392 



NATURE 



[March 8, 1877 



It is true that it is only within the last quarter of a 

 century that the full supremacy of the Theological Faculty 

 in Oxford has been attained by the practically complete 

 effacement of the Medical Faculty, the Regius and 

 Clinical chairs in which are now held by one professor, 

 who appears to have acquiesced in the total cessation of 

 medical study in Oxford. It is also true that within the 

 same period the Faculty of I<aws has made a partial re- 

 appearance, and musters a few non-professional students, 

 whilst under the stimulus afforded by competitive exami- 

 nation and prize fellowships, something more in quantity 

 than, but still identical in kind with, the class-work taught 

 at school to boys of from fifteen to eighteen years of age, 

 is now sedulously driven into the undergraduate's brain by 

 his college tutors and lecturers. It will also be adduced 

 by the apologists of the present university regime, that 

 over 80,000/. have been spent at Oxford on a palatial 

 edifice for the encouragement of the long-neglected 

 studies which are ranked as physical science. It should, 

 however, be thoroughly understood that the sum in ques- 

 tion has been primarily devoted to the production of an 

 architectural monstrosity, the University Museums, which 

 though pleasing to the ccsthetic persons who invented it, 

 does not provide the accommodation which the subjects 

 require, nor even so much as could, in the absence of 

 cesthetic muddling, have been obtained for a fourth part 

 of the sum quoted with so much assurance. 



The actual facts which are given below show what is 

 the constitution of the University of Oxford in the way of 

 professors, college-teachers, and students, and to what 

 studies they respectively devote themselves. These 

 figures entirely refute Mr. Lowe's recent statements to the 

 effect that whilst the honour-man at Oxford has a good 

 education, and the pass-man a very bad one — the 

 pass-men far outnumber the honour-men. Clearly Mr. 

 Lowe had not troubled himself to ascertain the facts 

 before making his attack, which was intended to show 

 the danger of allowing the Owens College to become 

 a university. Mr. Lowe's conception of a university is 

 limited by the model of that which he represents, and 

 accordingly there is little comfort to be derived from his 

 attacks on Oxford for those who believe in " the univer- 

 sity " as it exists in the great German home of univer- 

 sities. 



All that has been written and said within the last three 

 months on the university question shows that there is a 

 most serious ignorance among our public men of what 

 universities are, what they can do, are doing, and how they 

 do it, both in Great Britain and abroad. Only two 

 members of the House of Commons, Dr. Lyon Playfair 

 and Mr. Grant Duff, appear to have so much as an ele- 

 mentary acquaintance with the subject on which they are 

 about to legislate. Even Mr. Goldwin Smith, who has 

 returned to England full of wisdom gained in the Far 

 West, expresses his belief in the college system because, 

 forsooth, certain mushroom institutions in America 

 which are defective as universities, have no colleges or 

 boarding-ht)uses. Had Mr. Goldwin Smith travelled 

 east instead of west, he might have formed other and 

 sounder conclusions after a study of German uni- 

 versities. 



Under these circumstances, though it is a matter of 

 profound concern, it is not surprising that the Government 



Bill contemplates no change which will re-create Oxford 

 and Cambridge as universities. They will remain each 

 a congeries of finishing schools for the sons of the 

 wealthier classes — where a man may learn, as Dr. Lyon 

 Playfair has said — how to spend a thousand a-year, and 

 to spend it with some discretion, but not how to 

 earn a thousand a-year — how to make himself a useful 

 member of society valuable at that rate. 



To fit a man for a career in life, the task which is 

 undertaken by every other university worthy of the 

 name, is absolutely what Oxford and Cambridge refuse 

 to do, and what legislators ought to force them to do. 

 Poor men, or men of moderate means, can only afford to 

 send their sons to an English university in order that 

 they may become clergymen or schoolmasters, or on the 

 chance that, as in the Chinese mandarin selection, they 

 may, by submission to the tyranny of a competitive 

 examination, win a prize fellowship. 



Those who desire and see in the future a true univer- 

 sity reformation — having nothing favourable to their 

 views to expect from the action of the Commissioners 

 appointed without definite instructions by the present 

 Government Bill — have none the less much to fear and 

 to combat. It is admitted on all hands that the powers 

 of the Commissioners are very great, though they are not 

 definitely instructed as to how they are to employ those 

 powers. Practically it will come to this, that the Com- 

 missioners will simply empower the resident fellows of 

 colleges to do what they have long wished and sketched 

 out, namely, to marry and settle down permanently in 

 the university as college lecturers and tutors. This 

 boon will be granted to the colleges in exchange for an 

 immediate ten and a prospective fifty thousand a year, 

 which will go to paying for new university buildings and 

 for some new (as well as additions to the stipends of 

 some old) professorships. 



The new professors will be in the same ignoble position 

 as the old ones, since no change in the constitution of 

 the government of the university is contemplated, and 

 there is no reason to suppose that they will make the 

 university more remarkable for research and less remark- 

 able for apathy, than does the existing body. The cleri- 

 cal restriction on headships of colleges — sinecures varying 

 in value from 1,000/. to 2,000/. a year — may be removed 

 by the Commissioners, but is not necessarily to be so ; 

 nor is provision made for abolishing headships altogether. 

 The nature of the duties of the college lecturers and 

 tutors viho will become a more formidable body than 

 ever, when allowed to root themselves with family sur- 

 roundings, will not be regulated by the Commissioners, 

 nor the subjects which they shall teach. At the same 

 time the non-resident fellows will have their term of 

 tenure limited, and their influence in college government 

 will be diminished, even if they are not altogether ex- 

 cluded from a share in it. The result of these changes 

 will be greatly to strengthen the college system of pre- 

 paring pupils for the examination race- course, and to 

 render it more difficult than ever to remove the injurious 

 antagonism which at present prevents any real co-operation 

 among the colleges for the common good of the university. 

 The cessation of this antagonism might have been effected 

 once and for all by empowering the Commissioners to re- 

 constitute the Faculties, and to combine in them equally , 



