CHAPTER XXIV.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY.
Contº-Oxford ºversity aid the Rhodes scholarships, by W. T. Harris—History of the univer.
sity ºf Gxford, by John W. Hoyt–The Bodleian tercentenary, by J. B. Firth.-Oxford University
*xtension lectures; official circular and programme.
\ º OXFORD UNIVERSITY AND THE RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS4 -
º --- - B. W. T. H.A.Risis, º -
- [Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational
º - Association, 1903.] - ---
One of the memorable events of last year was the offer of Cecil Rhodes, made
known to us through the provisions ºf his will, providing for a hundred perpetual
scholarships in the University of Oxford, two for each state and each Territory in
the United States, a scholarship amounting to the handsome annual sum of three
hundred pounds—say $1,500–to support a student for three years ºf the most
famous university in Great Britain. - -
This provision was made with the noble purpose of bringing about a more injº-
and sympathetic acquaintance between the most influential class of citizen”
English nation and the people who have gone out from it in pºſiº
an independent nation on the basis of constitutional liberty ºf
melt. In the words of is will, “the union of the
throughout the world ’’ impelled him to ſake thji.
engºurage in wº------a-




















950 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902. º
awe-inspiring. To name in one word the function of the great process going on,
one would say that it is the removal of the middle man, who effects exchanges, to
the function of the end man, who is direct producer or direct consumer. By saving
in the middle term of cost of manufacturing, transporting, and distributing there
comes to be an enormous accumulation of capital. After apportioning to the pro-
ducers and consumers their quota of the benefit derived from reducing the expense
of the middle term, the owners of capital have for many years made large gifts to
education. - - - - - -
The names of Tulane, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Leland Stanford, Drexel, Vander-
bilt, Sophie Newcomb, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Yale, Chicago, and Harvard come
- to our minds as the leading colleges recipient of endowments.
– For the year 1899–1900, gifts for higher education amounting in the aggregate to
$11,935,463 were reported to the Bureau of Education by the several colleges and
universities. For the year 1900–1901 the gifts amounted to $18,040,413. For the
year 1901–1902 thus far the gifts reported amount to $16,989,967. Not all of the uni-
versity reports for 1902 are in. - - -
The Carnegie gifts for libraries and other institutions have been estimated at the
following: For 1895, $1,000,000; for 1898, $310,000; 1899, $3,370,000; for 1900, $5,065,-
000; for 1901, $30,243,500. Counting in his gift for the Carnegie Institution in
Washington, his grand total of gifts in the Unit.d States is estimated at $52,270,173.
Besides this his total for Canada, Cuba, Englandſ, Ireland, and Scotland amounts to
$15,000,000 more. -
*-
*.
This enormous increase in gifts to education incident to the amassing of capital is
of special interest to this consideration of the Rhodes gift, by reason of the fact that
the application of capital to the increase of wealth is a process somewhat mysterious
modity—or the producer exchanges the commodity which he has created for money,
pd with money procures the other commodities which he wishes for use, states the
d obvious economic process (in a formula C-W-C); but the middle term,
n expanded, comes to mean the market, and the market has a different
* G \{-C, or commodity—money–commodity—namely, it starts with
- -L- --- -
g an incolae by the proce
S.
s of exchange—and this
- origin ºf all the evils
to the common mind. Karl Marx's formula C-W-C, commodity–money–com-
Qmmodities, to sell again for money, hoping to increase its



















OXFORD UNIVERSITY AND THE RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS. 951
But the market collects its foil from the consumer. It shares with the producer
the total amount received from the consumer. The market causes competition, and
competition reduces the producer’s profit, and also the profit of the market. The
less the charge of the market (that is to say, the middle man), the efficiency of
collection and distribution remaining the same, the greater the profit to the end
men, that is, to the producer and the consumer. 4 it is obvious that the increase of
the efficiency of the market and the diminution of its charges indicate economic
progress. It is in the line of the reduction of the necessary labor to conquer nature.
The production of the raw material, its collection, its manufacture, distribution, and
consumption, require less expenditure of human labor, or of its representative,
which is money. -- - - -
From this point we can see the significance of this great movement of capital in
our times which diminishes the number of middle men and transfers theim to the
function of end men, that is, producers and consumers. It is the aim of every com-
bination that capital makes to reduce the expenses of exchange, give the producer a
higher reward, and share with the consumer by lowering the price of the finished
product to him. For the performance of this function capital collects its tithes. It
gets perhaps a tenth of what it saves, distributing on an average the other nine-
tenths to the producers and the consumers.
In our day the enormous aggregates of capital are hastening forward this beneficent
process with ever-increasing speed. It is, of course, out of place to consider here
the fact that so important and radical a transformation as results from this great
process necessarily involves much evil and much suffering to the human beings that
are forced from the place of imiddle men to the place of end men. All readjustment
of vocations involves inconvenience, and sometimes suffering, and even injustice.
But we may remark that if a new investment of capital pays well for a while, it is
constantly attacked by newer inventions and newer combinations which, being more
economical than the old—that is to say, needing fewer middle men—cause the old
investment to pay less and less interest to the capital. Old investments, therefore,
in capital are obliged constantly to divide with new combinations, and the producer
and the consumer—the end men—finally get all the profit. The inventions of fifty
years ago are nearly all now the property of the community at large. -
Returning to our theme, endowments for education, we see what significance there
is for the future of civilization in this accumulation of capital. For its accumulation
Stimulates the work of prospecting for natural resources, not only the home resources
of the great nations, but the resources abroad in the World at large—the possible
resources of all lands. Witness the acquisition of the oil lands, the deposits of gold,
silver, and diamonds, the ore deposits Giuseful minerals—coal, iron, copper, and tin-
wherever they are. Apparently the era has arrived when the possibilities of food
producing which belong to the tropies—to the Amazon valley, for instance—shall be
first capitalized, and after that made tributary to the populations of Europe by a
vast commercial stream of merchandise consisting of cheap elements of food and
textile fabrics and lumber. On reflection one sees the vast possibilities of raw mate-
rial are more likely to be soon utilized if they come into the possession of great stock
companies than if they belong to private owners. Great companies see to it that
there are provided all the necessary means of production and of transportation to
the best markets. - -
The era of the creation of capital is also the era of endowment of higher education.
Higher education is becoming more and more a process of research and original
investigation. And it is the experts furnished by the instruction of the laboratory
a A ready example of this is found in the reduction of the cost of transportation from St. Paul to
New York City which has given the consumer his year's flour in New York as cheap as it can be had
at St. Paul with the addition to that price of only a single day's wages. - - -
-








952 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
and the seminarium that are most needed in the work of prospecting for the natural
resources and in the work of transporting and manufacturing.
There has never before been so much wealth created in the form of inheritable goods
and chattels—wealth of a permanent kind that goes down from generation to gen-
eration, relieving the people of the future from the work of creating a plant of some
kind or other—railroads, bridges, tunnels, waterworks, schools, and libraries.
These and the like items of inheritance add a permanent contingent to the wealth of
the future by their annual earnings and swell the income of after generations.
In the midst of this economic change our population is called to new objects of
interest and new duties. In 1880 the national census indicated the arrival of a pop-
ulation of 50,000,000. At that time we began to ascend above the horizon to the
great powers of Europe. Twenty years later our call to active participation in the
control of the world which is exercised by the great powers has become so apparent
that all see the necessity of forming a special class of experts who are to become
familiar with the national purposes and ideals of such nations as Japan, Russia,
Germany, Austria, France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, and Holland. Foreign
diplomacy will furnish a great field for the employment of a larger and larger class
of American citizens, and the most successful among these will be recruited from
the ranks of those who have made studies at the universities in those foreign coun-
tries and become familiar with that class of their population which furnishes the
directive power. It is natural that each nation throws its influence in favor of the
perpetuation of its own institutions in the world council of the great powers. It is,
of course, necessary that the United States shall have an influence in the great
council of the world, favorable to the preservation of our own national idea of local
self-government and productive industry. - -
The Rhodes bequest comes opportunely at the beginning of this epoch of training
our citizens for diplomatic influence abroad, for of all places for training diplomats
the first one in direct usefulness is the University of Oxford. The offer of constant
residence in that great English university to one hundred students from the United
States will afford some of the best preliminary training for the experts required in
our consulates, embassies, home cabinets, and international commissions.
Oxford is the English school for gentlemen. A typical English gentleman is a
peculiar product, somewhat different from the ideal gentleman of France or Ger-
many, or of any other country in Europe. An American would suppose, on first
hearing of the English gentleman, that he must be a person very sensitive as to his
caste—as to his wealth or nobility by birth, or by official position—and continually
making demands for recognition, and that in his ordinary actions he is likely to
imply a consciousness of his superiority in wealth or birth or official station. No
greater mistake could be made. Of all people in Europe the Englishman is the
most apt to see that any such manifestation is vulgar, and any consciousness of or self-
assertion of caste is marked at once as a gross violation of the code of the gentleman.
Both universities, Oxford and Cambridge, have been long famous for their func-
tion in training youth in the principles of good breeding. This is especially true of
Oxford. A rich man’s son who comes to Oxford with conceits founded on the
wealth of his family is made to feel very soon the difference between the ideal of
the English gentleman and his own ideal. In most cases a three-years' residence
will modify his character in this respect, so that he will come to avoid Ostentation
either in his clothing or other belongings, or in his manner toward people not
wealthy. So, too, the scions of nobility. In all well-established houses the private
tutors and governesses have already trained the young nobility, before they come
to Eton or Winchester, in the code of English politeness, and they have not so
much to learn in this matter at Oxford. But any youth from a noble family who
has not already received this training is likely to learn the lesson so well in his resi-
dence at Oxford that it will become a second nature to him to stand on his humanity




-
OXFORD UNIVERSITY AND THE RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS. 953
and never to indicate a consciousness on his part of the possession of a noble ances-
try, or of inherited possessions, or of the station of the head of his family in the
army or navy, or as a member of the Government. This is true also of those who
have risen to military or political station from the ranks of the people. The average
child of a noble house learns this difficult art of behavior more readily than the other
two species of aristocracy, namely, the aristocracy of wealth or the aristocracy of
government position. This is so because of the fact that the nobility have been
longer in training, whereas the wealthy family may have gained its property within
the present generation; and the high position in the Government may also have
been achieved by extraordinary services on the part of a citizen possessed of great
strength of will-power or special capacities of intellect, all of which is sometimes
accompanied by great deficiency in a knowledge of the code of the ideal gentleman.
This function of Oxford and Cambridge is of national and international importance.
An aristocracy of wealth or birth or station whose children are trained in the ideal
code of the gentleman have a certain great advantage over all other people brought
up without the proper sense of self-control. They possess an imperturbable self-
respect which intrenches itself on a humane basis and easily captivates not only all
classes of British citizens, but makes an easy conquest of a citizen of any other
nationality in the world. It has an inimitable charm. It is impossible to storm its
intrenchments, because it assumes nothing for itself. It has habituated itself to this
repression of the vulgar desire to attract attention to its havings and made it a second
nature, so that it does not reveal any effort. If any effort on its part were visible, it
would take the form of condescension and would betray its consciousness of caste;
but the ideal English gentleman never permits himself to think of his rank or station;
he has acquired a sense of honor that excludes even the thought of it as something
odious. Indeed, the English gentleman can easily be distinguished from the other
Englishmen by the ease with which he bears this impersonality, this sincere
humanity, and this utter effacement of his own claims for special consideration. In
the long run this accomplishment of being a true gentleman wins its way in the
world and constantly reveals its power. In the diplomacy of Europe it has always
held a high place. -
The English nation is famous for its love of fair play. This love of fair play is
sometimes, however, very brutal, as interpreted by the brutal classes, although even
then it is far superior to the manifestations of treachery and fraud which the lower
classes of people in some other nations furnish. But the Oxford gentleman realizes
the English sense of fair play in a transfigured form by the complete suppression of
all manifestations of the pride of aristocracy. He is the simplest of all men, but it is
a simplicity with the wisdom of the serpent coiled up within it and ready for use.
-One would almost infer that the ideal of the English gentleman had changed some-
what since the publication of Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus, and that the Briton
had taken to heart the lesson of the philosophy of clothes and determined within
himself to refute that philosophy by making the matter of clothes no indication
whatever of character. The English gentleman puts his fine clothing upon his
lackeys and goes about himself in easy and comfortable undress, choosing his cloth-
ing for its warmth and comfortableness—sparing no expense in this matter, but
utterly refusing to make his clothing manifest wealth or position.
A good story illustrating this was once told by a visitor in my office. He men-
tioned a commercial traveler from the colonies who was riding from Edinburgh to
the north. A very plain English gentleman entered the railway coach, took out his
briar pipe, and began to smoke, and opened a conversation on current topics with
simple, unaffected manners, and the humane spirit of an English gentleman, with-
out the exhibition of any ſad, or the consciousness of carrying with himself a desire
to impress anyone else with any purpose of his, or any indication that he was
charged with a particular mission or the advocacy of any cause. After a delightful
º



954. EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
two-hours' ride another gentleman entered the railway carriage at Perth, quite as
simply dressed and quite as urbane in his manners as the first. He entered readily
into conversation with our commercial agent and his companion traveler. In the
course of the morning they arrived at the station where passengers leave the train
for Blair Athole. Here the second gentleman left the coach, and our commercial
traveler took note that a splendid carriage with a train of lackies were in waiting for
him, and he asked, with some haste, his companion: “Who is that man that just left
our coach?’’ ‘‘Oh,” he said, “that is “His Grace the Duke of Athole.” “Indeed,”
-said our commercial traveler; “he was very condescending to talk in such a friendly
and genial manner to two cads like us.” The remark was cordially assented to by
his companion. In the course of the journey to the north they arrived at a station,
where the first gentleman left the coach, and an equally imposing train of jackies
with a fine carriage awaited his arrival. If our commercial traveler had been aston-
ished on the first occasion, he was astounded at a second incident of the same kind.
He approached the guard or conductor of the train and asked him: “Who is that
man that just now left my coach?’’ ‘‘Oh, that is His Grace the Duke of Souther-
land.” Our friend, wishing now to probe the case to the bottom, fearing that he
should make again a similar mistake in judging greatness by aristocratic manners
and fine clothing, said to the guard: “And will you pray tell me who are you?”
This manifestation of common humanity and the desire to be of service to one's
fellowmen is the real tower of strength of the true English gentleman.
But Oxford trains not only the aristocracy of wealth, birth, and official position in
these matters of Ostentation, but it also trains the great scholar, the person who has
achieved distinction in letters, or science, or ait, making him conscious that it is
vulgar to show in any way a consciousness of superiority or to advertise in any way
what one has done to distinguish himself. -
One reads in the apprenticeship of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister the studies which
Goethe made on the difference between the born nobleman and the distinguished
but not highborn citizen. In the one case the person is content to be, and never
lets his possession either of culture or wealth or of great deeds appear—for that, he
feels, would degrade him. To be a nobleman is sufficient for him, whereas the ordi-
nary citizen stands on his achievements and finds it difficult to forget these (or to
forget his havings in his sense of being). He must rely upon his possessions, and he
is likely to make them obtrusive.
Our country, the United States, belongs to the vast regions of the world which
may be called border lands. In the border lands there are found the most active
processes of transformation. A synthesis is in progress between different nationali-
ties. The raw materials of commodities, mineral, vegetable, and animal, are being
gathered and worked over for transportation to the Central emporiums—Paris, Lon-
don, New York. On border lands the human spirit is fullest of hope and courage,
because it sees from day to day and week to week the wilderness conquered for
human purposes and for civilization. But the frontier is the most unstable and
variable region of civilization. Its institutions are less firmly established.
In the times of King Alfred, and earlier, Oxford was on the borderland of Wessex,
between it and Mercia on the north. Mercia, as its name indicates (“mark” or
“boundary”), was the border land between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and the
British tribes which, driven into the fastnesses of Wales, sulleniy resisted the
encroachments of the Teutonic wave of migration. Oxford was a fording place, shal-
low enough to allow herds of oxen and other cattle to be driven across without too
much danger of loss by the flood. The Cherwell and the Isis united here, forming the
Thames, and spread out in shallow reaches separated by islands. We may conclude
that the piace was on the line of trade which Besant speaks of in his book on West
London. This commercial route led on its way to Dover through Westminster, the
lowest ford on the Thames, much used before London Bridge was built in the fourth


climate, Meteorology, and the like.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY AND THE RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS. 955
century. in Oxford, of course, was a mart or market, and, after Christianity came
to the Saxon, some religious houses were built there as early as 727 A. D., and with
religious houses there came scholastic learning.
Wherever the Christian church went in Europe there was created an interest in
the history of the religion of the Bible and in the history of Roman nationality.
We do not forget that the history of Rome was for six hundred years practically the
history of the world, the six hundred years including one century before and five
centuries after anno domini. Hence in the monasteries of Britain, France, and Ire-
land there was more or less interest in regard to the history of the world and the
dealings of God’s providence with mankind. St. Augustine, the bishop of Hippo,
said in his great work The City of God that “the world and its history is a sort of
antiphonic hymn, in which God reads his counsels, and the earth and man read the
responses.” Those inclined to learning among the Christian monks all over Europe
studied Orosius, the disciple who had been induced by St. Augustine, his master, to
sketch a general history of mankind in the spirit of his view that made it an anti-
phonic hymn. This is noteworthy in our inquiry as to Oxford, because King Alfred
the Great, king of Wessex—Oxford was in Wessex—translated the history of Orosius
into Anglo-Saxon, so that it could be read by the laity as well as by the priesthood.
But not only did Christianity take this first rational view of the world-history, but
it also collected and prized certain elements of world knowledge. It had the trivium
and quadrivium, of the seven liberal arts. The scholar and philosopher Boetius
nurtured in the latest years of the Roman empire and the early years of the reign of
Theodoric, the Goth, who held all Italy in order by his firm hand–Boetius has in
his Consolation of Philosophy described the contents of the trivium and quadrivium,
giving a brief résumé of the insights which formed the learning as to nature and
man—another work that Alfred translated into Anglo-Saxon. -
First, there was grammar, considering not only the structure of language, which
reveals hitman nature in general, as will, intellect, and feeling, but also literature;
then, in the next place, logic, which reveals the structure of the pure intellect; and,
thirdly, rhetoric, which reveals the process by which ideas are made into feelings
and convictions and result in deeds. These three constitute the trivium. Then
there was arithmetic, including the science of numbers and what was known of
analytical mathematics in the form of algebra. They had not yet discovered the
works of Euclid, and what was called geometry in the quadrivium was an abridg-
ment of the work of Pliny on geography. Music and astronomy complete the four
branches of the quadrivium; music, relating not only to what we call music, but also
and chiefly to poetry, art, and such matters as are found in the part of grammar
called prosody; astronomy, relating to the facts and theories regarding the move-
ments of the visible bodies of the heavens, the changes of the moon, the seasons, the
These elements of knowledge were more or less
studied by the intelligent and influential monks. Of course, religion was the main
interest, but these other matters were not entirely neglected, and there were some
places in those early Christian countries where considerable attention was given to
them. -
As a matter of course, the Teutonic countries had to learn, besides their native
tongue, the Latin language. It was a study of the language that had been rendered
capable of expressing subtle thoughts of all kinds. Latin had become a sufficient
organ for the description of the facts then known of Europe, Africa, and Asia, and
its study opened up the world to the provincial youth who had left the narrow circle
of his home to join the monastery which formed a ganglion in the great spiritual
nervous system that contained the intellectual brotherhood of the world. Slender
as was the store of human learning, it held in germ all that has been unfolded since.
It was taught at Paris, Cologne, Metz, Bologna, Winchester, Oxford, Cambridge,
Ely, St. Ninian’s in Galloway, St. Columba on the is and of Iona (north of Argyle-




956 . EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
shire) in Scotland; St. Cuthbert's holy island, Lindisfarne, on the northeastern
coast of England; St. Peter's, south of the Tweed, in Scotland—to name only the
places which come to mind, without attempting a careful list.
It is certain that monastic education had gone on for centuries at Oxford before
the foundation of the first college, in 1249. It seems that the nunnery of St. Frides-
Wyde was founded there in 727. Edward the Elder, in 912, soon after Alfred died,
took possession of Oxford and made it a fortified city as a defense against the Danes.
History records that Vacarius, professor at Bologna, lectured at Oxford on the
Roman civil law in 1149, less than fifteen years after the discovery of the Pandects
of Justinian and only eighty years after the Norman conquest; and it is well argued
that this implies a European reputation already achieved by Oxford University.
Evidences multiply from that time on of the existence of important schools at
Oxford.
The first college, which is called University College, was founded in 1249, and
there were two more before 1300, namely, Balliol and Merton; four more in the fol-
lowing century, 1300 to 1400, the century of the beginning of English literature, with
Chaucer, Gower, and the author of Piers Plowman; these four colleges were Exeter,
Oriel, Queen's College, and New College; in the next century (1400 to 1500) three
more colleges—Lincoln, All Souls, and Magdalen; and in the century of the Refor-
mation (1500 to 1600) there were six more colleges founded–Brasenose, Corpus
Christi, Christchurch, under Henry VIII; Trinity and St. John’s, under Queen
Mary; Jesus College, under Queen Elizabeth. Two colleges—1613, 1624—were
founded under King James, namely, Wadham and Pembroke colleges. Worcester
College, founded in 1714, is the only one of the eighteenth century. In recent times
Hertford College, St. Edmund's College, and Keble College, in the nineteenth cen-
tury, make up the twenty-two colleges in the corporate body of the University of
Oxford. - - -
The college is the characteristic of Oxford and Cambridge, for the college collects
within its walls anywhere from a dozen students up to something over three hundred.
Of the twenty-two colleges in the University of Oxford, four have over two hundred
students and twelve between one and two hundred, and the remaining six have
less than one hundred each. Merton is sometimes called the oldest college, but it was
founded in another town and removed to Oxford about 1270. Merton College is the
first one which erected dormitories and study halls, a refectory and a chapel, surround-
ing the whole by a college wall with only one gate for entrance. A new step was
taken with the foundation of New College, in 1370, by William Wykeham. This
step consisted in the separation of preparatory students from the regular university
students. The school at Winchester furnished the preparation, and New College
contained only those students who were fitted to take up and to go on immediately
with the university work. Other new departures are mentioned; one in particular was
the founding of Corpus Christi, in the early part of the reign of Henry VIII—a new
beginning, because it made so much more provision for the modern studies that had
come into vogue with the revival of learning, particularly the study of Greek and of
mathematics. -
In America there prevails class feeling, but in Oxford the college feeling predom-
inates. The small group of students living within the walls of a given college form
a sort of family or monastic community, bringing together the older students and the
younger ones, so that the unit is the college and not the class. It is better adapted
than the American plan for the production of the type of gentleman which we have
been discussing. The older students have much more influence on the younger
students. - - - -
All books on Oxford tell us about the two courses of study—the easy one, called
the “pass,” adapted to the students who desire the social culture of Oxford, with its
athletics and good fellowship, and no more of its erudition than is necessary to pass




- - - - -
oxFORD UNIVERSITY AND THE RHODEs SCHOLARSHIPs. 957 .
examination for its degree of bachelor of arts (master of arts is given in course to all
bachelors who have been enrolled twenty-seven terms and who have paid the fees).
This course of study shows in all its parts the influence of the trivium and quad-
rivium—especially the branch called “music’’ or “prosody,” in the insistence upon
the study of the quantity of Latin words—the writing of Latin poetry.
* Besides the ‘‘pass” examination for the minimum scholarship, there are courses
of study for honors. The honor schools are eight in number: (1) English language
and literature; (2) literæ humaniores—modern philosophy and logic and grammar—
called “greats” (opposed to “greats” “responsions” are called “smalls”); (3)
mathematics; (4) jurisprudence; (5) modern history; (6) theology; (7) oriental
studies; (8) natural science. - -
The design of the honor examinations is to afford the fullest scope for scholar-
ship–specialization and thorough research being required. The honor school in
literæ humaniores is most sought and highest prized. The chief branches of study
in that school are Latin and Greek, ancient history, logic, ethics, and philosophy.
The entrance examination, which is called “responsions,” is passed some time in
the first year of residence, and is not required before matriculation, as in American
universities. The second examination is called “moderations,” and comes in the
Second year of residence, about the middle of the undergraduate course. The third
and final examination takes place in the last year. Three subjects must be offered a
for the ‘‘pass.” - -
One of the facts that excite surprise in an American student at first is the short
period of residence required in Oxford each year. There are three terms, each of -
eight weeks–Michaelmas, beginning the first Monday after October 10; Hilary, on
the first Monday after January 14; Easter and Trinity, beginning on the second or
third Monday after Easter Sunday—twenty-four weeks of residence (which may be
reduced to eighteen weeks) and twenty-eight weeks of vacation, the long vacation,
ending about October 10, being sixteen weeks, and the other two vacations six weeks
each. A greater surprise is created by learning that the hard work in scholarship is
not expected so much at Oxford in term time as in the vacation. The demands of
athletics and social functions at Oxford during term time are too severe to permit
the hard study necessary for great success in scholarship. - -
Athletics is perhaps the most prominent feature in Oxford life. Boating leads;
next come football, cricket, and golf; next, running, walking, cycling, etc. There
- is much literature regarding this phase of English university life.
º - The hours for exercise are between lunch and tea—1 p. m., 5 p.m.; that means
º that games begin usually at 2.15 or 2.30 and stop at 4 p.m., except in case of
cricket, which goes on till Sundown, or till dinner time when the days get longer.
“Lunch is usually a very spare meal, often being simply dessert with bread and
ſ Something simple to drink. Similarly tea is simply one cup, especially if a man is
wanting to keep in good form both for exercise and for dinner at 7 p. m.”
Oxford has solved the problem of making athletics develop nervous force instead
of nervous dyspepsia by its care to give its two hours in the best part of the day to
systematic exercise and guard it against encroachment on the time needed for diges-
tion of the chief meal of the day. -
It would seem best that our candidates for the Rhodes scholarships should all have
obtained a preparation in scholarship amounting to that required for the A. B. degree.
* But it is obvious that it was the intention of Mr. Rhodes himself to have the benefits
\
a (1) Classic languages (2) mathematics; (3) modern history; (4) the Bible. Those with affiliated
subjects form four groups, within which there may be selection for examination of one or more of
four subjects of the classic group, one or more of the five subjects in the modern group,
one or more of the seven subjects of the mathematical and scientific group, and one of the religious
group. It is compulsory to choose one foreign language, ancient or modern, and to have some
portion of the Old or New Testament (with Greek) and the elements of religious knowledge, and,
another subject from mathematics and Science, or from moderns, or from classi --- -






958 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
of his bequest reach graduates of the secondary schools, though the provisions of the
will give authority to the trustees to modify the bequest, if in their opinion a modi-
fication will make the grand purpose of the will more effective. I have found myself
obliged to come to the conclusion that any and every attempt to fill the proposed
scholarships from graduates of our secondary schools, or indeed even from college
students of attainments below the degree of bachelor of arts, will fail to realize the
expressed wishes of the testator. In the first place, there is not a sufficient maturity
of mind on the part of graduates of our secondary schools to profit by the exceptional
opportunities of Oxford, nor is there any considerable degree of maturity until
entrance upon the third year of the American college or university.
Now, the chief difficulty with the immature student from the United States will
lie in the fact of his sensitiveness to criticism and of his readiness to fall back upon
what he believes to be his rights. While the criticism of his fellow-students at home
actually prevails with him because there is no appeal, yet in a foreign university he
will, if possible, reenforce his cause by an appeal to the importance of his State or to
the importance of his nation. The candidate, if appointed by a State authority—say,
a governor—or by a national authority—say, the President, or a board chosen by
him—will feel himself in some sense a representative of his State or nation. This
form of conceit will be more likely to take root in the mind of the immature student
than in that of the holder of a bachelor's degree. It is needless to say that such a
conceit in any form would be so offensive to his fellow-students in a foreign univer-
sity, and to the authorities of such an institution, as to make his residence there
impossible.
The Rhodes trustees have been fortunate in appointing as their agent Dr. George
R. Parkin, whose wide experience in English-speaking communities within and
without England has admirably fitted him to the work of adjusting the details of
arrangements for filling our quota of these Rhodes scholarships. If the matter of
primary selection and nomination of a list of candidates be left to our college pres-
idents, this will be best. But certainly the final selection from the list nominated
should be determined by an examination conducted by an Oxford “don,” who
should visit this country for the purpose annually and hold examinations at conven-
ient points in the several States. The examination should be in place of “respon-
Sions,’’ for the students chosen must be sure of their qualification before the serious
undertaking of the long journey and large outlay of money necessary to reach Oxford.
It is admitted by all who are acquainted with the present and past of Oxford that
it has fulfilled the function of educating the English gentleman. It has had the
effect of creating a democratic code of manners and of securing its adoption by the
sons of the powerful families in the Government and by the heirs of nobility. [ .
have already discussed sufficiently this code. It has made it one of the distinguishing
characteristics of the English gentleman that he never mentions his titles, or the
influence of his family, or his wealth, or his literary productions, or any services of
his to his nation or to his fellow-man. He holds his tongue under a severe restraint,
and has learned to do this without the appearance of restraint. Not only Oxford,
but other English institutions, are powerful in creating in the mind of the youth an
ideal of good form in this respect; but Oxford is by far the most potent factor in this
influence. -
But there is another phase of this matter to be considered: Good form includes
also the code of etiquette, established from time immemorial, which gives precedence
in a certain fixed order to the members of the nobility, to the dignitaries of the
national church, and to the elected or appointed representatives of the English com-
monalty, settling in advance the rank due to each order in all ceremonials. This
recognition of fixed rank and position must be observed as an indispensable form of
gentlemanly courtesy in such matters as the addressing of letters, or in personal
allusions in a speech, or in a written communication, etc. It is a characteristic of


OXFORD UNIVERSITY AND THE RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS, 959
English good form that it makes a code of limitations for each class of people—the
nobleman or other gentleman, the tradesman, the servant, and the common laborer.
Each one not only observes carefully the proper manners toward his superior, but
he is careful to expect and to exact the proper etiquette from those beneath his sta-
tion. The most refined gentleman will not himself make a personal matter of the
neglect of courtesy, but the class to which he belongs or moves in will take care of
this matter on his behalf, and this, too, effectively. -
On the whole, the code of the English gentleman has in it what is considered the
most admirable the world over as belonging to polished manners. I have tried to
show that these traits give the person a certain superiority in diplomatic councils,
in statesmanship, and in social relations. While this is the case with the individual
it is not so with the class influence which supports and makes valid on occasions the
aristocratic prestige or pretence which underlies the condescensions and the reserva-
tions of the Englishman’s manners. For the very reason that the English gentle-
man takes none of these upon himself individually in his own behoof, but only as a
member of his caste or class in behalf of some other members of his class, the for-
eigner, not prepared in advance for this phase of English life, is apt to feel himself
baffled even to exasperation. He finds himself unable to right himself. He meets
only personal courtesy and democratic simplicity in individuals, but he finds himself
proscribed by a caste. To attack this caste barrier is to meet an ignominious
defeat without any ability to set oneself right.
It must be admitted that what is very noteworthy and impressive in English
society as a whole is more or less to be met with in some degree in all social circles of
Europe, and indeed of America, and it must also be admitted that the English form
is more highly refined because within it the individual preserves his democratic cor-
diality of manner, calmness of demeanor, and careful observance of all the require-
ments of courtesy due to an individual from his equals. - - -
In the new epoch that is upon us now we are compelled to come into foreign rela-
tions. We can not choose but take part in the councils of the great powers which
determine in the aggregate the course of present history; we must have our say—
have an influence in international decisions, and an influence that will be propor-
tionate to our strength in population. But for all this there is need to provide suf-
ficient skill. - * - - - - - -
Here is the important point: We must educate hundreds of our scholars and poli
ticians in studies of jurisprudence and international law; we must have a corps of
trained specialists who know the minute details of each great nation’s past history
and present achievements—Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Austria, Italy,
Spain, Holland, and the Scandinavian countries. -
The Rhodes bequest is the most timely of gifts for higher education, because it
gives opportunity to begin this education of that class of our population which will
furnish our consulates, our home offices, and our embassies with attachés. Out of
the most successful of these will come by and by our foreign ministers and our home
experts in diplomacy.
England is the best place in which to begin this work. The excellence of the
University of Oxford is without doubt the training of the ready gentleman who can
not be pushed off his feet by an attack directed upon the weaknesses of his per-
sonality. His training at Oxford gives him that secure self-possession and self-respect
which commands the respect of his fellows. - -
Our American students need have no fear that they will lose their nationality at
Oxford, for they will find the English ideal of a gentleman exactly fitted for Anglo-
Saxons everywhere.
The more perfectly they accept its training in this regard the more ready they
will be for the great work of extending our American influence in the councils of the
world. -- - -
º
--




960 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
By Hon. John W. Hoyt, L.L. D.
I. —ANCIENT AND MEHDIAEWAT, OXFORD.
To an early period of the Middle Ages, a period only later than Bologna and Paris,
belongs the origin of the University of Oxford. Legend has vainly tried to fix a date
that would make it the earliest of all the universities in Europe. Years have been
spent and volumes have been written to prove that it had its beginning with the
great Alfred. Indeed, there were writers who went yet further, making Alfred but
the restorer of what had been centuries before his day; and he died in 901. Even
Huber, whose reliability was once beyond even the thought of question with many,
concluded his extended labors in this field with these emphatic words: “Any further
doubts as to the founding of scholastic institutions [the University of Oxford included]
by Alfred ought to be relegated to the region of unhistorical and barren skepticism
and negation, and be neglected accordingly.” Schaarschmidt not only held the same
view, but was able to satisfy himself that the famous school existing at Oxford even
in the early Saxon days was far beyond anything found there in the twelfth century.
Prof. S. S. Laurie, of Edinburgh University, in his discussion of “Mediæval educa-
tion and universities,” calls attention to the fact that Oxford had gained such impor-
tance during the first half of the twelfth century that in the third decade Robert
Pulleyne returned from Paris and endeavored to restore the teaching of theology,
and succeeded in infusing a higher spirit into the Oxford school. He further states -
that in 1149 Vacarius lectured there on civil law, but King Stephen and the church
objected to civil law, and nothing came of Vacarius's venture; after further discuis-
sion, he says: “Accordingly we may conclude that Oxford was entitled to the name
“universitas’ about 1140.” By which, of course, he meant that, having so built her-
self up as a school of arts that there had been actual attempts to establish professional
faculties of theology and civil law, she might, without too great a strain of courtesy,
be allowed the use of a title beyond her real status.
Notwithstanding all these and other like claims, after the most thorough sifting of
the evidence it is the opinion of Rashdalla that the year 1167, or a little later, was the
date of what may be considered a proper beginning of the “studium generale” at
Oxford—that being the date of migration of a multitude of English students from the
University of Paris, where it is said they had been found in larger proportion than
those of any other nationality; many of them, moreover, well beneficed, and not a
few of them well advanced in the higher studies. This extraordinary migration from
Paris came probably from the quarrel between Henry II and Thomas à Becket, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, on which account the latter fled to Paris, where there were
many hundreds, if not even thousands, of English students, together with numerous
masters, upon all of whom he might have been in the way of exerting an undesira-
ble influence. Be that as it may, the University of Paris certainly had a much larger
proportion of English students than of any other; and, for reasons of his own, the
King ordered them all back to England, under pains and penalties that could not be
ignored. Rashdall’s opinion is that the repatriated students resorted to Oxford.
Had there been an important beginning of a school of high grade elsewhere in Eng-
land, it would doubtless have been the rallying point instead of Oxford. There are
also other facts that, with some reason, have been assigned for the early choice of
Oxford as a university seat, these, namely: That Oxford was central, as well as on
the border between Mercia and Wessex, the two most important subordinate portions
of the Kingdom; that it was at that point on the Thames where the stream spread into
a The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, II, 329.


HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXE'ORD. 961.
Several channels; that the place was within sufficiently easy reach of London and of
the Continent, and that it was in a productive region, where supplies were cheap;
besides which, masters and students in large numbers were already there.
Passing all these questions, once so troublesome to historians, it may be considered
equally beyond doubt that ere the end of the twelfth century the University at
Oxford had attained to considerable importance; that as a studium generale it then
stood alone in England; that, although several of its halls were destroyed by fire in
1190, it was authentically spoken of soon after as being so full of students that the
city could hardly hold them, and that important beginnings had been made in the
study of both the civil and the canon law, Vacarius being its leading teacher in the
civil branch. -
It is also a well-established fact of history that Oxford made a great gain in the
number of her students in consequence of a serious fray between the students at
Paris and the provost of the city and his archers in 1229. Laurie is an authority for
the statement that the university, by way of resisting what it considered an outrage,
practically broke up, leaving its students to migrate “to Orleans, Angers, Rheims,
and other towns, where teaching was conducted and degrees conferred independently
of church or king.” In harmony with other historians he further says that “Henry
III of England seized the opportunity to invite the dispersed scholars to the rising
schools of Oxford and Cambridge,” and that they came (in considerable numbers.
he doubtless means) “and brought with them the university idea of studies and
privileges.” - - * .
It was not until about the time with which we are now dealing that the highest
institutions were called universities. Originally they were known as “studia,” and
the title since used was adopted at about the beginning of the thirteenth century,
not because they attempted instruction in the various branches of learning, but sim-
ply because they had been formed into legal communities, which in the Latin of that
age were styled “universitates.”
These communities or corporations of masters and scholars, moreover, although as
a guild they were distinct from the townspeople, were not separated from them by
living together in isolated buildings like the monks who lived in monasteries, but
were scattered about in lodgings in the town, promiscuously at first, and then in.
“hostels,” or halls, and chambers which were hired from the townsmen, as were
also the “schools” in which lectures were given. The university, therefore, in its
corporate capacity possessed no property in the first half of the thirteenth century.
Its public business was transacted in parochial or conventual churches lent for the
purpose, as there were no university buildings. The first university endowments
were funds donated by benevolence to be loaned to poor scholars, and called
“chests.” Next, money was left for the support of masters from the county of
Durham in lodgings to be provided at Oxford. The university was able to purchase
houses as early as 1263 out of this fund, and then followed the foundation of the
famous “colleges” themselves, whose constitution is characteristic of and peculiar to
the two great English universities, each being an independent community with a
separate charter, government, and endowments.
CONSTITUTION.
Speaking in general terms, the University of Oxford, as a corporate body, was
known through a succession of ages by the style of “The Chancellor, Masters, and
Scholars of the University of Oxford.” It was finally so entitled by Parliament
during the reign of Elizabeth.
Like the University of Paris, that of Oxford was also a masters' university, for there
was even less of the democratic element in England than in France, and the student:
ED 1902—61 ->

962 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
body was proportionally subordinate to those who taught and to such ecclesiastical
officers as the church could impose. But to what extent there was organization at
that early day nobody seems to know with exactness.
We have good authority for fixing the number of students as high as 3,000 in the
year 1209; when, moreover, there was a beginning of something like recorded history
for the school, since it was in this year that a collision between the mayor and citi-
zens and the students resulted in a migration of most of the latter to other places.
Some went to Reading, some to Paris, and some to Cambridge, which last was
strangely destined to become a copartner with Oxford in the proud honors which
have attached and still attach to English scholarship.
It was at this time, in consequence of a quarrel between the students and towns-
people, that Oxford was placed for quite a period under interdict of the church,
which was followed by the legatine ordinance of 1214. This was punitive in char-
acter, and the punishments were administered in forms as rude and grotesque as any
which mark the history of the Middle Ages. Among others there were processions
of the offenders, barefoot and coatless, and the awarding of fines against the towns-
people, and decreeing half rent for years to come of hostels and schools occupied by
clerical students; the distribution of so many shillings annually among poor scholars,
besides the feasting of them liberally “on bread and beer, pottage and flesh, or
fish,” etc. The immunity from lay jurisdiction, which the university still enjoys,
dates from this legatine ordinance. It was finally arranged (by ordinance of
Bishop Grossetéte, 1243) that this complicated punishment should take the form of
an annual fine, to be expended in loans to poor scholars, without interest—no small
favor in the eyes of young men, who were otherwise obliged to pay 43 per cent
interest to the Jewish money lenders—and, a little later still, it was provided that
the moneys accruing to the university from this source should be placed in a chest
at S. Frideswyde's, in which, upon receiving a loan, the borrower should make a
deposit equal in value. To this chest were afterwards added others by various
founders, which were made the depositories of sums given the university on condi-
tion of So many prayers being offered annually for the repose of the founder's soul.
According to Rashdall, ‘‘some twenty of these chests were established at Oxford
during the Middle Ages.” -
The Grossetéte ordinance also provided for the office of university chancellor, and
hence for the beginning of a more systematic general government of the schools
embraced in the university. It was such a chancellorship as no other university of
the Middle Ages had; first, because the office was one that properly belonged to the
chief ecclesiastic attached to a cathedral; secondly, because, while copying all that
pertained to the Paris University chancellorship, it was an office, not of the univer-
sity originally, but of the church, and its connection with the university was at first
established only because the students subject to the chancellor's jurisdiction were
clerks, one and all. When his jurisdiction was extended over lay students also it
was only to the extent of their subjection to the ecclesiastical courts. The law
administered was the canon law. Beginning his services to the university in this
high capacity, as the representative of the bishop of Lincoln, Oxford's chancellor
eventually became the acceptable head over the university in all its proceedings.
The masters may have early had their own ideas of regulating the affairs of the
university; nevertheless, we hear nothing of statutes until 1252, up to which time
custom appears to have had its sway with what was, indeed, a “rudimentary uni-
versity of masters.” The organization, when it came more fully, was singularly
democratic. There was nothing of a one-man power about it. Serious difficultier
were disposed of by the masters (in guild, now) assembled, and in extreme case
with the help of graduate students also. \
Among the provisiºns of what may be regarded as the constitution of the university -
were these: That no one should be admitted to the license in theology who had not
-
º
-

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 963
been a regent in arts; that masters should be sworn to observe the statutes and to a
faithful discharge of duty; and that the masters, unless positive provision were
otherwise made, should have the responsibility of inflicting penalties. These formal
statutes were in the name of the university only, nor were they even intrusted to the
chancellor for execution. He doubtless presided at general meetings of the faculties
and at great mass meetings of the whole institution. “And yet,” says Rashdall,
“there remained, and remain to this day, in our academical constitution clear indi-
cations of the fact that the chancellor was originally an extra-university official and
was not the proper executive of the masters' guild. * * * It is to the proctors, a
few years later, that the execution of the sentence of suspension denounced for vio-
lation of the statutes is intrusted.” a Finally (about the middle of the thirteenth
century), the chancellor lost independence of position as an ecclesiastical official and
became simply and solely the university’s presiding officer.
It was in 1254 that the university received from Pope Innocent IV full confirma-
tion of all its “immunities, liberties, and laudable, ancient, and rational customs,
and approved and honest constitutions;” the bull being addressed, not to the chan-
cellor and university, but to the “masters and scholars sojourning at Oxford in the
diocese of Lincoln.”
The proctors were originally the ‘‘heads of nations,” and it is time to add that
instead of four nations and four proctors, with a single rector over all, as at Paris,
the nations at Oxford, at the earliest period of reliable history, were but two, namely,
those known as Northerners (Boreales), or English north of the Trent (if they chose
to divide for any reason), and Scotchmen; and Southerners (Australes), including
Welshmen, Irishmen, and the rest of the World.
As relates to the relative powers and responsibilities of the several faculties at
Oxford, it must be said, that it was much the same as at Paris, the difference being
that in the more recent Oxford the faculty of arts enjoyed a still greater dominance
and maintained it right on, while at Paris, with the development of other faculties,
which soon had statutes and officers of their own, the exclusive initiative of the arts
faculty was broken down; but at Oxford the professional faculties not only never
acquired an independent existence, with deans of their own, but the right of initiative
of the faculty of arts eventually extended itself to the actual right of veto upon the
proceedings of the university. Nor did the ascendancy of the arts faculty stop
here. Since every statute, or rather projet of a statute, must have promulgation in
the “congregations” of regent-masters of arts, and said congregations were summoned
and presided over by the proctors before the proposed statute could be acted upon
by the university, the claim of this faculty to put a stop to a statute negatived in
the congregation was a source of embarrassment for centuries after. Indeed, the
proctors alone held the power of veto in their right to call the congregation.
Another peculiarity of the constitution is found in the several congregations for
which it provides and the rights it accords to former teaching masters, known as
nonregents in contradistinction to the resident masters or regents. Indeed, statutes
were not valid in the early history of the university unless non-regents had been
recognized in the calls issued.
The congregations were these:
(1) The black congregation, or previous congregation, made up of regents in arts,
with its right of initiative and veto power. :
(2) The lesser congregation, or regents' congregation, embracing the regents of all
the faculties and charged with the granting of leases, the management of finances,
the control of all matters relating to studies, lectures, and degrees, except such dis-
pensatory graces from the latter as were specially reserved for the great congregation.
(3) The great congregation (congregatio magna), composed of both regents and
a Rashdall, Vol. II, p. 365.

964 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
non-regents. This was the Supreme governing body and alone competent to enact a
permanent statute; and here, as at Paris, concurrence of the four faculties, as shown
by faculty votes, was undoubtedly necessary, as also was a concurrence of the non-
regents; although in the year 1303 a statute was adopted which established the prin-
ciple that a majority of the faculties, the non-regents being counted as one, should
be competent to bind the whole university.
The office of chancellor came to be one of the most exalted that could be bestowed
by any learned body in England. From being known at first as rector, or master,
of the schools, with two years as the term of office, and chosen from among the mas-
ters who were resident in the university, and always, till 1552, from the ecclesias-
tical body, the chancellor came in later times to be chosen by the votes of all
members of the convocation—by the doctors of divinity, law, and medicine, and by
all regent-masters of arts, whether dependent or independent members of their
respective societies—and for a life term. -
It was in 1484 that John Russell, bishop of Lincoln, was first elected for life, since
which time a life term has been the rule; but it was not until 1552 that the rule of
selection from the ecclesiastical body was broken by the choice of Sir John Mason,
knight; since which time the general rule has been the choice of lay statesmen, usu-
ally peers, Cardinal Pole and Archbishops Bancroft, Laud, and Sheldon being the
only exceptions.
The high steward was named by the chancellor, with the approval of the convo-
cation. The term came to be for life. His duties were to assist the chancellor and
other university officers, to defend the rights of the university, and to hear and
determine according to law all capital causes to which any matriculant was a party.
The vice-chancellor, formerly known as vice-gerent and later as commissary, was
appointed by the chancellor from among the heads of houses and was subject to
drafts for service regularly performed by the chancellor when he could not act.
The proctors, two in number, were quite early, as later, two masters of arts of at
least four years' standing, but not more than fifteen. It was their duty to attend the
chancellor on all important occasions, to regulate the assemblies of masters, to admin-
ister oaths, to keep the public accounts, to exact payment of fines, and to preserve
the discipline of the university.

CONTEST WITH THE FRIARS.
The fourteenth century brought with it a contest with the mendicant friars in regard
to taking university degrees before being allowed to lecture—a repetition on a smaller
scale of that which so seriously, and for so long a period, afflicted the University of
Paris. The friars made a beginning of their work of gaining converts quite early in
the thirteenth century. The Dominicans established themselves at Oxford in 1221,
very soon after their appearance in England. While their special mission was to
convert the Jews of the town, their connection with the university was established
by founding a school in theology conducted by one of their doctors. Next came the
Franciscans, and they were successful in drawing in a considerable number of stu-
dents of rank, thus adding to their importance. They may be said to date from 1224.
The Carmelites followed in 1256, and in 1317 they removed to a palace graciously
accorded them by King Edward II in Beaumont Fields. The Augustinians made
ready for a convent in Holywell on the site of Wadham College in 1268.
The reputation of the friars for sanctity, associated with practical asceticism, was
sufficient for a considerable time to maintain harmony between them and the secu-
lars of the university. But after a time the multiplication of friar doctors alarmed
the seculars, lest the university should fall under dominion of the orders, and they
began to resist this increase in order to make sure that the control over graduates
should permanently remain with the university. Instead of setting a fixed limit to
the number of friar doctors by statute, as was done at Paris, the Oxford statute
HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 965
simply required the candidate to be a graduate in the arts as a condition of inception
in theology. This was highly distasteful to the friars, since they were unwilling to
have their students study a secular branch of learning, such as the course in philoso-
phy, which was necessarily included in the studies of the faculty of arts. There was
an attempt on their part, finally, to meet this demand by providing for instruction
in philosophy by their own teachers. But this did not satisfy the masters. The
university seculars demanded by statute that the instruction in philosophy should
be given by masters belonging to their own faculty—that of the arts. But at the
same time it was liberally provided that there should be a dispensing power in this
respect with the university chancellor and regents (the “grace”), the generous
exercise of which preserved for some time the friendly relations hitherto subsisting
between what were inevitably to become conflicting forces.
The real struggle began by the enactment of quite a number of statutes from 1303
onward, which were obviously directed against the friars, all tending to place the
power to grant degrees solely in the control of the university. Friars were eventually
compelled to take the degree of bachelor of theology in the university and not merely
obtain the authorization of their own superiors to lecture upon the Bible. The
“graces' dispensing from the obligation to graduate in arts began to be refused
them. Secular masters began to refuse admission to friar candidates who would not
take the oath to obey the statutes of the university, one Dominican doctor being
expelled from the university for refusing the oath. Contumacious friars were even
excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The whole dispute was finally
appealed to Rome, where it was decided in 1314 in the main in favor of the uni-
versity, with some concessions to the friars.
OXFORD STUDIES.
The following programme of studies is taken from Rashdall. According to him.
the chief requirements for the various degrees in 1267 A. D. were these:
IN THE FACULTY OF ARTS.
For the degree of B. A. (admissio ad lecturam Alicuius libri Facultatis Artium). -
Four years' study.
For “determination” (first public step looking to a degree and consisting of the
defense of a thesis before masters) in 1267 A. D.—To have been admitted as above
and “read '' some book of Aristotle. To have responded de quaestione. To have
heard: (1) The Old Logic; i. e., Porphyry's Isagoge; the Categoriae and De Inter-
pretatione of Aristotle; the Sex Principia of Gilbert de la Porrée, twice, and the
logical works of Boethius (except Topics, Book IV), once. (2) In the New Logic,
Priora Analytica, Topica, Soph. Elenchi, twice; Posteriora Analytica, once. With
either (1) Grammar, i. e., Priscian, De Constructionibus, twice; Donatus, Barbar-
ismus, once. Or (2) Natural Philosophy, i. e., Aristotle, Physica, De Anima, De
Generatione et Corruptione Animalium. To have responded de Sophismatibus for
a year or have heard the Posteriora Analytica twice, instead of once.
For license and inception (admission to the mastership).-Three years' additional
study. To have been admitted “ad lecturam alicuius libri Aristotelis” and to have
lectured thereon. To have been admitted to determine (?). To have responded
apud Augustinenses [at the cloister?] and taken part in a certain number of other
disputations.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS-STATUTE OF 1431.
To have heard (in addition to the books already read for B. A.):
In the Seven arts.-Grammar: Priscian in majore vel minore, one term. Rhetoric:
of Aristotle, three terms; or the Topics of Boethius, Book IV; or Cicero, Nova
Rhetorica; or Ovid's Metamorphoses; or Poetria Virgilii. Logic: Aristotle, De


966 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
Interpretatione, three terms; or Boethius, Topics, first three books; or Aristotle,
Prior Analytics, or Topics. Arithmetic: Boethius, one term. Music, Boethius, one
term. Geometry: Euclid [?, six books]; or Alhagen, two terms [or Vitellio, Per-
spectival. Astronomy: (Ptolemy º Theorica Planetarum, two terms; or Ptolemy
Almagesta.
In the three philosophies.—Natural: Aristotle, Physica or De Coelo et Mundo, or cer-
tain other books of Aristotle, two terms. Moral: Aristotle, Ethica, or Economica,
or Politica, three terms. Metaphysical: Aristotle, Metaphysica, two terms.
IN THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE.
For M. B. (admissio ad legendum librum Aphorismorum).-No time specified.
For admission “ad practicandum” in Oxford.—For M. A. candidates, four years'
study. To pass an examination conducted by the regent doctors. For others, eight
years' study and examination.
For license and inception.—For M. A. candidates, six years' study (in all). To
have “read” one book of Theorica (i. e., the Liber Tegni of Galen, or Aphorismi of
Hippocrates), pro majore parte. To have “read” one book of Practica (i. e., Regi-
menta Acutorum of Hippocrates, Liber Febrium of Isaac, or the Antidotarium of
Nicholas). To have responded to and opposed in the schools of the regents for two
years.
For others, to have been admitted to practice, as above: eight years' study (in all):
to have given the above lectures.
IN THE FACULTY OF CIVIL LAW.
For B. C. L. (admissio ad lecturam libelli Institutionum).-For M. A. candidates,
four years' study.
For others, six years' study.
For license ad legendum aliquod volumen juris civilis (e. g., the Digesium Novum or
Infortiatum). —To have heard the libri apparitati of the civil law.
For inception—(No additional time specified). To have lectured on the Institutes,
the Digestum Novum, and the Infortiatum. To have given an ordinary lecture for
each regent doctor. To have opposed and responded in the school of each decretist.

IN THE FA CULTY OF CANON LAW.
For bachelor of decrees (admissio ad lecturam extraordinariam alicuius libri decre-
talium).-Five years' study of civil law. To have heard the decretals twice, and the
degretum for two years. - - -
For inception as doctor of decrees.—To have read “extraordinarie” two or three
“causes” or the tractate De Simonia, or De Consecratione, or De Poenitentia (parts
of the Decretum). To have opposed and responded to the questions of every regent.
To have given one lecture for each regent.
[After inception, two years, afterwards one year of necessary regency.]
IN THE FACULTY OF THEOLOGY.


For opponency—For M. A. candidates, four or five years' study, presumably divided
between the Bible and Sentences, since three years’ “auditio” of the Bible are
required for inception.
For others, eight years in the study of arts; six or seven years in theology.
For B. D. (admissio ad lecturam libri Sententiarum).--For M. A. candidates, two
years more, i. e., seven years in all. Certain opponencies, number not specified.
For license.—Two years' further study. To have lectured on one book of the Bible
and on the Sentences. An examinatory sermon at St. Mary’s. Eight responsions to
nongraduate Opponents. To dispute (as opponent) with every regent D. D. Vespers.
Considerable prominence was given to mathematics and the sciences then most


HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 967
closely associated with that study, viz, music and astronomy or astrology. Degrees
in music were granted in the fifteenth century. The candidate was required to com-
pose a mass and a song (cantilena) to be performed at St. Mary’s at the summer
inception. The M. B. degree was taken to “read any book of music” or “any book
of the music of Boethius.” Rashdall states that “this graduation in music was a
peculiarity of the English university system which we have hitherto seen only in
certain Spanish universities.” “The doctor of music was academically on a level
with the humble master of grammar.” In the sixteenth century a scholar was
admitted to practice in astrology. -
*At the end of the fifteenth century is found “the practice of creating poets laureate
by their actual investiture with a laurel crown.” - -
The Greek and Hebrew professorships ordered by the council of Vienne in 1311
were actually founded. -
French was another study which held a somewhat anomalous position. It was
evidently studied with a view to practice in the law.
EXAMINATIONS AND CONFERMENT OF DEGREES. (!
Examinations at Paris included any process of inquiry into the candidate's fitness,
as well as direct testing of his scholastic attainments. There was an examination in
the modern sense by the chancellor and examiners. But at Oxford there is no
express evidence of the existence of an examination in the literary sense of the word.
The candidate for the license in arts presented himself before the chancellor and
swore that he had heard certain books, and nine regent masters (besides his own
master, who presented him) were required to swear to their knowledge of his suf-
ficiency, besides five other masters who were willing to certify to their belief in him.
In the faculty of theology all the regent masters were required to testify to their
“knowledge” of the sufficiency of his qualifications, a single negative vote being
fatal to his success. -
It is important to notice that only the regent masters of the faculty had any share
in advising the chancellor as to the fitness of a candidate for the license. So in the
actual admission to the mastership—the inception—none but regents of the faculty
took part except the chancellor and proctors. The actual ceremony of inception—
the presentation of the book and ring, and the putting on of the biretta with the
kiss of fellowship—was performed by a regent of the faculty. Some of this ancient
ceremonial survived until comparatively recent times.
THE SYSTEM OF INSTRUCTION.
This was the same as at Paris. It was certainly less effective in the times from
the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries than under later and better conditions, and
for very good reasons. -
First, there was no sufficient support for university teaching. The teachers were
obliged to depend upon a share of fees paid by students (the collecta), which was
not a certain source of income.
Secondly, the enforced teaching which came of the rule of necessary regency was
sure to provide a measure of poor instruction. Under that rule or statute every
master, at his inception, was required to bind himself to do two years of teaching.
He at the same time, by virtue of his graduation, became a regent. Hence the term
“necessary regency,” a system which was calculated not only to load the univer-
sity with inferior lecturers, but also to embarrass it greatly by the resulting fluctua-
tions, notwithstanding the fact that under a pretty strict code of regulations the
master could continue his lectures any length of time. It was a realization of the
a Rashdall, II, 442.
º



968 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
faultiness of this system and of the weakness which came of an uncertain and
insufficient pecuniary reliance that prompted the Duke of Gloucester (Humphrey)
in 1436 to found lectureships for each of the seven arts and three philosophies. But
they counted but little in the strengthening of the university, for the reason that
these foundations terminated with his death.
The enduring relief came with the founding of colleges, which, by doing much of
the work at first done by the university, allowed the use unreservedly of whatever
resources they possessed in carrying forward university teaching. And by and by
it came to be popular to found chairs in the university itself, i. e., in what might be
properly styled the university division of that aggregation of schools which came to
be known as Oxford University.
CIVIL HELPS AND HINDRANCEs.
The universities of the present day convey but a faint conception of the general
importance of the relations which came to exist between the university at Oxford on
the one hand and the royal and municipal authorities on the other. In so far as the
Kingdom is concerned, the relation was of course pretty one-sided—that is, the King
had his way. But, happily, the sovereigns of England, even in the earliest days of
the university, were of a capacity and culture that for the most part made them its
friends, protectors, and promoters. - -
The government of Oxford and of other English towns in the Middle Ages was
characteristic in that it was both local and central—self-government of the town, with
reserved rights of inspection and control on the part of the King and council. And
a happy thing it was, for the King and his council were much more likely to appre-
ciate the needs of the university than were the mayor and council of Oxford. A
happy thing, too, that the usage of the times allowed the will of the sovereign to
pass for law within limits which especially concerned the well-being, even the com-
fortable and respectable living, of the university community. The King, if not sat-
isfied with the slow motions of the local authorities, as very often he was not, would
issue an order to the sheriff requiring him to see that the occupants of a given street,
for example, complained of put their own premises in order, as well as the pave-
ment in front, and that beyond these individual obligations the rest should be
attended to by the town itself. The faculty—masters and students—were from abroad,
many of them delicate in constitution, and perhaps more subject to disease than
natives of the town. The prosperity and future importance of Oxford were to be
held above all else, and it was, therefore, a double duty of the authorities and of the
people—a duty resting both on self-interest and upon honor—to see that the rules of
hygiene were observed. The Sovereign was ever on the alert lest even the wrong
stream of water be tapped for the town and university supply; lest bad bread and
bad beer should also result therefrom and the people and students suffer in common.
Nor did the protecting care of King and council limit itself to material interests. It
was often in demand and the king was usually very ready to intervene in the settle-
ment of controversies, disputes, and quarrels between university and town, as well
as between conflicting forces in the university itself. Sometimes the decision was
pro urbe and sometimes pro universitate, the victory in more than one instance
going so far to the popular side as to include the removal of both chancellor and
proctors from the posts of honor in the university. There were even royal measures
in use for protecting the morals of university students from the demoralizing influ-
ence of tournaments, jousts, etc., by forbidding them altogether, and by what was
deemed a fitting censorship over such theatrical entertainments as were allowed.
At first the jurisdiction of the chancellor was purely ecclesiastical, the authority
having, in so far as the masters and scholars of Oxford were concerned, been dele-
gated to him. As was usual in those days, everybody who had attained to the
HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 969
dignity of even a scholar at the university was supposed to have Oue or more depend-
ents, while the masters and officials generally were favored with something of a retinue.
And, finally, there were servants and workmen not a few who served the university
in its corporate capacity. The more serious cases of discipline were, nevertheless,
quite commonly reserved for the bishop, or rather for his representative, the arch-
deacon, there being then no bishop at Oxford.
Excommunication and penance were doubtless sufficient to insure the chancellor's
jurisdiction, and the rapid growth of the university afforded enough for him to do
outside of the usual order. And then gradually that jurisdiction extended in com-
plicated cases of conflict between scholars and townsfolk who were laymen. And,
finally, the commonness of such cases, coupled with the ever-increasing dignity and
importance of the university, made it easy to ignore the barriers between civil and
ecclesiastical powers and to increase the advantage of the more aggressive force, so
that quarrels could be settled as early as 1214 by papal legate and bishop without
reference to the King, and but a few years later (1228) a case arose in which the
town so far yielded as to permit the offending party to be sent all the way to Rome
for trial. -
It was at this same time that the King issued orders to the mayor and bailiffs
allowing the chancellor to use the town prison for the confinement of offending stu-
dents; as also, later still, the royal prison. There was no bishop's prison then.
In the year 1231 a royal brief was issued for the expulsion of all scholars without
masters. The town was full of a rattling, noisy, comparatively ignorant, and often
turbulent crowd, who added to the fame which came of numbers but who were in
every other respect a detriment to the university. -
The year 1244 brought in important enlargement of the prerogatives of the chan-
cellor in questions of debt, disputes over prices, rents, etc., “and all other contracts
of movables” to which at least one party was a clerk or regular student. It came of
violence in the streets of so serious a nature that some fifty of the students were
imprisoned. They had been charged what was thought unreasonable interest. And
the result of the conflict was that, soon after, a charter was granted which forbade
the Jews of Oxford to take a higher right than 24 per pound per week as interest
from scholars. - - -- -
Four years later a charter was granted giving to the chancellor and proctors the
right to assist at the assaying of bread and beer, on the one hand, while upon the
mayor and bailiffs who had the first part in this business it imposed an oath upon
admission to office to respect the rights and customs of the university. And seven
years after that, to wit, in 1255, was added to the steadily growing powers of the
university in affairs both ecclesiastic and civil a criminal jurisdiction also, even over
laymen in cases of breach of the peace. It was natural that under these conditions
there was steady grasping for more authority by the university, Nor was it strange
that a rude and resolute people should at times give way to a deep feeling of resist-
ance to what was so plainly an advancing, and in a greater or less degree an encroach-
ing power in their midst, or strange that conflicts resulted. For this reason it was
natural, if not inevitable, that conflicts between town and gown should occasionally
lead to the abandonment of Oxford by numbers of her students. Sometimes they
distributed themselves among institutions on the continent; but in a number of
instances the secessions were sufficient for the beginning of new institutions, such, for
example, as that of 1209 to Cambridge, and that of 1238 to Salisbury, and the main-
tenance there of a quite flourishing school for a considerable time. That of 1334
from Northampton to Stamford, when the former rebellious town was captured by
Henry III, was due, however, more to a warlike conflict between Northerners and
Southerners than to differences between the school and the community.
In those times customs, where the thing done or claimed was at all reasonable, or
had gained a beginning in some interest of importance, like that of church and school,




970 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
made an easy start, and in a very few years were for the most part as good as law. Nev-
ertheless, where vital interests, like those of personal freedom and security in general,
were involved, the royal confirmation of custom by charter, by formal order, or even
by a personal command, was always welcome. But in 1275 Edward I went beyond
an act of mere confirmation, while according to the chancellor cognizance of all
cases where a student was in the rôle of “defendant,” by his issue of a charter
wherein the broader expression of “party” took the place of “defendant.” And in
1303 he decreed that a room or hall once rented to a scholar or scholars could not
afterwards be let to a layman so long as there were students still unaccommodated.
The first and formal definition of the chancellor's jurisdiction by both King and
Parliament was made in 1290. He now obtained jurisdiction in case of all crimes
committed in Oxford where one of the parties was a scholar, except pleas of homi-
cide and mayhem.
The most fearful of all the many conflicts between the university and the town
was that of 1354, wherein a miserable broil in a tavern between a number of students
and the proprietor led to Cesperate fights and to pitched battles all over the town,
even to the slaughter of nºmerous persons on both sides as well as to much destruc-
tion of property.
The story, as Rashdall has it from Anthony Wood, is worth telling, for it gives an
idea not otherwise so easily gained of student life in those days, and of the state of
Society encountered by the university of the mediaeval period.

On Tuesday, 10 Feb. (being the feast of St. Scholastica the Virgin), came Walter
de Springheuse, Roger de Chesterfield, and other clerks to the tavern called Swyn-
dlestock (being now the Mermaid Tavern at Quatervois, styled at this day in leases
Swynstock), and there, calling for wine, John de Croydon, the vintner, brought
them some, but they disliking it, as it should seem, and he avouching it to be good,
Several snappish words passed between them. At length the vintner giving them
stubborn and saucy language, they threw the wine and vessel at his head. The
vintner therefore receding with great passion, and aggravating the abuse to those of
his family and neighborhood, several came in, encouraged him not to put up the
abuse, and withal told him they would faithfully stand by him. That was all. The
same narrative would be a sufficiently exact description of scores of similar conflicts
at Oxford, Paris, or any other university town.
After this affairs took the stereotyped course. The vintner's friends rang the bell
of the town church of St. Martin. The commonalty “in an instant were in arms,
Some with bows and arrows, and others with divers sorts of weapons.” The scholars,
at present defenseless, were shot at. The chancellor appeared upon the scene to
“appease the tumult;” he was shot at, and had to flee for his life back into gown-


land. By his order St. Mary’s bell is rung. At such a moment the chancellor is not.
overmuch distressed to find that his annual proclamation “contra portantes arma”
has not been too literally observed. Ere long he is at the head of an army of English
archers. With such weapons it is difficult to understand how the fight could have
been maintained till even the close of a February day without a single man on either
side being killed or mortally wounded. But neither townsmen nor gownsmen were
as skilled with their weapons as the yeomen of Cressy.
The fight had begun on a holiday; the next day was a “legible” one. The chan-
cellor made proclamation against breaches of the peace. The obedient scholars, we
are assured, betook themselves meekly to the schools. But not so the townsmen.
The bailiffs had ordered the citizens to prepare for a renewal of hostilities, and had
even hired reinforcements of peasants from the surrounding country. A “deter-
mination’’ which was going on at the Augustinian Convent (the present Wadham
College) was broken in upon by a band of armed townsmen. Fourscore citizens,
armed with bows and arrows, laid wait in St. Giles’s Church till after dinner, when
the scholars began to appear in their accustomed recreation ground in Beaumont
fields. This time some of the scholars were mortally wounded. Again the rival bells
of St. Mary’s and St. Martin’s were heard, and preparations made for a pitched
battle. The gownsmen shut the town gates, for the rustics were seen swarming in
from Cowley, Headington, Hinksey; but it was too late to prevent a party of some
2,000 entering, with an ominous black flag displayed, by the west gate. Hatred of
the secular clergy was a pretty strong passion in the rustic mind of the fourteenth
century. Now was a fine opportunity for paying off old scores against the parish
priest. Some twenty inns or halls were pillaged. Scholars were killed or wounded;
/ - -
-
HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 971.
their eatables and drinkables plundered; their books torn to pieces; the halls them-
selves were fired. The next day the chancellor is dispatched at the head of a depu-
tation to the King at Woodstock. Meanwhile proclamation is made that the scholars
(who had been outnumbered and completely overpowered on the preceding day)
shall remain in their houses. But again the halls are broken into. More scholars
are killed outright in cold blood and their bodies mutilated. Others, horribly
wounded, are carried off to the town prison. “The crown of some chaplains, viz,
all the skin so far as the tonsure went, these diabolical imps flayed off in scorn of
their clergy.” Churches supply no sanctuary. The fugitives are beaten and
wounded, clinging to the very altars, nay, to the tabernacle itself. The friars, for-
getting for the moment their own very bitter differences with the university, come
out in solemn procession bearing the host and chanting a litany for peace. The crucifix
is planted in the midst of the rioters with a “procul hincite profani; ” but the sacred
symbol is dashed to the ground. One scholar is killed even while clinging to the
friar who bears the host. At last the scholars begin to flee the town, and no further
mischief remains to be done. But for the scholars of Merton, safe behind their solid
walls, and a few others, the town is deserted.
But now comes the day of vengeance. For more than a year the town lies under
an interdict, which is proclaimed in all the churches with the accustomed parapher-
nalia of bells and curses and extinguished tapers. The King issues a special com-
mission for the investigation of the affair and the punishment of the offenders. The
mayor and bailiffs are sent to the Marshalsea prison; the sheriff, who was held, we
may presume, responsible for not preventing the inroad of the rustics, is removed
from his office. The further hearing of the affair is adjourned to London. Both
university and town surrender all their privileges and charters—the university includ-
ing even those received from the Holy See—into the King’s hands. The university
had of course decreed a “cessation,” and indeed most of the scholars had of their
own accord fled into the country. Not till a general pardon was proclaimed for the
offenses of the clerks—an indication, by the way, that the scholars’ conduct in the
affair had not been altogether as lamblike as their advocates represented—and pub-
lished throughout the country did they begin to flock back to their old haunts. As
late as June 11, 1355, it was necessary for the King to send a writ to Oxford to entreat
the masters to resume their lectures.
As the outcome of the whole affair there resulted fresh privileges for the univer-
sity; fresh humiliation for the town. The assize of bread, wine, and ale; the assize
of weights and measures; the cognizance of cases of forestalling and regrating; the
‘‘correction of victuals;” the punishment of both clerks and laymen for carrying
arms; the cleansing and paving of the streets (which was to be enforced by ecclesi-
astical censure); the “assessment and taxation ” of privileged persons—all these
matters were now placed under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the chancellor.
ºx On every one of the long-standing subjects of contention between town and
university the latter scored a permanent triumph. From this time forward the town
of Oxford was practically governed by the university. 4
The town was also to pay to the chancellor and scholars £250 as compensation for
injuries to property; all goods of the scholars undestroyed were to be restored at
once. Besides the material compensation which they received from the Crown, the
scholars were awarded satisfaction at the hands of the bishop. He enjoined an
annual penance on the city to be performed forever, as follows:
On every anniversary of St. Scholastica's day, the mayor, bailiffs, and sixty
burghers were to appear in St. Mary’s Church at the celebration of mass with deacon
and subdeacon (at their own expense) for the souls of the slaughtered scholars, and
at the offertory each one of them was to offer 1 penny at the high altar. Of this
Sum 40 pence was to be distributed by the proctors among poor students and the
rest to go to the curate of the church. The length of time during which this penance
has been performed is one of those curious links between past and present which
would hardly have been possible in any country but our own. After the Reforma-
tion the town availed itself of the opportunity of neglecting the popish ceremony,
but upon the university bringing an action against the city upon their old bond for
its observance, the council ordered that the mass should be commuted to a sermon
and communion, the offering to be made as heretofore. After a few years the service
was changed to a litany. In the year 1800 the municipality once more attempted
to shake themselves free from the humiliating observance. Once more the fine of
100 marks provided for in the bond was demanded by the University and paid by
a Rashdall, II, 403–406.


97.2 EDUCATION REPORT, 1903.
the town. It was only in 1825 that on the humble petition of the city the univer-
sity was graciously pleased to forego its rights and that the citizens of Oxford ceased
to do annual penance for the sins of their forefathers on St. Scholastica's day, 1354.4
Henry IV went beyond all his predecessors in one important regard—that of grant-
ing to the university the right to claim the surrender of “privileged persons,”
though indicted for felony, and their trial by an officer of the university, newly
appointed and known as the seneschal or steward, if deemed competent by the lord
high chancellor; the trial itself to be under civil law and by a jury composed half of
privileged persons like the accused, chosen from a panel offered by the bedel, and half
of townsmen summoned in the ordinary way by the county sheriff—another illustra-
tion of the slowness of the English to abandon a rule of action once adopted, for this
unexampled and even unconstitutional charter has proven itself superior to the
urgent appeals of the Commons and still endures, nay, has been sanctioned by act of
Parliament. These “privileged persons” were laymen, servants of scholars, and
members of privileged trades, not clerks. Where the offender was a clerk, in cases
which, under the law, could not be tried by the chancellor, he was, after conviction
at assizes, turned over to the bishop for punishment in accordance with ecclesiastical
law.
Punishments were generally light, not unfrequently amounting to a mere compli-
ance with the law in all the requisite formalities, with an easy penance or acquittal
on the testimony of friends, and up to the Reformation more or less of favor was
shown the clerks. After the Reformation members of the university were no longer
treated as clergymen, and clerks had no more benefit of clergy than laymen.
Finally, not long after the opening of the fifteenth century, the authority of the
university was almost Supreme over the town. It was a turbulent period. The fre-
quency of assaults, not merely among rowdies in the streets, but even among monks,
masters of arts, beneficed clergymen, principals of halls, and heads of colleges, was
notorious. Ecclesiastical discipline at this time involved interference with the pri-
vate lives of individuals, and inquisitions were conducted under university sanction
and jurisdiction into the character and conduct of the townspeople. The town was
divided into districts, each under a theological doctor and two masters of arts as
judges. They sat in the various churches of the town and held their investigations,
a jury of citizens being summoned to give evidence. They reported to the chancel-
lor, before whom the offenders were summoned for sentence, the punishment being
excommunication and penance.
THE GROWTH OF INDEPENDENCE.
The University of Oxford had its beginning in the church; the town being in the
diocese of Lincoln, the university was under the control of the bishop of that
diocese, the chancellor being merely the bishop's delegate.
While the functions of the chancellor were very nearly the same as at Paris, the
circumstances at Oxford furnished a vantage ground which he was not slow to
occupy. At the outset all authority was with the bishop, and the chancellor was
simply his representative. But the distance between Lincoln and Oxford (120 miles)
was so great in those days as to make it easy for the chancellor to gain authority to
act on his own judgment more and more. Especially was this the case during the
incumbency of Bishop Robert Grossetête, whose broad and generous nature, coupled
with a sincere love of learning and a worthy ambition for his alma mater, made him
a welcome helper in every way. The first disagreements between the university
and the bishop broke out during the incumbency of Bishop Grossetéte's successor,
Henry of Lexington, upon the question of autonomy, whether the university should
be governed by itself or the bishop. The dispute continued until 1257, when a
a Rashdall, II, 407-408.

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 973
peace was arranged before the King in Parliament. The terms of this agreement
are not known, but subsequent royal grants of privilege were made in favor of the
chancellor's jurisdiction, thus making him independent of the bishop.
Richard of Gravesend, successor to Lexington in 1258, was of a different type, and
during his rule, which lasted until 1279, matters went smoothly on in the direction
of a further enlargement of the university's powers, so that, in his last year, a council
of Archbishop Peckham and his co-provincials, held at Reading, solemnly confirmed
the privileges of the university, and provided for the exercise of the chancellor’s
power of excommunication, even to the extent of Securing the execution of his judg-
ments against offenders in any diocese to which they might have escaped.
But Bishop Sutton, Gravesend’s successor, assumed again the rôle of opponent to
the university. Nevertheless, in the very first year of his incumbency the congre-
gation swore to maintain these solemn declarations in opposition to the bishop,
namely: (1) That a scholar might cite a lay defendant before the chancellor;
(2) that probate of the wills of scholars was with the chancellor; (3) that the right
of inquiry into the moral delinquencies of Scholars belonged to the chancellor;
(4) that no master could be required to plead in any court other than the chancel-
lor's, in the matter of contracts entered into within the university, a
In 1281 another instance of a repudiation of the bishop's authority is found in the
summons of the chancellor, proctors, and other masters to answer before Bishop
Sutton for contempt in resisting his visitatorial powers. In answer, they pleaded
that the chancellor had authority to act in cases like those mentioned in the sum-
mons, and that jurisdiction was with the bishop only “in defeat of the chancellor,”
or in case of an appeal to him after an appeal in vain had been made to the univer-
sity congregation. The question was finally taken before a provincial convocation,
wherein the archbishop and his colleagues so warmly espoused the cause of the
university that the bishop yielded with the best grace he could. And from this
time on the chancellor's jurisdiction was practically exclusive of the bishop's.
Then followed a contest over the matter of the chancellor's confirmation—first, as
to whether he should appear before the bishop in person to receive such confirma-
tion, and, secondly, as to what should be done in case of the bishop's refusal to actor
of serious delay. The result was an appeal to the archbishop, who, in the case of
neglect by the bishop of Lincoln himself, took the responsibility. The pope, on appeal
from the bishop, issued a final decision to the effect that, while confirmation lay first
with the bishop, yet the right of the archbishop to act in default of the Bishop of
Lincoln should be without question. The confirmation thus became a mere formal-
ity, and had in fact disappeared long before 1368, when it ceased altogether by papal
decree. - -
It was at this time (late in the fourteenth century) that Wycliffe came upon the
stage, with his denial of transubstantiation and of the “sacrifice of the mass,” on
the one hand, and his bold declaration that the civil powers might seize and use
the property of “habitually delinquent clergy,” on the other. It mattered not that
Wycliffe's doctrines had been condemned by the pope in 1377, by the “Earthquake
Council” in 1382, as well as by the archbishop and his assessors, at the Blackfriars'
chapterhouse in London, the chancellor refused to comply with the mandate of
the archbishop directing him to publish the condemnation of Wycliffe's theses in
the usual way, on the ground that the university was exempt from the archbishop's
jurisdiction. Sermons were preached at Oxford supporting Wycliffe's doctrines,
which took strong hold at the university. The chancellor was subsequently com-
pelled to beg pardon of the archbishop, but the subjugation of the university to the
ecclesiastical authority was not completed until a full generation after Wycliffe's
death. Meanwhile, in 1395, “Boniface IX granted a bull exempting the university
a Rashdall, II, 422.


974 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
from the jurisdiction of all archbishops, even “legati nati,” bishops and ordinaries.
Even exempt persons, such as the mendicants and monks of exempt monasteries,
and exempt cases, such as assaults on clerks, which continually sent the clerks of
Paris to seek absolution from special papal delegates, were now expressly placed
under the jurisdiction of that most anomalous of dignitaries, the chancellor of
Oxford.’’ a -
But the whole church had been aroused, and ere the incoming century had dawned
the exemption of Boniface IX had been disregarded by the archbishop, on a ficti-
tious plea, and actually surrendered by a university proctor in open convocation.
True, the university was determined not to yield its rights because of such surrender,
made without authority, and held its ground for a while. But the contest went on
until in 1411 the archbishop of Canterbury brought matters to a crisis by appearing
upon the Scene, and summoning the university to appear before him in his capacity
of visitor, in St. Mary's. Whereupon Chancellor Richard Courtenay, and the proc-
tors Benedict Brent and John Byrche, flatly refused the archbishop entrance to
Oxford in any such capacity; besides which the students occupied the streets armed
with their bows and arrows, and with a bold declaration of their determined pur-
pose to use them should the primate make his appearance. Deeming discretion the
better part of valor, he desisted, but made such representation to the King of the
contempt put upon him “by a company of boys” that the King forth with ordered
the masters to choose a new chancellor and proctors; but the masters so far refused
obedience as to elect the ruling ones over again, who, by the mediation of Henry,
Prince of Wales, were eventually allowed to retain their offices. Nevertheless, the
bull of Boniface IX, making the cherished exemptions, was revoked by John XXIII,
in November, 1411, and the university was compelled to surrender to the archbishop.
The causes of this revocation were undoubtedly the free run of Wycliffism and
Lollardism, with more or less of an abuse of freedom among both masters and
students. A just and considerate use of the great privileges of the university would
have insured their permanency.
This long period in the history of the university appears to have been marked by
but one very important change in the constitution, or at least in the usage—the
change from biennial elections of the chancellor and from his being the actually
resident head of the university, to permanency in office and to a residency subject
to the will and pleasure of the incumbent. Moreover, the subjection of the univer-
sity was more and more strengthened by a growing spirit of domination in the royal
court and of accordance between the papal and the royal powers; so that the court was
becoming more ecclesiastical and the church hierarchy more court-like than of yore.
In this way the bishop of Lincoln himself secured the chaneellorship of the univer-
sity, and in time the chancellor became in effect an obedient servant of both church
and state. This subjection of the university to ecclesiastical authority lasted until,
in 1479, a bull was obtained from Sixtus IV legally restoring the exemption from all
English ecclesiastical authority. In 1490 the chancellor received the privilege of
licensing preachers to preach in every diocese in England, a privilege which, though
obsolete, the university still nominally retains. This was the last accession of dignity
to that office.
OXFORD COLLEGES.
The colleges of Oxford were an outgrowth of the halls or hostels system of the
early time—those little groups of scholars, often only four or five in number, who
banded themselves together for mutual advantage, rented a little house or hut, chose
their leader (finally known as principal), as a means to some sort of order, and began
their studies. After a while these became independent communities after the fash-
ion of boarding houses, each governed by a master under authority of the university.
a Rashdall, II, 430.
-
-
º
-
º

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 975
-
Naturally they multiplied, and the colleges which supplanted them grew by degrees,
with the help of many benefactions, until they numbered some fifteen during the
Middle Ages, and now number over twenty, their order in time being as follows
(dates taken from Rashdall and Andrew Clark):
1. University College - - - - - - - 1249–1280 9. All Souls College- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1438
2. Balliol College- - - - - - - - - - - 1261–1282 | 10. Magdalen College - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1448
3. Merton College - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1264 11. Brasenose College..... -------- 1508
4. Exeter College. --------------- 1314 | 12. Corpus Christi College - - - - - - - - 1516
5. Oriel College ----------------- 1324 13. Christ Church College - - - - - - - - 1524
6. Queen's College -------------- 1341 14. Trinity College - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1555
7. New College- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1379 15. St. John Baptist College- - - - - - - 1555
8. Lincoln College. - - - - - - - - - - - - ... 1429 | 16. Jesus College ----------------- 1571
To which have since been added:
17. Wadham College - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1613 20. Hertford College- - - - - - - - - 1740, 1874
18. Pembroke College - - - - - - - - - - - - 1624 21. Keble College ---------------- 1870
19. Worcester College - - - - - - - - - - - - 1714.
The relation of the halls to the university authorities was at first very slight
indeed. But, little by little, the university extended its authority over them; the
requirement of security before the chancellor for the rent of the house in which
the society would maintain itself being the first step. This served to prevent
disputes between competing applicants. Any scholar who tendered the required
amount could claim the right to be recognized as principal. On the other hand,
the chancellor assumed the right to reject any principal thus claiming the honor,
and even to remove such as had gained the principalship already by means contrary
to the university regulations in such matters; and, as was natural, there was much
increase of arbitrary power, even to the vetoing of the statutes agreed upon by the
halls, whether singly or in common. Scholars expelled from any hall for violation
of the statutes could not be lawfully received into another by its principal; and it
was further enjoined that only scholars of good character should be received into
any hall; also that all scholars should reside in the halls of principals “lawfully
approved and admitted by the chancellor and regents” of the university; and,
finally (in 1432), that no one could be principal who had not received at least the
degree of bachelor of arts. The next step was to require that a principal should
help the scholars under him in their studies. And then it was that a club of
students, led by one of their own, under rules of their own making, gradually grew
into a recognized university institution.
Coming now to the colleges, properly speaking, we find that they furnish a most
interesting history, sufficient, as Andrew Clark, fellow of Lincoln College, has said,
to make as many volumes. But hardly more can be done here than to indicate in a
general way their constituents of official or titulary rank, and the characteristic
features of the several institutions embraced in the university, as the central, all-
embracing, and supreme body. Of their characteristics he says: “The constitu-
tional changes, with the six, four, or fewer centuries of their existence, were neither
few nor slight. The Society within the older of them has reflected from age to age
the social, religious, and intellectual condition of the nation.” He further says,
dealing with their salient features severally, from the first of them to the nineteenth
century:
Brasenose and Hertford furnish a history of the multiplicity of halls for seculars,
out of which the colleges grew. In Trinity and Worcester we have a glimpse of the
houses for regulars, which for a while mated the colleges, but disappeared at the
Reformation. In Queen's early social conditions are illustrated. In New College
are shown the early studies. Balliol gives prominence to the Renaissance move-
ment; Corpus Christi, to the consequent changes in studies. In Magdalen we see the

976 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
divisions and fluctuations which followed the Reformation; in St. Johns, the golden
age of the early Stuarts; in Merton, the dissensions of the civil war; in Exeter, the
strong contrast between Commonwealth and Restoration. The history of University
College enlarges on the Romanist attempt under James II. The bright and dark
sides of the eighteenth century are exhibited in Pembroke and Hincoln. To the
history of Corpus, which describes the Renaissance, belongs the right to depict the
renewed love of letters which distinguished the nineteenth century. Lincoln sets
forth the constitutional arrangements of a pre-Reformation college. Lincoln and
Worcester show what uncertainties projected colleges must go through before they
ë. ºnly settled. Christ Church suggests the architectural and artistic wealth of
XIOrCl.
The college officials consisted of a head and a body of masters of arts or fellows.
The head of the college (who in different institutions was variously known as dean,
principal, master, provost, warden, president, rector), except in the case of Christ
Church, where the dean is named by the Crown, was, and is, chosen by the fellows.
His duties were, as now, to superintend, present candidates for degrees, etc.
The qualifications of fellows have varied more or less in each of the several socie-
ties. In some they were limited to the natives of particular counties in England, and
in other cases the choice was fixed by the founder, whose will provided that a given
number of his own kindred should become at once members of the house endowed
by him.
The fellows, in conjunction with the head of a college, were in all cases directors
of the regulations of the society and the managers of its estates, and from them the
officers of the college were selected. -
A limited number of poor boys were admitted as scholars and were quasi proba-
tionary fellows in most cases. Indeed in Christ Church a scholar was equivalent
to a fellow. They were in some colleges appointees and servitors of the fellows:
The system of competitive examination for scholarships is of modern origin.
Exhibitioners were those who, coming from particular counties or schools, received
from the bequest of private persons, or from colleges themselves, a fixed sum for
support during the period of their study—a period of from three to seven or nine
years, and sometimes even longer. The holders were generally required to reside at
the college a given length of time annually, and were subject to certain regulations.
Bible clerks. –The duties of these officials varied in different institutions. Gener-
ally speaking, they were required to attend the chapel service and to keep a memo-
randum of the undergraduates present. - - - -
The bursars’ duties were to receive the rents from the estates and other properties
of the college, to disburse all sums necessary, as expenses, and to pay the stipends
due to the fellowships and scholarships. -
Enough has now been said to convey a general idea of the beginning, growth, and
final status of Oxford University at the close of the Middle Ages, with its grand galaxy
of colleges, so alike, and yet unlike, in their characteristic features, and so deeply
interesting to the student of educational history. -
OXFORD AND MEDLEVAL PROGRESS.
Great was the influence of the mother University of Paris upon the beginning of
university work in Oxford—so great that the early University of Oxford has been
described by Rashdall as being “in all probability, a cluster of Parisian schools
transferred to English soil.” a But, unlike Paris, the political and ecclesiastical
influence of Oxford was inconsiderable, both because of its isolation, with sparsity
of population, and the less complete subordination to the Papal power of those who
founded and built it up. The inhabitants of the British Isles always possessed a
spirit of independence, and were not special favorites with the powers at Rome.
a Rashdall, II, 520.
-
-

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 977.
Its political influence was also but slight because the men of superior force in:
public affairs were not so ready as on the Continent to give themselves to university
work; also because, unlike Paris, Oxford was a country town, far away from the
capital; and, finally, because the stronger English kings were more intense lovers.
of power, and found it agreeable to keep their hold upon an institution claiming.
Supremacy in the intellectual realm. - -
It was the scholastic studies that, first of all, engaged the sympathies and efforts:
of the early thinkers and workers at Oxford, and in this great field she soon won a.
place only second to that which in those times was quite universally accorded to-
Paris. This practical limitation of Oxford was not so much a matter of choice as of
necessity. The British Isles during the Middle Age period were scarcely more isolated.
geographically than ecclesiastically. Besides, on the part of the people and of their
rulers there was a degree of rugged force and independence of thought and feeling:
that made them less ready to fall under dominion of the ruling church. Rashdall.
Says: - - -
It was not as a great semiecclesiastical corporation, but as a center of speculative-
thought and of religious life, that Oxford contributed to the making of English his—
tory. It was through her influence upon the religious life of England that the Uni-
versity of Oxford did, as we shall see, at one supreme moment open a new page in
the history of England and of the civilized world. 4
Oxford so readily followed Paris into the scholastic field that they were in effect,
workers side by side. But it also deserves to be said that owing to its famous teach-
ers in the -thirteenth century, broad and profoundly cultured men of genius, she
became more than a merely scholastic center, even at that early time.
These great men were Edmund Rich, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, who,
is credited with being the first master who taught the new logic in her schools, and
the yet greater Robert Grossetéte, her first chancellor, and Roger Bacon. Grosse-
tête opened the way for Aristotle, not only by teaching his philosophy, but also by
securing the translation of his ethics. His range of thought and study was so great.
that he was at home at once in physical science, linguistics, and theology, and was,
also accorded high rank as an agriculturist, physician, lawyer, preacher, and French.
poet. Moreover, besides being an independent theologian and great ecclesiastical
statesman, he was one of the stanchest champions of the rights of the English.
Church in defiance of both Pope and King. He encouraged theological studies, but,
insisted on keeping the distinct line of separation between theology and philosophy
observed by the Latin fathers and the earlier mediaeval doctors.
Roger Bacon was of a different type. He made himself of special and incalculable
value by pointing out and bravely condemning the vices of scholasticism—the wast-
ing of time and intellectual energy upon a few metaphysical questions, the solution
of which was as yet impossible, owing to the blind deference to authority in science:
and philosophy as well as in religion, to the abuse of syllogistic reasoning, and to
the neglect of observation and experiment. Notwithatanding his attitude of criti-
cism of scholastic methods, his participation in the scholastic discussions was an
important event in the history of that philosophy. To him has been attributed
Oxford's antagonism to the Dominican teaching. He was prior to Duns Scotus in
his criticism of the Thomist doctrine of “unity of form.” In his doctrines of “uni-
versals'' and in other metaphysical doctrines he is regarded as having anticipated:
the fundamental ideas of the great Ockham. To his high conception of the value of
mathematics, in both education and scientific inquiry, was largely due the promi-
nence enjoyed by Oxford in that department—the honor of doing the best teaching,
in that field, and of claiming the two best mathematicians of the thirteenth century.
The writings of Roger Bacon were hardly more remarkable for his anticipations of
a Rashdall, II, 519–520.
ED 1902—62 -

978 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902,
modern thinking than for his plan of educational reform, his theory being that
mathematics and the ancient languages were the proper foundation of science, medi-
cine, philosophy, and theology; that science must be studied mathematically and
experimentally, and that philosophy and theology should, on the other hand, find
their basis in philological and historical studies.
The University of Oxford, as compared with that of Paris, was more conservative
in the whole realm of philosophy. Indeed, at a later period—say by the middle of
the fourteenth century—it was recognized throughout Europe as the center of scholas-
ticism. The disposition to make an independent study of nature had declined, and
Oxford entered into the scholastic strife with yet greater zeal than Paris, where,
indeed, and in whose university, it was the English “nation” that took the lead of
all others. And so with the revival of realism in a new form by Duns Scotus, and
with the nominalistic reaction led by Ockham—both of these were Oxford men.
The leading schoolmen of the fourteenth century, and nearly all of any note yet later,
were either Englishmen or Germans educated in the traditions of the English nation
at Paris. - -
After Scotus followed the keen analysis and vigorous criticism of William of Ock-
ham, under whom nominalism took a ready root; whose theology, though in other
respects orthodox, was openly against the Church as to what should be the rela-
tions between the Papacy and the civil power, while at the same time he was an
earnest champion of Franciscanºatºfº =
As intimated before, there was a greater breadth of thought at Oxford in the thir-
teenth century, as compared with Paris, as well as little of the scepticism or panthe-
ism so hard to overcome at the Parisian center. There was at Oxford more intel-
lectual freedom during the fourteenth century, and hence no inquisition and no fierce
punishments for heresy until the statute for burning heretics in 1401.
It should also be remarked in this connection that, while the nominalism of Ock-
ham was for a time triumphant over the realism of Séotus, there came a reaction
against the extravagances of Scotus within the ranks of his own followers, led by that
famous schoolman and religious reformer, John Wycliffe, who, while an opponent
of Ockham in metaphysics, yet as a political thinker following in the steps of that
great scholastic doctor, the intellectual leader of his day, and in polities the cham-
pion of secular authority against the usurpations of the Papacy, made a great impres-
sion of his own upon the intellectual movement of the time, which was destined to
endure long after his death. Even the victory of Archbishop Arundel over the uni-
versity and Lollardism in 1411 was unequal to entirely neutralizing the leaven of
Wycliffe's teachings, to which are traceable, as scarcely to those of any other reformer,
the growth of intellectual and religious freedom during the fifteenth century.
It thus appears, even from these few facts of history, that the services of Oxford
University, and of her many original, brilliant, and heroic workers in all the great
fields of intellectual and religious endeavor, won for her immortal honor and gave
her a most conspicuous place among the world’s mediaeval universities.
II. —OXFORD IN THE MOHDERN ERA.
Mediæval Oxford had its beginning of what could be called university life as late
as the latter half of the twelfth century. Previously it had been, as Mr. Brodrick,
of Merton College, has styled it, “a loose aggregation of students under the para-
mount jurisdiction of a bishop resident at Lincoln.” It was not until the end of the
old and the dawn of the new era that it had an organization, enjoyed the protection
of the King, and became a power in the affairs of the nation.
The university contributed greatly to the revival of classical learning, as to
which Erasmus, the foremost of its promoters, was enthusiastic over what had
already been accomplished at Oxford by Colet, who has been regarded as one of the

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 979
most influential leaders in the field of Latin scholarship; by Grocyn, who upon his
return from study in Italy gave the first public lectures on Greek in Exeter College,
and by Lynacre and others. Indeed, by the close of the fifteenth century there
had been so marked a growth of Oxford and Cambridge in classic culture that Eras-
mus claimed for England a rank higher than either France or Germany, and second
only to-Italy.
But the greatest step forward in the history of Oxford, as of universities in gen-
eral, came through the improvements in the arts of printing and paper making, and
the discovery of the New World. It is wonderful how much had been accomplished
before the coming of the printing press gave the means of laying books without
stint before university students and the civilized world, notwithstanding the fact
that the previous books had been in the Latin tongue, and therefore limited in their
usefulness, in a very large degree, to the learned class of the people.
Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, has the honor of having first duly endowed
lectureships (professorships) at Oxford for both the Greek and Latin languages.
They were established in connection with Corpus Christi College, and as part of a
new endowment of it. Fox, in thus making provision for twenty fellows and twenty
students, also made the innovation of offering the colloquial use of Greek as an alter-
native of Latin, and of choosing professors from southern Italy and Greece.
Curiously enough, there was strong opposition to the introduction of Greek by a
combination calling themselves “Trojans.” Their opposition proved fruitless, how-
ever, for the classics had powerful friends at the seat of government, and Henry VIII
seems to have required no urging to induce him to issue a very positive order in
support of Greek teaching, as early as 1519. Besides, Wolsey, the great cardinal,
then a power in the state as well as in the church, was an earnest friend of learning,
and did not forget Oxford or to see what reforms were needed, and soon found him-
self so completely possessed of the confidence of the authorities of the university
that they were pleased to place its charters in his hands for any changes he might
deem desirable. This was in 1518, and in 1523 he returned the old charters with a
more liberal and excellent one, fresh from the hand of the King, and granting to
the university practical independence. - -
Wolsey, moreover, undertook the forming of a new college at Oxford, to be known
as Cardinal College, to that end suppressing, by authority of pope and King, priories
and convents sufficient in number to create a revenue of £2,000. Iłut death over-
took him and put an end to what was considered a magnificent enterprise. Among
the many distinguished friends of the university he had been foremost, so that
Shakespeare did but duly honor him when he said:
“He was most princely: ever witness for him
Those twins of learning that he raised in you,
Ipswich and Oxford! One of which fell with him, ,
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it:
The other, though unfinished, yet so famous,
So excellent in art, and still so rising,
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.”
While the power of the King was such that he had pretty much his own way in
things temporal, yet there were things which he could not do without the authority
of the head of the church, or his approval. Among these was his divorce of Cath-
erine of Aragon, without just cause, and his marriage to Anne Boleyn. The replies
from the universities regarding the legality of the divorce were by no means unani-
mous, and among the dissenters was Oxford. Notwithstanding threatening letters
from the King many of the masters stood by their convictions, and the consent of
the university convocation was only procured by their exclusion when the vote was
taken. Unable to forgive this “disloyalty” of some, Henry again (in April, 1530)
visited Oxford, and took back the charters, not only of the university, for which

980 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
he maintained a sincere and friendly interest, but also the charter of the city, which
had of late shown itself opposed to some of the privileges the university had enjoyed.
The retention of the university’s charters for a period of thirteen years was, in the
nature of the case, a serious embarrassment.
But the disgraceful act of compelling the consent of convocation to the King's
unrighteous act, and the wresting of charters in April, 1530, did not stand alone. In
1531 the clergy were constrained to acknowledge Henry as “head of the church and
clergy, so far as the law of Christ will allow;” and in 1532 Parliament was induced
by him to enact a law prohibiting all appeal to Rome. In 1534 the university con-
curred in the separation from Rome, by which Henry VIII became the “supreme
head of the Church of England,” and in the following year a visitation of the uni-
versity was instituted for the purpose of establishing ecclesiastical uniformity and the
substitution of a larger measure of the classics for the old scholastic teaching. The
study of Aristotle was enjoined upon the university, together with that of the Bible.
The university was exempted from the payment of tenths granted by statute to the
Crown, on condition of such classical lectureships being founded as the King might
assign. The support of these lectureships was charged upon the five richest colleges.
At the same time Henry, of his own motion, founded and endowed with a stipend of
£40 each five regius professorships—of divinity, Hebrew, Greek, civil law, and medi-
cine—and he in some measure carried out the noble purpose of Cardinal Wolsey
concerning “Cardinal College.” It would be well if rulers and the representatives
of the people everywhere could rise to such an appreciation of the higher learning
as, according to Holinshed (quoted in Brodrick’s Oxford, p. 79), was shown by
Henry in his royal answer to the courtiers about him, who would have been pleased
to have him deal with the colleges and universities as he had with the monasteries
(by defacing and even tearing them down), whereupon he sternly said:
“Whereas we had a regard onlie to pull down sin by defacing the monasteries, you
have a desire also to overthrow all goodness by subversion of the colleges. I tell you,
Sirs, that I judge no land in England better bestowed than that which is given to our
universities. For by their maintenance our realm shall be well governed when we
are dead and rotten. I love not learning so ill that I will impair the revenues of
ainie one House by a penie, whereby it may be upholden.”
The writer who said that at the beginning of Edward's reign the university was
far less prosperous than it had been under Wolsey was far too mild in his account;
for his reign was, in fact, from first to last, a period of direst calamity. The number
of students grew less and less, the number of halls dwindled accordingly, and com-
paratively few degrees were conferred. The university had become a scene of
religious conflict of the most uncompromising sort. Accordingly, a royal commission
of visitation to look into the condition of the university not only framed new statutes
for both Oxford and Cambridge, without trace of popery left in the constitution, but
also drove out all dignitaries charged with favoring any articles of the old faith,
destroyed everything suggestive of it, such as architectural ornaments, images, statues,
and, of course, altars, and gave to the flames great quantities of classical and scien-
tific manuscripts, some of them beautifully illuminated by masters of the art. The
truth is that after a suppression of the canon law almost the only good the commis-
sion did was to encourage the study of civil law, ancient philosophy, Hebrew, logic,
rhetoric, mathematics, and medicine; though it is also to their credit that they pro-
vided for matriculation examinations in grammar and Latin, for examinations after
lectures, and that fellowships, besides being terminable, should also be tenable only
on condition of a six months’ residence at the university.
Nevertheless the spirit infused by Wolsey, with the help of a few heroic coworkers,
had so far died away that the importation of eminent foreign divines and other
means employed to revive it were unavailing. Teachers of the civil law left their
w

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. , 981
places for a more peaceful service at Louvain; studies generally lost their powers of
attraction, and the best of the professors and lecturers one after another disappeared.
The condition of Oxford, so unhappy under King Edward VI, became yet more
deplorable under the reign of Queen Mary.
Yet during Mary’s reign, two new colleges, Trinity and St. John, were founded by
Roman Catholics on the ruins of monasteries, and Mary conferred upon the univer-
sity a number of favors; but at the same time, acting by her authority and that of the
Pope, Cardinal Pole inaugurated a new visitation in 1556, which many times canceled
all the real good she had done by hunting down obnoxious persons yet remaining
in Oxford, by burning in the market place all the English Bibles that could be found,
and by so revising the university and college statutes (by repealing Edward's statute
allowing the use of the English language in and about the university, and otherwise)
that she alienated completely many who might otherwise have remained in active
sympathy with the university. - -
The crowning of Elizabeth in November, 1558, brought another turn of the univer-
sity wheel; but her rule was far different from that of Mary. There was naturally
a measure of reaction, but it was comparatively moderate, for she was really more
of an Anglo-Catholic than a Protestant, and meant to restore peace and promote the
welfare of the institution with less regard to ecclesiastical differences; and she would
have recalled to its service distinguished exiles of both parties where the reason
seemed imperative. Characterized in part by qualities much like those of Mary,
she also possessed remarkable judgment as well as the courage and strength of will
requisite to the undertaking of whatever policy seemed to her best. The visitors
whom she appointed were to “make a mild and gentle, not rigorous, reformation.”
And it was comparatively mild. Yet the heads of nine colleges, the dean of Christ
Church, and a few canons were made to give place to Protestants; while such fellows
as refused the oath of supremacy were removed. - -
Through Elizabeth’s influence Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, held the chancel-
lorship so long that the university finally fell into the rut of uniformity, and lost the
spirit which a change of administration might have inspired. He did, however, a
very good service when he induced Parliament to incorporate the “chancellor, mas-
ters, and scholars,” which saved the institution from the risk of obtaining new
charters from successive Kings. -
The Queen's two visits to Oxford (1566 and 1592) were showy demonstrations.
Leicester took an active interest in the administration of the university, mainly with
beneficial results. The most permanent monument of his adminstration, however,
is the test of subscription to the famous Thirty-nine Articles and the Royal Supremacy
to be required of every student over 16 years of age. This rule, which was intended
to exclude papists from the university, was mainly felt by the descendants of the
Puritans. Thenceforth the university, once opened to all the world, became nar-
rowed to a Church of England institution. Only in recent years have these restric-
tions been lessened. - -
James I, notwithstanding the fact that he entered upon the exercise of his powers
when the conflict was sharp between the Puritans and the high-church party, Was
quick to perceive the importance of the influence of the universities, and was pleased
to make a manifestation of his interest by commanding at the very beginning of his
reign that each of the two universities should choose “two grave and learned men,
professing the civil law, to serve as burgesses in the House of Commons.” He also
made a visit to Oxford in 1605, entering the city upon horseback with an imposing
cavalcade of nobles and courtiers, to be received, as Elizabeth had been, with costly
banquets and pompous ceremonies. ... " -
James was a true friend of the universities and meant to show them other favors,
as the times and conditions should allow. He also had in view a reform of the



982 , EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
church, and frankly pointed out to the chancellors of both Oxford and Cambridge
the evils resulting from a diversion of church revenues “by means of impropriation
to private aggrandizement.” In his initiation of an authorized translation of the
Bible he selected learned men from both universities, Oxford furnishing seven
heads of colleges and four other of the clergy, who afterwards became bishops.
Under appeal from William Laud, president of St. John's College, who by this time
(1616) had become a power in the university, there came about the order for sub-
scription to the three articles in the thirty-sixth canon by every candidate for a
degree, “for strict attendance on university sermons, and for the enforcement of .
other safeguards against heterodoxy;” also, in 1622, the university convocation
showed its obsequious loyalty by burning the works of Paraeus, professor of divinity
at Heidelberg, who advocated resistance to royal authority when tyrannically exer-
cised in religious matters, and by a declaratory resolution in positive terms “con-
demning resistance to a reigning sovereign, offensive or defensive, upon any pretext
whatever.” -
Notwithstanding all these pitiful manifestations of servility on the part of its con-
vocation, the university gained strength and enlarged its influence during the reign
of James I. This movement was manifested by new buildings and new endow-
ments, the beginning of the “new schools,” and the founding of two additional col-
leges—one by the widow of Nicholas Wadham, in 1610, under a royal license, and
known as Wadham; the other, known as Pembroke, by the King himself, though at
the actual cost of others; besides which six new professorships were instituted during
his period, among them being the Savile professorships of geometry and astronomy,
which have since become famous. As a consequence, the university grew in favor,
so that in his last decade the residents (officers, professors, other teachers, and stu-
dents) numbered between two and three thousand, with increase from year to year,
until the upheaval of the civil war under his successor.
Charles I was also well disposed toward the university, and would probably
have done more for its furtherance than he did had he been blessed with advisers
other than Buckingham for matters of state and Laud in those of the church. Laud,
though too intense in his Arminian prejudices, and too strongly in sympathy with
the absolutism of the King, did not forget the university, but was determined to
have his way at whatever cost. From the accession until 1630 he was simply dean
of Westminster, and thus escaped the immediate trials which came of the occupa-
tion of the buildings of the university for a time (in 1625) by the Parliament on
account of the plague at London. But he was, nevertheless, the King's adviser just
the same, and was practical dictator in the committee appointed by the King for a
settlement of the disturbances which attended the election of university proctors in
1628; and in 1630, upon the death of the Earl of Pembroke, he was elected chancellor.
During his incumbency of eleven years Laud was so active and vigilant a head of
the university that nothing escaped him, not even the smallest details of student life,
much less the religious bearing of all members of the university who gave the slight-
est signs of sympathy with Puritanism or Calvinism. -
t will not be denied that Laud’s most important work was that of framing and
finally promulgating the statutes which came to be known as “Laudian' or “Caro-
line,” and which governed the university for two hundred years. Up to his time
the statute making had been more or less in the hands of the university itself (the
congregation or convocation). This new “corpus statutorum” was revised by
Laud, a copy was posted by him in each college or hall for a year for the conven-
ience of any who might wish to make suggestions; it was then confirmed by
the King, and finally, in all humility and thankfulness, was formally accepted by the
university convocation itself. Its general drift was oligarchic. The public election
of proctors was superseded by a private election limited to doctors and masters of
a certain standing in each of the colleges; it provided that the Vice-chancellor
*

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 983
should be annually nominated by the chancellor from the heads of colleges with
the approval of convocation. He was thus the agent of the chancellor and the
actual ruler of the university (the chancellor becoming an ornamental personage),
guarding the university pulpit from heterodoxy and clothed with many powers in
the work of administration.
In the matter of studies the new statutes made requirements so far superior to
those of a later day that it may be doubted whether they were strictly enforced.
Thus a candidate for the degree of bachelor of arts, already master of Latin and
other preparatory studies, must have spent four years in the study of grammar,
geometry, rhetoric, the ethics, politics, and economics of Aristotle, logic, moral phi-
losophy, and Greek, while the degree of M. A. meant three additional years spent
more especially upon geometry, astronomy, natural philosophy, metaphysics,
Greek, and Hebrew. Examinations were exhaustive, but after a century and a half
the examination system of Laud became mostly a name.
Besides these contributions of labor and genius, Laud did much else that contrib-
uted to the prosperity and popularity of the university, such as giving to the library
an important collection of Oriental manuscripts; founding and endowing a professor-
ship of Arabic; procuring valuable gifts of many kinds; inducing the King to annex
canonries of Christ Church to the professorship of Hebrew and the office of public
orator; obtaining from the King the university’s right of printing Bibles; securing
to it a new charter; extending all its ancient liberties and privileges; and, as many
believe, doing much toward the founding of the Botanic Gardens, as well as toward
the establishment of the convocation house and the extension of the Bodleian
library. - -
Even before his resignation of the chancellorship, in 1641, there were premonitory
indications of the civil War, and no little disturbance of the studies at Oxford. But
in the matter of discipline and of orderly conduct there had been noteworthy
improvement since the days when Oxford swarmed with noncollegiate students and
there was little power to enforce regulations, however good, though even yet there
was little of decent courtesy among students, and occasional town and gown out-
breaks occurred, as of old. King James had deprecated rough sports because they
brought crowds together and might lead to disorder.
Because of Charles's sympathy with the desire of the university to maintain the
“apostolical order” of the bishops, Parliament, which was on the point of passing
the “Root and branch bill” for abolishing episcopacy, was all the more determined
to reject the petition of the university on behalf of episcopacy and the cathedrals
which he favored. He firmly believed that ‘‘Learning and studies must needs per-
ish if the honors and rewards of learning were destroyed,” meaning the revenues of
church preferment for university graduates, and “would rather feed on bread and
water than mingle any part of God’s patrimonie with his own revenues.” On the
other hand, the House of Commons proceeded to pass the “grand remonstrance,”
which was the famous general indictment of the Crown and appeal to the people of
England, and soon after the rupture between King and Parliament was complete.
The university received a “protestation ” from the speaker of the house, to be sub-
scribed by the vice-chancellor and heads of colleges, binding them to maintain Prot-
estantism and the union of the three kingdoms. This was in February, 1642. In
August the King raised his standard at Nottingham, and in the September following
parliamentary troops were occupying Oxford and its university in order to make sure
of the treasures known to be there; but on October 29 Charles I marched into
Oxford at the head of an army, making it not only his base of military operations,
but the seat of the royal government also. It had previously contributed money
and college plate to the King's cause, and many graduates and students had enrolled
themselves in response to a royal proclamation. The King was welcomed both by
the university and the mayor and leading citizens of the town, the former expressing


984 - EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
its devotion in Latin addresses and by conferring degrees on the noblemen and
courtiers of his train. The different colleges were converted into military quarters
and lectures and exercises were nearly suspended, the less loyal students leaving the
place. The arrival of the Queen in 1643 was celebrated with great ceremony. Oxford
presented the aspect partly of a royal residence and partly that of a camp, instead of
a seat of learning, for three long years. -
Three years later, and a new scene of the military history of Oxford was witnessed.
It was Fairfax at the head of a besieging force and demanding of Sir Thomas
Glenham, the governor, the immediate surrender of Oxford, and yet in terms so.
moderate and so mindful of the university as to be always remembered to the
honor of his name. These were his words: “I very much desire the preservation
of that place so famous for learning from ruin, which inevitably is like to fall upon
it unless you concur.” Repeated conferences were had, and after nine days (on
June 20, 1646) a surrender was agreed upon; the conditions being that both the
city and the university should “enjoy all their ancient privileges with immunities
from taxation;” that the colleges should “enjoy their ancient form of government,
subordinate to the immediate authority and power of Parliament, * * * and
that all churches, chapels, etc., shall be preserved from defacing and spoil;” also,
that if any removals were made by Parliament the persons removed should retain
their emoluments for six months.
On the 24th of June the royal garrison of 3,000 troops marched out of Oxford, with
colors flying, and both its citizens and such officers and students as had remained
took a long free breath once more, though so nearly starved that even those most
needy were constrained to divide with their suffering neighbors; and All Souls
passed an ordinance that “there shall be only one meal a day between this and next
Christmas, and so longer, if we shall see occasion.” All the buildings of university
and colleges had been seriously damaged; supplies of every sort, as well as plate,
were gone. In fact, as Anthony Wood has said, “In a word, there was scarce the
face of an university left, all things being out of order and disturbed;” and the
university was impoverished by the sacrifice of its money and plate for the King.
Charles had escaped in disguise even before the appearance of Fairfax, but his
work for the university had now ended. Parliament was in control. Its first act
touching the university was to pass the ordinance of May 1, 1647, “for the visitation
and reformation of the University of Oxford and the several colleges and halls
therein;” the object being “the due correction of offenses, abuses, and disorders,
especially those of late times committed there.” The visitors were 24 in number,
10 clergy and 14 laymen, but very soon by the absence of laymen became practically
an ecclesiastical body. Moreover, it soon became manifest that its work, which
included an inquiry concerning those who had not taken the “solemn league and
covenant,” those who had opposed the Parliament in arms, etc., was designed for
the promotion of Presbyterianism rather than for the university’s advancement.
The proceedings of the visitors became more and more arbitrary as time went on,
until the entire management of the university was given them; complete subjection
to the Parliament was enforced by expulsions of heads of colleges, and even military
aid was brought in to enforce obedience to the Parliament. Meanwhile Fairfax and
Cromwell visited the university in May, 1649. They were handsomely entertained,
and the university authorities were addressed by Cromwell in terms which gave
assurance of his regard for learning and of his desire to promote the welfare of the
university for the sake of the Commonwealth. A little later he became chancellor,
but limited himself chiefly to the appointment of Dr. Conant, rector of Exeter, to
the vice-chancellorship and in 1657 resigned, after presenting the university with a
valuable collection of manuscripts. The parliamentary visitation ceased in 1658,
when a general reaction against Puritanism was setting in all through England,
and the university recovered its independence. The visitation had really fostered


HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 985
-
learning, or rather had not stified it, notwithstanding its political severity. “The
academical population was already larger than it had been in the reign of James I”
(Brodrick), while there were quite as many scholars and divines. Clarendon, quoted,
by Brodrick, states that Charles II found the university “abounding in excellent
learning.” - -
After the Restoration Charles II, like his father, proved himself friendly to the
university by repeated visits, and in 1681 held his Parliament at Oxford—the last
ever held in that city. A number of important improvements in both city and
university were made during his reign, among them the building of a great theater
by Gilbert Sheldoh (at first warden of All Souls, then Archbishop of Canterbury,
and in 1667 chancellor) at a cost to himself alone of £25,000, Christopher Wren
acting as architect. But his most important part was done when in June, 1660–
steps toward a “free parliament” having already been taken—he sent or caused
the sending of a new set of visitors to Oxford to see to the undoing of what had
been wrongly done during the “usurpation.” Of course the expelled royalists who
had survived were recalled. Besides which an act of uniformity provided that
candidates for a fellowship should make, in the presence of the vice-chancellor, a
declaration of conformity to the liturgy of the Church of England, a provision which
rendered the position of Puritans practically untenable and made Oxford again a
school for the clergy and gentry. During the political disturbances of the civil war,
as well as after the Restoration, there was great intellectual activity at Oxford. The
Royal Society held its early meetings there, its founders being largely Oxford
men. During this period, too, the change from scholastic disputations to literae
humaniores took place in examinations, and the fashion of writing Latin Sonnets
as an accomplishment was introduced, which became a prominent literary feature
of the university. In the latter part of Charles II’s reign there was a decline of
the university, which the historian Wood ascribes— -
(1) To the continued expectation of another Parliament to be held at Oxford and .
occupy the university buildings to the exclusion of teachers and students.
(2) To the fear on the part of the Whigs (in harmony with Parliament) that their
sons, if sent, would become Tories. -
(3) To the ground that the university was suspected of sympathy with the
Romish Church.
The last act of the university convocation under his reign was to issue a decree
condemning resistance to a king, and the last of Charles's own acts touching the
university was to order the removal of John Locke from his studentship upon a
grossly false charge of disloyalty.
James II characteristically disregarded the privileges of the university; for not-
withstanding the university's remarkable proofs of loyalty to him by affording vol-
unteers for his cause and celebrating the victory of Sedgemoor, besides other acts
less noteworthy, yet all of them entitling it to his gratitude, he brutally overrode the
elective rights of some of its colleges, or attempted to do so, going so far as to visit
Oxford in September, 1687, and in person using threats to insure obedience to his
nomination of an unworthy head of Magdalen College. To its everlasting honor,
Magdalen refused obedience and took its own course in a manner that won the
respect of the nation and contributed not a little to his downfall. -
The eighteenth century was almost barren of results for the university. William
and Mary did little or nothing for its benefit. The university was strongly Tory and
was so demonstrative when the rebellion in Scotland broke out in 1715, that it was
necessary to quarter a regiment of troops in Oxford to overawe the Jacobites of
the university, whose hostility to the House of Hanover was outspoken. Jacobitism,
however, gradually waned; George II was friendly and became the recipient of
grateful acknowledgments because of a concurrence between the King and university
on religious grounds, and George III so won its favor by his dissolution of the coali-


986 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
tion ministry, and transferring his confidence to William Pitt, as to receive its public
acknowledgments, in return for which he was pleased to visit Oxford in both 1785
and 1786. Stagnation at the university so prevailed that the institution was in strong
terms reproached by such men as Adam Smith, Lord Chesterfield, Lord Malmes-
bury, Lord Eldon, and Edward Gibbon. One refers to the inefficiency of professors
and tutors; another speaks of the “drinking strong ale and the smoking of tobacco as
the chief accomplishments;” another condemns the examinations as being ‘‘merely
nominal;” and numbers of others equally trustworthy noted still other faults and
deficiencies.
Brodrick declares it “certain that Oxford contributed far less than in former ages
to politics or literature,” and that “in learning it was distanced by Cambridge,
where the modern examination system was developed earlier, and where the
immortal researches of Newton and the solid learning of Bentley had raised the
ideal of academical study.”
But in justice it should be added that a number of distinguished men have in a
measure discounted these severe judgments, among them Bishop Lowth, Lord Shef-
field (editor of Gibbon's Memoirs), John Wesley, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Sir William
Jones, and the illustrious Berkeley; and it should be remembered that the epoch-
making Methodist movement had its origin at Oxford at this time. But the eight-
eenth century was also signalized by scientific activity at Oxford. The Regius
professorship of modern history was established by George I in 1724. In 1749 the
first professor of experimental philosophy was appointed. In 1780 the clinical pro-
fessorship was established, in 1795 the professorship of Anglo-Saxon, and in 1798
that of anatomy, medicine, and chemistry. -
As for the history of Oxford during the nineteenth century, Dr. Brodrick, warden
of Merton College, would divide it into two periods—the first to the date of the
reform act of 1832 and the ecclesiastical reaction which followed; the second
- embracing the last few years of the reign of William IV and the whole reign of
Victoria. He quotes the Oxford University commission, named in 1850, as declaring
that up to the statute passed in 1800 the studies of the university had been for a con-
siderable time in an “abject state.” The system introduced by Laud had failed,
because it furnished no guaranty for the competency of examiners or against their
collusion with candidates for degrees, who in turn were left without inspiration or
hope of distinction. Credit for the curative statute of 1800 is given to Dr. Eveleigh,
provost of Oriel. He based the new statutes on the Laudian system, which presup-
poses an inherent supremacy in the faculty of arts, specifying grammar, rhetoric,
logic, moral philosophy, and the elements of mathematics, but adding Latin and
Greek literature, as the subjects essential to examination. His original and very
important remedy for the stagnant condition of things was a system of examinations
that would vigorously arouse and make alive both teachers and students. Candi-
dates for degrees could content themselves with what is now known as a “pass,”
which stands for a bare Squeeze through the graduate gate, or, if ambitious, could
win “honor” degrees. Moreover, the honor list was divided into two classes and
the names of honor men were arranged in the order of merit. The M. A. degree
was also to depend on another examination in advanced studies, such as the higher
mathematics, history, and Hebrew. The same with civil law, the degree in which,
resting primarily upon the degree of A. B. or an examination in the branches requi-
site thereto, finally depends on examinations in jurisprudence and history. More-
over, the examiners were to be paid salaries for their services, and were to serve for
terms of several years, after Solemn pledges of faithful and impartial Service.
Proof of the practical value of the reform instituted by Eveleigh is found in the
fact that in the very year after it went into operation the number of B. A. degrees
rose to 250, “largely exceeding the average of degrees and even of matriculations
in several preceding years.” º
--
*

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 98.7
Various changes in the system were made by statute at various times, until in
August, 1850, a royal commission was instituted for a general inquiry into the state
of the university and colleges—a commission whose report is said to have been the
most comprehensive review of the entire university system ever published. Its
recommendations were for the most part adopted and put in force, some by act of
parliament in 1854 and some by means of ordinances framed by executive commis-
sioners appointed by it for the several colleges.
Some of the more important reforms effected by this act of 1854 were these:
(1) There was created a new “congregation,” to embrace all resident members of
the “university convocation,” which congregation soon became a great and “vigor-
ous deliberative assembly, with the right of speaking in English,” instead of Latin,
as theretofore. - r
(2) The colleges, though deprived of what had been a monopoly for so long a
time, thus opening the way to university extension through growth of private hails,
were, on the other hand, now released from their bondage to laws enacted in the
Middle Ages, invested with new constitutions and accorded new legislative powers.
(3) The fellowships were thrown open to merit—a reform which had the effect of
stimulating students and of placing the governing power of the colleges in the hands
of able and progressive men. -
(4) By the removal of many unwise restrictions upon scholarships they were
thrown open to merit, while their number was greatly increased. -
(5) It prohibited religious tests both at matriculation and on taking a bachelor’s
degree.
(6) On the part of the university, as such, there were added to the enlarged curric-
ulum an improved system of examinations, an important museum of natural sci-
ence, and an assurance of permanency in the means of extension was provided by a
clause in the college ordinances to the effect that fellowships should be appropriated
“for the encouragement of all the studies recognized by the university.”
In commenting upon the reform acts of 1850 and 1854, especially the latter, Dr.
Brodrick says: -
Other salutary changes naturally grew out of this comprehensive reform, and far
greater progress was made by the university during the thirty years immediately
following it than in any previous century of its history. The impulse given to edu-
cation reacted upon learning and research; Oxford science began once more to com-
mand the respect of Europe; the professoriate received an accession of illustrious
names, and college tuition, instead of being the mere temporary vocation of fel-
lows waiting for livings, gradually placed itself on the footing of a regular profession.
-Instead of drying up the bounty of founders, as had been confidently predicted, the
reforms of 1854 apparently caused the stream of benefactions to flow with renewed
abundance. Nearly all the older colleges have extended their buildings, mostly by
the aid of private munificence. [A new one (Keble) has been established and an
old one refounded under its original name (Hertford), with an increased endow-
ment.] Meanwhile, a new class of “unattached ” or “noncollegiate” students has
been created, the number of which rose to 284 in 1880, though it has since manifested
a tendency to fall. The aggregate strength of the university has been doubled
within the same period of thirty-two years, and the net total of undergraduates in
residence has been swelled from about 1,300 to upward of 2,500, and the annual
matriculations have increased in a like proportion. -
The complete abolition of university tests was effected by an act of 1871, after suc-
cessive years of petitions from the university. This act admitted nonconformists to
the degrees and endowments of the university.
In 1873 a scheme was inaugurated for indirectly connecting the universities of
Oxford and Cambridge with the middle class (or secondary) public schools, by which
the said universities instituted the examinations of such Schools by a joint board, rep-
resenting the universities, and the granting of certificates to be recognized at Oxford
and Cambridge. -



988 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
In 1876 a bill, which had its origin in Gladstone's initiatory commission of 1872,
inquiring into the financial condition of the colleges and the university, was intro-
duced by the Marquis of Salisbury, who was at the same time chancellor of the univer-
sity and an important member of the Government, with the intent to strengthen the
university by such diversions of college funds as should seem proper. Somewhat
amended, it was passed in 1877, instituting an executive commission with “sweep-
ing powers of revision and legislation,” which for the most part seem to have been
wisely exercised. . Accordingly the past half century has been characterized by
many important changes for the better.
Passing in review the several halls, including two for women, the many colleges,
with their stately and beautiful edifices of varied architecture, mediaeval and mod-
ern, a stranger unfamiliar with the history of Oxford would doubtless look around
inquiringly for the university itself. If persistent, he would find that it exists,
though in an intangible form. It has its convocation house, its own libraries,
especially the Bodleian; its museums, its special apparatus for teaching, and its own
“university chest” or treasury. There are also at Oxford four nonresidential theo-
logical institutions, namely, Wycliffe Hall, Pusey House, Mansfield College, Man-
chester College. Mr. J. Wells, fellow of Wadham College, says: -
I should say that Oxford is a federal republic of colleges. As every citizen of the
United States is a citizen of some special State, so every Oxford man is a member of
some college; and so the Bodleian Library and university chest at Oxford may
compare with the institutions (Congressional Library and National Treasury) at
Washington. -
The institutions supported and controlled by convocation are these: The Bodleian
Library, the Radcliffe Library (scientific), the Taylor Institution (modern languages),
and the Sheldonian Theater. .
The museums are: The Ashmolean, the university museum, the university galleries,
the Pitt-Rivers (anthropological), the Indian Institute, and the botanical garden
and collections. -
The press, so fruitful of valued products, is known as the Clarendon.
The observatories available are the university observatory and the Radcliffe, the
last named being under its own trustees. -
The university is a sovereign body of some 13,000 men, whose names are on its
books as well as on those of some one of the 23 colleges. They are resident and non-
resident. - - - º
The federal government of the university consists of two branches, the legislative
and the executive. - - - -
The executive officers of the university are: -- -
(1) The chancellor, who is chosen by convocation for life and has been for cen-
turies some nobleman of distinction, usually nonresident, whose powers are to a
large degree judicial as well as executive, and whose duty it is annually to delegate
his authority to a vice-chancellor of his nomination. -
(2) The vice-chancellor, who, according to Louis Dyer, M. A., author of Oxford
As It Is, is required to live at the university to see “that all statutory meetings,
lectures, and the like, take place in due order, and that only worthy men be pro-
moted to degrees;” to inquire into reported wrongdoing and punish offenders against
the statutes; with the proctors and lesser officers to exercise a general oversight of all
university records, registers, property, and affairs, as well as a guardianship of the
rights and liberties of the university—to this end also serving as head of the Vice-
chancellor’s court.
(3) The proctors, senior and junior, who are chosen from among masters by the
several colleges in rotation, and whose function it is to enforce the university and
college discipline. -- - -
(4) Professors, lecturers, tutors, and other subordinate officers.
-
*

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 989.
The legislative and administrative bodies which constitute the governing powers
are: -
(1) The convocation—a body of some 6,000 graduates, who have taken the degree
of M. A., or that of D. D., or D. C. L., or M. D., and who are resident or nonresident.
It is the supreme body with the most important of appointive rights and the right of
conferring degrees granted by either diploma or decree. -
(2) The congregation—a comparatively small body, consisting in any given year of
such members of the convocation as have resided in Oxford for at least one hundred
and forty days during the previous academic year. Its function is to receive and
approve or reject measures of legislation originated below, and finally to submit the
same to convocation for approval or rejection without amendment.
(3) The hebdomadal council, composed of the vice-chancellor, the ex-Vice-chan-
cellor (during the first year of his retirement), the proctors, and 18 members elected
by congregation. Its sole prerogative is to initiate measures and pass them on to the
congregation. - - - -
(4) Delegacies (standing committees) of convocation, acting in its behalf: (1) In
the work of superintending the instruction of selected candidates for the civil service
of India; (2) in the training of elementary teachers; (3) in conducting local exami-
nations; (4) in the examination of schools; and (5) in the extension of teaching to
points outside of Oxford, the number of such at present being 200. Summer schools
or vacation lectures come under the delegates for extension of teaching.
Mr. Wells, of Wadham College, has said: “The faults of the English universities
have been mainly due to the fact that they have reflected only too faithfully the
aristocratic organization of Society in England. They have given their best to the
few, but they have not reached the many.” And yet he appears to have so long
deplored this great fault as to have unduly lost heart and overlooked the many
changes of recent years. The aristocratic element has not yet been extinguished;
ecclesiasticism, though still supreme, has in good part yielded up its despotism of
the mediaeval times; and the proportion of “pass” graduates will grow less and less
under the changed condition of things brought about within the past few years—
changes so clearly and concisely, set forth by the able warden of Merton College,
already more than once quoted, that I can not do better than to borrow his words
of the year 1900, namely: - -
The introduction of representative government into the aeademical constitution
has not only cleared away many abuses, but has at once popularized and centralized
university administration. The recognition of unattached students [connected with
no college] has broken down the monopoly of colleges; the abolition of close fellow-
ships has infused new blood and new ideas into the more backward collegiate bodies;
the spontaneous development of numerous clubs and associations—athletic, literary,
or political–has created many new ties among undergraduates, and weakened the Qld
exclusive spirit of college partisanship. The “combined lecture system,” under
which the inmates of one college may regeiye instruction in another, has also favored
a division of labor among tutors which is directly conducive to specialism in teach-
ing. The great extension of the professoriate, including the new order of university
readers, and still more the liberal encouragement of new studies, has infinitely
expanded the intellectual interests both of teachers and of students; the admission
of nonconformists and the progress of free thought have powerfully modified theo-
logical bigotry; the multiplication of feminine influences has undermined the ideal
of semimonastic seclusion, and greatly increased the innocent aesthetic distractions
which are the most formidable rivals of the austerer muses. The gulf between
Oxford society and the great world outside, never very impassable, has been effectu-
ally bridged over in every direction. A very large proportion of professors and col-
lege tutors have traveled widely; many are well known in London as contributors
to scientific and literary periodicals, or otherwise; while Oxford itself is constantly
thronged with visitors from the metropolis. In ceasing to be clerical and aristocratic,
the university has become far more cosmopolitan; all religions are there mingled
harmoniously, nor is it uncommon to meet in the streets young men of Oriental race
and complexion wearing academical costume. (! - -




a Brodrick's History of the University of Oxford, pp. 220–221.
990 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
Dr. Brodrick also claims that “in the meantime a marked and widespread refor-
mation has been wrought in the morals of the university,” and that “the ostentation
of wealth has been visibly diminished.”
THE BODLEIAN TERCENTENARY.
[On the 8th of October, 1902, was celebrated the tercentenary of the Bodleian Library. In reference
to this event the Fortnightly Review published (October, 1902, pp. 637–647) an historical review, by
J. B. Firth of the institution, from which the following particulars are cited.]
Early this month the University of Oxford will celebrate the tercentenary of one
of its most famous and picturesque institutions, the Bodleian Library. Its doors
were first opened to readers on November 8, 1602, but the commemoration has been
antedated by a month, so that it might not fall during term time, when the colleges
would not have been able to offer adequate hospitality to the distinguished represent-
atives of the chief libraries in this country and abroad, and of many foreign univer-
sities and learned societies, who are expected to be present. The event is of interest
to all friends of learning and to all lovers of books, for the Bodleian, though not the
largest library in the world, is certainly the most romantic and the most fascinating.
There is no other which can compare with it in the charm of its setting; none which
is so essentially the work of one pious founder. Who, for example, thinks of the
British Museum as having grown up round the library which Sir John Cotton pre-
sented to the nation? Like the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and the Library of
Congress at Washington, the British Museum is simply a great institution of State,
supported by public moneys, thoroughly impersonal, and making little or no appeal
to sentiment. But the Bodleian, or rather Bodley's Library—to give it the title by
which it was always known during the first two centuries of its career—makes an inti-
mate and personal appeal to all who climb the winding staircase which gives access
to its ancient galleries and halls. The spirit of Sir Thomas Bodley pervades them;
one feels instinctively that here is the handiwork of a single man, and that a single
brain devised the whole magnificent scheme. The librarian is still Bodley's Libra-
rian. Bodley is, and must ever continue to be, the presiding genius of the place.
As his praise will be on the lips of all those who attend the tercentenary of the
opening of the library, a word may be said of the circumstances which induced him
to embark upon such an enterprise. The University of Oxford was without a library
when Thomas Bodley entered at Magdalen College in 1560, as a boy of sixteen. He
had already been well grounded in all the voluminous learning of Geneva, whither
he had been taken in childhood by his father, a Devonshire Protestant from Exeter,
who had been driven to fly from England during the Marian persecutions. The
youthful Bodley had studied Greek with Beroaldus and Constantius, and Hebrew
with Chevalerius. Beza and Calvin had taught him theology, and as the fiery Knox
was also living in exile in the Swiss city of refuge, Bodley probably had often “sate
under” him and learned from his discourses the principles of religion and the appli-
cations of rhetoric. But when he went to Oxford he found the old University library
denuded of books, and stripped of the shelves to which they had been chained.
Even the benches of Duke Humphrey’s library had been sold five years before, and
the hall was desolate.
The story of this pre-Bodleian library is a curious one. There is no mention of a
university library in Oxford before the beginning of the fourteenth century. Such
few books as there were belonged to the colleges or to the monkish communities
which had habitations there, and it was not until 1320 that Thomas Cobham, Bishop
of Worcester, laid the foundations of a university library. The beginnings were
small, merely a chestful of books kept in the University Church of St. Mary. Then,
in 1367, a room 45 feet by 20 was built over the old house of congregation, which
*
-

THE BODLEIAN TER CENTENARY. 991
stood in the northeast corner of the church. It was erected leisurely, for it does not
seem to have been finished for forty-two years, and the enthusiasm of the authorities
can hardly have been overpowering. This chamber, which also served the purpose
of a lecture room for the Professor of Law, constituted the university library until it
became inadequate to hold the books which were presented to it by Duke Humphrey
of Gloucester. * * *
We can forgive much to the long-forgotten schoolmen of his day when we remem-
ber their admirable taste in architecture. In 1426 the divinity school—one of the
most exquisite examples of late Gothic architecture—was begun. It took many
years to build, and while it was rising from its foundation the duke sent down to
Oxford large consignments of manuscripts. The university was not ungrateful; on
the contrary, we find the authorities presenting a memorial to Parliament in which
they declare that the duke has magnified the university with a thousand pounds'
worth and more of “precise books,” and they beseech the speaker and the Com-
mons “in their sage discrecions to thankhym heartyly and also pray Godde to thank
hym in tyme comyng when goode deedes ben rewarded.” When the books became
too numerous to be accommodated in the upper room of the annex of St. Mary’s
Church, it was determined, in 1444, to carry the divinity school a story higher and
build a more commodious place for their reception. This is now the central portion
of the Bodleian Library and still bears Duke Humphrey’s name. * * *
In 1550 the library suffered a crushing blow. The boy king, Edward VI, in the
zeal of his Protestantism, published an edict for “the calling out of all superstitious
books, as missals, legends, and the like,” and commissioners were appointed to visit
the universities for that purpose. In due course they came to Oxford and presented
themselves at Duke Humphrey’s library. There they worked havoc. They carried
out their instructions so literally that they destroyed every illuminated missal or
manuscript on which they laid hands. It is probable, indeed, that they condemned
volumes at a hazard without regard for their contents, and that the mere presence of
a rubricated initial was held to be sufficient evidence that a manuscript was Papis-
tical and idolatrous. Possibly, too, in the confusion caused by such a visitation,
books were freely looted and stolen; but the fact remains that after they had com-
pleted their visitation the library stood empty. Edward VI was no enemy of learn-
ing, as his foundation of Christ's Hospital and other schools throughout the Kingdom
plainly shows. The dispersal and destruction of the library at Oxford were due
principally to religious bigotry, but one can not help suspecting that the commission-
ers had some private reasons for venting their spite upon the books of Duke Hum-
phrey’s collection. Apparently the university acquiesced without demur; at any
rate, after the commissioners had gone, the authorities made no attempt to repair
the mischief which had been wrought, and five years later a delegacy of five “ven-
erabiles viri” was appointed to sell the benches and bookshelves which had formed
the furniture of the Duke's library. They did as they were bidden to do; the hall
was stripped bare, and from 1555 down to the day when Thomas Bodley refounded
the library the university had no books. * * *
It was in 1598, then, that Bodley wrote to the vice-chancellor offering to refound
Duke Humphrey’s library. He was a man ideally fitted to undertake such a work,
and his qualifications, as he himself explained, were fourfold. He possessed “some
kind of knowledge as well in the learned and modern tongues as in sundry other
sorts of scholastical literature, purse ability to go through with the charge, great
share of honorable friends to further the design, and special good leisure to follow
such a work.” Like most of the Elizabethan worthies, he was scholar and man of .
affairs combined. He had married the widow of a rich Bristol merchant, and appar-
ently made free use of the lady’s purse. His friends included the most influential
men of his time, and he had the remainder of his life before him in which to carry
out his project. Naturally his offer was accepted with enthusiasm, for he took upon

992 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
himself the cost of refitting Duke Humphrey's library with shelves and seats, procur-
ing benefactions of books, and endowing the library with an annual income. The
workmen found that the building itself had been allowed to get into a lamentable
state of disrepair. The roof had become rotten and required to be replaced. Bod-
ley thereupon persuaded Merton College to find the timber, and the exquisitely pan-
eled ceiling, divided into square compartments, each bearing the university arms,
which is now one of the sights of Oxford, was prepared and set up. Bodley was
determined that his library should be lacking in nothing that might increase either
its beauty or utility. He sent his agents all over the Continent buying manu-
scripts and books. The times were favorable to his design, for book collectors were
few, money was scarce, and many of those who owned manuscripts were quite
ready to sell. So his agents returned with many excellent bargains which they had
made in Spain, France, Germany, and Italy. Bodley did his own book hunting in
London, and was so successful in his search that by the time the library was ready
for opening in 1602 there were 2,000 volumes chained to their cases.
One energetic man can accomplish much, and Bodley’s efforts did not cease when
he saw the completion of his self-imposed task. He devoted his life to the library,
and the authorities at Oxford gave him an absolutely free hand to do as he thought
fit. It was he who appointed the first librarian, one Dr. James, at the very modest
salary of £5 15s. 4d. a quarter. Bodley insisted that his librarians should be unmar-
ried—that they might have no domestic distraction from their duties—and though
he exempted James from this regulation, it remained in force down to 1813. Nor
was it until 1856 that the rule was abolished which enacted that a librarian should
be unmarried at the date of his election. A much sounder regulation was that which
forbade any volume being taken out of the library on any pretext whatever, “by any
person or persons of whatsoever state or calling, upon any caution or offer of security
for faithful restitution.” The Duke's library had suffered grievously on this
account; Bodley determined that his should not. This statute was faithfully
observed even when kings sought to break it. When Charles I was in Oxford in
1645 and wanted to borrow D'Aubigné’s Universal History, he asked permission from
the vice-chancellor of the day. The vice-chancellor assented, but the librarian
refused the books, and it stands to the King's credit that he took the rebuff gra-
ciously. “Let the will of the founder be observed,” said His Majesty. It may be
that he remembered the £500 which he had borrowed from Bodley’s strong box
three years before and never repaid. Nine years later Cromwell met with a similar
refusal. * * * - -
In 1610 the eastern wing of the library was completed, and at Bodley’s death, in
1613, the present picture galleries were nearing completion. - " " *
Great, however, as his earlier benefactions had been, perhaps the most valuable
day’s work which Bodley did for the library was in 1611, when he obtained from
the Stationers’ company an agreement whereby they stipulated to send to the
Bodleian a copy of every book entered at their hall. There is a tradition that
Bodley presented the Company with a piece of plate, valued at £50, in consideration
of this indenture, but it is impossible to say whether this was actually the case.
But to have obtained such an agreement at all shows the provida mens of the
founder, who by a stroke of the pen secured for the library the, at that time, unique
distinction of being a depository of the national literature. Since 1611 the privilege
has been extended to others. Cambridge secured it in the reign of Charles II. In
Queen Anne's time it was granted to nine libraries; in George III's reign to eleven.
It has been since restricted to five—the Bodleian, the British Museum, the Cam-
bridge University Library, the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, and the library of
Trinity College, Dublin. But each successive copyright act has indorsed the
original agreement which Sir Thomas Bodley so diplomatically obtained from the
Stationers' Company. The result was that even when the university cared more for
r
*


THE BODLEIAN TERCENTENARY. 993.
politics and port than for manuscripts and learning, the stream of books never ceased
to flow from London to Oxford. Whether they were consulted or not, they were at
least to be found upon the shelves.
Such was the foundation of the Bodleian Library, and for three centuries it has
continued to grow in strength. It has profited magnificently by many superb,
bequests. Archbishop Laud, John Selden, Bishop Rawlinson, Gough, Douce,
Mason—these are among the most conspicuous names on the long roll of benefac-
tors. Judicious purchases at times when manuscripts and rare books did not com-
mand their present inflated prices have added largely to the richness of the library,
with the result that in many important departments the Bodleian stands without a
rival among the great libraries of the world. According to a rough computation, it
now contains more than 600,000 bound volumes and 30,000 manuscripts. If title-
pages were counted, the number would be nearer a million and a half. It is impos-
sible to estimate the services which the Bodleian has rendered to learning. The
utility of an institution which for three hundred years has been the resort of learned
scholars from every quarter of the globe is immeasurable. It has had, of course, its
vicissitudes, its periods of comparative neglect. * * *
The well-known passage in Gibbon's Autobiography in which he mercilessly
condemns the sloth of the university and its absolute indifference to study finds a.
curious confirmation in the records of the Bodleian. For example, the registers for
the years between 1730 and 1740 show that it was a rare occurrence for more than.
one or two books to be asked for in a day, and sometimes a week passed without a
single entry being made. * * *
It is of course almost unnecessary to add that the reproach of indifference has long.
ceased to be applicable to the Bodleian. To render the library as efficient as pos-
sible, to keep it abreast of all modern requirements, to meet as fully as can be the
needs of every reader, whatever his subject, is the daily care of all those who are:
responsible for its management. Sir Thomas Bodley would be well content if he
could visit his favorite haunt; he would find it pervaded with a whole-hearted.
enthusiasm similar to his own.
But he would promptly bestir himself to improve its financial position, and would
not rest until he had succeeded. It is a matter for sincere regret that an institution.
with such a past and with an even more splendid future before it should find itself.
crippled at its tercentenary by lack of pence. Its means are not merely slender; they
are notoriously and pitifully inadequate. The University of Oxford is poor, the
calls which are made upon its resources are endless in their variety, and the outside.
critic who is constantly urging the university to modernize itself and bring itself
“up to date ’’ very rarely suggests where the necessary funds are to be found; and
of recent years most of the money which the university has had to dispose of has.
been expended upon the erection of buildings for the teaching of natural science-
There has been little left for the Bodleian. The agricultural depression, which has
seriously affected the revenues of nearly all the colleges, has made it impossible for
All Souls to pay the £1,000 a year which the last university commission directed
them to pay toward the maintenance of the Bodleian. For many years together the
college was unable to pay anything at all; in the last general statement of the
Bodleian accounts its contribution was but £350. That balance sheet is an interest-
ing document. It shows that the total revenue was about £9,000, of which £2,500
was derived from endowments and about £5,000 from grants by the university, the
remainder being made up by special contributions and fees of various sorts. The
expenses show that the salaries of the staff amount to nearly £5,000, and that the
upkeep of the building and general printing bill absorb another £1,000. During:
the last year £1,835 was spent on the purchase of manuscripts and books and £681 on.
binding. There were special reasons why certain necessary and normal expenditure.
ED 1902—63

994 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902. -
was postponed in 1901, and the credit balance of £500 which was carried forward
to the present year is therefore quite misleading.
An income of £9,000 may seem large, but it is, as a matter of fact, entirely inade-
quate. The extent of its deficiency may be judged by comparing it with the corre-
sponding income of the British Museum. After deducting the cost of all the
departments in the Bloomsbury institution, to which there is nothing analogous in
the Bodleian, the fact remains that the nation spends on the library of the British
Museum a sum not far short of £70,000 a year. Yet this library is not more than
twice the size of the Bodleian, and when every allowance is made for the difference
between them, for the greater number of readers in London and the inevitably
larger expenses connected with the British Museum, the relative poverty of the
Bodleian still remains sufficiently striking. At the lowest estimate its income ought
to be double what it is at the present time. * * *
The problem of finding accommodation for the annual increase of the library,
which amounts to about 17,000 ordinary octavo volumes, has long been serious. It
is now acute. Every inch of available space in the Bodleian itself and the adjoining
Radcliffe has been occupied. All the latest inventions for economizing room have
been adopted. Both garrets and cellars have been turned into storehouses, and the
books have begun to overflow into the subterranean regions of the neighboring
Sheldonian Theater. But the time is rapidly approaching when the policy of tem-
porary makeshift will have to be abandoned, when it will be necessary to build
either above or below ground. Plans have been prepared for the construction of a
vast underground and damp-proof storage house below Radcliffe square, which
would accommodate a million volumes, and it is not improbable that the scheme
would be adopted if the university has the funds available to carry it through. It
would certainly be less costly than building above ground, for the erection of a
mere utility warehouse in the immediate vicinity of the Bodleian would be an out-
rage upon the stately buildings which cluster there, to say nothing of the difficulty
of obtaining a site. How, then, is the money to be found? Government assistance
is hardly to be looked for. Some claim might undoubtedly be based upon the fact
that the Bodleian binds and houses a vast mass of Government publications, which
the authorities would not dream of buying, yet which must be preserved on the
chance that some day they will be called for by the specialist student. But good
though this claim may be, it is obvious that there are many other demands on the
treasury which ought to be satisfied first. The ideal solution, of course, would be to
discover a second Sir Thomas Bodley, or, failing him, a rich benefactor. * * *
The founding of public free libraries, whose principal function—at any rate, at
present—seems to be that of providing the homes of the lower middle classes with
a regular supply of inferior fiction, is the passion of the moment. One wishes these
no harm, but it is just a little incongruous that, while they are liberally provided
for, an institution like the Bodleian is left to struggle with adversity.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY EXTENSION LECTURES.
GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE AIMS AND METHODS OF UNIVERSITY
EXTENSION TEACHING.
[From the Official Prospectus.]
The object of the university extension movement.—The university extension move-
ment seeks to bring the university to the people when the people can not come to
the university. Its aim is to bring within the reach of every one the opportunity
of higher education, which widens the intelligence, enlarges the sympathies, and
enables men and women to employ their leisure better, and to enjoy it more. A
certain number of students can obtain this higher education at the universities; but
-
-
º

OXFORD UNIVERSITY EXTENSION LECTURES. 995
for those who are unable to come to the universities, the university extension move-
ment Secures as many as possible of the advantages of a university education. It
furnishes instruction organized in courses of lectures, with discussions, classes, exer-
cises, examinations, and certificates of proficiency or distinction. It seeks not only
to supply teaching adapted to popular needs, but to stimulate the demand for such
teaching. It directs readers to the best books in each subject, and, by encouraging
habits and suggesting methods of systematic study, helps students to make the best
use of libraries and to assist them in home reading and self-culture. The lecturers—
Some sixty in number—by whom its work is carried on, are graduates of distinction
specially selected for their competence as teachers. They form the staff of what is in
effect a university college maintained by the cooperation of nearly three hundred
towns.
The history of the university extension movement.—The phrase “University exten-
sion ” became current in Oxford about 1850, but the university first took a direct
part in the education of nonmatriculated students when it established its local
examinations in 1858. The example of Oxford in this matter was soon followed by
the University of Cambridge. The University of Cambridge further supplemented
its local examinations by the scheme for local lectures in 1873. Similar arrange-
ments for local letcures—or university extension teaching, as it is usually called—
were completed by the University of Oxford in 1878, but continuous work was not
begun until 1885. Since 1885, 23,016 lectures have been delivered in some 300
centers, and have been attended by over 316,988 students. As the courses are not
expensive, it has been found practicable to arrange for their delivery in small as
well as large towns. In order to meet the requirements of different communities,
the university leaves the details of organization as elastic as possible.
The audience.—The audience usually consists of two divisions: (1) The general
audience, consisting of men and Women of all ages and all classes, who attend the
lectures only, and who vary in numbers from 30 or 40 in country towns to 1,000 in
large industrial centers. The average is about 150, (2) A Smaller body of students
who attend lectures and classes, who write the essays and are encouraged to enter
for examination. These find in the lecturer a tutor who advises them in choice of
books, directs their reading and corrects their written exercises. No one under 15
years of age may enter for examination, and the vast majority are adults who desire
neither elementary nor secondary but higher education.
The method of university eatension teaching.—A new center of university extension
teaching is usually established as follows: A local committee is formed for the pur-
pose of guaranteeing the expense of the lectures and of undertaking the necessary
local arrangements. The members of the local committee then select a subject for
the course, and, after deciding on the number of lectures to be given, arrange with
the university delegates for the services of the lecturer whose attendance they
require. The course, a list of which is appended, comprise subjects drawn from
ancient and modern literature and history, natural Science, political economy, polit-
ical science, and art. -
A course consists of from six to twelve lectures, delivered at weekly or fortnightly
intervals. (When less than twelve lectures are arranged, it is best, if the subject is
of a literary or historical character, to have the lectures at fortnightly intervals. This
plan gives time for the students properly to read the books supplied in the traveling
library. In some scientific subjects, however, when the student is more dependent for
information on the lecturer's oral teaching, the weekly arrangement of lectures is gen-
erally thought to be the best.) Each lecture lasts about an hour, and at its conclu-
sion those who so wish form a class in which the lecturer discusses with the students
any points of difficulty which may have arisen during the lecture. Thus, while the
lecture audience consists of those who are generally interested in the subject, the
attendants of the class are usually those students who are prepared to work at home
in connection with the teaching. At the end of each lecture, questions are read out

996 - EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
or distributed to be answered by the students at home. These answers are sent by
post to the lecturer, and, after having been read and corrected by him, are returned
to the writers at the next week's class. During the class, students may obtain from
the lecturer further oral criticism of their written exercises. They will also find ,
additional direction in their studies by availing themselves of the system of reading
circles.
The syllabus.--In their use of text-books the students are assisted by the printed
syllabus, which gives an analysis of the lectures and provides lists of books recom-
mended for private study. -
The traveling libraries.—In connection with each course the delegates issue a trav-
eling library, which contains copies of the principal text-books and authorities rec-
ommended by the lecturer. The library is returned to the delegates at the end of
the course. Several courses are also illustrated by portfolios of engravings and auto-
types, and many by the oxyhydrogen lantern.
Courses are classified in two departments, viz: (1) those consisting of ten lectures
and upward, on which certificates are awarded, and (2) those of less than ten lec-
tures on which no certificates are given. Certificates are awarded, under certain
conditions, on two connected short courses delivered in successive sessions.
The examination.—At the conclusion of the course an examination is held by an
examiner, other than the lecturer, appointed by the university.
In the examination those students who have not only attended the lºctures but
have thoroughly studied the subject of the course during its delivery in the books
recommended by the lecturer have the opportunity of distinguishing themselves.
Certificates.—Entrance to the examination, which is in writing, is optional and open
to all students over 15 years of age, who have attended not less than two-thirds of
the classes following each lecture of the course, and have written for the lecturer
answers to two-thirds of the questions set by him. According to the report of the
examiner certificates of two grades or printed lists are awarded to the successful can-
didates, and a prize is given to the student whose work, if worthy of “distinction,”
is considered by the examiner to have shown the greatest merit. Prizes offered by
local donors are awarded by the examiners on receipt of clear instructions as to the
conditions on which they are offered.
The award of certificates of distinction depends on the joint recommendation of
lecturer and examiner.
Terminal certificates are awarded only after courses of ten or twelve lectures; ses-
sional certificates after a complete session’s work. Examinations are permitted on
shorter courses, but successful students receive, in place of a certificate, a copy of the
examiner’s award.
Affiliation and higher certificates of systematic study.—Centers undertaking to provide
a suitable course of instruction extending over a period of years may apply for rec-
ognition as centers affiliated to the university. And in order further to encourage
the connected and progressive study of a sequence of subjects, the delegates offer,
under special conditions, affiliation certificates, or higher certificates of systematic
study. Suitable certificates obtained by students on courses delivered under the
supervision of the University of Cambridge, Victoria University, and the London
University extension board are accepted as part of the qualification for these higher
certificates. A further certificate, the vice-chancellor’s certificate, is also awarded by
the delegates. -
Students' associations.—In a large number of centers students' associations have
been formed to supplement the work done in the lecture room. These associations
meet periodically under the guidance of a president or leader. Information as to
the methods pursued, together with model rules, can be obtained on application.
Reading circles for the guidance of home study.—The delegates have also arranged
means by which students may obtain on economical terms private tuition by cor-
respondence in history, literature, political economy, and some departments of natu-
--
-

OXFORD UNIVERSITY EXTENSION IFCTURES. 997
|-
---
ral science. More than thirty reading circles have been formed, and can be joined
at any time by isolated students or by groups of students. The reading circles pro-
wide opportunities for the guidance of a student's reading between the delivery
of the courses of lectures. The prospectus of the reading circles can be obtained on
application.
The summer meeting.—Steps are also taken by the delegates from time to time to
arrange for university-extension students a period of study in Oxford during August.
These summer meetings have been held in 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1894, 1895,
1897, 1899, and 1901, each meeting being attended by about one thousand students.
SUMMER MEETING, 1903–OUTLINE OF THE PROGRAMME."
[From the official announcement.]
The eleventh meeting will be held this year in Oxford, from August 1 to August
24. The meeting will be open as usual to all students, English and foreign, and
will be divided for the convenience of those who can not stay the whole time into
two parts: Part I, August 1–13, inclusive; Part II, August 13–24, inclusive. -
The inaugural lecture will be delivered on Saturday, August 1, at 8.30 p.m., by
His Excellency Mr. Joseph H. Choate, Hon. D. C. L. (Oxon), United States ambas-
sador to the Court of St. James.
The main courses of lectures will be as follows:
Section 1. History. —The lectures in this section will follow in exact sequence upon
those delivered at the last meeting, and will be designed to illustrate the main lines
of English and general European history from Magna Charta (1215) to the close of
the Middle Ages (circ. 1485). - -
There will be general introductory lectures designed to give a conspectus of the
period as a whole, and in addition detailed lectures upon the following among other
topics: -
(a) The great charter and its confirmations; (b) The early history of the English
Parliament; (c) The mendicant friars, Wycliffe and the Lollards; (d) The church
and the universities; (e) Social history—the manor, villeinage, the black death, and
the peasant revolt; (f) The hundred years' war; (g) The wars of the roses; (h) The
mediaeval empire; (i) The mediaeval papacy; (k) The Italian republics; (7) Feud-
alism in France; (m) The great mediaeval trade routes.
There will also be a special course of lectures on Shakespeare's English kings by
Mr. J. C. Powys, and a performance of Marlowe's Edward II will be given by the
... Elizabethan Stage Society under the direction of Mr. William Poel.
Among other lecturers in this section will be: Rev. Augustus Jessopp, D. D., Hon.
fellow of Worcester College; Rev. Hastings Rashdall, Litt. D., fellow and tutor of
New College, preacher at Lincoln's Inn; Prof. A. V. Dicey, B. C. L., Vinerian pro-
fessor of English law; Dr. Vinogradoff; Rev. H. L. Thompson, late censor of Christ
Church; Mr. Arthur Hassall, student and tutor of Christ Church; Rev. W. H. Hut-
ton, B. D., fellow and tutor of St. John’s College; Mr. A. L. Smith, fellow and tutor
of Balliol; Mr. Edward Jenks, B. C. L., reader in English law; Rev. W. H. Shaw;
Mr. Horsburgh; Rev. W. K. Stride; Mr. Raymond Beazley; Mr. R. W. Jeffery,
and Mr. Marriott. - - -
Section 2. Literature.—This section will have special reference to (a) Chaucer and
Piers Plowman, on which there will be a full course of lectures by Prof. Walter
Raleigh, professor of English literature in Glasgow University; Mr. E. de Selincourt,
university lecturer in modern literature; and Mr. J. A. Dale. (b) Dante, Petrarch,
and Boccaccio. - -
Besides lectures by the Lord Bishop of Ripon (Dante) and Mr. Edmund Gardner
(Petrarch and Boccaccio) there will also be a full course of lectures on Dante by Mr.
Wicksteed. - - -
a Some of the arrangements are at present provisional.

998 EDUCATION REPORT, 1902.
There will also be a class in middle English by Dr. Henry Sweet, reader in pho-
netics, and (if sufficient applications are received) a class for advanced students in
the study of Dante by Mr. Wicksteed. The latter will be strictly limited in
numbers.
Section 3. Natural science.—This section will be designed to illustrate the relations
of science to industry and will be organized in three subsections dealing respec-
tively with (a) chemistry; (b) electricity; (c) bacteriology.
Among the lecturers will be: Prof. Sims Woodhead, M. D., F. R. S. E., professor
of pathology in the University of Cambridge; Prof. Raphael Meldola, F. R. S., pro-
fessor of chemistry in Finsbury Technical College; Professor Warington, F. R. S., late
professor of rural economy at Oxford; Dr. C. W. Kimmins, chief inspector to the
technical education board of the L. C. C.; Dr. Ritchie, reader in pathology in the
University of Oxford; Mr. A. F. Walden, M. A., lecturer of New College. (This
section is far from complete.) There will also be a conference on the relations of
science and industry. Chairman, Sir Philip Magnus. -
Section 4. Social economics.-This section will deal mainly with economic questions
of contemporary interest, such as free trade and protection; Zollvereins and pref-
erential tariffs; taxation, imperial and local; municipal trading; trusts and combi-
nations. º - -
Among the lecturers will be: Hon. W. P. Reeves, agent general for New Zealand;
Sir Vincent Caillard; Prof. W. J. Ashley, M. A., professor of commerce in the Uni-
versity of Birmingham; Prof. W. A. S. Hewins, M.A., director of the London School
of Economics; Mr. M. E. Sadler, M. A.; Mr. J. H. Morgan, B. A., and others.
Section 3. Early renaissance art and the architecture of the period.-Among the lec-
turers will be: Mr. Walter Ford, M. A., King's College, Cambridge (mediaeval folk
song); Dr. Vaughan Williams; Mr. F. Bond, M. A., F. R. I. B. A.; Mr. Basil de
Sélincourt, B. A., New College; and Mr. E. F. Caritt, M. A., fellow and lecturer of
University College.
Special architectural visits and demonstrations will be arranged in connection
with this section. .
Special classes.—There will be special classes (for which a small extra charge will
be made, and which will be limited in numbers) in:
(1) The history, theory, and practice of education; (2) middle English—lecturer,
Dr. Henry Sweet; (3) Dante–lecturer, Mr. Wicksteed; (4) the Greek language, and
(5) Italian language, if the demand justify their arrangement. -
Special sermons will be preached in the Church of St. Mary-the-Virgin (University
Church) by the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Oxford, the Right Rev. the Lord
Bishop of Ripon, the Very Rev. the dean of Christ Church, the Rev. Augustus Jes-
sopp, D. D., Hon. Fellow of Worcester College, the Rev. D. H. S. Cranage, M. A.,
secretary to the Cambridge syndicate for local lecturers, and others.
Theological lectures will be given by the Rev. C. Bigg, D. D., canon of Christ
Church and regius professor of ecclesiastical history; the Rev. W. H. Hutton, B. D.,
fellow and tutor of St. John's College and Bampton lecturer (1903); and Miss Eliza-
beth Wordsworth, principal of Lady Margaret Hall (on Bible lessons in schools).
Conferences have been arranged on: (1) The education act of 1902 and university
extension; chairman, Sir William R. Anson, D. C. T., M. P., warden of All Souls
College, and parliamentary secretary to the Board of education. (2) Free libraries
and higher popular education; chairman, the Right Hon. Viscount Goschen, D. C. L.,
F. R. S. (3) Science in its relation to industry; chairman, Sir Philip Magnus, tech-
nical education board of the T. C. C.
Conversaziones, etc.—There will be a conversazione, a garden party, and on August
13 excursions will be arranged to places of historical and architectural interest in
the neighborhood of Oxford. º
Reception room and library.—The reception room and reading rooms, with a refer-
t



- - -
- - -
oxFoED UNIVERSITY EXTENSION LECTURES. 999
ence library for students, will be in the examination schools, and will be open from
- 9 a. m. to 7 p. m. --
A guide to preparatory reading for the summer meeting of 1903 has been published
in the University Extension Journal for January and February, price 3 d., post free
from the universityextension office, Oxford. º -
Accomodation for students.-The full programme will contain a revised list of lodging
houses, with terms. A limited number of (1) men students will be received at Bal-
liol College, and (2) women students at Lady Margaret Hall and St. Hugh's Hall.
For rooms in Balliol College, early application should be made to the secretary, uni-
versity extension delegacy; for St. Hugh's Hall to the principal; for Lady Margaret
Hall to Mrs. Toynbee, 10 Norham Gardens, Oxford. The charge for board and
Todging at Balliol College will be 5s. per day; at Lady Margaret Hall and St. Hugh's
Hall, 30 S. per we k.
Scholarships.-A limited number of scholarships will be awarded to enable students
otherwise prevented from doing so to attend the meeting. Only those who have
obtained certificates in Oxford extension courses are eligible. Particulars on
| application.
Iłailway tickets.-The principal railway companies have kindly made arrangements
whereby holders of summer meeting tickets will this year be entitled to travel to and
from Oxford for a fare and a quarter for the double journey. A special form of cer-
tificate, signed by the secretary to the delegates, must in each case be presented to
the booking clerk at the station of departure. A certificate will be forwarded with
each summer meeting ticket.
PRICE OF TICKETS.
- f
I. For the whole meeting------------------ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1.
II. For the first part of the meeting only (August 1 to 13) -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1.
III. For the second part of the meeting only (August 13 to 24) - - - - - - - - - - - - 1.
IV. Tickets for parties of not less than five university extension students
making application before June 1 will be issued at a reduction of 10
|- per cent. -
[All tickets are nontransferable, and do not admit to the classes for which a special --- 3
fee is charged. They entitle the holder to specially reduced terms for recreation.] -
FORM OF APPLICATION FOR TICKETS.
Name of applicant in full (Mr., Mrs., or Miss), —.
Home address in full, - - - -
- University extension center (if any) where lectures have been attended,
- --- Summer meetings in Oxford previously attended (if any),
Tickets required, whether for— -
(1) Whole meeting, - - >~~
(2) Part I only, -
(3) Part II only,
(4) Special classes,
Money inclosed, - -
Application for tickets and all inquiries in connection with the summer meeting
§hould be addressed to
The Secretary (J. A. R. MARRIOTT, Esq.),
University Extension Office,
Examination Schools,
- Oxford.
º