76 A. D. GODLEY 



eighteenth century is an unpopular period- 

 even now, when the nineteenth, which was 

 always cavilling at it, is itself falling into some 

 disrepute and one does not readily associate 

 beneficent changes with it, least of all in the 

 University of Oxford, which has been sup- 

 posed to represent the eighteenth century at its 

 worst and blackest. Nevertheless, this 

 maligned period was the parent of many re- 

 forms, or changes, for which the nineteenth 

 century afterwards got the credit; and one 

 of these was certainly a great change in the 

 condition of universities. Educationally and 

 socially, Oxford was profoundly modified ; and 

 it was the coincidence of the educational with 

 the social alternative which brought about the 

 state of things with which one is familiar. 

 the idea of the classics being a necessary part 

 of the education of a gentleman. The middle 

 of the century found Oxford, one may say, 

 with no university curriculum of any profitable 

 kind. There were exercises for a degree; but 

 they consisted mainly in the repetition of stock 

 formulae, founded on the logic of the mediaeval 

 schoolmen. Practically, so far as the univer- 



