460 MERTON COLLEGE AND CANADA. 



works on Oxford are made to take precedence of Merton in point of 

 antiquitj. A legend, now exploded, assigns Alfred the Great as tke 

 founder of University College. The real author of its existence 

 appears to have been William of Durham, certain moneys left by 

 whom were appropriated in 1280, and more distinctly in 1311, to 

 the foundation of a House plainly after the pattern of Merton, so far 

 as relates to the matter of residence. And Balliol seems to have 

 taken the form of a College or House for the accommodation of a 

 society of scholars in 1282. Previously, since 1268, sixteen scholars 

 had been charitably sustained at Oxford by John de Balliol (father 

 of John Balliol, the ill-starred King of Scotland); but no house was 

 appropriated to their use until 1282, when, probably after the pattern 

 of Merton again, so far as concerned residence, a building was hired 

 for them in Horsemonger lane, afterwards called Canditch, in the 

 parish of St. Mary Magdalene. 



I now give very briefly the leading distinctive features of the 

 new foundation of Walter de Merton, as described by those wha 

 have closely examined the original constitution of the College. 

 These appear to have been (1) the imion of a discipline resembling,, 

 without being really, the monastic, with secular studies ; (2) the 

 recognition of Education, rather than ceremonial or ritual duties, or 

 the so-called religious, i. e., monkish, life, as the proper function of 

 the Society ; and (3) the liberal provision for the future adaptation of 

 the new system to the growing requirements of the age. (Although 

 I possess and have read the original statutes of Merton, I prefer 

 giving their purport and drift as summarized in an ai-ticle on the 

 Sexcentenary of 1864 in a London Times of the day. I make fur~ 

 ther use of the same authority below.) 



The inmates of the College were to live by a common rule, under 

 a common head ; but they were to take no vows and were to join 

 none of the Monastic orders. (As we have already seen, most of the 

 students hitherto fi-equenting the University had been "sent up"^^ 

 by one or other of the Monastic institutions, and so were committed 

 to the ideas of one or other of the Monastic orders.) They were to 

 study Theology ; but not until they had gone through a complete 

 course of instruction in Arts ; and they were to look forward, some 

 of them certainly, to being secular clergy, that is, parochial clergy, 

 as distinguished from Regulars or Monks ; but many of them also to 

 the public service of the State and the discharge of other important 

 duties in the great lay world. 



