NATURE 



17 



THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1877 



THE UNIVERSITIES BILL AND UNIVERSITY 



MOVEMENTS 



1"'HE monotonous progress of the Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge Bill through the House of Commons has 

 never been interrupted. The Government having drawn 

 its measure, consents to modify it in a few trivial points, 

 but wherever it does not consent, the House accepts 

 it and passes it as an elementary matter of party disci- 

 pline. Very few of the amendments are of serious im- 

 portance. Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice has added perhaps 

 the most valuable. He enables the Universities to give 

 a definite status and payment for any special educational 

 work done out of the University under its control. Thus 

 the funds of Oxford and Cambridge may be freely used 

 in support of their missionary efforts in the large and 

 neglected towns of England. There is no reason why 

 permanent educational centres should not be established 

 under this clause in any part of England. Any College 

 with too much money can assign a sufficient portion of it 

 to the advancement of learning in the neglected provinces. 

 Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham, Halifax, Sheffield have had 

 university men lecturing in their midst under the Uni- 

 versity Extension Scheme, and Lord Edmond Fitz- 

 maur ice's amendment invites the colleges to support and 

 endow this movement. Under it the " idle fellows" who 

 now run off to the bar will be drawn more and more into 

 teaching, for teaching will open to them more and more of 

 a career. No doubt there is risk that the possibility of 

 such grants may paralyse local effort. But as yet it is only 

 a possibility, and the colleges may be trusted to distribute 

 their money only in places where adequate local effort can- 

 not be expected. Another amendment by Mr. Trevelyan 

 enables the Commissioners to review the conditions under 

 Avhich university emoluments can be given, especially those 

 relating to age. There is no doubt that the age of under- 

 graduates has increased, is increasing, and ought to be 

 diminished. The honour man keeps back at his school 

 as long as possible in order to make sure of getting 

 his entrance scholarship. Even if the age at which 

 entrance scholarships can be taken were restricted, 

 honour men might in many cases delay so as to have 

 a better chance after they come up of the scholar- 

 ships and fellowships which are to be gained while in 

 residence. It is reasonable to say that the work which 

 a man is to do under the pressure of a prize examination 

 ought to be over by twenty-one. What comes after is 

 another matter. The competitions of the University 

 imply a discipline which is admirable for youth " under 

 tutors and governors," but which is merely fatiguing to 

 men of mature intellect with serious objects in life. 



A clause is to be brought up by Mr. Goschen on the 

 report which provides that the Commissioners shall first 

 publish the main outlines of their plans before they are 

 allowed to apply them in detail. Certainly it seems odd 

 that Parliament should consent to throw the whole of the 

 questions affecting the Universities into the hands of any 

 body of Commissioners without asking for some statement 

 from them by which they may discover the general drift of 

 their ideas and the character they propose to give their 

 work. It is of great importance that before any one of them 

 Vol. -xvi. — No. 396 



is dealt with the Colleges should know on what principles 

 it is proposed to deal with all of them, and what are the 

 objects to which, in the opinion of the Commissioners, 

 the money taken should be applied. In an amusing 

 letter to the Pal! Mall Gazette a few days ago, Mr- 

 Dodgson, of Christchurch, represents science at Oxford as 

 first modestly asking endowment to enable her to teach, 

 next claiming endowment for boys to be sent to her to 

 be taught, and lastly demanding an endowment to 

 enable her to "think." It is an amusing travestie of 

 the claims of the more advanced and extreme " re- 

 searchers," and it is natural to ask what is the view of 

 the Commissioners on the subject. 



Since Parliament separated for the Whitsuntide holidays 

 two things have happened in 0.\ford, which indicate the 

 drift of that University opinion which in the end controls 

 the actions even of Commissioners. The first was the 

 Oxford scheme for new professorships. It was an echo 

 — certainly an exaggerated one— of a similar scheme 

 proposed some time ago by some similar board of studies 

 in Cambridge, and they both showed that the leading 

 members of the two Universities are not indisposed to 

 consider very large and radical schemes of reform. Both 

 of them will give fresh strength to the party, more power- 

 ful perhaps in sympathy than in numbers, which is sus- 

 picious not merely of proposed researchers with nothing to 

 do but " to think," but of possible professors with very few 

 lectures to deliver, and still fewer students to hear them. 

 It is the commonest and the most vulgar argument 

 against such proposals that they are really drawn in the 

 pecuniary interest of the class of actual and possible 

 professors who are numerous in the Universities. The 

 Hebdomadal Board shows us at any rate one distinct way 

 in which it is possible to utilize the endowments of Oxford 

 and Cambridge, and they put fairly before us the question 

 whether it is not a better way than the prize fellowship 

 system. 



The second event of the past week was the discussion 

 in congregation of the new resolutions on natural science 

 degrees. It is proposed that instead of there being one 

 kind of degree and only one— that in Arts— open to ordinary 

 undergraduates, a new degree shall be created in Natural 

 Science. The Bachelor of Arts has to pass three exami- 

 nations, at which he has to show proficiency in Latin and 

 Greek. It is proposed that the new Bachelor of Science 

 should be let off with Latin or Greek, the missing 

 classical language being replaced by German or French. 

 The Bachelor of Science was meant to know more ma- 

 thematics than the Bachelorof Arts, but the mathematical 

 men have pressed the question whether mathematics 

 itself is not a science, and whether mathematical honour 

 men ought not to be let off as well as experimental men 

 with one dead language. So far as things have yet shown, 

 Oxford is in favour of the change, and eager to consider 

 the case of the mathematicians. These are, in fact, the 

 proposals of the Duke of Devonshire's Commission. We 

 desire to speak with the greatest possible respect of those 

 who maintain the status quo of the two classical languages, 

 but it seems to us impossible to ignore the fact that the 

 Greek learned by the pass man is about as much of a 

 " possession for ever" as the Hebrew of most clergymen. 

 It is begun late ; it is not carried far enough to give the 

 student any real pleasure in reading a Greek book for 



