OXFORD 



681 



by the transference to Oxford of Mansfield College 

 find of Manchester New College (though these two 

 colleges are not incorporated in the university), 

 bear witness to the new life which has hegun to 

 throb alike in the Anglican Church and in Non- 

 conformity. 



In Elizabeth's reign, and still more under the 

 Stuarts, we have to mark a very strong desire on 

 the part of the supreme power to compel all 

 students in the university to reside within the 

 walls of the colleges and the halls (then five in 

 number, now reduced to two). The strong opposi- 

 tion of minorities, in matters both of polity and 

 faith, rendered English sovereigns and their minis- 

 ters suspicious arid intolerant of students and 

 teachers who were not directly under their control ; 

 and to secure this control they required that all 

 students should reside in the colleges, where they 

 were under the charge of governors appointed by 

 court influence and responsible to the court. From 

 this time, therefore, we have to date the disappear- 

 ance of the old university and the development 

 of that peculiarly English form, a university of 

 colleges. 



In the following six features the university of 

 Oxford stands in marked contrast to universities 

 out of England. ( 1 ) The College System. Before 

 a person becomes a member of the university he 

 must first of all liecome a member of one of the 

 twenty-one colleges or two halls ; and the moment 

 lie ceases to be a member of one of these societies 

 his actual membership of the university is also 

 terminated. This means that the Oxford under- 

 graduate is not left as a unit in a great body of 

 two or three thousand, but i- made a member of 

 a much smaller body of perhaps eighty to two 

 hundred members, and is therefore subject to 

 closer personal scrutiny and to stronger influences 

 of social opinion than would be |H>ssible in univer- 

 sities differently constituted. It is true that the 

 influence of this common life is partially discounted 

 in the case of students from the public schools, 

 where similar influences have already formed their 

 character ; but in the case of students from small 

 schools or solitary homes the vigorous social life of 

 a good college is wonderfully efficacious in convert- 

 ing the raw, diffident, or morose boy into the frank, 

 self-reliant, and sociable man. (2) The Fellow- 

 ship System. Formerly every first-class man (and 

 many in the second class) could count with cer- 

 tainty on his fellowship that is, on a secure 

 endowment (for a shorter or longer period) which 

 would enable him to pursue his studies or to pre- 

 pare himself for professional life. Some few of 

 these fellowships are still open to competition ; 

 but the regulations of the Commission of 1877, 

 which suppressed many fellowships to found pro- 

 fessorships, coinciding with the loss of more than 

 a third of the annual revenues of the colleges from 

 the fall in agricultural rents, have seriously reduced 

 their number and, so far, deprived Oxford of her 

 best feature. The scholarship system i.e. endow- 

 ments held during the time of an undergraduate's 

 course, is not so distinctive of Oxford ; though such 

 endowments are more numerous and valuable in 

 Oxford than in any other university. (3) The 

 System of Tuition. In foreign universities the work 

 of tuition is undertaken by university teachers 

 i.e. by the professors. In Oxford the professoriate 

 lias withdrawn itself from any real share in this 

 work, and, so far as concerns the mass of Oxford 

 tudents, might be entirely suppressed without in 

 any way affecting their studies. In all ordinary 

 subjects, speaking generally, the professors have 

 long ceased to give systematic instruction, and 

 have at most expounded some small, and to the 

 ordinary student often unnecessary, point in their 

 ubject. It is plain that from two lectures a week, 



delivered through at most three terms of seven 

 weeks each, a student can learn little in language, 

 in history, in philosophy, or in science. The work 

 of tuition which in other universities is discharged 

 by the professors is in Oxford discharged by the 

 college lecturers. Formerly a college lecturer 

 lectured only to the men of his own college, a 

 system which was terribly unfair to the students 

 of an inefficient college ; of late years the better 

 college lectures have become practically open to 

 the whole university, and, especially in lectures 

 connected with the honour schools, frequently 

 without fee. The college lecturers of Oxford are 

 therefore the professors of Oxford, except that 

 they are not called by that name, and that they 

 are paid by their college, not by the university. 

 At the same time, the old Oxford tradition of a 

 college tutor devoting himself to the interests of 

 the men of his own college still continues. Apart 

 from attendance at lectures, a large portion of 

 Oxford tuition consists in taking compositions, 

 translations, papers, and essays either individually 

 or in very small classes to one's tutor or lecturer. 

 This individual instruction involves, it is true, an 

 expenditure of time and talent which seems out of 

 all proportion to the results it achieves, vet the 

 happiest memories of Oxford men are probably those 

 half-hours or hours in their tutor's room when their 

 individual faults were exposed by the large scholar- 

 ship and their individual eccentricities corrected by 

 the unsparing but good-natured chaff of a kindly 

 mentor. One result of the remarkable improvement 

 in college tuition of the last few years has been 

 the almost total disappearance of the ' private 

 coach ' from the honour work of the university. 

 Private coaching continues to a great extent 

 in the pass schools, partly because some candi- 

 dates have been very badly taught at school and 

 are below the level of their fellows, but chiefly 

 because candidates are too idle to read by them- 

 selves. Quite a recent development of the professor- 

 iate deserves notice here. When the university has 

 resident in it a man of special reputation in a given 

 branch of study, the common university fund has 

 of late years appointed him to lecture for three or 

 five years in his own subject. In some cases under- 

 graduate Oxford has not seconded this by attend- 

 ance at these lectures, but the approval of niaturer 

 scholars has followed this public recognition of 

 learning. Such lecturere are known by the new 

 title of 'Readers.' (4) The Discipline. The dis- 

 cipline of Oxford is much stricter than that of any 

 university outside England. Within college the 

 government of the college deans, without college 

 the vigilance of the proctors and their deputies, 

 repress disorder and immorality. Sad as is the 

 waste of young lives in Oxford, no one who has 

 known a laxer discipline can refuse to recognise 

 that if a man goes to the bad in Oxford he does 

 it of his own wilful and obstinate choice. (5) At 

 the same time, Oxford must be marked for the 

 excessive luxury and idleness of its students. The 

 common life of the colleges has this disadvantage, 

 that it requires considerable force of character for 

 a poor student to live in proportion to his poverty ; 

 there being every inducement for a man of weak 

 character to live after the fashion of his richer and 

 more careless contemporaries. Hence the son of a 

 man of 400 a year often spends during his course 

 at the rate of the son of 4000 a year, and begins 

 his after-life under a heavy burden of debt. And 

 lastly, amusements of different kinds, football, 

 rowing, cricket, tennis, billiards, cardplaving, 

 debating, the theatre, to say nothing of the baser 

 kinds, such as betting, wines, worrying rats and 

 rabbits, are thought of, talked of, and pursued by 

 many undergraduates till barely an hour a day in 

 the eight weeks of term is left for any serious or 



