NATURE 



475 



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1874 



THE UNIVERSITIES COMMISSION REPORT 

 I. 



THE publication of this Report has been awaited with 

 an interest which rarely attends the issue of a Blue 

 Book : and though the Commissioners have taken two 

 years and a half over their labours, the result, both in 

 its matter and its form, fully justifies their apparent 

 delay. We have here presented to us in a concise and 

 intelligible shape, the entire financial affairs of the Uni- 

 versities of Oxford and Cambridge with their Colleges. 

 The whole property of these wealthy institutions, its 

 sources and its application, the probability of its in- 

 crease, and their annual income and expenditure, are 

 now for ihe first time laid before the public. 



It is in itself no small thing that these ancient corpo- 

 rations, with one single exception, should have been pre- 

 vailed upon without direct Parliamentary pressure to 

 reveal their most cherished secrets : for it should be 

 remembered that only twenty years ago the first Uni- 

 versity Commission failed totally in its attempt to extract 

 similar information from the unreformed Colleges, and 

 that even up to the present time not even a University man 

 had materials from which to form a reasonable conjec- 

 ture as to the wealth of any other College than that of 

 which he might happen to be a Fellow. It must be 

 admitted that the Colleges come out from this ordeal of 

 publicity with a better show than even their friends had 

 anticipated. To produce the elaborate returns which the 

 Commissioners required, an immense amount of addi- 

 tional labour has been thrown upon the College Bursars, 

 who, as the Report bears witness, are not over-abun- 

 dantly requited for the large amount of work they do as 

 managers of landed estates and treasurers of the general 

 accounts. The Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cam- 

 bridge, who is also Bursar, has alone proved recalcitrant ; 

 but as to all the rest, it is pleasant to read the language in 

 which the Commissioners express their gratitude for the 

 ready assistance which they have received, and the spirit of 

 marked courtesy with which they have been met. It had 

 been generally anticipated that the system of managing 

 estates through these amateur land-agents would not be 

 proved to be economical, but the facts seem to have been 

 unexpected even by the Commissioners, who report that the 

 cost of management of the whole external income ave- 

 rages somewhat under 3/. per cent. They also state that 

 they have no reason to believe that the condition of the 

 estates let at rack rent is below the average, though 

 probably less outlay is made than by private landlords 

 who improve their properties. There is, however, a large 

 quantity of land still let on the old system of beneficial 

 leases, concerning which method of letting a clear 

 description is given in the Report, and the agricultural 

 condition of this land is confessedly bad ; but this mode 

 of tenure is universally condemned, and is in process of 

 being rapidly extinguished. 



With regard to the internal income and its ex- 

 penditure, the Commissioners are unable, owing to_ the 

 complicated and varying manner in which these ac- 

 counts are kept, to arrive at any general conclusions. 

 Vol. X. — No. 259 



but they condemn in unhesitating terms the custom 

 which appears to prevail everywhere at Cambridge, 

 by which the payments of the undergraduates as cau- 

 tion money and tuition fees are made directly to the 

 College tutor, who not unnaturally is induced to regard 

 this arrangement as a private affair between himself and 

 his pupil, so that in some cases information on this sub- 

 ject has been unwillingly given, and in some others alto- 

 gether withheld. Some disapproval also is expressed of 

 the general mode in which the College accounts are kept, 

 which may be explained by the circumstance that they 

 were never intended for publicity, and in many instances 

 retain the old Latin nomenclature. It was only in a few 

 cases that a correctly drawn balance-sheet was obtain- 

 able, and in some cases the accounts of Trust funds are 

 not kept properly distinct, and the balances of such 

 accounts seem to be occasionally borrowed for the gene- 

 ral purposes of the College, and no interest allovved. It 

 is further observed that there is no case of audit by a 

 professional auditor. These criticisms, after all, are upon 

 minor matters, but they have a certain importance as 

 showing that the Commissioners have been both search- 

 ing in their inquiries and fearless in their comments, and 

 also because from the terms of their appointment they 

 were not permitted to make any more general recommen- 

 dations with regard to the wide question of the uses of 

 academical endowments. 



The real value of this Report of course lies in the long 

 and elaborate array of figures which it gives, and in its 

 impressive totals. A mine of reliable information is here 

 afforded to University reformers and all those who are 

 interested in the advancement of science, from which they 

 may learn how vast is the wealth at their disposal, and 

 from which they may securely draw materials for a com- 

 prehensive scheme. The total income of the Universities 

 and Colleges in the year 1S71, which is the year which the 

 Commissioners have fixed upon for all their calculations, 

 amounted to no less than three quarters of a million, and 

 the number of undergraduates was about 3,500. Of this 

 total, Oxford receives the larger shire by more than 

 70,000/., while the number of undergraduates is just equal. 

 Another calcub.tion gives the external income o( Oxford 

 (by which term the Commissioners intend the revenue 

 from endowments) at 336,000/., and the internal income of 

 the Oxford Colleges, which is mainly derived from due;, 

 fees, and profits of establishment, at 58,000/., besides 

 tuition fees at 30,000/., whereas the sum of only 41,000/. 

 is spent in scholarships, exhibitions, &c. These figures 

 should be compared with those lately given to the public 

 in the Fifth Report of the Royal Commission on Scientific 

 Instruction, which dealt with such voluntary institutions 

 as University and King's Colleges, London, and Owens 

 College, and from such comparison the conclusion will 

 inevitably be drawn that University education is capable 

 of being made self-supparting, and that the University 

 endowments can only be justified in so far as they 

 encourage, not the teaching, but the advancement of 

 learning and science. 



This conclusion is also strongly supported by a more 

 minute examination of the figures in this Report bearing 

 on the income and expenditure of the several Colleges. It 

 has long been well known tint the educational utility of a 

 College bears no relation to the value of its endowments, 



