78 Oxford Bigotry and Oxford Studies. 



bought up at a low rate by the colleges. The old colleges thus ex- 

 tended their buildings. Before this period they had rarely, if ever, 

 admitted any pupils who were not members upon their foundations, 

 and provided for by endowments : but now they began to take in 

 pupils who were not on their foundation ; and the diminution of the 

 number of students in the University made it possible for them to 

 receive almost all. Six new colleges were founded in the seven- 

 teenth century, partly, it may reasonably be concluded, in conse- 

 quence of the little cost with which sites for them could be pur- 

 chased. Since that period, one college has been founded (Wadham 

 in 1610, or soon after); and three of the eight surviving halls 

 changed by endowment into colleges, of which however one is since 

 extinct. It cannot be questioned, that one reason of the decay of 

 the halls and the increase "of the colleges was the more effectual 

 superintendence and tuition which was supplied in the colleges in 

 consequence of the number of graduates who were members of 

 them. In later times, since the tuition of the colleges has supplanted 

 the public instruction of the University delivered by professors and 

 public lecturers, it is absolutely necessary to the existence of the halls 

 to have tutors in addition to their principals. But besides the natural 

 operation of these causes, there has been a piece of University legisla- 

 tion, by which the monopoly of the colleges has been hitherto secured 

 against any revival of the halls. When the all-powerful earl of Leices- 

 ter was chancellor of the University, about 1570, he obtained from the 

 University the absolute right of nominating the principals of all halls 

 (except St. Edmund Hall, which is attached to Queen's College), 

 and consequently in effect a veto upon the institution of new halls ; 

 and this right is now vested by statute in his successors. The col- 

 leges, which had then'begun to exercise great influence in the Uni- 

 versity, had clearly an interested motive in procuring this concession ; 

 and since that time no new hall has been opened.'' 



The endowed establishment gained a still greater accession of in- 

 fluence by the enactments of the fifteenth century, which made it 

 compulsory on the students of the University to become members of 

 some college or hall, and oy the regulations of Leicester and Laud, 

 which not only compelled residence in colleges, but made it necessary 

 to enter under a particular tutor therein resident. Such tutor, how- 

 ever, was a person of very subordinate authority, a moral guardian 

 rather than a professed teacher, one whose duty it was not to teach 

 the whole round of the sciences so much as to imbue his pupils with 

 good principles, to institute them in the rudiments of religion and the 

 doctrine of the Thirty-nine Articles, and to make them conformable 

 to the statutory regulations in matters of external appearance. But 

 the grand step was gained ; and a new system was set in operation 

 that gradually took place of the professorial system, which soon 

 ceased to exist except in theory. Bye-statutes after bye-statutes 

 have first permitted relaxed attendance, and at length dispensed with 

 it altogether; so that at the present day any attendance whatever on 

 any of the professors' lectures is merely voluntary ; and out of 

 twenty-eight professors only twelve lecture at all. It is true that 

 Dr. Cardwell's and Dr. Buckland's lectures are well attended ; but 



