MERTON COLLEGE AND CANADA. 461 



They "were maintained by endowments, but the number of scholars 

 "Was to increase as the value of the endowments increased; and they 

 ■were empo"wered not only to make ne"w statutes, but even, as "we have 

 already seen, to change their residence in case of necessity. 



The effort of mind required to make such innovations, worked out 

 as they were with remarkable foresight in details, can hardly be 

 estimated at the present day. 



Nor did the new regulations of Walter de Mei'ton fail to produce 

 the results intended. The Monastic orders soon began to lose their 

 ascendancy in the University ; secular learning began to gain upon 

 the casuistry of the rival religious controversialists ; the science of 

 Medicine established itself by the side of Law ; and other founders, 

 following, as we have already in some degree seen, the wise example 

 of Walter de Merton, and borrowing the Regula Mertonensis, gradu- 

 ally transformed Oxford from a mere seminary for monks, which it 

 was fast becoming, into a seat of national education. 



A like change in the character of Cambridge speedily took place. 

 When iSt. John's College in that University first assumed the position 

 of an educational institution, in 1280, from having been an Augus- 

 tinian Hospital or Monastery, its statutes were formed after the 

 model of those of Merton. Those of Peterhouse, likewise in the same 

 University, were brought into conformity with the same pattern by 

 Bishop Montague, of Ely, in 1340. 



The original statutes of the College of Merton thus, as Chambers, 

 in his History of the Colleges and Halls of Oxford, observes, affords 

 an extraordinary instance of a matured system ; and with very little 

 alteration they have been found to accommodate themselves to the 

 progress of science, discipline and civil economy in more refined ages. 



And for many a generation Merton held the foremost place among 

 the colleges. The brilliant catalogue of her reputed members 

 includes some of the most illustrious names of the thirteenth and 

 fourteenth centuries. It may be doubtful whether Duns Scotus and 

 Wycliffe should be numbered among them, though there are strong 

 reasons for believing that both once resided at Merton ; but Roger 

 Bacon, the Doctor Mirabilis, Bradwardine, the Profound Doctor, and 

 Occam, the Invincible Doctor, have always been claimed as undoubted 

 alumni; and in later times Hooper and Jewell, the reforming Bishops i 

 Bodley, the founder of the libraiy bearing his name; Sir Henry 

 Savile, founder of Lectureships in the University on Geometry and 



