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 A LETTER 
 
 TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE 
 
 ON THE 
 
 STATUTES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 OXFORD COMMISSION 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. MOUNTAGUE BERNARD, D.CL. 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXII
 
 A Letter to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, on t/ie 
 Statutes of the University of Oxford Commission, by 
 the Right Hon. Mountague Bernard, D.C.L. 
 
 Dear Mr. Gladstone, 
 
 The work done by the Oxford University Commis- 
 sioners, whose powers expired on the 31st December last, was of 
 necessity so extensive, and involved so many details, that there 
 would probably be some advantage in giving a general outline 
 of it, and stating some of the facts and considerations which were 
 present to the minds of the Commissioners wheij their con- 
 clusions were formed. I have therefore asked your leave, which 
 you readily gave, to address a letter to you on the subject. If 
 this be an unusual course to take on the expiration of the powers 
 of an executive Commission, I hope I am not wrong in thinking 
 that in the present case there are reasons of public convenience 
 sufficient to outweigh any objection on that score. To answer 
 criticisms is a task which I do not propose to undertake : my 
 purpose is to make this mass of Statutes more intelligible by 
 presenting the several parts of it in their connection with one 
 another. 
 
 I shall not deem myself precluded from expressing, for the 
 sake of explanation, opinions of my own, which may or may not 
 be shared by my late colleagues. For these they are not respon- 
 sible ; nor indeed are they responsible in any way for anything 
 which I shall say in this Letter. It will also be clearly under- 
 stood that, when I speak of acts or decisions of the Commis- 
 sioners, I do not mean to represent those acts or decisions as 
 unanimous, nor as having been determined, in the minds of all 
 those who concurred in them, by the same reasons.
 
 A Letter. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Act of 1877 is differently framed in several respects from 
 that of 1854. It gives expressly large powers of legis- 
 lating not only for the Colleges but for the University ; 
 it contains an elaborate enumeration of " purposes," for which 
 the Commissioners, in exercising those powers, are empowered 
 to make provision: it does not, as the Act of 1854 did, give 
 each College a veto, but it enables each to have a share in 
 framing its own Statutes by electing representatives who be- 
 come, when elected. Commissioners for that special intent. 
 There are other differences, but it is enough to mention these. 
 
 The work of the Commission divides itself naturally into 
 statutes made for the University and statutes made for Colleges. 
 The two classes, however, have many points of contact, and relate 
 in various ways to each other. The large endowments which the 
 Colleges possess, and the great power they are able to exercise, 
 and practically exert, over undergraduate students, make this 
 inevitable. 
 
 The general aims of an English University, as of other 
 Universities, are to carry forward the education of 
 
 Q-eneral '' 
 
 functions of young men who have outgrown boyhood, and, by 
 niversi y. j^^jj^g ^]-^jg well, to sustain and raise the level of 
 
 education within the range of its influence — and to advance 
 knowledge. It performs these offices by providing teaching, 
 and by assisting, stimulating, and encouraging study. In pro- 
 portion as it performs them well, it is successful and useful. 
 The Colleges established in connection with the University 
 have the same general aims as the University itself These 
 are commonplaces, but it is as well to state them. 
 
 The provision for teaching at Oxford has not been uniform. 
 
 Provision College tutors, private tutors. University Professors 
 
 for teaching:. ^^^ Lecturers, have each had a share in it, which 
 
 has varied much at different times. The actual state of things 
 
 may be described as follows : — 
 
 Everybody who chooses to teach, and can get pupils, is free 
 to do so. There is nothing to prevent any one from adver- 
 
 ^ u/uc f
 
 A Letter, 5 
 
 tising his intention to form a class, and such advertisements are 
 common. 
 
 The number of Professors specially authorized by the Univer- 
 sity to teach is considerable ; and their lectures are fairly 
 attended, especially by students of the highest class, though the 
 attendance is somewhat fluctuating and uncertain. 
 
 The chief part, however, of the teaching of undergraduates is 
 given by persons specially authorized by the Colleges. Every 
 undergraduate at a College, during the first three years at least 
 of his residence, is required to pay a lump sum to his College 
 yearly or terminally, which is supposed to cover the expense of 
 his necessary instruction. He pays the same whether he be poor 
 or rich, whether he want little teaching or much, and whether 
 that which he wants be procurable within the College or not. 
 Such is the rule, though tuition-fees may be remitted in individual 
 cases. The amount of these payments is fixed by each College 
 at its discretion : it varies from £21 to £2^] annually. In return, 
 the College provides teaching for him, advises him what lectures 
 to attend, compels him (if need be) to attend them. If he wants 
 other instruction for which fees must be paid, the College 
 exercises its discretion as to paying those fees for him, or any 
 part of them. This system is, I suppose, peculiar to the Univer- 
 sities of this country. 
 
 The provision for teaching now made by the Colleges is 
 made not only by means of the tutorial staff which each main- 
 tains for its own men, but by arrangements between College and 
 College, between individual lecturers at different Colleges, and 
 again between Colleges and individual lecturers external to them. 
 Under one or more of these arrangements the undergraduates 
 of every (or almost every) College now have it in their power 
 to attend the lectures of some teachers external to the College, 
 and that in nearly every branch of study. At the same time, 
 the Colleges have in their hands the whole power of control ; 
 and they either make payments to the external lecturers whom 
 their undergraduates attend, or arrange that they shall attend 
 without payment on the principle of a set-off between the 
 Colleges, each dividing the tuition-fees received by it among 
 its own tutors and lecturers. The latter is the more usual 
 practice.
 
 6 A Letter. 
 
 This system (if it can be so called) works well in several 
 important respects. It produces much activity in teaching ; it 
 gives to the undergraduate some freedom in selecting the 
 teachers most likely to be useful to him ; it preserves at the 
 same time, though probably not undiminished, the influence 
 of Colleges and College officers over their men — an influence 
 valuable not only as furnishing advice and direction to the more 
 industrious, and to the idle an incentive to exertion, but as 
 supplying an eflective instrument of moral influence. Private 
 tuition, again, is now much less resorted to than formerly ; and 
 the parents of undergraduates are to that extent relieved from 
 an expense which should be unnecessary. 
 
 It has been represented, on the other hand, that the system is 
 not without its defects, and that some evils are incidental to it. 
 It is said that there is a want of organization, and a consequent 
 waste of power. College lecturers being often unwilling to sub- 
 ordinate their choice of lectures and of hours to any general 
 scheme ; that a superfluous number of lectures are thus delivered 
 on some subjects, whilst other parts of the field are not covered 
 as they ought to be, and that there are too many teachers lectur- 
 ing to very small classes. It is doubted — and this is of more 
 consequence — whether the appointment of lecturers by Colleges 
 has the effect of bringing forward the most competent teachers : 
 a man of very moderate qualifications may, by the accident of 
 seniority or from reluctance to disoblige, obtain a tutorship in 
 his own College, and thus the right to a place among the body 
 of inter-collegiate lecturers, and to a share of the tuition-fees dis- 
 proportioned to the services he is really able to render ; whilst, 
 on the other hand, a man of marked ability who collects a class 
 of a hundred or more may get much less than his fair share of 
 what those who attend him pay to their respective Colleges. It 
 is thought by some that the undergraduate, who formerly per- 
 haps got too little teaching and direction from his College, now 
 gets overmuch, and has not enough liberty to think and work for 
 himself. It is urged also that the multifarious work imposed on 
 a College tutor, coupled with the eager competition among 
 Colleges for success in the Schools, operates to contract too 
 rigorously the range of teaching and study to a mere training 
 for the examinations, and is thus injurious to the progress of
 
 A Letter, 7 
 
 knowledge, and to that love of it for its own sake without which 
 Universities are liable to become either abodes of idleness or 
 overgrown schools for young men too old for school It is 
 further said that among the teachers themselves a want is felt of 
 some more definite prospect of advancement beyond the routine 
 duties, if not beyond the ordinary income, of a College tutor. 
 
 There is (if I may express my own opinion) some truth in 
 all these strictures. And I shall venture to add that, as College 
 tutors continue to do more and more the work of University 
 teachers, lecturing to members of the University indiscriminately 
 without having been appointed by the University to do so, 
 there is some real risk lest a state of things should grow up 
 wanting both the special advantages of the College system 
 (viz. the teacher's personal interest in his pupils and moral 
 influence over them) and the special advantages of a University 
 system (viz. impartial appointment of teachers and regular 
 organization). 
 
 It has been suggested that College teaching should be set 
 aside, and superseded by teachers directly appointed by the 
 University, the function left to the College being that of assist- 
 ance and advice, or little more. This is a change' which could 
 hardly be effected by Statute without a large interference with 
 the liberty of Colleges and of individuals and the relation which 
 the College holds towards its men — a relation which parents 
 understand, and probably in general approve. With the habits 
 and traditions of Oxford, the first effect of it would certainly be 
 to throw back the business of teaching into the hands of the 
 private tutor — a useful personage, to whom many of us have reason 
 to be grateful, and who can neither be extirpated nor combated 
 by mere legislation. Nor would it be easy to reconcile such a 
 measure, could it be made effectual, with the reiterated and 
 imperative directions of the Act that in making Statutes regard 
 shall be first had to the maintenance of the Colleges for the 
 purpose (among others) of education, and to their wants for that, 
 and other, collegiate purposes. These directions convey a plain 
 expression of intention that the Colleges shall be allowed reason- 
 able liberty and reasonable means to continue to bear a part in 
 the work of academical teaching. 
 
 The Commissioners, in framing Statutes for the Colleges,
 
 8 A Letter, 
 
 have acted on this principle. In framing Statutes for the 
 University, they have assumed it, but have at the same time 
 held that it is expedient to make some additions to the number 
 of teachers directly accredited by and responsible to the 
 University, and, further, to take measures for placing these 
 teachers in more direct relations of co-operation and concert 
 with those authorized by the Colleges. They have not, however, 
 attempted to mould into a new and uniform system (which must 
 have been more or less arbitrary) the whole provision for teaching 
 at Oxford, now in a more or less transitional state, nor to sub- 
 ordinate by legislation one kind of teaching to another. 
 
 The encouragement of advanced study in the various depart- 
 Encourage- ments of knowledge stands in close connection with 
 TTnc°d ^^^ provision for teaching. It will probably be 
 study. agreed that the chief aim of Oxford ought to be 
 to produce educated men rather than savants. But it is also 
 part of the business of a University to offer to those who are 
 disposed to become savants some encouragement and much 
 assistance — assistance in the way of libraries, collections, and 
 teaching ; encouragement in the way of material inducements 
 to study. 
 
 Various ways of offering such encouragement have been 
 suggested. One is to give an emolument coupled only with 
 an obligation to study, the enforcement of which may be left 
 to conscience, the love of knowledge, and acquired habits of 
 industry, or may be further secured by vesting a responsibility 
 not easy to define in some authority which must always be 
 difficult of selection. Here all is indefinite ; and I may be per- 
 mitted the observation that human nature can hardly be trusted 
 so far. A second is to offer rewards for specific results of study 
 in the shape of work done. This may sometimes be practicable, 
 especially in connection with experimental science ; but there 
 are practical difficulties in the way of doing it, unless within 
 cautious limits. A third is to give an emolument coupled with 
 a definite duty, such as that of public teaching, or of doing some 
 specific work in literature or science. No absolute security, of 
 course, is attainable here ; but there may be some reasonable 
 confidence that a capable man, interested in a particular study
 
 A Letter. 9 
 
 and charged with a pubHc duty in connection with it, will try to 
 do his work well. In the Statutes made by the Commissioners 
 for the University and the Colleges, this has been regarded as the 
 ordinary way. 
 
 II. 
 
 The preamble of the Act recites that the revenues of the 
 University are not adequate to the full discharge of p^gq^ire- 
 the duties incumbent on it, and that it is therefore mentsof the 
 
 , . , . . , 1 r i_ 1 • University. 
 
 expedient that provision be made tor enabling or 
 requiring the Colleges to contribute more largely out of their 
 revenues to University purposes, especially with a view to 
 further and better instruction in art, science, and other branches 
 of learning, where the same are not taught, or not adequately 
 taught, in the University. This recital, coupled with the en- 
 acting clauses designed to give effect to it, is conclusive as 
 an assertion of fact and expression of intention. 
 
 A few months before the Act received the Royal Assent, a 
 printed " Statement of the Requirements of the University " had 
 been prepared and issued by the Hebdomadal Council. This 
 Statement, intended to embody the judgment of the Council as 
 to the wants of the University, was formed after an inquiry 
 begun in 1873 and renewed in 1875 and 1876. In 1873, and 
 again in 1876, statements of opinion had been asked from the 
 several Boards of Studies and from the Professors in relation to 
 the departments of study with which they were respectively 
 conversant ; and on a consideration of these the Council formed 
 its judgment, which must, therefore, be regarded as deliberate. 
 
 The Council, whilst observing that no Professorship ought to 
 be filled up when vacant unless a candidate of eminence should 
 present himself, and that the appointment of a Professor for life 
 would in many cases be preferable to the establishment of a new 
 permanent Chair, proceeded to recommend that thirteen 
 Professorships should be " established " in addition to those 
 already existing. They added that the endowments of the 
 existing Chairs required consideration and should be augmented
 
 [o A Letter, 
 
 where they were inadequate, and that provision should be made 
 for pensions. They further recommended that " a class of 
 Readers " should be established, to the number of nineteen or 
 more, and that there should be occasional Professors or Readers 
 of Northern Antiquities, ^thiopic, and Anthropology. They 
 also desired means for giving from time to time special Professor- 
 ships to eminent persons, for appointing occasional Lecturers, 
 and making grants for original research. They recommended the 
 creation of a Museum of Classical Archaeology, and one of 
 Anthropology, with a competent Curator, additional Physical 
 and Chemical Laboratories, and a Laboratory of Chemical 
 Analysis for the Professor of Geology. And they represented 
 that there was urgent need for structural and other improvements 
 of the Bodleian Library ; Lecture-rooms (about thirty in number) 
 for Professors ; Lecture-rooms, offices, and a Library for the 
 " Unattached Students." 
 
 The estimates which had been formed by the Boards of 
 Studies and Professors had been much in excess of that of the 
 Council, which was based on a careful reduction of them. They 
 had proposed a total addition of twenty-seven new Professorships, 
 with upwards of sixteen Readerships. In the oral evidence 
 which the Commissioners received, these estimates were enlarged 
 still further. The tendency to specialize, which accompanies the 
 extension of knowledge, is now strong in all fields of study ; and 
 to each student the field in which he is himself interested opens 
 wide and expanding prospects, and seems to demand ample 
 means for future exploration. 
 
 Many other applications or recommendations of a like kind 
 were made to the Commissioners from various quarters. These 
 included a subvention of about ^^3500 a year to the Bodleian 
 Library; an appropriation of ii^iooo a year out of the profits of 
 the University Press for the publication of works useful to learn- 
 ing but not likely to be remunerative, the appropriation to be in 
 addition to a " Learned Fund " which is formed by the Delegates 
 of the Press out of certain portions of their ordinary receipts ; a 
 fund for the publication of Oriental texts and translations ; an 
 appropriation to the University Galleries of Fine Art ; University 
 Studentships to be attached to the Bodleian Library ; University 
 Fellowships and Scholarships in considerable number for various
 
 A Letter. ii 
 
 special studies, such as Natural Science, Medicine, Oriental 
 learning, and in particular some travelling Fellowships for 
 Archaeological study; Chairs of Semitic (including Assyrian) 
 Antiquities, of Indian and Egyptian Antiquities, of old Persian, 
 of Geography (desired by the Royal Geographical Society), a 
 Chair or Chairs of Agriculture (desired by the Council of the 
 Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture). The Pro- 
 fessor of Music was anxious for the establishment of a School of 
 Musical Composition, and a Laboratory of Acoustics ; and strong 
 representations were made in favour of a School of Practical 
 Medicine. 
 
 Setting aside (on account of its magnitude) the last-mentioned 
 suggestion, the Commissioners had thus a body of proposals 
 which would in the aggregate demand a new annual expenditure 
 not far short of, and probably exceeding, ^^"50,000. 
 
 III. 
 
 The actual income of the University from external sources, after 
 deducting estate expenses, was in 1880-81 about income of 
 £y6oo (less by nearly ^^3000 than it had been four ■University, 
 years before). Its " internal " income, from fees and dues, was 
 i^2 3,000 ; and ;^4000 was received from the University Press. 
 The ordinary expenditure, taking one year with another, nearly 
 exhausts the ordinary revenue. Large sums have lately been 
 spent in building new Examination Schools, the total cost of 
 which, including fittings, will, it has been said, fall not very far 
 short of i^ 1 50,000; stock has been sold, and a loan of ;^6o,ooo 
 raised for this purpose. And nearly ;^7000 has in the last two 
 years been laid out in structural repairs (still in progress) of 
 the Bodleian Library. 
 
 The Commissioners have not thought it right to direct an 
 augmentation of the University fees and dues. It is always 
 undesirable to increase those expenses of academical education 
 which a student cannot diminish for himself by any exertion of 
 frugality or industry. But the University is, and will continue 
 to be, free to consider whether the fees and dues are sufficient for
 
 12 A Letter, 
 
 the purposes to which they are now appHed, or for any other 
 expenses which may properly be defrayed out of them. 
 
 There is no other source from which the funds at the disposal 
 of the University can be increased, unless by contributions from 
 the Colleges. 
 
 According to the figures given in the Report of the Duke of 
 Income of Cleveland's Commission, the total income of the 
 Colleges, nineteen Colleges (not including Keble and Hertford) 
 was in round numbers about i^3 87,000 gross, or ^^300,000 net, 
 after deducting estate charges of all kinds, repairs and improve- 
 ments of College buildings, augmentation of livings (between 
 ;^8ooo and ;^900o), and charge for loans (nearly i^20,ooo). The 
 receipt side of the account includes internal as well as external 
 income (the latter about ;^270,000 gross), and the income of 
 Trust funds. About ;^27,ooo of the income was money borrowed 
 to replace fines, etc. ; and subscriptions and pensions, not 
 deducted above, amounted to about ;^9000. We should further, 
 in estimating the net income of the Colleges as such, make a 
 reduction on account of the statutory payments which the 
 " House " or composite foundation of Christ Church makes to 
 its Cathedral and Chapter Funds. The general correctness of 
 these figures has not been seriously disputed, though they doubt- 
 less require sundry corrections of detail. 
 
 It was calculated that this aggregate income would probably 
 have received an augmentation of about ^^3 2,000 gross by the 
 year 1880, and some ;^65,ooo more by 1890. But against this 
 expected gross increment, supposing the expectation to be just, 
 are to be set charges for repayment of loans (very heavy when 
 deferred, as the repayment of fine loans frequently is, till an 
 increased rental comes in) and extraordinary repairs and improve- 
 ments necessary at the expiration of the beneficial leases on 
 which much land and a large quantity of house property are still 
 let. To these we must now add the actual reduction of agricul- 
 tural rents, from which most of the Colleges are suffering, and 
 the prospect of some depreciation in the future. Allowance 
 must be made also for building loans contracted or sanctioned, 
 and expenditure of capital (which involves loss of income) 
 authorized for a like purpose.
 
 A Letter. 13 
 
 I confess myself unable to form any estimate of the future 
 total income of the Colleges which I should not regard as 
 speculative. 
 
 All allowances made, we have here undoubtedly a large actual 
 and prospective income, as to which, however, it must be observed, 
 first, that it is unequally distributed, most of the Colleges being 
 by no means very wealthy ; secondly, that the present income, 
 except some small margin here and there, is absorbed by vested 
 interests and other charges which cannot be struck off at pleasure. 
 It follows that no heavy immediate charge can be imposed on the 
 Colleges for University purposes. No funds exist from which 
 such charges could be met. And in imposing prospective charges 
 it must be borne in mind that the amount they will realize, and 
 the time within which it will be realized, are matters of much 
 uncertainty. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the Commissioners have not at- 
 tempted to appropriate to specific purposes all that College Con- 
 the Colleges will ultimately have to pay. A con- University* 
 siderable part of it they have appropriated, deeming purposes, 
 it better for the University and the Colleges that many 
 arrangements respecting the Professoriate and some other 
 matters should be settled at once by statute, though they can 
 only take effect by degrees ; the disposal of the rest has been 
 left to the University, or to authorities constituted within the 
 University. 
 
 The appropriation to the Professoriate out of College revenues 
 — an appropriation made in general by charging -(Jnder 
 on particular Colleges the maintenance of particular Coiieg-e 
 Professorships and associating the Professor with the 
 College by making him a Fellow of it — will amount altogether, 
 in course of time, to about i^2 5,000,* or somewhat more, ex- 
 
 * I may observe that here, as in other parts of this Letter, I do not attempt to 
 give numbers or amounts with exact precision. To do so would involve the necessity 
 of qualifications and explanations which would uselessly encumber this statement.
 
 14 A Letter. 
 
 elusive of the five Professor-Canonries at Christ Church (;^750o), 
 and of a Canonry in Rochester Cathedral which will presently 
 be mentioned. But against this sum of ;^25,ooo must be set 
 the amount which the Colleges have hitherto been paying to 
 the Professoriate (about £'jooo). To that extent the University 
 will be none the richer, and the Colleges none the poorer. We 
 must also bear in mind that the University, out of its own 
 funds, now pays about i^6ooo a year to Professors, of the great 
 bulk (though not the whole) of which the College payments will 
 in time relieve it, setting free for other University purposes the 
 income thus released. 
 
 The addition which this appropriation will make to "Oix^ per- 
 sonnel of the Professoriate is not large. It includes Professor- 
 ships of Ancient History (a second Chair) ; Classical Archaeology 
 and Art ; English Language and Literature ; the history and 
 literature of the Romance or Neo-Latin languages (viz. those 
 languages of Modern Europe which are derived from the Latin) ; 
 Physics (a second Chair) ; Human and Comparative Anatomy ; 
 Applied Mechanics ; Pure (or Analytical) Mathematics. It in- 
 cludes also Readerships in Roman and English Law, and the 
 statutory assignment of duties in connection with the University 
 to Dr. Lee's Readers in Chemistry, Anatomy, and Physics at 
 Christ Church. 
 
 The Canonry in Rochester Cathedral hitherto attached to 
 the Provostship of Oriel will, at the next vacancy, be severed 
 from it, and made the endowment of a Professorship of the In- 
 terpretation of Holy Scripture (in addition to the existing Pro- 
 fessorship of Exegesis). The field covered by this title being one 
 of great extent and diversity, giving scope to varied learning and 
 research, the Commissioners have judged it better not to attach 
 the new endowment to the Ireland Professorship — which would 
 have presented some practical difficulties — but to found a second 
 Chair. It is right to add that they do not treat the whole 
 emolument of the Professor-Canonry, the holder of which will 
 have a residence and duties in another diocese, as the endowment 
 of an academical office in Oxford. 
 
 I may here, in passing, observe that the emoluments (though 
 not the academical duties) of the Professor-Canons at Christ 
 Church have been left unaltered by the Commissioners. It is,
 
 A Letter, 15 
 
 to say the least, far from clear that these emoluments were with- 
 in the powers given by the Act. Had this not been so, the 
 Commissioners would probably have thought it right to consider 
 — that they would have come to an affirmative conclusion, I do 
 not say — the question whether, by a moderate reduction of the 
 value of the Canonries, as recommended by Dr. Pusey and Dr. 
 Liddon, some additional (and different) provision might not use- 
 fully be made for the group of studies to which the Professor- 
 ships relate. 
 
 The Commissioners have not attempted to establish a School 
 of practical Medicine in Oxford. The highest authorities sup- 
 port the conclusion — in itself reasonable — that it is not advisable 
 to attempt this unless you can secure two conditions, — a staff of 
 competent lecturers in all the principal departments, and suffi- 
 cient opportunities of clinical teaching. But in a provincial town 
 of moderate size, distant an hour and a half from London, with 
 a county infirmary supported by subscriptions and over which 
 the University has no control, the first of these conditions could 
 be realized only (and that imperfectly) at a very great cost in 
 salaries — an annual cost of many thousands — whi[st the second 
 appears to be not at present attainable. The Commissioners 
 have made some additional provision for the studies preparatory 
 to Medicine, separating (amongst other things) the department 
 of Physiology from that of Pluman and Comparative Anatomy ; 
 they have imposed on future holders of the Regius Professorship 
 of Medicine some more definite duties than are now attached to 
 it ; and they have made the small existing endowment for 
 clinical instruction more freely disposable for that purpose. But 
 they have — without any serious doubts, though not, it may be, 
 without some regret — forborne to attempt more.* 
 
 It is proper here to add that the Statutes made for All Souls 
 and Merton Colleges provide for a specific contribution to the 
 funds of the Bodleian Library from each of those Colleges — from 
 the former ;^iooo, from the latter ;^300 a year. 
 
 So much for the University charges created by College 
 
 * The information and advice collected by the Commissioners on this subject 
 will be found in the volume of Minutes of Evidence, etc. , presented to Parliament, 
 pp. 381-391," and in the evidence of Professor Acland, Mr. Lankester, and Dr. Payne.
 
 1 6 A Letter. 
 
 Statutes. Beside these — but not, strictly speaking, in addition 
 to them, since they will be permitted to count 
 University against the general charge it imposes — a Statute 
 statute. niade for the University under sect. i6 of the Act 
 requires every College in the University to make a yearly con- 
 tribution, assessed on its net revenue, to University purposes. 
 Net revenue is for the purposes of this Statute defined by a 
 careful enumeration of the items to be reckoned on the side 
 of receipts, and on that of deductions or allowances, the former 
 including all income from endowments of every description which 
 can fairly be regarded as applicable to College purposes. On 
 the net revenue thus ascertained every College will annually 
 pay two per cent., and on all net revenue exceeding ^5000 it 
 will make an additional payment graduated roughly according 
 to the wealth of the College. Thus a College having ;^5000 net 
 revenue would pay only i^ioo, whilst a College with ^15,000 
 net would pay above ;^iooo, and a third, with ;^2 5,000 net, 
 somewhat more than ;^4000. 
 
 The principle that the contributions of a wealthy College 
 should be fixed on a higher scale than those of a less wealthy 
 one was early adopted by the Commissioners ; and in the 
 specific appropriations made by College Statutes it has been 
 assumed throughout, though not applied with any attempt at 
 nicety of proportion, nor without regard to other circumstances. 
 Ultimately it was embodied in a general Statute on a representa- 
 tion from the Hebdomadal Council, and with the assent of 
 a great majority of the Commissioners elected by the Colleges. 
 The common objections to a graduated tax on the earnings of 
 industry, or on property accumulated by such earnings, have no 
 application here. And, since what a College needs to do 
 its work as such is, in the case of a wealthy College, less in 
 proportion to its resources than in that of one more slenderly 
 endowed, it can afford to contribute to the University more in 
 proportion. 
 
 It will be observed that what has been called internal income, 
 viz. the receipts of a College from its own members in respect of 
 tuition-fees, battels, and the like, are excluded from the compu- 
 tation of net revenue. For various reasons, which it is needless 
 to explain, it was found on the whole more consonant to justice
 
 A Letter. 17 
 
 and convenience to treat these receipts as money received for 
 and applied to specific College purposes, and not liable to 
 taxation. This, together with the liberal reductions allowed, is 
 to be borne in mind in judging of the scale of taxation adopted 
 and the amount it may be expected to produce. Net revenue, as 
 defined in this Statute, is a different thing from net revenue as 
 we should understand it in the Report of the Duke of Cleveland's 
 Commission. 
 
 The additional payment on revenue exceeding ;^5000 is not 
 to be exacted immediately. It will become due by successive 
 increments at intervals of years. Nothing will be payable in 
 respect of it until 1885, and the whole will not have become 
 payable until after 1899. The two per cent, payment will begin 
 in 1883. 
 
 The difficulties inseparable from any scheme of taxation 
 which shall be substantially just and shall not unduly fetter 
 the freedom of Colleges — difficulties which reveal themselves only 
 after examination — have, it must be owned, given an appearance 
 of intricacy to this Statute. Nor is it possible that any general 
 Statute can operate quite equally on Colleges different in their 
 circumstances and holding endowments under a great variety of 
 conditions. But it appears to have met, if not with unanimous 
 approval, at any rate with very general acquiescence. Two Col- 
 leges only have petitioned against it, both in reference to a par- 
 ticular point, and one of these two petitions has been withdrawn. 
 
 It remains to consider what will be done with the money 
 thus levied. A large proportion of it, practically, will go to the 
 Professorships for which provision has been made in the College 
 Statutes, since what the Colleges so pay they are enabled to 
 write off against their contribution under this Statute — at least, 
 against so much of it as does not consist in the rateable payment 
 of two per cent. In some cases, indeed, the specific appropriation 
 exceeds the highest amount which the general contribution is 
 ever likely to reach — notably in the case of All Souls, which will 
 provide nearly ;^6ooo (or on a different computation more) : in 
 such cases, what the Statute does is to secure a payment rising 
 by certain increments within a certain period. Subject to this, 
 the College contributions will go, not to the University Chest or 
 general purse of the University, but to a new fund contemplated 
 
 B
 
 1 8 A Letter, 
 
 by the Act, and designated the " Common University Fund." It 
 is further provided that if, in 1884 or any subsequent year, the 
 amount paid into this fund is less than ;^3000, the deficiency 
 shall be made up out of the University Chest ; and that, so soon 
 as the revenues of the University shall in the judgment of 
 Convocation be sufficient, the total amount to be annually carried 
 to the credit of the fund shall be raised to a sum of not less than 
 
 ;^5O0O. 
 
 The establishment of this Fund is a matter of importance. 
 It will not be, as the general revenue of the Uni- 
 
 Common ° 
 
 University versity is, at the absolute disposal of the Hebdomadal 
 Fund. Council and the Convocation. It cannot be spent in 
 building. It is to be available for certain purposes expressly con- 
 templated by the Act, and those only — for payment of stipends 
 to Readers, extraordinary Professors, and Lecturers within the 
 University ; making payments for work or investigation in 
 branches of learning or inquiry connected with University 
 studies ; providing or enlarging libraries, collections, or apparatus ; 
 founding or endowing scholarships, exhibitions, or prizes ; pro- 
 viding pensions for Professors or Lecturers. For expenditure on 
 the last two classes of objects, and for any appointment to an 
 extraordinary Professorship — that is, " a Professorship which is 
 to continue so long only as it is held by the person appointed 
 to it " — a vote of Convocation will be required : subject to this 
 limitation, the control and disposal of the Fund is entrusted to a 
 Delegacy, in which the Hebdomadal Council, the Congregation 
 (that is, practically the residents as a body), and the " Boards of 
 Faculties," described hereafter, will be respectively represented. 
 This Delegacy is to prepare for publication yearly a statement 
 of the income and expenditure of the Fund for the year pre- 
 ceding, with an estimate for the year following, adding such 
 further information as they may think proper, or as the Uni- 
 versity may by Statute require. The power of the Delegacy 
 over the Fund is, it should be observed, further limited in one 
 respect by the Statute concerning University Readers, to which 
 further reference will be made hereafter. Four at least of 
 such Readers, whose stipends will be payable out of the Common 
 University Fund, must be appointed before the close of 1883* 
 and three more at least before the close of 1884.
 
 A Letter. 19 
 
 A further charge is laid, not indeed on the Common University 
 Fund, but on the general revenues of the University, unattadied 
 by the Statute concerning students not attached to students, 
 any College or Hall. These are persons who, for the sake 
 of practising a stricter economy, or for other reasons, desire to 
 have the advantages of the University without becoming mem- 
 bers of any College. The number of them was, according 
 to the Calendar for 1881, 382, of whom 308 were under- 
 graduates. Even under the present conditions of University 
 life, and still more with some change in these conditions, the 
 number might considerably increase. Whilst it is not desirable 
 to hold but special inducements to students not to attach 
 themselves to Colleges, it is right that those who refrain from 
 doing so should be relieved to some extent by the University 
 from the great disadvantage at which they are placed by the 
 side of students for whose teaching and discipline a partial, 
 but substantial, provision is made out of College endowments. 
 The Statute accordingly requires the University to provide, 
 for the year 1883, ^200, and for every subsequent year ;^400, 
 to be applied towards payment of the censor or censors of 
 the Unattached Students. It directs also that, as the Uni- 
 versity Chest becomes relieved by the Colleges from the pay- 
 ments it now makes to Professors, a sum, to be ultimately 
 not less than £600 a year, shall become payable for " Tutors 
 or Lecturers for the said students, or in maintaining Scholar- 
 ships or Exhibitions tenable by such students, or otherwise in 
 encouraging study among them or diminishing the expense 
 of their University education." And it further provides that, 
 " so soon as the state of the revenues of the University will 
 admit, the University shall be further charged with the ex- 
 penditure of a capital sum, not less than ;^7COO, in providing 
 offices, a library, and such other buildings as may be necessary " 
 for these students, any site which the University may grant to 
 be counted as part of this capital sum. No time is fixed for 
 the fulfilment of this obligation, but it creates a claim which 
 may be trusted to assert itself hereafter. 
 
 It will thus be seen that for the many and various demands 
 of learning and science, of teaching and study, in connection 
 with the University, the Commissioners have endeavoured to
 
 20 A Letter. 
 
 provide, partly by attaching Professorships to Colleges, which 
 will to some considerable extent set free the funds left at the 
 disposal of the University itself from subsisting charges, partly 
 by the creation, pursuant to the expressed intention of Parlia- 
 ment, of a new Fund, at first very moderate in amount, but 
 destined to increase by degrees and to vary with the resources 
 of the Colleges, and the disposal of which, subject to some 
 directions which the Commissioners think it right to make 
 imperative, is entrusted to a Delegacy in which all the depart- 
 ments of academical study will be represented, as well as the 
 wishes and interests of the general body of the University. It 
 will be the duty of the Delegates to form a judgment from time 
 to time of the relative importance of the claims which may arise, 
 and the representations which will be brought before them ; and 
 their yearly report will keep the state of the Fund and the 
 purposes to which it is applied constantly open to observation. 
 
 In two directions the Commissioners might doubtless have 
 gone further than they actually have. The Colleges might 
 have been shorn of more of their revenue, and a freer power of 
 disposal over revenue drawn from them might have been given 
 to the University. But, in the first place, the " maintenance " of 
 the Colleges " for the purposes of education, religion, learning, 
 and research " has been, in the view of the Commissioners, both 
 a statutory duty to be performed substantially and bona fide, and 
 an object in itself expedient In the second place, I will venture 
 to say that no good service is done to a University by giving it 
 uncontrolled disposal of very large funds. A University, like 
 other assemblages of men, is not free from the influence of 
 personal considerations, nor from the danger that particular 
 interests, keenly pushed, may sometimes overpower general 
 interests ; and the most eminent of its members are not always 
 among those who have time to spare for often recurring debates. 
 
 V. 
 
 Returning to the Professoriate, we have to consider what has 
 been done in respect of the payment of the Professors, their 
 duties, and the mode of their appointment.
 
 A Letter. 21 
 
 There has hitherto been much disparity in the stipends of 
 Professors, and that due rather to accidental causes stipends of 
 than to any governing principle. Some have had Professors, 
 about ;^6oo a year ; nearly as many ^^400 or ;^500 ; others less. 
 Two have had endowments yielding about ;^900 ; two, again, 
 have for some years been receiving from ^1000 to ^1500 
 each, the College charged with them having forborne, for 
 reasons of its own, to make a composition which would have 
 secured them £j^o at a time when their actual incomes were 
 much less. Under the new Statutes the emoluments (exclusive 
 of fees) of a majority of the Professors will in course of time 
 be about £<^oo, of a minority from ;^400 to ;^500. The Uni- 
 versity is not restrained from augmenting hereafter (should it 
 think fit) the stipends and duties of the Professorships now 
 fixed on the lower scale. But in disposing of funds not un- 
 limited in amount, it has been deemed reasonable to assign 
 larger emoluments and duties to persons charged with the 
 larger departments of study, and less to those whose depart- 
 ments are smaller or of less educational importance. Of both 
 scales it may be said that professorial incomes, .derived from 
 endowments, must be modest, unless the recipients of them, are 
 to be few. More may be made by facing the drudgery and 
 the vicissitudes of a trade or profession : a Professor must 
 submit to a reduction on account of greater certainty, more 
 congenial work, and larger leisure. 
 
 The Commissioners have not seen their way to make Profes- 
 sorial incomes dependent to any material extent on fees. Under 
 a system of fees the teacher competes with other teachers, and 
 the competition, to be fair, must be on equal terms : he must 
 offer, if he is to succeed, the kind of instruction which will draw 
 large classes, and therefore that which has tangible and immediate 
 value ; he may earn a large income, but will more probably have 
 to be content with a pittance. Large incomes have certainly 
 been earned in Germany by celebrated teachers. But in Germany 
 the Universities are the avenues to professional employment and 
 to the service of the State ; there are many of them : every 
 student is free to attend what lectures he pleases, and may for 
 that purpose, I believe, pass from one University to another 
 without ceasing to count his terms. A famous Professor may,
 
 22 A Letter. 
 
 therefore, gather a very large audience ; and there is a wide field 
 of possible promotion for those who distinguish themselves as 
 teachers or writers. But, as we might expect, the general scale 
 of academical incomes is low. At Oxford all these conditions 
 are absent. And so long as each undergraduate is required 
 by his College to pay to it during all or the greater part of 
 his time a sum supposed to cover the whole expense of his 
 regular teaching, he cannot be required or expected to pay 
 additional fees to University teachers to any considerable extent. 
 The present practice is probably convenient to the men them- 
 selves and to their parents, as well as to the Colleges, but it 
 obviously makes it difficult to exact such fees if the attendance 
 on University teachers continues to be optional. It would be 
 possible, of course, to make attendance compulsory, and with it 
 the payment of fees ; but if this should be thought expedient, it 
 must be for other than financial reasons. 
 
 The duties of the Professors, the jurisdiction to which in case 
 Duties of of misconduct they are to be subject, and various 
 Professors, other matters relating to them, have hitherto been 
 regulated by a great number of separate Statutes, repeating one 
 another with but little variation. The Commissioners have 
 thought it well to revise and consolidate these provisions, 
 which will in future be comprised in two Statutes, one relating 
 to the duties of the Professors enumerated in it, the other 
 to what is called the " Visitatorial Board." These Statutes, 
 when they were first published, provoked much criticism and 
 some loud complaints ; and the Commissioners received some 
 representations from the Hebdomadal Council, and many from 
 the united body of Professors. Some of these representations 
 they judged reasonable in substance, though in very few in- 
 stances were they able to adopt exactly the suggestions tendered 
 to them. 
 
 There is doubtless scope for discussion on the question 
 whether a man of learning should be bound to perform any 
 definite duties at all, or to communicate in any way the know- 
 ledge he has acquired and (it may be hoped) will go on acquiring. 
 Much may be said on the distraction from profound study which 
 such duties must occasion, the irksomeness of lecturing and teach- 
 ing, the peculiarities of temperament and character which may be
 
 A Letter. 23 
 
 found in men of learning, and the expectation which may be 
 formed that they will never yield to the temptations of indolence, 
 or to a habit of keeping their knowledge to themselves ; some- 
 thing also on the special difficulties (due to no fault of his own) 
 which a Professor at Oxford, even of the highest qualifications, 
 will occasionally find in attracting a class and keeping it together, 
 and the annoyance a man anxious to do his duty may naturally 
 feel under disappointments of this kind. Much has, in fact, been 
 said on these and like topics, and it has been easy to point out 
 how much more comfortably and successfully a Professor would 
 lecture in a University where there were no Colleges or College 
 tutors, no system of competitive examinations, unlimited facilities 
 for pursuing special studies, and crowds of students, than he 
 possibly can under the very different conditions which have 
 grown up and established themselves at Oxford. But the Com- 
 missioners have adhered to the opinion that a University which 
 furnishes regular stipends to Professors should require from them 
 some corresponding duties ; and that such duties, not excessive 
 in amount, are by no means incompatible with the pursuit and 
 advancement of knowledge, if not actually favourable to it, as in 
 many cases they certainly are. If in some they interfere with an 
 exclusive devotion to scientific inquiry or literary research, the 
 answer is, that a devotion so exclusive as this, however useful it 
 might be to science or learning, is not the proper business of a 
 University Professor. A Professor paid on the higher scale will 
 hereafter have to lecture in every term, unless he has obtained a 
 dispensation, and to gwo. forty-two lectures in the year instead of 
 twenty-four ; in no term may he give fewer than six lectures, and 
 in two at least of the three terms he must lecture during seven 
 weeks not less than twice a week. He has further to give to 
 students attending his ordinary lectures assistance in their studies, 
 by advice, by informal instruction, by occasional or periodical 
 examination, and otherwise, as he may judge to be expedient, 
 and is to appoint, for receiving students who desire such assist- 
 ance, stated times in every week in which he lectures. The Pro- 
 fessors paid on the lower scale will have duties proportionately 
 less. For those who have charge of laboratories and of practical 
 teaching, there are special and appropriate regulations. For all, 
 there are opportunities, new for the most part and guarded with
 
 24 A Letter. 
 
 some care, of obtaining, within reasonable limits, dispensations 
 and leave of absence. 
 
 It has been said that the regulations on this subject err in the 
 direction of laxity and indulgence. If so, they err on the safer 
 side. There are different ways of lecturing well, which different 
 men may use, or the same man may wish to use at different 
 times ; and in dealing with a body of men presumably able, pre- 
 sumably chosen with care, presumably interested in their several 
 subjects, whose duty it is to be students as well as teachers, and 
 to advance knowledge, if they can, as well as to communicate it, 
 to confine them too little is, at any rate, better than to confine 
 them too much. 
 
 The direct use of the Professoriate at Oxford is to give such 
 Uses f instruction as may be expected from men able, and 
 Profes- required, to devote themselves wholly or chiefly to 
 one subject or branch of knowledge, and chosen 
 by an impartial authority on the score of their having already 
 gained distinction in it. Among the indirect uses, which are 
 many, are the inducement thus afforded to able men to earn 
 this kind of distinction, the advantage secured to the govern- 
 ment of the University and the regulation of its studies and 
 Examinations by the presence in it of a considerable number of 
 men thus qualified, the advancement of knowledge both positively 
 and relatively to the University itself. 
 
 A Professoriate at Oxford works under some peculiar dis- 
 advantages, from which, while the Colleges exist, it never can be 
 entirely free. But its value to the University has been great, 
 and will, according to all probability, be greater in course of 
 time. For a body of this kind, once firmly established in a 
 University, is sure to grow in influence — unless, indeed, it de- 
 teriorates in quality. 
 
 The authority to take cognizance of neglect of duty or other 
 Visitatorial misconduct on the part of a Professor is, we may 
 Board. ^y^^i hope, likely to be rarely, if ever, called into 
 action. But it ought to be capable of acting. Hitherto it has 
 been lodged in a body so antiquated in its composition and 
 so unsuited to the present state of the University that the 
 liability to animadversion was, the Commissioners were in- 
 formed, practically but nominal. The Statute concerning a
 
 A Letter. 25 
 
 Visitatorial Board substitutes a body differently constituted, 
 defines the jurisdiction it is to exercise, and extends the range 
 of that jurisdiction to other officers of the University. 
 
 Of all administrative difficulties, one of the greatest lies in the 
 appointment to offices. At Oxford the modes of ^ 
 
 ^ ^ Appomt- 
 
 election to the several Professorships have hitherto ment of 
 been various, and, in many cases, by no means the 
 best that could be devised. In a few the right to elect has 
 been exercised by Convocation, with the result that elections 
 have frequently been determined by activity in canvassing, by 
 personal considerations, or College influences. The Commis- 
 sioners have applied to all Professorships not in the nomination 
 of the Crown the principle that the appointment shall be com- 
 mitted to a small number of electors, not more than seven nor 
 fewer than five, comprising residents holding University office, 
 a nominee or nominees of the College which furnishes endow- 
 ment, and in most cases also some person or persons of eminence 
 external to the University. By another Statute the Hebdomadal 
 Council is entrusted with a power, which may in some cir- 
 cumstances be very usefully exercised, to suspend* the election 
 to any Chair for a period not exceeding a year, " unless within 
 that time a new Statute relating to the vacant office shall 
 have been submitted to the Queen in Council, in which case the 
 suspension shall be continued until the proposed new Statute 
 shall have been either approved or disallowed." 
 
 The Commissioners have concurred in the opinion that the 
 establishment of a class of Readers, intermediate university 
 between the Professors and the College tutors, is Readers, 
 likely to have substantial advantages, and they have accordingly 
 made some provision for it. The University Reader is to hold 
 office for short terms, to lecture and give instruction in some 
 branch of study defined at the time of his appointment by the 
 University, or by the Delegates of the Common University 
 Fund, and to receive a moderate stipend. The appointment of 
 Readers will, unless the University otherwise determine, rest 
 with the Delegates, or with persons, not fewer than three, whom 
 they may in each case nominate for the purpose. 
 
 There is another matter relating to the Professoriate, and to 
 academical teaching in general, which the Commissioners have
 
 26 A Letter. 
 
 deemed worthy of serious attention — the better organization (to 
 use, for shortness, a somewhat vague and pretentious 
 
 Faculties. ' _ __ . . , -rV r- 
 
 word) of University teaching. By a Statute on this 
 subject the studies of the University are treated as distributable 
 into four groups — Theology, Law,Arts,and Natural Science, under 
 which last head it has, for the present, been found convenient to 
 include Mathematics and also Medicine. These groups are, for 
 the purposes of the Statute, called, as a convenient designation, 
 though not perhaps with strict historical propriety, " Faculties." 
 The University is empowered to institute new Faculties, and to 
 subdivide, should it think fit, those of Natural Science and Arts. 
 To each Faculty is assigned a Board comprising all the Professors 
 and University Readers in the subjects of the Faculty, together 
 with other persons, elected from time to time, and representing 
 the College teachers in the same field, and (should the Board 
 think fit to exercise a power of co-optation) a limited number 
 of co-opted members. It will be the duty of the Board to 
 publish (i) before the end of each Term a list of the lectures 
 which are to be given in the ensuing Term in the subjects of 
 the Faculty under the authority of the University, or of any 
 College, or of the Delegates of Unattached Students, and are 
 not to be confined to members of any one College or to the 
 Unattached Students ; (2) in Easter or Trinity Term annually, 
 a general scheme or statement, showing, as far as may be, 
 the lectures to be given during the ensuing academical year ; 
 (3) annually, a summary statement of lectures given during the 
 preceding year, to which the Board is to add any further infor- 
 mation respecting the studies and instruction of the Faculty which 
 the University may by Statute require ; and it is empowered 
 to point out any deficiencies in the provision made for instruction, 
 and to make recommendations for supplying them. To this 
 more general report objections were made, both by the Heb- 
 domadal Council and by the Professors ; but the Commissioners 
 did not yield to them. The Board has some powers, which, 
 though not very stringent, will probably be effectual in general, 
 in respect of the times and subjects of lectures, intended to 
 secure that the lectures shall be conveniently accessible to 
 students, and shall be such as to supply proper teaching in 
 subjects in which instruction ought to be given.
 
 A Letter. 27 
 
 The publication by University and College teachers of joint 
 programmes of lectures is not new in Oxford ; but it has not 
 hitherto worked quite satisfactorily. From the new machinery 
 which this Statute will create much may be hoped. It will not 
 only, if it works well, provide more effectually for students the 
 information which they ought to have respecting the courses 
 of teaching which will be open to them, and secure greater 
 concert among the teachers ; it will also, we may hope, have 
 the effect, valuable in a University which is a place not merely 
 of general education for young men but of learning and science, 
 of bringing together the teachers employed in each of the 
 principal fields of study, and giving them duties and interests 
 in common. The Boards of Faculties will not only, if the 
 legislation of the Commissioners takes effect, have the powers 
 which this Statute gives them, but some others. They will 
 have a share in directing the disposal of the Common University 
 Fund, and a share also in the nomination of Examiners. It is 
 probable also — though the Commissioners have left this in the 
 discretion of the University — that they may ultimately supersede 
 the Boards of Studies, which have had a useful, but (from their 
 composition and the limitation of their functions) a not very 
 robust, existence. 
 
 The Statute which alters the mode of nominating University 
 examiners, though in effect asked for by the Hebdo- ^.^ . ^. 
 
 ' ° '' Nomination 
 
 madal Council, by the Professors and Readers, and of 
 
 by a large number of residents including men of the 
 highest eminence, has excited opposition, and the University 
 has by a majority of votes in Convocation resolved to petition 
 against it. The Commissioners, in framing it, have had in view 
 the strong influence which examinations exert over academical 
 study, the great number of these offices, the changed constitu- 
 tion of the teaching body in Oxford, the large and unceasing 
 extension in many directions of the field of knowledge — an 
 extension which makes it more imperative than ever that the 
 choice should in every case be perfectly impartial and directed 
 by adequate information. They have had in view also the 
 opinions expressed by acknowledged authorities at long intervals 
 of time, but hitherto always without effect. And they have 
 been clearly of opinion that a mode of nomination which
 
 28 A Letter. 
 
 intrusts this power to the Vice-Chancellor and proctors, nomi- 
 nating singly and by turns, though well adapted to protect 
 College interests, presents no adequate securities for knowledge 
 and responsibility in selection. 
 
 VI. 
 
 By sect. 2 1 of the Act the Commissioners were directed to make 
 „ . .^ provision by Statute " for the form of accounts of 
 
 University ^ •' 
 
 and College the University and of a College," and " for the 
 audit and publication thereof" In executing this 
 direction they have not thought it necessary to prescribe the 
 form in which the accounts of the University or those of the 
 Colleges shall be kept. They have required only that the 
 University and the Colleges respectively shall keep proper 
 books (specifying the more important of them) ; that there 
 shall be in all cases an annual audit ; and that one of the 
 auditors, or the sole auditor if there be but one, shall be either 
 a London professional accountant or a person conversant with 
 accounts approved by the Secretary to the Treasury. They 
 further make it the duty of the auditors or auditor to report 
 regularly, in writing, whether the accounts are duly kept in proper 
 books of account, and whether the published abstracts and 
 balance-sheet contain a full and true account of the financial 
 condition of the University or College. For this report, therefore, 
 the professional auditor will be responsible, solely or jointly as 
 the case may be. They make it the duty of the University to 
 publish annually full information as to its own accounts and the 
 accounts of all the several Colleges, and the duty of each College 
 to furnish such information for publication. The forms to be 
 used are prescribed by Statute. They include revenue and 
 capital accounts, accounts of trust funds and special funds, a 
 balance-sheet showing the state of the current accounts at the 
 close of the financial year, a particular statement of loans out- 
 standing and of the state of the loan account, a certificate by the 
 auditors, or (should any auditor refuse to certify) a statement of 
 his reasons for refusal. The publication of accounts has been
 
 A Letter. 29 
 
 regarded by the Commissioners as a matter of great consequence, 
 not so much as a check on extravagant or improper expenditure, 
 which there is no reason to impute to the University or the 
 Colleges, as for other reasons. The accounts of the University 
 have for many years been very well kept, and an abstract of them 
 has been published yearly ; all that was needed was to make this 
 a matter of statutory obligation, and to revise and enlarge the 
 form of the published abstract. But the regular publication of 
 College accounts is new, and is material, not only because the 
 financial condition of the Colleges will henceforth be a matter in 
 which the University has a direct interest, but because it will 
 show how every College administers its affairs and follows the 
 directions of its Statutes, and what it does for education and for 
 learning. 
 
 VII. 
 
 I now pass to the College Statutes. 
 
 In revising these the Commissioners have followed a course 
 somewhat different from that of their predecessors 
 
 Form of 
 
 appointed in 1854. The latter deemed it sufficient Coiieg-e 
 to make by Ordinances, which on approval acquired ^*^*^tes. 
 the force of Statutes, such new provisions as they judged 
 advisable, leaving the earlier Statutes unrepealed except so 
 far as they were abrogated or altered by the Ordinances. 
 What the unrepealed Statutes were, could be discovered only 
 by examination. This has been found inconvenient. The 
 course now taken is to abrogate expressly, for each College, 
 all the earlier Statutes, including the Ordinances, and to sub- 
 stitute a new code. 
 
 In all legislation for Colleges the cardinal question is that of 
 Fellowships. The Fellows, with their Head, originally 
 constituted the College, are the governing body of it, ^^^^^^^^^ps. 
 and have hitherto been entitled, subject to statutory charges, to 
 divide its revenues among themselves or otherwise dispose of 
 them at pleasure. Accordingly the preamble of the Act singles 
 out the Fellowships and their tenure and conditions of tenure 
 as matters specially calling for legislation.
 
 30 A Letter. 
 
 The number of Fellowships at Oxford (including studentships 
 at Christ Church) before 1852 appears to have exceeded five 
 hundred, and the number of vacancies is said to have averaged 
 about forty-five yearly. At this period the number of First 
 Class honours gained in the two Final Examination Schools then 
 existing seems to have averaged about thirteen. In 1878 the 
 number of Fellowships (not including those in course of establish- 
 ment at Hertford, where there are now eighteen) appears to have 
 been about three hundred and fifty, of which thirty or there- 
 abouts were suspended. The number of First Class honours 
 gained in all the Final Examination Schools at the same period 
 may be taken at about fifty a year or somewhat more. Fel- 
 lowships of late years appear to have averaged about £2^0 
 in value, beside sundry allowances. At some Colleges they 
 have been less, at others more. At one or two they have 
 exceeded ^300. Larger incomes, exceeding ^^500 at one or 
 two Colleges, have continued to be received by Fellows whose 
 vested interests were anterior to the Ordinances made by the 
 Commission of 1854. 
 
 Fellowships have assisted to supply the Colleges with tutors 
 and lecturers. They have, at the same time, offered to men in- 
 clined to study, but not to teaching, a moderate maintenance 
 with the means of residing in Oxford, and have also given help 
 to young men of ability while preparing for professions or enter- 
 ing on the practice of them. They have probably drawn to the 
 University many who, had they not been encouraged by the 
 hope of gaining a Fellowship, would not have gone thither. 
 They have furnished incitements to study during the under- 
 graduate course and for a short time afterwards, and have thus 
 contributed to raise the general level of attainment. That they 
 have generally, or in a great number of cases, been of direct 
 service to learning can hardly be said. They encourage study 
 up to a certain point, but it is a point reached early. They are 
 not, therefore, properly speaking, rewards of learning ; nor do 
 they carry with them any obligation to the after pursuit of learn- 
 ing ; nor do they actually lead to it in the great majority of 
 cases, though in some they certainly do. 
 
 It should be added that for many years changes have been 
 going on at Oxford, due in part to the alterations made by the
 
 A Lette7\ 31 
 
 Commission of 1854, and in part to other causes. Fellow- 
 ships were formerly gained for the most part by men who looked 
 forward to taking Orders, and to the prospect of a College living, 
 and with that prospect in view were in no haste to marry. 
 These were the men who chiefly supplied the staff of College 
 tutors and the permanent society of common-rooms. At present 
 the number of clergymen holding Fellowships is exceeded by 
 that of laymen, and it is not seldom found that among the 
 Fellows of a College there are few or none willing to accept what 
 would usually be called a good living. At the same time, the 
 offices of College Tutor and Lecturer are largely held by men 
 who are not Fellows of the College and do not reside in it ; 
 whilst in other cases, where these offices are held by Fellows, the 
 holders are married men resident out of College and authorized 
 to hold their Fellowships by special provisions. Hence those 
 Colleges which, before the late Commission was appointed, had 
 obtained a revision of their Statutes, had tried, in the revision, 
 by introducing special conditions and inducements, to make sure 
 that a substantial proportion of their Fellowships should always 
 be held by men who could be relied on to take College work. 
 
 The useful purposes served by Fellowships they* have served 
 imperfectly, and at a cost of much waste, under a system which 
 gave to a great number of young men, as the prize of success in 
 an examination, an emolument tenable for life or during celibacy, 
 and free from any statutory obligation of work or residence. A 
 Fellowship tenable on these terms — though a young man who 
 had the choice might prefer it to one of limited tenure — is not, 
 to any appreciable extent, a more powerful incentive to study, 
 nor, as a form of assistance given at the outset of life, is it more 
 really beneficial on the whole. And under this system there 
 have always been many Fellowships held by men in whose 
 hands they could not truly be said to be useful for. any public 
 purpose at all. I do not forget that there are pleas to be urged 
 for life-Fellowships, but I am not now summing up the case for 
 and against them. 
 
 The Commissioners have been of opinion that Fellowships 
 should be made more definitely and directly serviceable than they 
 have hitherto been to academical study and education, and to 
 the advancement of learning and science in connection with the
 
 32 A Letter. 
 
 University. They have had in view the reasonable wants of 
 Colleges for educational and disciplinary purposes, the import- 
 ance of providing some assistance and reward for young men of 
 marked ability and industry, and the importance also of asso- 
 ciating the Colleges with the interests not only of education, but 
 of learning. In relation to all these matters they have been 
 desirous that the Colleges, as corporate bodies possessing large 
 endowments, should have definite duties, responsibilities, and 
 interests. 
 
 They do not propose to extinguish altogether the " idle 
 Fellowship," as it has been contumeliously called — that is, the 
 Fellowship free from statutory obligations of work or residence. 
 They have limited the tenure of it to seven years — a term not 
 too short — and the income to ;^200 a year. But with these 
 limitations they have not only suffered it to continue, but taken 
 some precautions to protect it against the tendency, by which 
 Colleges are liable to be invaded, to grasp all their Fellowships 
 for the multiplication of tutors. It has had, and it has, its uses ; 
 and the number of men to whom some help after the B.A. 
 degree has been taken is valuable is not a diminishing, but an 
 increasing one. The greater activity of education, the enlarged 
 and growing supply of good and not expensive schools, the 
 great number of scholarships and exhibitions (which it is pro- 
 posed to make more available for poor men) — everything that 
 has been or may be done to make University education acces- 
 sible and cheap to young men of industry and ability — tends to 
 augment this class. Scholarships cease at the end of four or five 
 years. And since Oxford, unlike the Universities of the Con- 
 tinent, does not give professional instruction, the expenses neces- 
 sary to be incurred in preparing for the employments by which 
 a livelihood is earned begin after the industrious student's 
 scholarship or exhibition has come to an end. 
 
 The number of Fellowships which, under the new Statutes, 
 will be awarded on examination and held on these terms cannot 
 be foretold otherwise than by a roughly approximate estimate, 
 since it will depend much on the Colleges themselves, but it will 
 probably not reach a hundred. 
 
 At several Colleges — those in particular where the number of 
 these Fellowships is considerable — the Statutes will provide that,
 
 A Letter. 33 
 
 in some regular order of time or proportion, regard shall be had, 
 in awarding them, to excellence in particular branches of study, 
 such as natural science, mathematics, theology, history. The last 
 of these, as well as law, is provided for at All Souls, though not 
 there only. If Fellowships are to continue to serve the purpose 
 of encouraging study, they should encourage various studies ; 
 and this they cannot do unless the student can look forward with 
 some confidence to the recurrence of opportunities of winning the 
 reward. From causes which it is not difficult to understand, the 
 general words which were used by the Commissioners of 1854 
 (and which it is not proposed to abandon) have, standing alone, 
 proved less effectual for their purpose than was expected probably 
 by those who framed them ; and the studies thus placed at a 
 disadvantage have suffered accordingly. 
 
 There has been, at all the Colleges, a desire that holders of 
 ordinary Fellowships, who may be willing to take College work 
 for a time, should be allowed a prolongation* of tenure on that 
 account. Some would limit the prolongation to three years ; 
 others to five ; others, again, wished it to be left undefined by 
 Statute. This is, in effect, a provision for inducing men who 
 intend to enter a profession, or who may not have made up their 
 minds about it, to engage temporarily in College work, by 
 securing to them a deferred annuity which is to begin seven 
 years later, and to keep a Fellowship locked up while it lasts. 
 The Commissioners have not wholly refused the request ; but 
 they have conceded it only within cautious limitations. 
 
 The general distribution of Fellowships under the new 
 Statutes may most concisely be shown by an example, which I 
 will take from one of the smaller Colleges. The whole number 
 of Fellowships at this College will not be less than ten, nor greater 
 than twelve. One will be annexed to a Professorship, which the 
 College has undertaken to endow. Of the remainder not more 
 than four may be held as tutorial or official Fellowships, during 
 terms of longer duration and renewable, by College tutors or 
 lecturers, and elections to these may be held with or without 
 examination, as the College may decide at the time. The 
 ordinary Fellowships, tenable for a seven years' term, are to be 
 awarded after examination, but the College may elect to such a 
 Fellowship a Professor or Reader in the University (subject in 
 
 C
 
 34 ^ Letter. 
 
 the case of a Professor to a limitatjon of income) ; and may also 
 elect, with or without examination, any person engaged in some 
 literary or scientific work, or work of art or research, which he 
 undertakes to prosecute in the College or the University, or, 
 under the direction of the College or the University, elsewhere. 
 Such a power might be usefully exercised to encourage, for 
 example, archaeological study abroad, or the publication of 
 ancient texts, or researches in experimental science. Since it 
 must needs be indefinite in its terms, the exercise of it must in 
 general be optional ; and for the same reason it has to be guarded 
 against possible abuse by a limitation of number. At All Souls 
 College, however, which is willing, and can well afford, to make a 
 substantial contribution to the purposes contemplated, seven 
 Fellowships are specifically appropriated to them ; but the election 
 to these will not be altogether in the hands of the College, though 
 the College will have a large share in it. 
 
 It may be wetl to notice here another class of provisions 
 Tuition common to the Statutes of all the Colleges. It has 
 Fund. been usual to make grants out of corporate revenue 
 towards a " tuition fund " applicable to the payment of College 
 tutors and lecturers in augmentation of the amount derived from 
 undergraduates' payments. The Commissioners have permitted 
 a continuance of such allocations, but subject to a statutory limi- 
 tation of amount — a limitation which becomes necessary when 
 they cease, as they hereafter will, to be voluntary grants out of 
 divisible revenue by the persons entitled to share it. Much may 
 be said, and with force, against subsidizing undergraduate educa- 
 tion either by tutorial Fellowships or by grants in aid — or even, 
 though here some considerations of another order come in, by 
 endowed Professorships or Readerships. And it would certainly 
 be a misapplication of College (or of University) funds to employ 
 them in providing a mainly gratuitous education, indiscriminately, 
 for a crowd of young men whose parents are generally able to 
 pay for the teaching they want. The Commissioners have not 
 done this, but they have gone quite as far in this direction as 
 they justifiably could. They have had to deal with an endowed 
 University and endowed Colleges, the funds of which have 
 hitherto gone in some measure to provide for students, poor and 
 rich alike, better teaching than their payments alone would have
 
 A Letter. 35 
 
 procured for them ; and this application of money will not be 
 prohibited, though it will be confined within limits, by the new 
 Statutes. The published accounts of the Colleges will show 
 exactly and in detail what the tuition funds amount to, from what 
 sources they are derived, and in what ways they are spent. 
 
 From what has been said it will be observed that the Statutes, 
 whilst they leave it in the power of every College to make a 
 certain provision for the teaching of undergraduates, leave the 
 College at the same time free to determine for itself to what 
 extent the power shall be used. As a general rule (the excep- 
 tions are very few), there is a fixed maximiLnt, but there is no 
 fixed minimum^ number of tutorial or official Fellowships. 
 
 It will be observed further that every College is empowered 
 to associate itself with maturer work in literature or science, by 
 bestowing Fellowships on actual students, subject to conditions 
 to be determined by itself, or on members of the Professoriate, or 
 (under a clause to be presently mentioned) by appropriations out 
 of any surplus revenue ; and that, at most Colleges, one or more 
 of the Professors will necessarily form part of the society, and 
 have a voice in the governing body. ^ 
 
 In the Statutes of every College there are clauses intended 
 to secure the residence within the College walls of some of the 
 Fellows engaged in College work, and clauses also authorizing 
 the formation of a pension fund. This is a power which the 
 Commissioners have not thought it right to refuse, though 
 sensible that it is neither unattended by difficulties nor free from 
 objection. They have endeavoured only to secure that, when 
 provision for this purpose is made, it shall not be illusory, shall 
 be moderate in amount, and administered on equitable principles. 
 
 By the earlier College Statutes the Fellows were, as a rule, 
 required to enter into Holy Orders within a fixed clerical 
 period, as a condition of retaining their Fellowships. Fellowships. 
 At a few Colleges this rule had never existed, or had ceased to 
 exist. By the Ordinances made by the Commissioners appointed 
 in 1854 this state of things was greatly modified. In each College 
 a specified number or proportion only of the Fellows were re- 
 quired to be clergymen. At two (Exeter and Lincoln) the time 
 for which the taking of Orders might be deferred was long — 
 fifteen years in the former case and ten in the latter. At All
 
 36 A Letter, 
 
 Souls, Merton, New College, and Wadham there were no clerical 
 restrictions. The number of " clerical " Fellowships in thirteen 
 Colleges, not including Lincoln and Exeter, may with tolerable 
 accuracy be reckoned at a hundred and ten, or thereabouts. 
 
 In regard to this matter the Act contains the following clause 
 — a clause involved in construction and not wholly unambiguous 
 in meaning : — 
 
 " 59. The Commissioners, in statutes made by them, shall make provision, as far 
 as may appear to them requisite, for the due fulfilment of the requisitions of sects. 5 
 and 6 of the Universities Tests Act, 1871 (relating to religious instruction and to 
 morning and evening prayer in Colleges) ; but, except for that purpose, they shall 
 not, by a statute made by them, endow wholly or in part an office of an ecclesiastical 
 or theological character by means of any portion of the revenues or private property 
 of the University or a College not forming, when the statute comes into operation, 
 the endowment, or part of the endowment, of an office of that character, and in any 
 statute made by them, shall not make directly or indirectly through the consolidation 
 or combination of any office or emolument with any other office or emolument, 
 whether in the University or in a College or Hall, the entering into Holy Orders or 
 the taking of any test a condition of the holding of any office or emolument existing 
 at the passing of this Act to which that condition is not at the passing of this Act 
 attached." 
 
 The sections of the Test Act here referred to enact that Morning 
 and Evening Prayer according to the Prayer-Book, or an 
 authorized abridgment or adaptation, shall continue to be used 
 daily in College Chapels, and that the governing body of every 
 College shall " provide sufficient religious instruction for all 
 members thereof in statu pupillari belonging to the Established 
 Church." This Act is expressly protected from repeal by the 
 Act of 1877. 
 
 It was under these Acts the duty of the Commissioners to 
 make provision, " so far as might appear to them requisite," for 
 religious instruction in the Colleges and for the regular perform- 
 ance of Divine Service. In other words, it was their duty to 
 consider deliberately what provision, if any, ought to be made 
 for these purposes ; that some provision should be made being 
 apparently the intention — certainly in the contemplation — of 
 Parliament. The precise scope and extent of the words 
 " religious instruction " have not been defined by Parliament ; 
 that they mean religious teaching proper for members of the 
 Church of England as such, it is hardly necessary to say. The 
 Commissioners have not attempted to supply a definition. But 
 they have deemed it desirable in general that the religious and
 
 A Letter. 37 
 
 theological teaching to be given in Colleges should not be 
 entrusted to a mere paid lecturer, but undertaken, where this 
 is possible, by a member or members of the College, and that 
 the same practice should be followed in respect of the Chapel 
 services, the conduct of which involves, or ought to involve, 
 something more than the bare reading of daily prayers. The 
 reasons for this will be readily understood by any one familiar 
 with College life. To make it a matter of imperative statutory 
 regulation would, however, involve serious difficulties of detail, 
 and probably would be impracticable. The Commissioners have 
 endeavoured in each College to make some provision for these 
 purposes, but have not thought it necessary to insist that this 
 provision should be everywhere uniform. They have not, on 
 the other hand, deemed it right to retain provisions requiring 
 that a certain number or proportion of the Fellows shall be 
 clergymen. Experience has not been, on the whole, favourable 
 to such provisions, even when considered as means for the attain- 
 ment of the end which they may be supposed to contemplate. 
 Where the taking of Holy Orders is in future to be a qualifica- 
 tion for obtaining or holding a Fellowship, this qualification will 
 be explicitly connected with a specific purpose — that of pro- 
 viding for the performance of the Chapel services and for 
 religious teaching — and will be coupled with another qualifica- 
 tion, that of fitness and willingness to undertake these duties, 
 and in particular the latter of them. And the Commissioners 
 have consequently acted on the principle that the restriction on 
 free choice which the qualification of Holy Orders imports should 
 be extended no further than the purpose itself may for each 
 College reasonably be deemed to require. There will be no 
 " clerical " fellowships at Colleges where none existed before, 
 or where the obligation to take Orders was deferred for a long 
 period. The " Chaplain " Fellowship at Exeter College is 
 retained ; but the right of electing to it is transferred from the 
 Dean and Chapter of Exeter to the College. Whilst it is 
 probable that of the residents at the University employed in 
 academical work a considerable number will be clergymen, this, 
 so far as it is the case, will not be the direct result of statutory 
 restrictions, but will be due to the operation of causes always 
 likely to be powerful in an English University. And whilst
 
 38 A Letter. 
 
 there are provisions in the Statutes which will, if they effect 
 their purpose, encourage and assist the pursuit of theological 
 study, the advantage is one which this study will share in 
 common with the others recognized in the University. 
 
 Headsliips. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 College Headships have hitherto been confined to clergymen, 
 except at All Souls and Merton — unless Magdalen 
 be also an exception, which is not historically certain. 
 The restriction could seldom be practically inconvenient when the 
 other members of the society were required to take Orders, and 
 when the University offices tenable by laymen were few. These 
 offices have during the last twenty years largely increased in 
 number and importance. The number of laymen resident in 
 Oxford and employed as lecturers or in other College employ- 
 ments has also increased largely. 
 
 The office of Head of a College is an important and useful 
 one in relation both to the College and to the University. But 
 its importance and usefulness depend largely on the qualifications 
 of the holder of it, on the estimation he enjoys, and the influence 
 he possesses. It is on this account desirable that the choice of 
 the electors should, as far as possible consistently with the in- 
 terests of the College, be free and known to be free. To confine 
 the selection to clergymen is to circumscribe the field of choice 
 within comparatively narrow limits. And it must frequently 
 happen — still more frequently it will be supposed to have 
 happened — that the person elected is not the person most fit for 
 election in the judgment of the electors or a majority of them. 
 It is a further consideration that by maintaining such a restriction 
 the Headships of Colleges, which are positions of emolument 
 and distinction and of comparative leisure, would be placed out 
 of the reach of many, probably a large proportion, of the men 
 who had attained the highest eminence in learning or science, or 
 had rendered the most conspicuous services to University 
 education. It is to be expected, then, that a restriction of this 
 kind, were it to be enforced by College Statutes, would be borne
 
 A Letter. 39 
 
 impatiently by the Colleges and by the University, and would 
 prove hereafter a continual source of discontent. It would 
 certainly detract in some measure from the estimation and 
 influence of the office of Head of a College, and would probably 
 tend to make the perpetuation of it more precarious. For these 
 reasons the Commissioners, not without careful consideration nor 
 without some difference of opinion, have formed the conclusion 
 that the restriction ought to be removed. If, when vacancies 
 hereafter occur, the electors, or a majority of them, think it for 
 the advantage of the College that the Headship should be filled 
 by a clergyman, the Statutes, as framed, will leave them free to 
 act on that opinion. If they think otherwise, and are also 
 satisfied that the fittest person is one who does not happen to be 
 in Holy Orders, they will be equally free to choose that person. 
 This conclusion has been adopted in the case of every College, 
 except Christ Church and Pembroke. To Christ Church the 
 constitution of the House makes it inapplicable ; and to 
 Pembroke it could not be applied without occasioning a serious 
 pecuniary loss to that scantily endowed College. 
 
 The Commissioners have not thought it well to assign to 
 Heads of Colleges, as such, any specific duty in the management 
 of the College estates or the keeping of the accounts, or any 
 specific share in tuition. A Head of a College who is a man of 
 capacity and judgment will always have influence and scope for 
 activity within and without his College. At Exeter, where the 
 Rector has hitherto been charged with some bursarial work, 
 they have recognized the custom pursuant to the desire of the 
 College. They have contemplated everywhere the possibility 
 that a College Headship may be held in conjunction with a 
 Professorship, and have made provision for it. And they have 
 substituted for provisions under which a Head becoming 
 incapable may be represented permanently by a deputy — an 
 arrangement which has grave inconveniences — a provision under 
 which he retires from the office altogether.
 
 40 A Letter, 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Commissioners have not seen any good reason to doubt 
 Scholar- that the system, long established at Oxford, under 
 
 ships. which the College Scholarships are open to candi- 
 dates who have not yet matriculated, as well as to those who 
 are in residence, within a specified limit of age, may with 
 advantage be retained. This system affords assistance at the 
 University to young men whose circumstances make it useful 
 to them, and who have proved themselves qualified to turn 
 it to good account ; it gives them a certainty of such assist- 
 ance without compelling them to incur beforehand the expense 
 of entering into residence ; and it offers a powerful incentive 
 to industry at school. Scholarships, to serve these purposes, 
 should be of substantial value, not merely distinctions coupled 
 with a small pecuniary reward. Many a man can look back 
 to the pleasure he felt as a boy, when for the first time he 
 gained by his own exertions what he knew to be a help, not 
 only to himself, but to his family, and can, on recollection, 
 convince himself that the success was a healthy stimulant, 
 strengthening the mental fibre. Assistance bestowed on the 
 score of poverty has not this effect. There is nothing to be 
 ashamed of in receiving it, and there will always be a great 
 number of cases in which it may usefully be given ; the Com- 
 missioners, therefore, have authorized at every, or almost every, 
 College the establishment out of corporate revenue of an Exhibi- 
 tion Fund, which will be available for this purpose. But aid 
 given on this score should be kept distinct from the rewards of 
 success in competition ; it should be given in clear cases only, 
 and of necessity, therefore, somewhat sparingly : anything like 
 a general offer of it becomes an invitation of which the greatest 
 advantage is apt to be taken, not by those parents who have the 
 greater need, but by those whose feelings are less nice, or their 
 consciences less scrupulous. 
 
 The amount annually bestowed in Scholarships and Exhibi- 
 tions at the nineteen Colleges for which new Statutes are made 
 may be reckoned (including Trust funds) at over ^40,000. This is
 
 A Letter. 41 
 
 exclusive of the i^3500 a year (or thereabouts) devoted to Scholar- 
 ships at Hertford, of the Scholarships at Keble, which may 
 amount to ;^iooo a year or somewhat more, of the Dyke founda- 
 tion, and some other endowments. The total number of under- 
 graduates on the books of these nineteen Colleges in 1880 was 
 2093. The distribution of emoluments among the Colleges is, of 
 course, very unequal, and many of them are confined to particular 
 schools or places. 
 
 It was formerly said, and by some, perhaps, would be said 
 now, that Scholarships can hardly be increased too much in 
 number or value. Some, on the contrary, think that there ought 
 to be no Scholarships at all, attainable at entrance into the 
 University — or, at any rate, very few of them. This opinion is 
 held at Cambridge by many eminent persons. It has not met 
 with much acceptance at Oxford, still less from schoolmasters 
 throughout the country. 
 
 It is again an opinion prevalent in some quarters that Scholar- 
 ships are mostly gained by boys whose parents have been able 
 to educate them expensively at expensive schools, and that they 
 do not give assistance to those who are in need of it. Persons 
 who believe this to be the case would make the need of assist- 
 ance a necessary qualification, if not for getting a scholarship, 
 for gaining with the scholarship any substantial emolument, or 
 else would make it a ground of preference. This opinion is not 
 supported by the observation and experience of persons well 
 qualified to judge. Nor, as regards the character of the schools 
 from which the candidates for scholarships are drawn, does it 
 appear to be founded in fact. It would be easy in any year to 
 make out a list of some fifty or more schools of different classes, 
 many of them large grammar-schools, which have sent up to 
 Oxford successful candidates for Scholarships. And of the suc- 
 cessful candidates there are many whose parents could not have 
 sent them to the University without help, and many more who 
 could have been sent only at the cost of difficulty and privation. 
 
 It is, at the same time, expedient that Scholarships open to 
 general competition should not exceed a fixed maximum value, 
 experience having shown both that the Colleges are tempted to 
 raise against one another the value of the Scholarships they offer, 
 and that this has a tendency to foster habits of expense. The
 
 42 A Letter. 
 
 Commissioners have assumed that it is well to fix this maximum 
 with reference to the circumstances, not of very poor men, but of 
 the class, taken as a whole, to whom assistance is likely to be 
 useful ; and they have not dissented from the view, widely enter- 
 tained at Oxford, that it may fairly be taken at £%o inclusive of 
 allowances, if any. From ^80 to £(^0 may be taken as the 
 lowest amount for which an undergraduate living in College can 
 be supplied by the College with lodging, board, and tuition. 
 
 The ordinary tenure of a Scholarship should be for a term 
 long enough to cover the ordinary course of study for the first 
 degree, but with power to the College to grant a limited exten- 
 sion. It is at the same time important that the Scholar's tenure 
 should be dependent on his continued industry and good con- 
 duct, and that this should be distinctly known to him. The 
 Commissioners have not, considering the frequency of the regular 
 examinations at Oxford, thought it well to require, as the test 
 of sustained industry, an additional intermediate examination ; 
 but they have required in all cases an express resolution of the 
 College in the Scholar's favour at the end of the first two years 
 of his term, in default of which he ceases to be a Scholar. 
 
 Under the existing Ordinances a Scholarship cannot, as a 
 rule, be gained after the attainment of the age of twenty. Under 
 the new Statutes the limit will be nineteen or a little later — an 
 age at which the training of a schoolboy at school ought to have 
 done its work, and University residence, the close of which in this 
 country is commonly deferred too long, should begin. 
 
 A certain number of Scholarships will at several Colleges be 
 assigned to Mathematics and Natural Science, and a few to 
 Modern Languages and Modern History. There will ultimately 
 be, at the least, four or five examinations in every year for 
 Scholarships in Natural Science. At Wadham there will be two 
 Hebrew Scholarships attainable by candidates not more than 
 twenty years old. At three or four Colleges there will be some 
 emoluments greater in amount than Scholarships but less than 
 Fellowships, and tenable for short terms by persons pursuing 
 some specific branch of study, or preparing for entering upon the 
 practice of a: profession. The whole number of these is not large. 
 At Magdalen there may be eight of such emoluments, called 
 Senior Demyships, and tenable for a period not exceeding four
 
 A Letter. 43 
 
 years, with a stipend of i^ 100 a year. Any member of the 
 University may be elected who has passed the examinations 
 required for the B.A. degree, and satisfies the electors that he 
 intends to enter upon some course of study with a view to taking 
 Holy Orders, or following the profession of Law, Medicine, or 
 Civil Engineering, or to engage in some definite literary or 
 scientific employment, and that he may have difhculty in doing 
 so without assistance. Candidates may be elected with or 
 without examination, but in the latter case, only if they 
 have attained First Class honours in one at least of the public 
 Examinations. 
 
 X. 
 
 The general revenue ceasing to be divisible among the Head 
 and Fellows, it becomes necessary to regulate the surplus 
 application of it, and provide for the disposal of any revenue, 
 ultimate surplus. This may, at the discretion of the College, 
 be applied to any purposes relative to the College and not in- 
 consistent with the Statutes, or to purposes relative to the 
 University and conducive to the advancement of learning, 
 science, or education. But the discretion thus given to the 
 College is subject to some limitations in respect of particular 
 College purposes, and it is subject to a power given to the 
 Visitor to order that any part of the surplus shall be applied to 
 purposes relative either to the College or to the University, 
 according to a scheme submitted, or to be submitted, for his 
 approval by the College. After such order, the revenue to 
 which it relates cannot be dealt with by the College unless 
 under a scheme. Any scheme submitted to the Visitor must, 
 before it is confirmed, be communicated to the Vice-Chancellor 
 for the information of the Hebdomadal Council ; and any re- 
 presentation they may judge it expedient for the interests of 
 the University to make, must receive the consideration of the 
 Visitor.
 
 44 ^ Letter. 
 
 XL 
 
 Of the four Halls three have been " completely united " to 
 Colleges (sect. 22 of the Act) ; the fourth, St. Edmund 
 Hall, which has always been connected with Queen's 
 College, has been " partially united " to it. This has been done 
 on the application of the Colleges concerned and of the Hebdo- 
 madal Council, with the consent of the Chancellor of the 
 University. The Halls have not been useless, but neither have 
 they at all times been useful ; and their raison d'etre has been 
 impaired by the admission of " unattached " students. They 
 are unendowed and unincorporated, and are under the sole 
 government respectively of a Principal deriving his income from 
 the profits earned by receiving undergraduates ; and there 
 appear to be no means of giving them any more solid consti- 
 tution. The Commissioners, in these circumstances, did not see 
 sufficient reason to insist on the preservation of them as 
 separate institutions. But they deemed it right that in each 
 case the College accepting the union should undertake something 
 in the way of assistance to poor and deserving students. St. 
 Edmund Hall will continue to exist, in more intimate connection 
 than heretofore with Queen's. 
 
 In this Letter, already too long, I have passed by a great 
 number of details, many of them important, and have 
 said little of provisions which are confined to single 
 Colleges, and of the diversities of form or substance which 
 may be discovered among the various College codes. Unless 
 where the same provision was at different Colleges clearly 
 recommended by the same reasons, or where justice or ex- 
 pediency appeared to require that regulations applied to some 
 should be applied uniformly to all, the Commissioners have not 
 insisted on uniformity, and have been willing to pay attention 
 to the judgment and the wishes of the College themselves as 
 to the Statutes suitable to them. 
 
 In the changes which have been described something will
 
 A Letter. ^c 
 
 certainly be lost. In all changes of institutions, as in all social 
 changes, something perishes that one would willingly preserve. 
 But, to strike a just balance, we must not only reckon the gain 
 against the loss, but make due allowance for those things which 
 we part with only because to keep them longer has ceased to be 
 in our power. 
 
 I am, dear Mr. Gladstone, 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 MOUNTAGUE BERNARD. 
 
 2']th February^ 1882.
 
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