NATURE 
61 
THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1873 
THE FUTURE OF THE ENGLISH UNI- 
VERSITIES 
AN ECHO FROM OXFORD 
<4 eng Association for the Organisation of Academical 
Study has inaugurated a good work, which must 
in the end have an important result. But in the ex- 
pressions of policy as yet put out by that body we notice 
an omission which perhaps is intentional, but in any case 
a very serious, indeed a fundamental one. It is well 
enough to declare that the collegiate and other revenues 
of Oxford and Cambridge should be devoted to the 
encouragement of research, and to placing the highest 
kind of teaching in all subjects within the reach of the 
people of this country. It is most true that to this end 
prize-fellowships and non-resident sinecures must be 
abolished, and in their place we must have carefully- 
chosen professors, assistant-professors, and lecturers, 
teaching and carrying on original research in all depart- 
ments of knowledge. With such a programme in hand 
the members of this association can very plausibly de- 
mand for the old Universities that they be not despoiled of 
their excessive wealth, but that this wealth be made 
operative and productive within the limits of the Uni- 
versities themselves. Nevertheless there is a question 
which necessarily arises—whenever the future of the 
English Universities is mentioned—which the Asso- 
ciation has not discussed, and which we think it 
ought boldly to meet, even though it should lead 
to a split in the ranks. That question is this—Are 
Oxford and Cambridge to remain as institutions exclu- 
sively for the elegant education—the “ culture ”—of the 
upper classes who may choose and can afford to allow 
their sons to while away certain years there? or are they 
to be made engines of national education where a poor 
man may go with as much reason as a rich one; and 
profitably spend his time in acquiring knowledge and 
training which have a real value in the world and place 
their possessor in the position to earn his bread and his 
standing among men? 
It is a fact that at this moment a youth entering a 
college at either Oxford or Cambridge and taking his 
degree after four years of a very pleasant life, having 
spent during the process at least 800/. (é.¢. 200/, a- 
year) comes away, not a whit further on in the battle of 
life than he was cn entering. He has acquired some 
good habits, many very bad ones, but has received no 
training nor instruction which will render him useful to 
other men, excepting—the exception is a very significant 
one—as a clergyman or as a schoolmaster. 
The state of things is neither more nor less than this— 
that a young man cannot study at the English Universities 
" and associate with even the most steady-going of his fellow- 
students at a less expense than that named above ; and 
that the University cannot, at any rate does not, teach 
him anything in a practical or professional way. It is 
useless for Cambridge and Oxford to open their classes 
to non-collegiate students, as long as those classes are 
not something more systematised and practically-pointed 
No, 186—Vot. vit. 
than they can be, when exclusively designed as parts of a 
so-called elegant or “ liberal” education. Men who are 
intending to work hard in life cannot afford to pass 
through such a course after leaving school ; and hence 
our University students are, with a few exceptions, drawn 
from the richer classes ; hence, too, the amount of luxury 
and rarity of earnest study amongst them, which re- 
acts on many of their teachers. The present posi- 
tion of the Universities with regard to education for 
the business of life is merely that of a preparatory 
school. The same limitations of subjects—the same 
books are in force here, with some small additions for 
the few “honour men,” as in our public schools, such as 
Eton, Harrow, and Rugby. The B.A. degree—the ordi- 
nary examinations for which any average boy on leaving 
school at sixteen or eighteen years of age could easily 
pass—absorbs nearly all the activity ; is, in fact, almost 
the highest effort of each University. Almost all the 
teaching, certainly all the college work, is directed and 
governed by the requirements of this preparatory course 
which prepares for nothing. Whilst the intellectual 
standard thus held up is childish enough, it is necessarily 
accompanied by a system of tutorial superintendence 
and direction as wearisome as it is injurious. 
In fact, the best effort in Oxford and Cambridge—the 
most striking movement in recent times—as compared 
with the dead]calm of some fifty years since, has been 
rather a retrogression than an advance; we are less of 
Universities now than then, and have become more like 
—and are daily becoming more like—the great public 
schools, such as Eton and Harrow. The greater part 
of all the college-teaching staff is employed in doing the 
very same work as that done in the schools, which ought 
never to be required at a University at all. As the 
arrangements and innovations of the various college-bodies 
are watched, it becomes obvious that}the schoolmaster is 
abroad in a very ambitious spirit with the avowed object 
of making the University a great Seventh Form, similar ~ 
in discipline and character of instruction to his own 
pedagogic institution. 
This state of things is defended by a large number of 
persons—among them members of the Association—with 
two words chiefly in their mouths—“ culture ” and “ tech- 
nical.” It is maintained that “technical education” (an 
expression which is used for the purpose of suggesting 
the less intellectual side of what it is better to term “ pro- 
fessional education”) is not the function of the Univer- 
sities, that it cannot be conveniently undertaken in 
them, that it is better; carried out in the great cities 
such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh, whilst 
the Universities in their academic seclusion can 
administer that smattering of omniscience, dilettan- 
tism,’and good manners which it is so important for 
persons of a certain income to possess. To obtain this 
a youth must be prepared to sacrifice time and money ; 
and in offering this the University is, according to the 
opinion of many resident fellows, doing its work in the 
world. The selfishness of this view of University func- 
tions is patent enough. Clearly it is an easier matter to 
undertake this ornamental work, and to leave to others 
the business of life. It appears to be overlooked by its 
advocates that the Universities thus may, or rather have, _ 
lost all influence, all share in the life of the country, In 
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