George C. Brodrick

“ Seldom in history, and never in the annals of the University, have characters so diverse been grouped together into so brilliant and picturesque a society as that which thronged the good city of Oxford during the Queen’s residence in the autumn and winter of 1643—the last happy interlude of her ill-starred life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Considering how largely the non-collegiate population of the University outnumbered these small collegiate bodies, it is a very significant fact that so many vice-chancellors and proctors should have been chosen from them in days when election to both these offices was entirely free. Such a fact goes far to prove that the ‘college monopoly,’ of which so much has been heard in later times, owed its origin, in a great degree, to natural selection in a genuine struggle for existence between endowed and unendowed societies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He laments the fourteen months which he spent at Magdalen College as the ‘most idle and unprofitable of his whole life.’ He declares that ‘in the University of Oxford, the greater part of the Public Professors have for these many years given up even the pretence of teaching.’ He testifies that, in his time, ‘the Fellows of Magdalen were decent easy men who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the Founder; their days were filled by a series of uniform employments: the chapel and the hall, the coffee-house and the common-room; till they retired, weary and well-satisfied, to a long slumber. ”

“ The close of the fifteenth century found the University of Oxford far more complete in its outward structure, if somewhat less vigorous in its inward life, than it had been two centuries earlier. It was no longer a loose aggregate of students under the paramount jurisdiction of a bishop resident at Lincoln, but an organised institution, with a government of its own, under the special protection of the Crown, and capable of being used as a powerful engine for effecting or resisting changes in Church or State. ”

“ In the meantime, a marked and widespread reformation has been wrought in the morals of the University, and notwithstanding the influx of a large plebeian element, the manners of undergraduates have become gentler as their tastes have become more refined. The ostentation of wealth has been visibly diminished, and, notwithstanding the increase of amusements, there is probably more of plain living and high thinking in modern Oxford than in the Oxford of Charles II. or Elizabeth. The University, it is true, has yet to harmonise many conflicting elements, which mar the symmetry of its constitution ”

“ Notwithstanding the paralysis of academical studies, grave dons and gay young students were still to be seen in the streets, but too often in no academical garb and affecting the airs of cavaliers, as they mingled with the ladies of the court in Christchurch walks and Trinity College gardens, or with roystering troopers in the guard-houses at Rewley, where they entertained their ruder comrades with flashes of academic wit. ”

“ Those who read for Honours generally read with a steadiness and singleness of purpose incompatible with much attention to any other pursuit. Various as these elements were, they were readily assimilated by the University, which seldom failed to leave a distinctive stamp upon one who had passed through it, and Oxford culture retained a peculiar flavour of its own. ”

“ If we seek to measure the effect produced by the rise of colleges on the character of the University, we must endeavour to realise the aspect of University life and manners before colleges were planted in Oxford. The students, as we have seen, were lodged in religious houses, licensed halls, or private chambers. The former were mostly destined to swell the ranks of the regular clergy, and, it may be presumed, were subjected to some wholesome rules of discipline, independent of any authority exercised by the University. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the founders of the earliest Oxford college were indebted for their inspiration to any foreign source, they must have derived it from the great French University in Paris, of which the collegiate system already formed a distinctive feature. Not to speak of still more ancient colleges at Paris, either attached to monasteries or serving the purpose of mere lodging-houses, the Sorbonne, founded about 1250, furnishes a striking precedent for its Oxford successors, as an academical cloister specially planned for the education of the secular clergy. ”

“ No wonder that Queen Mary’s patronage proved a poor substitute for academical freedom, that learning continued to decline, that even sermons were rare and ill-attended, that lectures were almost suspended, that few ‘proceeded’ in any of the faculties, and that it was thought necessary to reduce the qualification of standing for the M.A. degree in order to reinforce the University with Masters. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the ‘sciences,’ as they were then called, of physics, Roman law, and systematic theology, if not medicine, were now claiming a place in the curriculum of education; and valuable histories, in the form of chronicles, were compiled in several English monasteries. That age cannot be called intellectually barren which produced Lanfranc, Anselm, Abelard, Bernard, Peter the Lombard, Averroes, Gratian, and Maimonides. The University of Bologna, with its School of Law, opened by Irnerius under imperial patronage, was among the first fruits of this mediæval renaissance. ”

“ It was, indeed, the misfortune of the University that it was roused from the lethargy which oppressed it after the Catholic reaction, only to become the battle-ground of the Romanising and Puritan factions in the Anglican Church. While its highest dignitaries were mostly animated by intense party spirit rather than by zeal for education, its students fully shared in the genial laxity of manners, fostered by increasing luxury, which marked the Elizabethan age. Their numbers were increased, but the new recruits were drawn from a wealthier class ”

“ Effect of these reforms
Other salutary changes naturally grew out of this comprehensive reform, and far greater progress was made by the University during the thirty years immediately following it than in any previous century of its history. The impulse given to education reacted upon learning and research; Oxford science began once more to command the respect of Europe; the professoriate received an accession of illustrious names; and college tuition, instead of being the mere temporary vocation of fellows waiting for livings, gradually placed itself on the footing of a regular profession. ”

“ Mythical origin of the University The University of Oxford has long ceased to claim the fabulous antiquity for which its mediæval champions had contended, as for an article of faith, and which found credit with so conscientious an historian as Anthony Wood. It is now admitted that nothing is certainly known of its origin, and that its alleged foundation by Alfred the Great rests upon a tradition which cannot be traced back to a period beyond the fourteenth century. ”

“ The systematic teaching of theology was doubtless the main object of the lessons given in the old claustral schools, and the curriculum of secular education was as meagre in reality as it was imposing in profession. Yet even in these a true spirit of scholarship was kept alive, and the great teachers of the mendicant Orders were the leading exponents of the new Aristotelian philosophy, which inspired the subtlest intellects of the thirteenth century with the power of a revelation. ”

“ A very large proportion of professors and college tutors have travelled widely; many are well known in London as contributors to scientific and literary periodicals or otherwise; while Oxford itself is constantly thronged with visitors from the metropolis. In ceasing to be clerical and aristocratic, the University has become far more cosmopolitan; all religions are there mingled harmoniously, nor is it uncommon to meet in the streets young men of Oriental race and complexion wearing academical costume. ”

“ Character of the ‘Oxford Movement’ The great Neo-Catholic Revival of the nineteenth century is so intimately identified with Oxford that it came to be widely known as the ‘Oxford Movement.’ It was less important than Methodism in its purely moral aspect, since it was far less popular and practical, leaving no such profound impression upon the religious life of the nation. ”

“ No doubt the habits of Oxford ‘collegians’ fifty years ago would have compared favourably with those of their grandfathers, still more with those of the squalid but industrious students who begged their way to the University in the Middle Ages. ”

“ Even those who had graduated in Arts were required to study theology five years before their ‘opponency’ or degree-examination, while those who had not so graduated were compelled to go through a seven years’ course; and in either case two years more of probation were exacted before permission could be obtained to lecture on the ‘Sentences.’ Thus an Oxford career occupied far more of life in those days than in our own, and academical residence certainly extended over a greater part of each year. ”

“ The common herd of students, inmates of halls and inns and lodging-houses, were still crowded together in miserable sleeping-rooms and lecture-rooms, without domestic care or comfort, and strangers to all those frank and generous relations which naturally grow up between young Englishmen, especially of gentle birth, in the kindly intercourse of modern college life. ”

“ Women have been admitted to certain University examinations, but not to all, nor on the same terms as men; and the names of those who obtain honours are published in a class-list, but not the ordinary class-list. Religious equality has been established for most purposes, but not for all, and the Faculty of Theology maintains its exclusive connection not only with the Anglican Church but with the Anglican clergy. ”

“ While it fascinated many subtle and imaginative minds of a high order, and gathered into itself much of the spiritual and even of the intellectual life of the University, there were many robust intellects and earnest hearts which it not only failed to reach but stirred into hostility. If it would be easy to draw up an imposing list of eminent Oxford men who became Tractarians, [Pg 211] it would not be less easy to enumerate an equal number of equally eminent men who consistently opposed Tractarianism, and predicted that it must lead to Romanism. ”

“ It has been reserved for the present century to recognise the plain truth that we are entirely ignorant of the first stage in the growth of the University, and that its name is never mentioned in history before the Norman Conquest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The faculty of Arts, however, was but one of several, though it embraced the great majority of graduates, and maintained an undisputed supremacy. The ‘science’ of grammar always filled a subordinate position, and its requirements were less onerous, but in all the superior faculties of civil or canon law, medicine, and theology, the ordinary rule was to have graduated first in Arts, and afterwards to have responded, disputed, and determined in the studies of the faculty before incepting and receiving the final degree of Master or Doctor, then practically synonymous. ”

“ Whatever may have been the shortcomings of Oxford in the generation which preceded the Civil War, it certainly produced a number of men whose learning and piety might have adorned a happier and more peaceful age. Among the Heads of colleges who held office under Laud’s short chancellorship were John Prideaux, Sir Nathaniel Brent, Gilbert Sheldon, Brian Duppa, Samuel Fell, and Juxon, and while the headships of colleges were filled by such men as these, others not less eminent represented the University in other capacities. ”