George C. Brodrick

“ When instruction in the sciences was only to be obtained from the lips of a living teacher, and when schools hardly existed elsewhere, except in connection with cathedrals or monasteries, the lecture rooms of Oxford were thronged with students of all ages, and represented almost the entire machinery of national education. When the Church ruled supreme over the wide realm of thought, and learning was the monopoly of ‘clerics,’ the great ecclesiastical stronghold of Oxford far surpassed the metropolis itself as an intellectual centre. ”

“ He may have been inferior to his own father in fiery rhetoric, to Peel in comprehensive grasp of domestic policy, and to Gladstone in the political experience gained by sixty years of political life, but in capacity for command he was inferior to none. If he was not an ideal war minister, he was not a war minister by his own choice; his lot was cast in times which suppressed the exercise of his best powers; and he was matched in the organisation of war, though not in the field, against the greatest organising genius known to history. ”

“ But few appreciated how seriously constitutional liberty had been curtailed by the growth of these abuses (unchecked by the Commonwealth) since the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, how effectually home and foreign policy was controlled by a small circle of noble families dominant in the lower as well as in the upper chamber, how vast a transfer of sovereignty from class to class would inevitably be wrought by a thorough reform bill, and how certainly men newly entrusted with power would use it for their own advantage, whether or not that should coincide with the advantage of the nation. ”

“ If we duly measure the distraction of energy which must have resulted from such perpetual disorders, and, far more, from the fierce religious animosities which long convulsed Oxford and plunged other countries into civil war—not forgetting the constant interruption of academical residence by plague—we shall be more disposed to marvel at the intrinsic vitality of the University than at the many shortcomings imputed to it, when the death of the great Queen ushered in a new and eventful period in its history. ”

“ He understood better than any man how to deal with the king, and overbore not only the king's own prejudices but the machinations of the Duke of Cumberland with masterly resolution. He set a good example in declining to regard himself as a mere party leader and in refusing to study the arts of popularity hunting, but he never grasped the principle that constitutional government ultimately rests on the will of the people. Still he was too good a general not to see when facts were too strong for him. ”

“ Universities sprang up one after another—in France, in Spain, in Italy, in Poland, in Hungary, in Austria, and in Germany; nor is it unduly rash to surmise that, if the invention of printing could have been anticipated by a century, the Renaissance and the Reformation itself might have preceded the capture of Constantinople and the discovery of America. ”

“ No doubt it was a passionate and defiant warning against any manipulation or dilution of the bill in a reactionary sense, but it was also a distinct protest against attempts by the extreme radicals to amend it in an opposite direction. Now, as ever, the impulse was given by the middle classes, and they were in no mood to imperil their own cause by revolutionary claims. They could not always succeed, however, in checking the fury of the populace, which had been taught to clamour for reform as the precursor of a good time coming for the suffering and toiling masses of mankind. ”

“ We cannot but acknowledge that Gibbon’s estimate of the University in the middle of the century is confirmed by an examination of University records. If we may judge by the statistics of matriculation, the nation at large had lost confidence in Oxford education, for the annual number of admissions, which had often exceeded 300 in the reigns of Anne and George I., never reached that modest total between 1726 and 1810, while it often fell below 200 about the end of George II.’s reign. It is equally certain that Oxford contributed far less than in former ages to politics or literature. ”

“ It was easy to pick such a compound scale to pieces, to uphold the claims of one venal borough against another equally venal, and even to reproach the government with inconsistency in relying on the census of 1831, instead of on that of 1821—a course which the opposition had specially urged upon them. But it was not so easy to combat the irresistible arguments in favour of the bill on its general merits, to ignore the reasonable concessions on points of detail which it embodied, or to explain away the patent fact that no measure less stringent would satisfy the people. ”

“ We may surmise with some confidence that in the infancy of the University its lecturers were almost exclusively clerks, but too often scholastic adventurers of mean attainments, whose lessons rose little above the barest elements of knowledge. But all theories of its rudimentary organisation are purely conjectural. ‘The Schools of Oxford’ first emerge into history in the next century, when they really attained a national celebrity, soon eclipsing those of Canterbury, Winchester, Peterborough, and others, which may have rivalled them in earlier times. ”

“ Canning was the most brilliant orator of his day, and no less persuasive in private conversation than in public orations, gifted with an agile brain that leaped readily from one idea or one project to another, but cursed with a bitter wit which lightly aroused enduring enmities, and which, coupled with an excessive vanity, rendered him unpopular with his colleagues, and made it difficult for any one to take him seriously ”

“ The introduction of representative government into the academical constitution has not only cleared away many abuses, but has at once popularised and centralised University administration. The recognition of Unattached Students has broken down the monopoly of colleges; the abolition of close fellowships has infused [Pg 221] new blood and new ideas into the more backward collegiate bodies; the spontaneous development of numerous clubs and associations—athletic, literary, or political—has created many new ties among undergraduates, and weakened the old exclusive spirit of college partisanship. ”

“ Whatever allowance may be made for the coercive policy of the government during the dark period of storm and stress which succeeded the great war, it is hard to find any excuse for its neglect of social legislation. Then, if ever, was a time when the work of Pitt's best days should have been resumed, when real popular grievances should have been redressed, and when the long arrears of progressive reform should have been gradually redeemed. Yet very little was done to better the lot of men, women, and children in Great Britain, and that little was chiefly initiated by individuals. ”

“ The first two of these—the professorships of geometry and astronomy—bear the name of their founder, Sir Henry Savile, warden of Merton College, who endowed them in 1619. In the quaint language of Anthony Wood: ‘Beholding the Mathematick Studies to be neglected by the generality of men, ’twas now his desire to recover them, least they should utterly sink into oblivion.’ These benefactions, and the growing wealth of colleges, helped to strengthen the University in the esteem of the upper classes, upon which it now depended for its supply of students. ”

“ Moderation in statesmanship does not always imply mediocrity of ability; and if Liverpool failed to see how many institutions needed radical amendment, he was not so blind as some of his more celebrated associates. Not only was he more liberal in his views than Eldon and Castlereagh, but he was less opposed to free trade than most of his cabinet, to parliamentary reform than Canning, and to catholic emancipation than Wellington or Peel. ”

“ We must remember that archery and other outdoor sports were then mostly in the nature of martial exercises reserved for the warlike classes, while music and the fine arts were all but unknown, and the sedentary labour of the student was relieved neither by the athletic nor by the æsthetic pastimes of our own more favoured age. Thus driven inward upon itself, the fire of intellectual ambition burned with a tenfold intensity, and it was tempered by no such humility as the infinite range of modern science imposes on the boldest of its disciples. ”

“ The British government, already engaged in the Peninsular war, had at last resolved to take a vigorous part in the new and desperate struggle between France and Austria in Southern Germany. The latent spirit of German nationality, [Pg 62] aroused by Napoleon's ruthless treatment of Prussia, and quickened into a flame by sympathy with the uprising in Spain, was embodied in the secret association of the Tugendbund; and Austria, smarting under a sense of her own humiliation, mustered up courage to assume the leadership of a national movement. ”