and scientific study to commence at the university? This is the system which has come to prevail in Germany. There, general education is conducted wholly at the gymnasium, and is terminated by the Abiturienten examen. On his arrival at the university, the student, from the first moment, considers himself as dedicated to a Fach i.e. some special province of research, often, indeed, in a very limited field, and always much narrower than that of the faculty in which he matriculates. We in England think we see in the German practice evils directly traceable to a premature discontinuance of liberal training. At any rate, in retreating from our own usage hitherto, that of making the whole university course, throughout its entire length, " general," we ought not to rush into the opposite extreme. Studies preliminary to the Degree. 279 Moderations afford a boundary ready to our hand. Let school exercises i.e. general education terminate at Mo- derations. Let this examination be placed at the end of the first year from matriculation. That passed, let the student declare his faculty, and commence his special, or scientific, studies. These are to be according to a pre- scribed curriculum, for each faculty separately, to be spread over two years and terminated by the degree. I have more than once already explained the sense in which the word " scientific " is here used. In this sense the studies in all the faculties, and not in that of science only, may be scientific. Distinctly so in the Faculty of Arts. This will lose its general and preliminary character, and, in its two branches of " Philology " and " Classics," will become scientific. The remains of classical antiquity have by no means yet ceased to offer the material of fruitful inquiry to the nations of modern Europe. It is possible that, in individual instances, these inquiries may have de- generated into frivolous pedantry and unprofitable anti- quarianism. But, in spite of occasional abuse, to penetrate into the mind and character of the Romans and the Greeks, to understand their institutions and interpret their modes of thought, will long remain one of the most fruitful fields of real knowledge. Only on this condition viz. that it has itself intrinsic value as a material to be explored by men can classical literature continue to be employed as a medium of the higher education of youth. At Moderations, then that is, at the end of his first year the " Arts " student will discontinue his school train- ing. Moderations would become purely a test of " scholar- ship," and not a mixed test of reading and scholarship in j: :< i Studies preliminary to the Degree. an indefinite combination. The final cxmninution in the two alternative schools of the Arts Faculty the philo- logical and the classical would be purely a test of Bcient ilie study, and not a mixed test of reading, plus an uncertain quantity of scholarship, as at present. An entire separation between an earlier and a later stage seems more reasonable than the attempt to carry on two distinct kinds of training together, through the whole curriculum. And the last two years of residence arc too short, and too valuable, to admit of the vast expenditure of time and labour required to keep up the school facility in "composition." The depute In tween scholarship and learning, between skill (Konnen) and science (Wissen), between faculty and knowledge, would thus IMJ arranged, and the vexed question of the value of " Latin composition " simplified. I would gladly have avoided this question, as it is one on which recent discussion has exhausted all that can be said, as well as the patience of all scholastic men. But a review of the studies preliminary to the degree would be incomplete without facing the inquiry, What place in the university course is to be given to Latin and Greek com- position ? To exclude it from the final examination, and to confine it to Moderations and the first year, will hardly be considered a sufficient concession by the advocates of realist education. Their main argument viz. the waste of time occasioned by the practice in schools is not broken by this concession. That the time and labour of a majority of schoolboys ft wasted by the practice, it seems to me im- possible to deny. Surely it can only t>c a profitable cxer- ciae to that minority who carry it far enough to become an Studies preliminary to the Degree. 281 instrument of intellectual mastery over the language, and appropriation of finished forms of thought. On the other hand, schoolmasters and tutors cannot be controverted when they affirm that, without the exercise of at least writing it (if not speaking), a language and its literature cannot be thoroughly understood and enjoyed, and consequently cannot serve as an instrument of culture. If these two positions of the contending parties are both true, it follows that the dispute about the maintenance of the practice of composition in schools and the junior classes in our lecture- rooms, is really a dispute as to the maintenance of classical studies as the common instrument of a liberal education. If classical literature is to continue to be this instrument, it involves the necessary maintenance of classical composition. If other and better subjects of study claim the time now given to Latin composition, it follows, not only that com- position should be disused, but also that Latin and Greek must be given up. To abolish, in a school, Latin writing, and divert the time to the acquisition, e.g., of some useful know- ledge, is merely to add an imperfect training by science to an imperfect training by literature, in the expectation that two faulty halves will make together a perfect whole. The true and ultimate solution of the difficulty appears to be the extension to our schools of the system of bifurcation. In other words, schools will have to be separated, as to their higher classes, into two divisions the Grammar side and the Real side. The changes which are going on in the univer- sity, and which will have to be carried much further in the same direction viz. that of specialising study will force some system of bifurcation upon the school course. But this is beyond the scope of these " Suggestions." As long as **>'/' liniinnni In tin />,,/,,,. form in fact tho staple of general education in the >rlicM.I> throughout tho country, the univcrHity, which is itaclf to take up and to continue general education for the first year of residence, must employ all the tests of scholar- ship. And among these tests, " composition," by common consent, occupies a foremost place. We must even, I venture to think, go further. It is not enough that we retain composition as a test of knowledge of the language. The set that has been made for some time past against Latin composition, by the realists, has had an insensible influence upon us. We maintain the practice in our schools, it is true, but that is all. The pressure upon us has been so great that we have pared down our standard of attainment Latin writing is kept up, but it is by no means the efficient instrument of training that it once was. Pains are taken, perhaps greater skill and know- ledge than ever are brought to bear, upon our writing Latin which shall be free from grammatical faults. The exercise thus answers its purpose fully as a test of gram- matical proficiency. It is a grammar exercise. But the higher arts implied in the word composition are compara- tively neglected. Not only beauty of style and expression, but the art of presenting our meaning, and putting together the parts of a discourse, are hardly at all cared for. We have retained the " Latin writing" which was introduced into the schools in the sixteenth century, but we no longer use the exercise for the purposes for which they employed it. The " Rhetoric" class was the next step above the grammar- school, and occupied the first year of the quadriennium, or as we should say, of residence. In it the exercises were not merely grammatical, but involved the practice of composition Studies preliminary to the Degree. 283 in all its parts. Thus the time expended on Latin composition by our forefathers was given not merely to an accurate acqui- sition of the language, but reached far beyond this into the region of aesthetic construction. It was the mode in which they aspired after and appropriated beauty of form, and cultivated that literary taste which never died out in the universities, even at the time when philological knowledge was at its lowest. It was the sudden revival of a sense for this perfection of form in classical literature which consti- tuted the Renaissance. It was not the discovery of the MSS. which created the sense. The converse was the case : the sense and the aspiration led to the disinterment and multiplication by copies of the MSS. The cultivation of literary beauty was soon, by the efforts of the enlightened minority, introduced into education as an integral part of the university course. The Jesuits followed the same system in their schools. From the sixteenth-century curriculum, ac- cordingly, we have inherited "Latin writing." But our Latin writing, with all its scrupulous correctness, seems to be losing its attractions and its efficacy as an exercise in artistic pro- duction, and sinking to the level of a grammatical test. There are other causes for this insensible change. But one cause, probably, is to be found in examinations. The grammar-test may be applied to a written exercise immedi- ately and unhesitatingly. Every candidate can be required in three hours to translate a short passage of English ade- quately and correctly. But it is absurd to expect a literary composition, which shall have merit as a work of polish, to be produced in the same time. Such merits too, where they exist, require an expert eye in the judge, while a grammatical solecism speaks for itself. -'::i Studies prelim i n< i r>/ /,,//,,-. I would not sjH'iik with discourtesy c\cn of thr plat- forni-orator, who declaims against " Latin verses" from a one-sided point of view. With the realist movement in education I heartily sympathise; and its victory is certain. Our courses of instruction are becoming constantly more and more scientific. But there is a time for all things. School is one thing, the university is another. This dis- tinction we seem to have almost forgotten. If the university has got too much into the way of doing over again the work of the school, the school has invaded the province of the university. Kxereises are giving way to philological lessons. Colleges encourage this by setting papers on " Philology" to candidates for scholarships, and a consider- able amount of such knowledge is often displayed on these occasions by schoolboys. In this error we are imitating that Germany, from which we are so reluctant to learn when we might learn with advantage. The rector of a gymnasium, who is often a deeply -read and scientific scholar, sometimes yields to the temptation to pnulect to his boys, as if they were students, upon some abstruse point of philology which is interesting himself. And, generally speaking, the instruction given in the higher classes of the gymnasia is carried on in too academical a manner. This mistake, however, has attracted attention, and is in course of being checked in Germany, just as we are beginning to fall into it. We are underrating and letting slip that one feature in our grammar-school system, which the German theoretical Padagogik has stamped u itli its approval, and which practical schoolmen in Germany would wish to naturalise at home. We are slowly imbibing from the example of German universities a habit of scien title Studies preliminary to the Degree. 285 examination of the material contents of classical literature. Are we not, in the process, in danger of throwing away a dis- cipline of which the German schools envy us the possession ? We are re-reading the classics in the university, as we have never read them before, in the light of Ger- man philology. That is our business in the university. But the business of the school is something quite dif- ferent. The appropriation and mastery of verbal expres- sion, from the earliest efforts of the infant to the crowning achievement of the consummate orator, is to be attained not by the study of rules but by practice. Exercise, prac- tice, Uebung the constant effort to express with neatness, precision, and elegance what we have to express is the only road to the language faculty. The constructive and imitative stage of education in language-training must pre- cede the analytic stage of linguistic science. In cutting down, as we have done, in submission to the press and platform demagogues, our " composition" in our grammar- schools to the minimum which tests grammatical correct- ness, and filling its place with knowledge about language, we have been going counter to the natural law on which education in language is founded. Grimm long ago (Pref. to Deutsche Grammatik, 1st ed., 1819) denounced the teach- ing of German grammar in schools as a preposterous mode of learning the mother-tongue. But it is no new discovery of modern psychology. I cannot deny myself the pleasure of placing before the reader, in the original, some fine sen- tences of a scholar of the last century. Facciolati says : " Quod si ardentessimse illi proficiendi voluntati aliquando respondisset ingenium ut certe nunquam respondit ; nee vos hoc tempore plebeio dicendi genere molestissime detinerem, -_'::; N/m//V.< preliminary to th. !>. in mngna virium infirmitate si quid valeo, qui val.-o san.- mini mum, totum Ciceroni, Terentio, Livio, Ceesari, Virgilio, Horat \, . :. risqiir t'jus n'tatis -.-i ipt..nl.ii> <><>. Nilul a me repetundarum jure postulet Priscianus, nihil Donatus vindicet, nihil Valla, nihil Sanctius, nihil ille ipse, deliciae quon- dam nostra>, Alvarus quos omnes una cum crepundiis vel abjeci, vel deposul Excidere jamdiu animo eorum monita, excidere leges, nihilque mihi potest ad stiliiin n turdandum contingere infestius, quam tristis quffidam eonim recordatio ac metus, unde solent arida omnia, sicca, exsanguia proficiscl Quid est enim aliud grammatice loqui, quam omnino latine non loqui, si credimus pneceptori maximo Quintiliano ? (Instil. L L 6). Nam ut omnia grammatici vere dicant, utrum aliud efficiunt, nisi ut sine barbarismis, sine solaecismis sit oratio? In quo si tota laus consistit latinitatis, jam ne ipse quidem Cicero latinus est, cujus libri, si ad grammaticorum cavilla- tiones exigantur, sobecismis non carent." On the conditions, then, that Latin exercising be con- fined to that select class of boys who show a decided aptitude for language, that it be cultivated far enough to become a rhetorical, and not merely a grammatical, exer- cise, and that Greek composition be not attempted at all, or be confined to a still more select circle, it seems to me that such exercise must constitute an integral and valuable part of school training. The same exercises will be continued in the university up to Moderations. But the demands of " scholarship" must be satisfied with Moderation honours the Ireland,the Hertford,and the composition prizes. All the foundation scholarships which shall be appropriated to the Faculty of Arts will also be decided by the scholarship tct. But the qualification for the degree in the classical (ami <>\' Studies preliminary to the Degree. 287 course in the philological) school, and the two years' curri- culum after Moderations, must be science, not skill, if " Arts " is to rank on a par with the other degrees, and if classical study is to be a pursuit for a man, and the aditus to a special profession. As I would remove logic and philology from Modera- tions, and make that examination an examination purely in scholarship, I would make the final examination for a de- gree in the Arts Faculty wholly scientific. The final examination in the school of Literse Human- iores, as it at present exists, is the heart and life of our system. It is that upon which we have bestowed most pains, and which we have wrought out to a perfection which makes it confessedly a powerful intellectual stimu- lus. It may be that it is rash to tamper with what works so well. It is impossible, however, not to be aware that that examination, and the curriculum which leads up to it, are open to serious objection on grounds of educational theory. It is impossible to convey to a stranger to a Ger- man university man, e.g. an idea of what it is that is exacted, ascertained, or tested by our classical examiners. Such an idea cannot be collected from the words of the statute which prescribe the " matter of the examination " (De materie examinationis secundae). The statute (vi. 2, 8) enacts as follows : " The Literce Humaniores, for the purposes of this school, we define as, in addition to the Greek and Latin languages, the histories of Greece and Koine, with those handmaids of history chronology, geography, antiquities, rhetoric, and poe- tics, and the moral and political sciences, so far as they are derivable from ancient writers. These last, however, we allow 288 Sttulit* preliminary to the Degree. from time t< tiim>, as shall s\\>\>< ar \|M-tli.-nt, to IN- illustrate! fn>m modern authors. Dialectic (logic). \\liidi \v> add t<> the Litfrtr Iliinutni" . a- al.\<- di-tined. niu>t always In- otl't-n-d 1>y candidates fur a first or second class; and profiriem \ in logic shall have great weight in the distril mtimi of honours." This is all that the statutes of the university lay down as to the " matter" of the examination. The translation I have given is of the statute as it now (1867) stands; but the definition of the "materies" is substantially the same as in the original enactment of 1830. Yet, since lino, a totally new character has been gradually given to the examination, and consequently to the prejmratory study. This is not mentioned as a defect in the statute, but only to show how entirely inadequate the words of the law are to convey an idea of the practice under the law. The present practice is for the candidate to offer a list of six to eight books viz. Aristotle Ethics ; Plato Republic ; Thucydides (the whole) ; Herodotus (the whole) ; Livy, 1-10 ; Tacitus (a portion). To these are sometimes added, Hacon Xovum Organum, i. ; and Butler Sermons. It is not usual to name any logical author; logic is examined in as a subject, which the candidate learns from books or from lectures, as suits him best. A list of books, however, does not explain itself. More than one system of examination, implying totally distinct lines of study, may be raised upon the same books. The Oxford examination in "classics" takes a very peculiar form, a form which could never reveal itself to the unassisted eye of a student. It is in drilling him in the preparation of "his books" in this form, that the great arcanum of tuition resides. First, a distinction is drawn Studies preliminary to the Degree. 289 between " text" and " matter" of each author. Close and correct translation of the text is inexorably exacted. This requires careful preparation of the six Greek and Latin books above named. This preparation is usually made by aid of a translation, or some of the innumerable explana- tory commentaries, which are, in fact, abridged translations of the difficult passages. When the text is thus gone through, the candidate commences the preparation of the " matter." Some thirty years back the getting up of the matter of the books was a simple affair. It was set about in the same ser- vile and memorial way in which the getting up of the text is proceeded with now. It was then enough to recollect the contents of the books as they stood on the page. We have outgrown that stage. The abject method of cramming then encouraged could not be long continued in face of the criticism which it provoked. There was a call for "philosophical development of the faculties." Accordingly, without altering the " materies examinationis," philosophy was gradually infused into the examinations, till it has become their most material component. The questions set range over the widest field of speculative philosophy ethical, social, political, religious. The educational test of the University of Oxford, in this its most elaborate and intense instance, may be said to be made up of two parts exact translation and speculative power ; for though Latin and Greek " composition" is nominally retained, it exercises little or no influence on the result. It is indeed almost re- duced to the mere rendering of a passage of English into Lathi. To take the alternative " Greek prose," instead of the " history of philosophy" paper, is regarded suspiciously u -".in Studies prcli ni iimri/ to tin' as a symptom of " weak new." The preposterous attempt of the friends of " scholarship" to thrust in their subject without regard to fitness of time or place, has been defeated by the nature of things. Like ignorant but well-meaning nurses in the sick-room, because quinine is good for con- valescents, they insist upon pouring in the bark into the patient's food. Of the two elements of the test, exact translation and philosophical power, the first succeeds pretty fairly in inducing a close and careful, though somewhat mechanical, reading of the text of six very valuable classical authors. Beyond this, I think, it docs not reach. A classical philo- logian trained in a freer system would be astonished to find that, the special prejmration of six Greek and Latin books, for which two years are allowed, was compatible with a total neglect of all the philological inquiries to which those books necessarily give rise. All such inquiries are looked upon by the student with contempt, as extra-parochial. A Wolf or a Ruhnken, a Heyne or an Ernesti, would lecture here to empty benches, or would have an audience only of Tutors. We have in the final school of classics " an edu- cational test," which, in the words of Dr. Donaldson, "closes the access to a progressive development of the studies on which it rests." It chills the genial fire which a free study of classical literature is capable of comnmni eating, and which is one of the best mental results of that study. However, this part of the test does produce some real knowledge. If its negative effect is cramping, its positive effect is good in compelling thorough and repeated perusal of the six given classical texts, instead of dipping, hasty running through, or casual inspection. It Studies preliminary to the Degree. 291 does not pretend to secure thorough knowledge of the books offered ; but it lays a sound basis for the after- acquisition of such knowledge. The reason why the six books offered are so incompletely studied is to be found in the fact that, the greater part of the candidate's effort is given to meet the other half of the test, in the examination in philosophy. Of this part of the examination, the classical books offered by the candidate afford rather the excuse, than the material. If the strictly classical part of the preparation was calculated to invite criticism by its confined limits, the philosophical depart- ment of the examination must excite our wonder for the opposite reason the boundless space over which it ranges. There seems to be scarcely any of the debateable questions of politics, morals, and metaphysics, on which the candidate may not be asked to give his views. The horizon of the examination is as wide as that of philosophical literature. Will it be insinuated that the questions are there for show, and that, like many other examination papers, so ours serve to parade the knowledge of the examiner, rather than to test the powers of the candidate ? Far from it. The sus- picion is very wide of the mark. The best of our eUves are found fully equal to the emergency. They are not over- whelmed by the magnitude or the variety of the moval problems proposed to them. A clever youth, trained by a skilful private tutor, can discuss, with a masterly air, as many of the questions mooted by the paper, as three hours of rapid penmanship permit. The quantity of original writing produced in the time is of itself surprising. But the quality is still more so. The best papers are no mere schoolboys' themes spun out with hackneyed commonplaces, but full of J'.t-J ,S'/H \\itli which modern society, and its best current literature, arc charged. So totally false are those platform denunciations of the Oxford classical system, which assume that it lands its alumni in old-world notions, and occupies him with matters remote from modern interests ! I do not believe that there exists at this moment in Europe any public institution for education, where what arc called " the results of modern thought/' on all political and speculative subjects (the philosophy of religion, jwrhaps, alone excepted), are so entirely at home, as they are in our honour examinations in the school of " Litene Humaniores " the examination, be it observed, not as prescribed by statute, but as actually work CM I. Indeed so palpable a fact is the free modern life of speculation which now pervades our classical school, that it must be distinguished as the characteristic stamp of the young men whom we have turned out for the last ten years, and who are now rising into distinction in their several professions. Recognising, as I must do, in that race of athletic and accomplished intellects, the very flower and hope of England for the next generation, it is impos- sible to deny that the school in which they were trained must possess a high educative power. Yet there appear to be reasons for thinking that the philosophical part of the curriculum in the School of Liters Humaniores cannot be continued on its present footing that it has done its work. The philosophical has been a transition stage, by which we have risen above the mere belletristric treatment of classical literature. It has now outgrown the classical books upon which it has been raised, and it is time that it should be transferred to the basis of real science. Studies preliminary to the Degree. 293 It appears to me to be a fatal objection to our " philo- sophical" course, that it encourages speculation not based upon knowledge. The fluent deductions and wealth of " thought," which the best candidates have at command, overpower and dazzle us, till we ask ourselves the question, By what mental process were these brilliant speculations arrived at and appropriated ? A philosophical " idea" is a general proposition, colligating, or being the short expres- sion for, a number of observed facts. Such a proposition does not possess an intuitive validity. It is only probable in a greater or less degree. The degree of its probability is an essential element of the conception. In other words, the evidence for a moral conclusion must be collected, examined, sifted by the mind itself, before it can justly appropriate the conclusion, affirm it, and proceed to reason upon it. " To give the net product of inquiry, without the inquiry that leads to it," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, " is found to be both enervating and inefficient. General truths, to be of due and permanent use, must be earned. Easy come easy go, is a saying as applicable to know- ledge as to wealth" (On Education, p. 61). We teach this principle of investigation in our inductive logic, but we violate it in our educational practice. We comment upon Bacon's reiterated criticism of the schoolmen for their inane subtleties, and we insist, in his words, that the road to truth is " interpretando," and not " abstrahendo ad placitum." Yet the " thoughtful paper," which is rewarded in our examinations, is but a mass of generalisation arrived at by that very method of the schoolmen which we condemn. That brilliant " philosophy-paper," thrown off in three hours, and teeming with the " results of modern thought," 294 Studies preliminary to the Degree. from what source was it supplied ? From a diffusive reading of the best modem books. The student himx If u ill toll you that la- answered such u paper " out of Grote," and such another " out of Maine" or " Austen." And are not, it will be said, Grote's History of Greece, Maine's .1 ///,/// Lm\ Austen On Jurisprudence, valuable books, the best of their kind hi the language? No doubt of it Each of them is the result of a consummate learning, of years of experience and study of one subject, and models in their resj>eetive lines of enlightened investigation. But we do not employ them as models. We encourage the student to grasp the results without the investigation, to appropriate the com -lusions without testing them, and then to parade them as his own. There is such a thing as " cramming" philosophy. To glean rapidly the current ideas floating about the schools, to acquire the knack of dexterous manipulation of the terms that express them, to put himself into the hands of a prac- tised tutor, to be set in the way of writing in the newest style of thought upon every possible subject, and inserting the quotations from Aristotle in their proper places this is all that the student has time to do between moderations and the final school, if IK- is to stand up to such an examina- tion as we then propose to him. Ideation is .-stimulated by the process, the philosophical imagination awakencd,a desire for knowledge created, and an acquaintance with much of the results of knowledge acquired. But as mental training, it is surely most unsound. It cannot be called " philo- sophical." It is rhetoric expended upon philosophical sub- jects. It is the reappearance in education of the ecptanxfi of the schools of Greece, condemned by all the wise. Its highest outcome is the " able editor," who, under protec- Studies preliminary to the Degree. 295 tion of the anonymous press, instructs the public upon all that concerns their highest interests, with a dogmatism and assurance proportioned to his utter ignorance of the subject he is assuming to teach. In the schools of Oxford is now taught in perfection the art of writing " leading articles." I may illustrate my meaning by a specimen of the examinations. I have said that the examination in the final school consists substantially of two parts one in the text of the books, and one in general philosophy. I have purposely omitted to name " history," as the historical part of the examination has entirely a philosophical character. A paper of questions on " Roman history," set in 1866 is before me. Among the questions are the following : " 1. Italian history begins at a far later stage of civilisation than Greek or Germanic. " Examine this statement. " 3. In what way did a career of conquest affect the internal development of Sparta and Rome respectively ? " 4. The southward movement of races in Italy, in its effect on the fortunes of the various states. " 8. Estimate the force and character of religious feeling at Rome during the early empire. " 9. The extinction of the Caesarean family as an epoch in the development of the empire. " 10. The various forms of alliance, union, or dependence, existing between early Rome and other cities. Are similar relations between cities found in Greece 1 " 13. How far is the unsatisfactoriness of Livy's First Decade traceable to defects personal to the writer himself, how far to defects incident to the age in which he wrote?" These are very striking questions, evidently resulting, t /I in the miud of the examiner who set them, from a IVc-h and original study of the ancient authors. But what kind of knowledge c-au thcv be tlir tot of. in the examinee '. The whole paper contains thirteen o,ue>tion>. and. though no candidate would IK- expected in three hours to answer all the thirteen, he would probably write \i\yon half the number, Bay wix, at least. For the preparation of the whole of the subjects of this examination he ha-, at nm-t. two years. There is, in this space of time, the text of six books to be read and re-read, and carefully prepared. There are the contents of the " Ethics " and " Republic to be conned and understood. There is philosophy and the history of philosophy to be surveyed. There is Greek history, on which a paper, similar in character to this on Roman history, is set Logic cannot be put aside, for, though the elements of it may have been learned before Moderations, the logic paper in the final examination goes much more deeply into the subject What portion of his two years can the student properly allot to Roman history? Not one-fourth, possibly one-eighth, of his time and atten- tion. But, if he had the whole of two years for this one subject, he could hardly be in a position to make any of the above inductions for himself, or, when made by others, to test them by the facts on which they rest i.e. by com- parison of the original sources. What he writes on them so effectively is, therefore, by the unauthorised adoption of the unverified conclusions of others. Such an exercise has no claim to be considered " philosophical." It is purely rhetorical. It is to play with philosophical terms as with counters. What he has acquired in this way is not merely not knowledge, it is imposture an imposture of which Studies preliminary to the Degree. 297 himself is the dupe. For he goes his way, thinking that he possesses, in his improvised theories, the master-key to history. I am aware that the school of Literaa Humaniores, or the philosophical element which is now so largely infused into the training for it, is menaced at this moment by a formidable enemy. This aspect of the question is so im- portant, that I may be permitted to turn aside for a moment to contemplate it. The wave of Catholic revival, which is passing over all the countries of the west of Europe, has reached our shores in two distinct currents one, communicating an impulse without the National Church ; the other, within it. Of this influence I wish to speak here only so far as it touches our educational theory and practice. With its doctrinal or ecclesiastical aspect I am not now concerned. The effect upon the Roman Catholic body in this country has been to arouse, in the minds of their spiritual guides, a jealous alarm at the encroachments made by the higher education upon the wealthier classes. This alarm, first conceived on occasion of the erection of the Queen's Col- leges in Ireland, has become more intense since the partial opening of the English universities has made it possible for Catholic students to enter here, if they can find a head of a college willing to admit them. A few Catholic students, braving the difficulties which the colleges continue to throw in their way, have found their way to Oxford. The expediency of interfering to prohibit their resort to us, few as their numbers were, was anxiously debated. In spite of the resistance of a small minority of English and Irish 298 Studies preliminary to the Degree. Catholics, it |i;i> U-cii oYr'n Inl \>\ the autliuriiic> of the Church of Rome, that Catholics arc to be discouraged by their priests from sending their sons to the Queen's col- leges, to the English universities, to any place of mixed education. Esjuvially is Oxford denounced as "danger- ous to the faith." Separate education, and a Catholic university, are now the aim of the authorities of the Church, for these islands. A similar alarm animates the Anglican party within the National Church. The growing strength of this party, which has been hitherto used chiefly to fill university ap- pointments with its partisans, or to influence elections, is about to be tunicd against the school of Literae Huinan- iorcs, as now administered. The challenge has been thrown down, and the leaders of the party have denounced the system of training in that school as " dangerous to the faith." One of them is quoted as having said, " Education at Oxford is infidel to the core " (Dublin Review, Oct. 1867). For my own part, I think the fears of the Catholic party, whether within or without the National Establishment, are substantially well founded. With one qualification, how- ever. Dr. Pusey, living on the spot, can discriminate between the " Pass " and the " Class " curriculum. There is, he is well aware, no danger incurred by a candidate for a pass degree. The Roman Catholic authorities may be relieved from any apprehension as to " the faith " of the students of their church, provided they confine their studies to what is required for the degree. There is no danger to principles or faith in a "pass" course, because such a course is not "education." It does not reach the intellect Studies preliminary to the Degree. 299 or the soul. I appeal to any of the Catholic students, who have taken the ordinary degree in Oxford since 1854, to say if anything has been taught them officially, which has been calculated to interfere with their religious belief. Nor even in the honour curriculum for the other schools is danger supposed to lurk. It is the school of classics (Liters Humaniores) only, and, specifically, the philosophical subjects which have developed themselves within that school, which alarm the church party. This the party must either conquer, or be content to see all the minds that come under the influence of that training that is, all the minds of any promise that pass through Oxford hope- lessly lost to them. They are beginning to turn their efforts to overhaul and remodel the method and subjects of this school. Such is the ascendency of the party at this moment in the councils of the university, that it is probable they will be successful. I trust it will not be supposed that I wish to see any part of our training either maintained, or changed, for any such reason as that it is hostile or favourable to the aims of any party in Church or State. There are scientific prin- ciples of education, and it is endeavoured in these " Sug- gestions " to refer our arrangements to these principles. It is only where a party puts forward, or takes its stand upon, educational principles which do not seem to me to be true, that these pages have any business with party names. In the collision which is impending between the Catholic, or catholicising party, and the liberal party in Oxford, on the subject of the philosophical teaching in the final school, there is such a principle at stake. And this principle is no other than the existence of the .{no Studiet preliminary to the Degree. higher education a training of the intellect, as underl \ini: arroiiiplislimriits and useful knowledge, "arts," in old aca- demical language. An education, which projMwes to itaelf to induct the pupil into the highest course of knowledge, must offer to train the intellect to the investigation of the laws of nature, man, and society an investigation which shall be based upon an exhaustive knowledge of the phenomena in each case, and shall employ all the powers of the reason in ascertaining the relations between the phenomena. Nothing short of this, I conceive, can be the aim of any establishment for superior education, such as is a university. " The mind that is in harmony with the laws of nature, in an intimate sympathy with the course of events, is strong with the strength of nature, and is developed by its force " (Maudsley, Physiology of Mind, p. 30). Tli is is the mental result at which a university education must aim. Not that this goal, or perfect development, is attained by the student on taking his degree; but he is launched on this career, initiated into this method. An education, of which this is the aim and method, must come into conflict with any system which proposes to provide d priori conclusions in any branch of knowledge relating to nature, man, and society. Any system or corporation, which supposes itself to be in possession of such propositions, may propose them to its pupils as true, and require their acceptance upon the authority of the teacher. The Roman Catholic Church does supi>ose and profess this. Even lately the supreme catholic authority has put forth a syllabus of eighty propositions which are con- demned as " false." Perhaps they are so. I do not kno\\ . Studies preliminary to the Degree. 301 It is not material to my present purpose whether they are so or not. But, under such a system, education must be some- thing very different from what we understand by the word education, I mean in its last stage, as academic. For in its earlier stages, in the nursery, the home, and the school, education is founded on tradition and faith. By the child, knowledge is received on authority. In the Catholic system, then, as understood by the modern authorities of the church, there can really be no higher education. Catholic schools there may be, but a Catholic university there cannot be. Catholic education may be excellent in respect of all the accomplishments, and may embrace many important branches of useful knowledge. It may comprise mathematics, mechanics, the rules and graces of composition and style, taste in literature and art. It cannot really embrace science and philosophy. The " philosophy " course in a Catholic seminary is, in fact, only logic and rhetoric the deduction of consequences from furnished by authority, or the collection of pro- bable arguments for the defence of those premisses. They appear before the public as teaching science and philosophy, but it is sham science, and a mockery of philosophy. Pro- positions in science and philosophy may be inculcated in their classes possibly true propositions. But the learning of true propositions, dogmatically delivered, is not science. _.. Science is the method of scientific investigation, which is one and the same in respect of all phenomena. The Catholic authorities, therefore, cannot allow their youth to share our universities. They demand a separate university, not that they may conduct education in it, but that they may stop education at a certain stage. Studies preliminary to the Degree. This position of the Roman Catholic body towards the universities of Great Britain and Ireland must he also the position of any other party, which cmu-cives itself to be in possession of any important moral, social, metaphysical, or physical truth which has been arrived at in any other \\;i\ than by an exhaustive investigation of the pertinent facts. Such a party must necessarily be made uneasy by the present state of the Oxford schools. It cannot, consistently with its principles, rest till it has fit her introdiurd into our system the teaching of propositions in moral and social science on authority as true, or has eliminated science altogether. If the character of the training given by the classical honour school be a source of uneasiness to the church party, is it because that training is a thoroughly sound training in the method of scientific investigation, a method which knows nothing of truth delivered upon authority > I am sorry to be unable to think so. The character of the " philosophical " element in that training has begun to be questioned by other than those who have surrendered their judgment to a theological party, and on other grounds. Mr. T. Acland, M.P. (to cite one who cannot be charged with speaking from party bias), writes, " I venture very earnestly to urge the conviction that the intellectual free- dom for which Mr. Mill gives Oxford credit, and which, within the bounds defined by Christian humility, I do not desire to abridge, would be more safely exercised, and would be stronger and more healthy, if there were less ignorance of common principles and laws of nature, more security for sound training in exact studies, admitting of definite cer- tainty, requiring care in the statement of the datum and Studies preliminary to the Degree. 303 the qusesitum, imposing due regard to the statement of evidence, before young men are plunged into an ocean of doubt about the reality of the faculties, intellectual and moral, with which we are endowed by our Creator. . . . Some subjects are postponed so that they are hurried over, others are excluded; abstract questions and doubts are prematurely forced on minds ill prepared to master them. For example, Aristotle's rhetoric, a favourite with states- men and orators from Lord Grenville downwards, has been squeezed out ; the Ethics and Butler are unread by many who seek honours in law and modern history. The orators are excluded from the course of history; logic, as now taught, with its unsettled and unsettling theories, is forced on all ; a wide range of physical science is approached by men who have had no training in geometry or mechanics treated mathematically ; and while men are encouraged in almost any branch of special and separate study, there is one to which no distinctive honour is allowed in the final examination, and that is the higher philology " (Letter to the Vice-Chancellor : Parker and Co., 1867). The particular criticisms offered by Mr. Acland in this passage I cannot adopt. And, in general, I must venture to differ from his wish to " squeeze in " more matters into the honour curriculum. That curriculum is already burst- ing from being overcharged with matters, and our reforms must take the direction of further specialising study. But in the general drift of his remarks, as bearing upon the final classical school, many besides myself will be ready to join with him. But I would prefer to state the objection in another form. That logic " unsettles " minds cannot be an objection to it. For that would imply that they were to // t( settled " before ; before, that is, education commenced. Mr. Acland seems to Ray that the student should enter upon his education with a mass of " settled " propositions in those moral and social sciences which he comes to learn. Mr. Acland cannot mean this; for such a system would be, like the Catholic system, a negation of science, and, consequently, of academical education. The objection justly chargeable upon the " philosophical " training, as now administered in Oxford, seems to me to be that it mainly consists in a " settling " of opinions. It deals with opinions, and administers ready-made results to the mind, instead of training it in the methods of investigation. 1 have already touched on this head in speaking of the his- torical part of the examination. It shall only be added here that our philosophical teaching at this moment is, viewed in its logical principle, identical with that adopted in Catholic schools. The propositions enforced, recom- mended, encouraged, or current in the two schools, differ widely. But the same objection lies against both systems viz., that, as the result of the training, the student carries away a mass of unverified conclusions. To the Catholic youth these conclusions come recommended by the " autho- rity" of the teachers and the Church. To our students they are recommended for adoption by the " authority" of fashion, or the current turn of thinking of living philosophic minds, and of the prevailing philosophical literature. The causes of this educational error are not far to seek. They lie in the present constitution of the teaching body. " Philosophy " is taught, not by professors who have given a life to the mastery of some one of the branches of moral or political science, but by young tutors. He is often too Studies preliminary to the Degree. 305 young to have had the time to study profoundly. He never will obtain the time, for his business as tutor is con- ceived to be, to push his men through the portals of some examination which is awaiting them. Accordingly he reads, in his vacation, or in such moments of leisure as he can snatch, the last new book upon the subject. He be- comes, of course, an immediate convert to the theory of the latest speculator; he retails the same in his lectures, recommending it, perhaps, by eloquence and learning all his own ; and when he becomes examiner he examines in it. Let it not be thought that I would imply that the out- growth of philosophical speculation which has shown itself in the classical school among us has not been productive of very great advantages. It has undoubtedly done signal service. Mr. Mill has lately said, " A university ought to be a place of free speculation. The more diligently it does its duties in all other respects, the more certain it is to be that. The old English universities, in the present genera- tion, are doing better work than they have done within human memory, in teaching the ordinary studies of their curriculum ; and one of the consequences has been, that whereas they formerly seemed to exist mainly for the re- pression of independent thought, and the chaining up of the individual intellect and conscience, they are now the great foyers of manly inquiry to the higher and professional classes south of the Tweed " (Inaugural Address at St. Andrews, p. 40). The praise thus bestowed upon us has been earned exclusively by the spirit which has reigned, for some years past, in the school of classics. In stimulative efficacy the training has been all that could 'be desired. :,i>r, Studift preliminary In tin' Degree. But it has done nothing more. Surely an education should aim at more than rousing curiosity. It should satisfy and guide guide, not by dogmatic delivery of truths, but by scientific training in the method of in<|iiii\. " A university e\i>ts for the purpose of laving ojK'n to each succeeding generation, as far as the conditions of the case admit, the accumulated treasure of the thoughts of man- kind " (Mill, Inaugural Address, p. 38). Our system of class-lists has fairly run away with us. In our anxiety to perfect the conditions of a race, we have substituted examinations for teaching ; competitive tests for an educational course. Yet each phase through which the Oxford examinations have gone since 1802 has been a step in advance. The first generation of examiners looked for " scholarship." Then came a generation of examiners (from about 1834-1854) who required of a candidate " knowledge of his books." The present fashion is to look for speculative "power." We must not forget that thin latest phase is a step in advance upon that which preceded it. But it is time that the test of " power " should give way to that test for which it has been a valuable preparation scientific knowledge of things. We are ripe for the change. There are plenty of signs around that mere brain -spun speculation is losing its attractions and its hold. Slashing style, and daring assertion not based on knowledge, are falling into discredit, even in newspaper writing. It is time that the university should assume its function of teaching. The young tutor of " speculative ability " must be superseded by the middle-aged professor of scientific knowledge. On this point, at least, I cannot but think that Positivism has brought forward an oppor- Studies preliminary to the Degree. 307 tune truth. " En procedant du simple au compose" suivant les lois qui re"gissent 1'univers, les sciences non seulement apprendraient aux hommes a mieux connaitre et a mieux exploiter le globe qu'ils habitent, mais encore disposeraient le coeur a la generosite", et 1'esprit a la modestie. Les verite's capables d'etre demontre'es, et que tout le monde peut verifier, substituent leur sure et bienfaisante discipline a 1'ancienne et inve'rifiable discipline, e'cartant les discus- sions oiseuses ou irritantes, sans valeur moralisitrice et constructive " (Rev. de. la Philos. Pos., July 1867). To avoid misunderstanding, I must repeat, at the risk of wearying the reader by the reiteration, that, by science and scientific, I mean the proper method of knowing and apprehending the facts in any department whatsoever. What has been said in deprecation of " philosophy," as now employed in our Oxford schools, is by no means intended as an exclusion of the " philosophical sciences," to use a term employed by Dugald Stewart. " The first proper and adequate object of philosophical inquiry is, as he repeatedly tells us, human nature considered as one great whole i.e. in the sum of its phenomena. This is the foundation of what, according to Stewart, is the ultimate aim of specula- tion viz. the determination of the various special ends and methods of the sciences, and the analysis of the ground of our certainty regarding real existence as well as formal truth, or the constitution of a rational logic. . . . This general study of human nature affords the exclusive condi- tion and the means of true liberal culture" (Veitch, Memoir of Dugald Stewart. Works, x. p. xxxiv.) The moral sciences are not to be expelled from the Oxford curriculum. On the contrary, in a recast of the " schools" In // these sciences will hold a more independent and substan- tive position than they now do. Instead of lurking under tin- LTIUM' of a >|>imoii> (Miiimriitarv \\\n\ tin- " Ktliio" < ti- the " Republic/' I propose to provide them with a school of their own. We have long ceased to teach " Physics," with Aristotle for a text-book. Surely it is not less absurd to be teaching moral science out of Aristotle. Not that I would displace the " Ethics" to substitute any other text- book. Tin philosophical sciences can only be indoctrinated by a master, carrying the pupil along with him on a graduated method, which shall begin at the beginning. This line of study I would place either as a sub-faculty, or at least as a separate school, under the Faculty of Law. The present classical school would then become a school of philology ; but a school of scientific philology not a mere repetition of the Moderations examination. With Moderations the training and the tests of " scholar- ship" should end. In the thoroughness of its scientific method, the classical school should march pari pasw with all the other final schools. Not only the principles of literary criticism, as applied to the interpretation and authentication of ancient documents, but all those prin- ciples of investigation which must be applied in order to reproduce a complete idea of the life and thoughts of the ancient world these would be its subject-matter. Thus, after expelling the rhetorical "philosophy" which now reigns in the school, the school of classics would still be in a true sense " philosophical." Aristotle and Plato would continue to be read in this school : but as what they really are, precious remains of the Greek mind, not forced into a false position as manuals of social science for to-day's use. Studies preliminary to the Degree. 309 The close study of such a work as Plato's Republic and Laws, the grandest product of the philosophical imagina- tion extant in literature, is indispensable to the understand- ing of the ancient world. The book called "Aristotle's Ethics," in its double form the Mcomachean and Eude- mian is a philological problem of the highest complexity, capable of calling out all the critical powers of the classical student. Even as we read them, these books are found to exert a powerful influence on the minds of youth. How much more will this be the case when they are restored to their proper place in the classical school ! when the absurd attempt to compose a theory of morals out of a combina- tion of " the Ethics and Butler" is relinquished, and when the candidate for a degree can read Plato in a free spirit, relieved from the constant pressure of the terror of an ex- amination in the contents of the pages. Within the sub-faculty of classics, as part of the curriculum, might be established something of the nature of what is called in Germany a " Philological Seminary." " Two of the greatest scholars of the university assemble all the best and most advanced pupils, and encourage them to give in criticisms on classical works, and to write exercises, and practise themselves in translation; they preside over and control those exercises, and even give prizes for excellence " (Dr. Perry, Evidence on Mr. Ewart's Bill, 1867). The object of such a seminary is not only to encourage learning, but to train teachers. The necessity of a normal school for training the teacher is recognised in the elementary department, and our national schoolmasters receive an elaborate professional preparation. But for the vastly more complex art of intellectual educa- 310 Studies preliminary to the Degree. tion it is not imagined that any preparation it* requisite. A practical teacher of much experience says : " Whilst the mere possession of knowledge is enough to teach advanced I'lassrs . . . llir teaching little lm\ > ami -tii|>i,,//<,-. that I am quite unequal, and which was only forced upon me by circumstances. I will only touch on one point more viz. the duration of a course of lectures. Mr. Gladstone has intimated his opinion that the l."iiir vacation is too long. This is probably only a form in which our former must I not still say our real ? repre- sentative in Parliament brings home to us the feeling among the public that Oxford is idle. Oxford is idle. But the Long vacation is not too long. For the fact is, that Oxford is at once idle and overworked. In respect of seventy per cent of its students it is idle hopelessly and incorrigibly idle. In respect of the honour curriculum, I am inclined to think that there is too much, rather than too little, done for the pupils by the tutors, and too severe a strain placed upon the anxious mind of a nervously-sensitive examinee. More freedom of spirit is required, for a real appropriation of ideas, than most men can now feel under the pressure of constant examination. Too much is at stake upon the accidental condition of his physical and nervous system during the examination-week. Mr. Mill said, in the same Address at St. Andrews, " The majority of those who come to the English universities come ignorant, and ignorant they go away" (p. 4) ; and a few minutes afterwards, " The English universities, in the present generation, are doing better work than they have done within human memory" (p. 40). Mr. Acland suggests that these statements arc inconsistent (Letter to Vice-Chancellor, p. 25). They are both true. To shorten the Long vacation would be to cripple the " better work" which we can do, in order to set Vi to do worse work which we ought not to attempt to do. To shorten the Long vacation would be to legislate for the Studies preliminary to the Degree. 313 idle majority. I contend that our principle of legislation ought to be to legislate for the studious minority. The suggestions contained in these pages have for one object that of slowly turning this minority into a majority. It is absurd enough that a place of study should be divided into " reading" and " non-reading" men ; into " students" who study, and " students" who don't study. It would be more absurd still, if our arrangements for " studies" should be framed with a view to the supposed interests of the stu- dents who do not study. Let us by all means encourage all to become reading men. But do not let us imagine that we can force any one to become so by compulsory examinations. For the working student and the working tutor, in the honour curriculum, the vacation is not a time of idleness. It is only a change of labour. The student requires to exchange the strain upon his receptive powers for the repose of digestion. After the infinite variety of matters forced upon his attention during the term a variety which, by its rapid succession, stuns and bewilders rather than illuminates four months of repose are not too much. He requires to recover his balance and his self-possession. I may here recall words written many years ago in a now forgotten paper : " The stagnant lethargy of the old days enjoyed one supreme privilege, which the system that woke us to life has robbed us of. In the then undisturbed repose of academic leisure, the student had at least the full fruition of thought and books. He had time to read. ' Deep self- possession, an intense repose,' could do for the higher facul- ties what no ' getting-up' of books ever can do. ' There is a source of power,' says De Quincey, ' almost peculiar to 314 .SV'///V.s >i;/iiniixiri/ t youth and youthful circumstances, that not always arc we called upon to seek ; sometimes, and in childhood above all, are we sought : ' There are powers Which of themselves our minds impress ; And we can feed thin mind of ours In a wise passiveness.' Such a condition was a sacrifice of the many for the benefit of the few. We should be on our guard that we do not now reverse the case, and sacrifice the best minds to the necessity of stimulating the many. . . . We ought to remember that intellectual character is the true prepara- tion for life. It may be questioned if the bustle and stir which accompanies our training here be favourable to character. There is in it more of restlessness than of energy. ' No great intellectual thing,' it has been said, (Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelism, p. 11), ' was ever done by great effort' There is an overwork caused by the ambitious desire of doing great or clever things, and the hope of accomplishing them by immense efforts ' hope as vain as it is pernicious, not only making men overwork themselves, but rendering all the work they do unwholesome to them.' This excitement with us in Oxford is a consequence of the degradation of our studies, of our being occupied with the trivial, and not with one object which can permanently engage and sustain the intellect. The best and most zealous teachers endeavour to make up for the want of leisure to do one thing well, by a spurious activity which endeavours to do many things." In the present state of things, the Long vacation affords the only opportunity which an actively-engaged teacher has Studies preliminary to the Degree. 315 of refreshing his teaching by a recurrence to its sources. But he would be relieved, instead of burdened, by another change, which would probably effect all that Mr. Gladstone had in view viz. lengthening the terms. " The short period of an eight weeks' term, an arrangement which has probably no parallel in any other university, makes it impossible to lecture on a great subject with that steady and thorough procedure which is requisite to let it make its due impression on the mind." This evil, felt to be so twelve years ago, is aggravated now, as even more is done now than then. Instead of three terms of residence in the year, I would have only two. The first should begin 10th October and end 23d December. The second should begin 14th January and end 1st June. The examinations should be held only once in each year, in the month of May. The reasons for the selection of these days will be obvious at once. The advantages of the change would be : (1.) A substantial addition to the length of the aca- demical year. The " residence" of an undergraduate student is now considered to be 168 days out of the 365 ; under the new arrangement it would be increased to 210. Even if ten days were allowed at Easter, a whole month would still have been added to his attendance on lectures. (2.) What would be gained, by this addition to the quantity of teaching, is of less moment than the improvement which might be expected in its quality by the freer space and elbow-room which the teacher would obtain. In the hurry and rush of an eight weeks' term, he is straining to do as much as he can crowd into the time, and nothing is done as well as it might be. We are ever beginning, and leaving off before we have well begun. Though the 316 Studies prrlimiii'iry to the Degree. teacher's course would be lengthened by the new arrange- ment, I believe he would lecture through 200 days, when divided into two semesters, with more ease to himself than he now does through 168 divided into three terms. (3.) By ending residence in May, and thus cutting out the month of June, we should strike a heavier blow at the cricket and boating than by any other means known to me. If any proof could convince the advocates of intramural residence of the futility of " college-discipline," such a proof might be found in the mastery which the athletic furor has established over all minds in this place. So entirely are the tutors beaten by it, that, to cover the dis- grace of defeat, they are obliged to affect to patronise and encourage the evil. I know, therefore, that on this head I must look for no sympathy from college-tutors. I appeal from the tutors to parents and schoolmasters. Can parents and schoolmasters possibly go on any longer pretending to think that cricket, boating, and athletics, as now con- ducted, are only recreations are only the proper and necessary relaxation, which fills up the intervals of lecture and private study ? It is quite time that this delusion should be dispelled. They have ceased to be amusements ; they are organised into a system of serious occupation. What we call incapacity in young men is often no more than an incapacity of attention to learning, because the mind is preoccupied with a more urgent and all-absorbing call upon its energies. As soon as the summer weather seta in, the colleges are disorganised; study, even the pretence of it, is at an end. Play is thenceforward the only thought They are playing all day, or preparing for it, or refreshing themselves after their fatigues. There is a Studies preliminary to the Degree. 317 hot breakfast and lounge from 9 to 10 A.M. ; this is called training. At 12 the drag which is to carry them out to the cricket-ground begins its rounds, and the work of the day is over. I have called the academical year, under the existing arrangement, a year of 168 days. It is actually not so long. Some five or six weeks must be deducted from the summer term, and charged to the vacation side of the account. Commemoration, which serves no really good purpose, and seems to give an official sanction to much frivolous dissipation, would at the same time be discontinued. The serious work of the examinations, and the publication of the various honour-lists, would be the concluding " act " of the academical year. 5. Summary of Arrangement of Studies. The arrangements which have been suggested of the " Studies preliminary to the Degree " would then stand as follows : A student would come up at once, without previous notice, and matriculate. All matriculations are in October. He would inscribe his name on the register of the university, and not on the books of any college. All that would be necessary for this purpose would be that he should be presented at the Registry Office by an M.A. whose own name was on the roll of " tutors " i.e. the lowest or junior grade of university teachers. There is no matriculation examination, no responsions, and no " pass " examinations or lectures. The tutor would give what instruction he thought fit, and require his pupil's attendance at any courses of professors' lectures he judged expedient. The student would lodge where he liked. If he chose 318 >'////,.< pri'linu'miry / (//> />> ; /r. to rent a set of rooms in any college, or if he obtained a scholarship attached to any college, he would have, of course, to comply with such regulations an to hours, < (<.. as the college thought good to make. Outside college- walls he would be amenable to the disciplinal regulations of the university and the directions of his tutor. If he be a candidate for a degree, and for honours which are the same thing he must attend public lectures in such sequence as shall be from time to time directed by each of the Faculty Boards. But the first university test he will encounter will be Moderations. There will be no limit of age or standing imposed on candidates for Modera- tions. But it would be usual to pass the Moderation-school at the end of the first year of residence i.e. in the May following the October in which he matriculated. But there would be nothing to prevent any young man from offering himself for this examination before matriculation. If he passed it, he would not thereby reduce the three years of his attendance on lectures to two. But he would gain the advantage of having got a mere "preliminary" examination out of the way, and of getting three years' scientific in- struction instead of only two. In Moderations there would be (at least) two schools : 1. Classical ; 2. Mathematical and Physical. The names of those who passed this exa- mination would be arranged in four classes in each school. The appearance in one of the classes to be indispensable to obtain the final degree. Candidates to make their option between the classical and the mathematical school. Moderations would thus take somewhat the place which the " Previous Examination with additional subjects " holds at Cambridge. This part of the arrangement is a con- Studies prefanmary to the Degree. 319 cession, to what seems a present necessity, for the present. It draws the line between the general and preliminary edu- cation, and the scientific, or properly academical, course. It gives the student an academical year (October May) to complete and improve his school-discipline. From this moment he takes leave of disciplinal studies, and com- mences as student in some one of the faculties. Having, after Moderations, chosen his faculty, he must attend the courses of lectures in that faculty in the order prescribed by its Board of Studies. Any other lectures besides these he is free to attend, if he likes. If he intends to become a professional teacher, in or out of the university, his tutor will recommend him to inscribe his name in the " Philological Seminary." These courses last two years. At the end of two years from Moderations he presents himself in the school of his faculty for examination for the first degree. The faculties are : Theology. Law, with two sub-faculties. 1. History. 2. Moral and Social Science Staatswissenschaft, etc. Medicine. Mathematics and Physics in two subdivisions. 1. Chemical and Biological Sciences. 2. Natural Philosophy. Language and Literature in three subdivisions. 1. Comparative Philology and Science of Language. 2. Classics. 3. Theory and Archaeology of Art. Civil Engineering, Architecture, etc. The faculty of theology must be considered in abeyance for purposes of education at present. There is indeed a Studies preliminary to the Degree. scientific theology, and, in the Christian records of the early and later ages, the amplest material for various learn- ing and critical investigation. But theology has not begun to exist as a science among us. In the present state of the public mind in this country, it is hopeless to propose to assign to it the place and rank which is its due. I must be content with having marked this place, as being side by side with the other schools which entitle, each of them, to a degree, and which have a defined course of studies lead- ing up to that degree. But I cannot venture to propose what is obviously impossible. Theology will, I fear, in practice, continue to occupy its present degraded position of an extraneous appendage tacked on to the fag-end of every examination in every other subject In this respect the academical traditions of the sixteenth century, when all education was theological, have been continued into our day, partly from mere habit, partly with the idea that, by thrusting in theology into every examination, we were making education religious, as the Puritans of a former age imagined, that by the employment of Scripture phraseology they sanctified common conversation. The scientific faculties, then, in which the university offers definite courses of instruction, and crowns those courses with a degree, are nine. Those students who have attended these courses, and pass the examination which is instituted upon the courses, will be arranged in four classes in each school, and will be entitled to the first degree. This degree confers the title of " Master," and all the privileges and franchises attaching at present to a " Mem- ber of Convocation." The second degree confers the title of Doctor of the Studies preliminary to the Degree. 321 faculty to which the graduate belongs. But, while the first degree is general and public, 6pen to all who have passed through the prescribed courses, the doctorate is only for those who design the practice of one of the professions. It is conferred by the university, but requires, besides the previous attainment of the degree of "Master" in the faculty, the performance of such exercises or conditions as the authorities of the profession may impose. For the profession of teacher (whether in or out of the university), the university is itself the sole authority, and may impose its own conditions, therefore, on the doctors hi arts, etc. The master's degree is, alone, to qualify for the rank of Tutor. But before the "Tutor" can be promoted to be "Lecturer" in his faculty, a further test might perhaps be applied. At all events, attendance in the philological seminary would be required. I should anticipate that no inconsiderable number of students would at all tunes be found here, who were not candidates for a degree, and who resided irregularly for the benefit of the lectures. We have naturally grown into thinking that every one who entered our walls was to be taken in hand for drill, and was to be forced through a given course, and that if he were not so engaged he had no business in the place. This mode of thinking seems to have been founded upon a secret consciousness that the instruc- tion imparted had no intrinsic value, but derived its value from being the medium of getting through an examination. As soon as the university teachers shall be in a condition to give instruction which is in itself valuable, we shall not grudge to admit all who will, freely to it, without exacting from them that they shall be candidates for a degree. When Studies preliminary to the Degree. this is the case we shall hear no more of the cull for a " matriculation examination " now so loudly made it call which proceeds upon the theory of " conipulsory " learning. That theory is itself but a part of the popular conception of the university as a school. The Studirfreiheit of the German universities is the correlative of the sui>eriority in learning of their teaching body. As our teachers rise to a higher level of instruction, we shall hear proportionably less of schemes for compelling unwilling students to learn. It will be obvious that the feasibility of these sugges- tions on the studies preliminary to the degree, depends on the adoption of a previous part of the scheme as to the employment of the endowments. Scientific teaching can- not be substituted for "scholarship" and " philosophy" unless there are scientific men to give it. A change in the destina- tion of the endowments is therefore the first step required to be taken. It is impossible to take in hand the recon- sideration of the examination statute, till the endowments have been first transferred from their present employment as educational prizes to be a provision for learning and science. To revise the examination statute is to reconsider what the university ought to teach. If we were to proceed to recon- sider this question now at once, we should probably decide that we ought to continue to teach classical scholarship, philosophy, and the elements of mathematics and physics. An immediate revision of the examination system is, there- fore, by all means to be deprecated by all who wish to see Oxford rise to a level of instruction above the school elements with which she occupies herself at present. Conclusion. 323 SEC. 7. CONCLUSION. I am by no means insensible to the evils of change. But the alternative of change is not a conservative per- sistency. To be perpetually changing your system, without plan or methodical purpose, cannot be a good thing in any department of public administration. In a university even the desire for change, and the political agitation which attends it, are directly destructive of the purposes of the place. In a seat of learning, says Bacon, there should be " institutions and ordinances for government, all tending to quietness and privateness of life, and discharge of cares and troubles; much like the stations which Virgil pre- scribeth for the bees : " ' Principle sedes apibus statioque petenda, Quo neque sit ventis aditus.'" (Advancement of Learning, p. 108.) We cease to wonder that the " hautes Etudes" cannot exist in France, when we find that the whole system of education has been changed from top to bottom eight times since 1802. Only last year M. Duruy issued a circular to the rectors of the academies, ordering them not to teach grammar by rules, and giving reasons for the order. The discontinuance of " grammar" happens to be in accordance with the best experience, and in this, France is but follow- ing in the wake of Germany. But M. Duruy's successor may, perhaps, next year issue a rescript that grammar shall be taught by rules, and give reasons for doing so. This kind of change the degradation of waiting upon the whims of any " petit maitre" who may climb the stool of office, we may well be thankful that we are not ex|K>scd to. We have in Oxford a vitality of our own, which is quite equal to detecting and correcting faults of detail. All machinery is brought to perfection by watching its working, and con- stantly striving to strengthen or to substitute. This is progress, not change ; indefinite advance of an institution towards a ]>erfection which it will never reach. Such progressive development of the powers and uses of our university can only be worked out by ourselves. But such action implies, that we are once for all set in the right road; that we have placed before us a distinct aim. which prescribes our duty. The proposal which run- through these " Suggestions" is not of the character of im- provements of detail, it is nothing less than a change in the aims and objects of Oxford. The greater part of our institutions have gone through such a revolution, have been put on a new footing, and adapted to the requirements of our civilisation. Other parts of our social system the revolution is only now beginning to reach. The English universities have come down to the year 1867 substantially what they were in the reign of Elizabeth what they were left by the storm of the Reformation (Appendix F). The other nations of the continent, who are in a parallel stage of civilisation with ourselves, have dealt with their universities long ago. France, in the paroxysm of the Revolution, found her universities in the sixteenth-century shape, and, too impa- tient to reconstruct, destroyed them. She has still no university except in name, though some of the functions of a university are fulfilled by the Inntitiit, the Cnllnje de France, and some other puUie lx>dies in the metropolis which keep alive, though faintly, the tradition of learning. Conclusion. 325 Catholic and conservative Austria, though the latest in the field, has preceded us. In 1850 Count Thun inaugurated a new era in the Austrian universities, and set on foot a series of reforms which are still proceeding. The University of Vienna, which in the hands of the Jesuits had been made a mere instrument for promoting the interests of Rome, and had consequently been reduced to the most abject intellectual decrepitude, is now rapidly reviving, and bids fair to become one of the principal foyers of science in Germany, as it is already the largest in point of numbers (2200 students). In Vienna, where, up to the end of the last century, every graduate had, on taking his degree, to take an oath to the immaculate conception of the Holy Virgin, and where, till recently, the whole university went in procession to receive the sacrament of the altar on Holy Thursday, now, non-Catholics are admissible to the doc- torate, the professorate, and the academical senate, and endeavours are made to obtain from foreign states men of eminence to fill the chairs. We, at last, made a beginning in 1854. It was but a beginning. And very fortunate it was that no more was done then that the Act of Parliament was so moderate, and the executive commission so timid. Much good was done by the reforms set on foot then, and no irreparable harm. The college endowments are substantially intact, and the ideas of most of us who took part in the discus- sions then, as to the capacities and obligations of a public endowment, have become greatly enlarged. But it is still only a small minority, and chiefly of academical and scien- tific men, who yet see their way through the difficult problem of university education. The conception of an organised profession for the preservation ami tniii-ini->inn of the tradition of knowledge has not yet become familiar to the English mind. The state of elementary and of middle-class education interests the public. Of the very existence of the higher education, as a distinct gradation in mental culture, the public is not aware. It docs not believe in it ; for the very sufficient reason, that it has no extant example before its eyes. Middle education, and university education, arc supposed to differ in respect of cost, and in nothing else. They arc known to be intern In I for classes socially distinct ; but the education is supposed to be the same. Class-education would seem to be as rooted an idea in the English mind, as denominational religion. But if the universities are only schools for the wealthy classes, why should they enjoy a large national endowment ? Endow- ments mean, then, gratuitous education. Why should the nation, out of its national endowment-fund, provide gra- tuitous education, to the extent of 200,000 a-year, for the sons of precisely that class, which is best able to pay for whatever education it may think proper to have ? If the university be a school, of which heads, canons, professors, and tutors are the teachers, and whieh is fre- quented exclusively, or chiefly, by the rich, it is impossible that it should claim any longer to preserve its endow- ments. All our experience is against gratuitous instruc- tion being provided for any class in the community, even the poorest But if gratuitous class-education is to exist at all, it certainly cannot continue to exist precisely for the wealthiest class. The object of these " Suggestions" has been to insist that Conclusion. 327 the university shall be no longer a class-school, nor mainly a school for youth at all. It is a national institute for the preservation and tradition of useful knowledge. It is the common interest of the whole community that such know- ledge should exist, should be guarded, treasured, culti- vated, disseminated, expounded. At the same time, a school of the highest form of edu- cation can only exist on condition of being attached to such an institute. Such an organised institute of science and scientific training may be properly endowed. Nay, if we want to have it at all, we must endow it. The profession of learning will not exist at all, as a profession, with regular succession, unless it is created by endowment. There is no other fund but this reserved portion of the national domain, seeking to employ the practitioners of such a profession. The issue in the debate now on foot in university reform involves, among many other things, our title to the endow- ments. Our mere possession of an endowment, which is the property of the nation, can surely not constitute a title. The British nation is at this moment deliberating if it shall not resume the endowments at present in possession of the Irish Church, with the view of reappropriating them to some other purpose which it may prefer to the present purpose. We cannot foresee what will be the issue of that deliberation; but the deliberation will be likely to be impartial, and the decision to be wise, in proportion as the deliberating body realises its full and complete right to re-enter on its own domain, to resume possession, and to confirm, annul, or alter the present destination of that domain. With the same freedom let us deliberate on the application of the endowments now enjoyed by the uni- 328 Conclusion. versities. If we shall conclude that we want an organised institute for the cultivation and transmission of the lc-t knowledge extant, we cannot do Iwtter than locate it in the universities. There are the endowments ready to our hand; and it is certain that, without those endowments, such an organisation of science will not be. If, on the other hand, the nation shall decide that it does not want such an institution, it has the endowments in hand to appropriate to education. Endowments of education mean gratuitous education. Will the nation choose to employ its public find in bestowing gratuitous liberal education on the children of the rich, or, rather, in providing gratuitous elemenUry education for the children of the poor ? Should the deliberation reach this later stage should the destination of the endowment-fund hang in doubt Ixjtween paying for educating the rich and paying for educating the poor it is obvious which way the decision would be. Is there any hope that it will not reach that stage ; that we shall elect, in the first instance, to have a university which shall be an organisation of science ? Is there any hope that this idea can be created in the mind of the public ? The signs of the times are not en- couraging. English instinct, or what we call so, seeniH against its reception. The literary cynic sneers at the " sophists ; " the religious demagogue denounces the here- sies of " German professors ; " the hurry of business and pressure of practical life make " culture for culture's sake- sound like cloistral and pedantic talk. But there is a side from which the necessity of organ- ised science is likely to force itself upon the conviction- <>F Englishmen, and that at no very distant time. All that Conclusion. 329 we have hitherto accomplished, all of which we have been proud our colonies, our commerce, our machinery has been the achievement of individual enterprise. These splendid results have been due to the energy of will to character. But civilisation in the West has now reached a point where no further triumphs await mere vigour, un- directed by knowledge. Energy will be beaten in the practical field by combined skill. The days when the knight, cased in his armour, lorded it on the field by the prowess of his arm, are gone for ever, and battles are now decided by the evolutions of masses directed by a central intellect. We have had lately some rude reminders in the fiasco of our railway system, in the catastrophe which in a few weeks ruined the edifice of our credit, in the incapacity of our boasted self-government to secure us the most indis- pensable sanitary regulations that there is something wrong, somewhere, which is not want of energy of purpose. The conviction must ere long reach us that our knowledge is defective, and that such is the length of art and the shortness of life, that knowledge can only be made avail- able for public purposes by concert and organisation. I decline, for myself, to be bound by the theory of those who maintain that education is for life, and life as it is. A Christian looks for a life beyond this life, and thinks that no theory of education can be perfect, as theory, which does not take account of that hope. The development of mind as mind, or culture for culture's sake, is to him the true ideal. But, for the present, it will be a great step upwards if the higher education can be organised on the basis of positive knowledge. We, in Oxford, have entirely lost sight of the connection between training and knowledge. We have forgotten that we ourselves the teachers are here as learners; that we have any obligations on the side of knowledge. We arc absorbed in our anxiety to i>erfeet the conditions of an examination to see that the race between the competitors is fairly run. Provided we stimulate the candidates for the prizes to exert themselves to the utmost, and provided we secure that the award is impartially made, we are satisfied. We care not in what subjects the race is run. We care not what we teach, provided it is some material which allows of decisive com- parison of merit (Appendix H). As we own no obligations to knowledge, so there is no public opinion to enforce any upon us. I am aware that the purport and aim of these " Suggestions" is one which can appeal to the sympathies of a very small minority. I must console myself by the hope that they are a growing minority. New circumstances are bringing with them the new conviction that abstract science and adjusted theory are, after all, conditions of successful practice. When we have reached this conviction, England will have arrived at that truth upon the belief of which was founded the earliot university known to history the University of Athens, oi. roitf Xoyovf ro?f fcyoif /3XdC>}v jjyou.airo/, eeXX.ee fJt-fi cro&i&a%dfi*a.i ,oaXXo Xoyiy cgoYifov % ivj & cW iryy "1 iiv are becoming daily greater and more manifest 11. A strong opinion accordingly prevails on the part of the University, and (as there is reason to believe) on the part of the City also, tliat for the remedy of these evils there ought to be one common Police Force, available for day and night duty, under common management ; and, with the view of coming to an arrangement for the establishment of such a Force, negotiations were commenced some time ago between the Vice-Chancellor and Hebdomadal Council of the Univer- sity on the one side, and the Mayor and Council of the City on the other side. But the proposals hitherto made on either side have not proved acceptable, or led to any satisfactory results. 12. And the last proposal made on behalf of the Univer- sity, to refer the whole matter to arbitration, having been re- jected by the committee acting on behalf of the Town Council, it has been thought advisable to bring the case under the notice of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home De- partment, in the hope that his intervention may lead to a speedy solution of the existing difficulties, and to the estab- lishment of a Police Force in Oxford upon fair terms, and under an efficient system, which may be satisfactory to all parties. Oxford, June 4, 1866. Appendix. 335 (B, p. 59.) Matriculations in the University of Oxford from 1854. 1854 . . . 393 1861 . . . 433 1855 . . . 344 1862 . . . 433 1856 . . . 385 1863 . . . 452 1857 ... 380 1864 ... 476 1858 . . . 399 1865 . . . 524 1859 ... 419 1866 ... 517 1860 ... 410 1867 ... 501 Matriculations in the University of Cambridge from 1861. 1861 ... 425 1865 ... 530 1862 ... 407 1866 ... 540 1863 ... 448 1867 ... 572 1864 ... 519 Frequenz of the universities of Prussia, (corrected) from returns collected by Lord Kussell in 1859. Berlin . . . 2000 Breslau . . 770 Bonn . . . 800 Konigsberg . 380 Greifswald 300 Halle . 640 Total . . 5890 Total Frequenz (i.e. the number of students resident at one time) in the two older English universities . under 3,500. Population of Prussia in 1859 . . 18,000,000. Population of England and Wales . . 21,000,000. Frequenz of the universities of the Austrian Empire, (cor- rected) from returns obtained by Lord Kussell in 1859. Vienna . . 2200 Gratz . . 310 Cracow . . 280 Olmiitz . . 80 Prague . . 1120 Inspruck . 290 Pesth . . 1190 Lemberg . 530 Total . 5850 drawn from a population of (say) 24,000,000. The universities in the other ( Jrrman States had (b tlie Prussian annexation) a total Freqnenz of more than 6800. This gives a total of more than 16,000 young nn-n n , i\ inu r a university training. This total is drawn from a i>opulation which may be roughly estimated at 50 millions. The total Frequenz of Oxford and Cambridge together may be stated as 3500, drawn from a population of (say) twenty millions. But the disparity is really much greater than these tigures represent it. We must take into account (1), the much greater wealth which exists in this country ; and (2), the fact that, while the larger part of our clergy frequent Oxford and Cambridge, a very small fraction of the Catholic clergy approach their universities. (C, p. 150.) The course of studies in Yale University, which is stated to be a poor and hard-working seminary, is as follows : Freslunan's Year. Homer (//. and Odyss.), Herodotus,l,ucian, Greek Composition, Livy, Quintilian, Horace (Odes), Latin Com- position, Algebra, Euclid, Spherics, History of Home, Rhetoric. Sophomore Year. Electra, The Orations of Demosthenes, Prometheus, Theocritus, Xenophou's Memorabilia, Horace (Satt. and Ej)p.), Cicero de Offidis, Juvenal, Trigonometry, Analytical Geometry, Conic Sections, Elocution, Declamation, Composition, Rhetoric. Junior Year. Thucydides, Demosthenes de Corona, Taci- tus, Mechanics, Disputations, Modern Languages, Logic, Che- mistry, Natural Philosophy, the higher branches of Mathematics. Senior Year. Metaphysics, Moral Philosophy ; higher class of English studies ; Guizot's Civilisation, Political Economy, Hamilton's Metaphysics, Geology, Astronomy, Chemistry, Stewart's Active and Moral Powers, Civil Liberty (?), Butler's Analogy, Moral Science, Paley's Natural Theology and Evidences, Law of Nations. Appendix. 337 I cite from an interesting article in the Fortnightly Review, October 1867, not having a programme of the college at hand. Probably the college prospectus would explain some things in the above list of subjects which are very puzzling. If the plan is for each student to go through all of these things in four years, the remark in the text (p. 150) is confirmed, as far as Yale University is concerned. (D,p. 238.) Since these words were written, I have found the same argument urged with much greater force and precision by Professor Seeley, M.A. " The classicists say, and I heartily agree with them, that if you would cultivate the mind, you must imbue it with good literature. If, then, the mind of the classically-educated boy is not imbued with good literature, on their own showing it is not educated. The more you exalt literature, the more you must condemn the classical system. Of what advantage is it, if the boys do not, after all, gain the treasure, to have spent several years in striving after it ? What avail all the merits and beauties of the classics to those who never attain to ap- preciate them 1 If they never arrive, what was the use of their setting out ] That a country is prosperous and pleasant is a reason for going to it, but it is not a reason for going half- way to it. If you cannot get all the way to America, you had better surely go somewhere else. If you are a parent, and think that your son is not fit to go to Cambridge, you send him into the city, or into the army. You do not send him part of the way to Cambridge ; you do not send him to Royston or Bishop-Stortford " (Macmillan's Magazine, Novem- ber 1867). (E, p. 277.) The subjects required for the first B.Sc. examination in the University of London are stated annually in the Calendar. z i /r ./ .. Their enumeration alone occupies five pages. It is the rule of the examination that " Candidates shall not bo appmvt \ the examiners unless they show a competent knowledge in the fundamental principles of 1. Mathematics; 2. Mechanical and Natural Philosophy; 3. Chemistry; 4. Biology, including Botany and Vegetable Physiology and Zoology. " The extent of acquirement expected in Natural Philo sophy, Chemistry, and Biology, is such as may fairly be attained by attendance on a course of lectures on each of these subjects, extending through an academical session " (London University Calendar, p. 77). (F, p. 324.) The fact that it is more than 300 years since the universi- ties ceased to be metropolitan centres of learning and science, seems to throw an unpractical air over the suggestion that tin \ should now become such. What has not been for so long, cannot, it is thought, ever be again. There must be some reason in the nature of things against it. After so long a desuetude, the privilege must have lapsed. To meet this pre- judice, it is enough to cite the case of the German universities, which, like ourselves, slept from the Reformation till the latter half of the eighteenth century. We are only now setting about an operation which was gone through, in Germany, a century back. To what causes our delay in the reform of our educa- tional machinery, in all the three grades elementary, middle, superior is owing, is sufficiently obvious to all who are ac- quainted with our internal history during the period. Intel- ligent statesmen were all along aware of the abuses of the universities. There is A Memorial relating to the Universities, printed by Gutch (Collectanea Curiosa, ii. 53), as found among the papers of the first Lord Macclesfield* Its authorship is attributed to him ; but " not on sufficient grounds," says Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, vol. iv. p. 563). It is, however, of that date. Lord Macclesfield t 1732. Appendix. 339 The memorial proposes as one of its objects " By what methods learning and industry may be promoted in the uni- versities, setting aside all party considerations." Setting out the abuses in the elections of Heads of Colleges by the body of fellows, the memorial recommends that they be named for the future by a board, composed of the great officers of State, and such of the archbishops and bishops as shall be thought proper, in conjunction with the visitor. Commissioners to be appointed to inspect and alter the statutes of the colleges. All fellowships to be made terminable in twenty years ; except two tutor-fellows in each college, who, after fifteen years of service, might retain their fellowships for life. Every fellow might demand a license of non-residence for six months, and have it renewed ten times, but not oftener ; but no fellow to be dispensed from residence till he has been five years fellow, that he might lay a good foundation in general learning before going out into the world. The memorial is opposed to doing away the obligation to take orders, though a thing much desired by many. Among other reasons for retaining the obligation, one is, that the " faculty places " are generally filled by younger sons of noble families, or by such as desire to lead a free life. But the me- morialist would have, in every college, an equal number of fellows not in orders, to the number of faculty places allowed by the founder ; out of these, when vacancies happened, the faculty places should be supplied. " Whereas too many fellows live on in the colleges, waiting for their turn of a college living, without endeavouring to im- prove in learning, as depending upon their being able to pass a legal examination with the bishop ; and whereas most colleges are daily buying in advowsons ; and whereas, by colleges buying in livings of greater value, livings of 120 or 140 per annum, which formerly used to take off fellows, will be despised by them, and come to the share of those of less learning that the statute forbidding colleges to buy n H i. OSTERLOH. MCLLER. GERBER. HEINZE. SCHLETTER. l*rof. Extraord. SCHILLING. WEISKE. HOCK. Kl.NT/K. Gorz. VOIOT. SPRANOER. Dr. LiJDER. Pumlecta. Special Principles of the PandccU. Institutes and Hint of Hum. Law. Pandect*, tit De regulia Juris. Hint of German Law. Ecclesiastical Law. Laws of Marriage. Saxon Civil Courts. Summary Procenes. Civil Law Proceaa. Principles of Pandects comp. with the Saxon Code. Law of Succession. German State Law. Feudal Law. Philosophy of Right Penal Law. Criminal Procedure, General aud Saxon. International Law ; positive. Ecclesiastical Law in Germany. Mining Law. Law of Contracts ; German. Punishments. Sachsenspiegel. Institutes, and Hist of Rom. Law. Laws of Inheritance ; Pandects. Law of Exchange. Commercial Law. Institutes, and Hist, of Rom. Law. Roman Civil Procedure. German Public Law. Do. Penal Law. Juristic Encyclopaedia. Criminal Procedure. International Law. Saxon Penal Procedure. Appendix. 343 3. Medical Faculty. Prof. Ord. RUETE. Ophthalmic. Clinic of do. WEBER. Intestines. Demonstrations in Anatomy. RADIUS. Pharmacodynamic. Pharmacognosy. Hygiene, Public and Private. GUNTHER. Surgical, Clinic. Deformed Foot. WUNDERLTCH. Clinic. Constitutional Maladies. CREDE 1 . Midwifery. Do. Operations. Do. Demonstrations. WAGNER. Pathological Anatomy. Policlinic. LUDWIG. Experimental Physiology, 2d Part. Prof. Extraord. KNESCHKE. Encyclopaedia of Medicine. Prescribing. BOCK. Pathological Anatomy. Do. Diagnostic. WEBER. Osteology. Myology. SONNENKALB. Medical Jurisprudence. Insanity in the Law Courts. STREUBEL. Surgical, Policlinic. CARUS. Reproduction of Species. Comparative Anatomy. Groups of Mammalia. ,, WINTER. Prescribing. Introduction to Study of Medicine. Coccius. Course of Operations on the Pupil. Pathology of the Eye. Optical Anatomy of the Eye. GERMANN. Diseases of Women. HENNIG. Diseases of Children. 344 Prof. K\t mi m I. RRCLAM. Medical Jurisprudence. Climate oiid Mineral Waters. M [.UK i:i .. Diseases of Throat, etc. Physiology of Speech. Laryngological Policlinic. SCHMIDT. Surgery, 1st Part Surgical Policlinic. BRACNE. Principles of Operations. Topographical Anatomy. Dr. MEIBSNER. Obstetric Operations principles. Do. Legal Medicine. KCHN Syphilis. HA A RE. Midwifery. HCPPEBT. Chemical Diagnostic. Physiological Chemistry. Experimental Physiology Microscope NAUMASN. General Pharmaceutics. THOMAS. Local Diseases. Physical Diagnostic. HAUEN. Diseases of the Ear. Anatomy of do. SCHWEIOGER-SEIDEL. Anatomy of Nervous System. WENDT. Diseases of Ear. SCHUPPEL. Rep. of Pathological Anatomy. 4. Philotophiccd Faculty. Prof. Ord. WUTTKE. Hwtory of French Revolution and Napoleon I. DROBIBCH. Psychology. Theories of Human Understanding. .. ERDXAMK. Elements of Organic Chemistry. ,, FECHNER. Relations of the Material and Spiritual Principle. .. FLEISCHER. Translation of Koran. Suras 25-29. Modern Arabic. Dschami's Beharistan. Old Turkish. Appendix. 345 Prof. Ord. MOBIUS. NAUMANN. WEISSE. PoPPIG. ROSCHER. BROCKHAUS. HANKEL. KLOTZ. ZAKNCKE. OVEEBECK. AHRENS. CURTIUS. MASIUS. EBERT. Higher Arithmetic. Physical Astronomy. Physical Geography. Mineralogy. History of Philosophy. Encylopsedia of Philosophy. Zoology, Vertebrata. History of Political Theories. Practical (Economics. Finance. Bopp's Sanskrit Grammar. Lassen. Chrestomathia Sanskrita, 1st Course. Do. 2d Course. Physics. Electricity, Magnetism, Heat Do. Light. History of Latin Literature. Cicero de Natura Deorum. Latin Writing. The Niebelungen-lied. The Older Edda. Private Antiquities of the Greeks. Theory of Greek Art. Logic and Metaphysics. Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Political Philosophy. Greek Grammar. Greek Lyric Fragments. History of Padagogik, 2d Part. Schools in 16th and 17th centuries. History of Christian Latin Literature to Charlemagne. Introduction to Comparative Theory of the Romance Languages. Provincial Grammar. Bartsch'a Reading- book. 2A Prof. OnL RrrecHL. KOLBB. VOIQT. Prof. ExtraonL NOBBE. FLATHK. MARBACH. JACOBL WBNCK. SCHEIBNER. FRITZSCHE. BRCHNS. HERMANN. KREHL. KNOP. MlNCKWITZ. XH.I.I it. Latin Cniininai. Inorgoiii- Clicinintry. Hidtory of German Kmjiin- I'mni < 'liailr mogne to fall of tin- HohenstanllVn. Alexander the Great and hit* succ-8ors. Sophocles, CEdipus Ilex. Tacitus, Ann. I. On the Genius of Sluikpeare. Geometry and Trigonometry. Steam Machinery. IMnciples of Fanning. Forest Management Agricultural Profits, Mode of Reckoning. History of Germany, 1648-1790. Do. of the West from Fall of tin- Roman Empire to Charlemagne. High Equations. Determinants. Greek and Latin Metres. Plato. Timteus. Stellar Astronomy. Trigonometry. On Developments in Series. Introduction to Philosophy. Metrical Laws. Comparative Examination of Systems of Philosophy. Arabic Grammar, Caspari's. Encyclopedia of Semitic Philology. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum. Agricultural Chemistry. Chemical Methods. History of German Literature since Klopstock. Origin of Homeric Poems. Psychology and ./Esthetic. Appendix. 347 Prof. Extraord. ECHSTEIN. BKANDES. BlEDERMANN, HlRZEL. Dr. KERNDT. H. WEISKE. SEYDEL. PUCKERT. HANKEL. SCHONE. Z6LLNER. BlRNBAUM. Lecturers Prof. FURST. LANGER. History of Superior Education in Ger- many since the Reformation, with special reference to Saxony. Greek Antiquities. History of Europe in fifteenth century. Constitutional Law. Modern History since 1840. Pharmacy. Agricultural Chemistry. Technology. Practical Economics. Experimental Physics. Electro-chemistry. Meteorology. Ethics. History of Mythology. Relation between Theology and Philo- sophy. History of Saxony. Integral Calculus. Theories of Analysis with a view to their application in Physics. Plutarch, Life of Solon. Physical Astronomy. Principles of Farming. Qualities of Land, Land Valuation. Isaiah i-xxxix. Hebrew Grammar. Biblical Literature. Harmonics. Theory of musical forms. This list of lectures is exclusive of the philological semi- nary ; of all the laboratory and dissecting-room work ; and of a variety of exercises and practical instruction Besprechungen, 348 flMMPWfortu ; and all the nvl<- in which tin- ] fessor is brought personally into relation with the student. (H, p. 330.) As these sheets are passing through press I read that in the discussions, at Cambridge, on the KVport of the Syndicate on the Classical Tripos, " Lord Powis defended verse-composi- tion, and objected to the ' alternative ' scheme (ie. a proposal to allow candidates a choice between philological questions and a set of verses). He objected to men being pitted against each other on different grounds, which would be the case if one man took the philology paper and another the verse " (Pall Mall Gazette, 21st November 1867). This line of argument assumes that students are not examined in that which their teachers think it expedient they should learn, but that they must be taught that in which they can be examined, so as to be pitted against each other. The instruction is to be governed by the examination. Competition, instead of being regarded as a necessary evil, has ousted education from the system, of which it has become the end and purpose. THK i M> Prinkd by R. CLARK, Ktlinlmrgh. *- University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles. CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. OCT 1 C QUARTER 999 LOAN