Jesus College, Cambridge

“ On 5 June 1783 he was elected F.R.S. (Thomson, Hist. Royal Society, App. p. lix) , and on 14 May 1784 was admitted sizar of Jesus College, Cambridge, but neither resided nor graduated (note from Mr. E. Abbott of Jesus College) . ”

“ It was removed when Whewell’s Court was built, and Mr G. F. Bodley erected a handsome new church just opposite Jesus College. All Saints’ is, like St Clement’s, a Jesus living. This later building is the best of modern Cambridge churches. Its spire is very good, and the east window is a curious experiment by the late Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Mr William Morris. The present Dean of Lichfield, who is a Jesus man, has also enriched the church with a charming little window by Mr Kempe. ”

“ He entered as a pensioner at Jesus College, Cambridge, on 9 March 1753, and graduated B.A. in 1757, M.A. in 1760. On 3 Nov. 1759 he was admitted fellow of his college. His mind was early influenced by the theological writings of Samuel Clarke (1675–1729) [q. v.] , but he went much further, renounced the doctrine of the Anglican articles, and took part with John Jebb [q. v.] in the movement (1771–2) for abolishing subscription at graduation. ”

“ For the fact that Jesus College, Rotherham, should consist of ten persons—a provost, six choristers, and three masters—who can teach respectively grammar, music, and writing, the Archbishop gave the fanciful reason, that as he, its founder, had offended God in His ten commandments, so he desired the benefit of the prayers of ten persons on his behalf. Alcock’s motive for fixing the number of his new Society of Jesus at Cambridge at thirteen seems to have been no less characteristic. ”

“ He made bequests to King's College, Cambridge, established a fellowship at Jesus College, and was also a liberal benefactor to both the universities and to the abbey of Waltham.
He founded three public lectures, viz. in humanity, logic, and philosophy, to be read in the common schools of the university of Cambridge for ever. ”

“ I am the Dean of Jesus College, Cambridge, and I say that I shall take pictures here!"
"Sir," retorted the little man, while he gave the camera a kick and sent it flying, "I am the Dean of Christchurch, Oxford, and I say that you shall not take pictures here!"
••••
Undergraduates, unripe though their judgment of men and things may be, are very quick in estimating the worth and the will of those set above them. The schoolmaster don is particularly abhorrent to them. They resent grandmotherly legislation but will repay confidence generously. ”

“ He was educated at Westminster School, and the University of Glasgow, whence he subsequently removed to Clare Hall, Cambridge, and in 1776 he took the degree of bachelor of divinity at that University. Having given offence by declaring some Whiggish principles in a sermon, which destroyed all his prospects of promotion, and fearing some obstacles when he proceeded to his doctor’s degree, he removed to Jesus College, Oxford, where he took it in 1794. He was presented to the living of Narberth and Lanpeter. ”

“ He was also engaged in 1693 to keep in order the organ in Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge, at a yearly salary of £3.
[13] Heads of Colleges have the right of impaling with their own arms the arms of the College of which they are the head in the same way as a Bishop impales the arms of the See over which he presides. ”

“ Nearly all the original members of Trinity had been educated at Cambridge, they were familiar with its traditions, and even the buildings they occupied were associated with the college life of earlier times. It was intended that the Society should promote the reformed religion and the new learning, but there is no reason to suppose that in establishing it, it was wished or proposed to alter the existing practice about the tuition, guidance, and care of the younger students. ”

“ Oxford led the way with University and Merton; Cambridge followed with Peterhouse. The college, as distinct from the monastery, was a place of retreat whose aim was learning; the aim of the monastery was self-discipline. It is needless to say that these colleges were established upon a clerical basis: each was a society consisting of a master and a certain number of fellows. Their constitution was that of a public School; the modern undergraduate system was a much later development. The early founders had no idea of a college in the modern sense ”

“ He pointed out that the Abbey Church was already the wealthiest in England, “that the schools of learning were meanly endowed, the provisions of scholars very few and small, and colleges yet wanting to their maintenance—that by such foundations she might have two ends and designs at once, might double her charity and double her reward, by affording as well supports to learning as encouragement to virtue.”
The foundation of Christ’s College in 1505 is an enduring memorial of the wisdom of the Bishop and the charity of the Lady Margaret. ”

“ In June 1560, she gave statutes to the Collegiate Church at Westminster, and in statute 6, dealing with the forty scholars of the school, she directed that three scholars from the school should be elected annually to the foundation of Christ Church, Oxford, and three to that of Trinity College, Cambridge. ”

“ IN the centuries which preceded the rise of the Universities, the monks had been the great educators of England, and it is to monastic origins that we must first turn to find the beginnings of university and collegiate life at Cambridge.
In the library of Trinity College there is preserved a catalogue of the books which Augustine and his monks brought with them into England. “These are the foundation or the beginning of the library of the whole English Church, A.D. 601,” are the words with which this brief catalogue closes. ”

“ It has, in the chapel of King's College, a building of marvellous beauty; Oxford cannot match it, nor can it be matched anywhere in England save by that "miracle of the world," the Chapel of Henry VII., in Westminster Abbey. The roll of Cambridge's alumni is illustrious to a degree, having such names as Bacon, Erasmus, Newton, Milton, Cromwell, Macaulay, Byron, Thackeray, Tennyson, Wordsworth, Harvey (discoverer of the circulation of the blood) , Darwin, and many, many others equally well known.
Cambridge more Progressive than Oxford. ”

“ The characteristic peculiar to Cambridge and Oxford, and which distinguishes them not only from American but also from all other universities in England and elsewhere, is the college system. Thus Cambridge is a collection of eighteen colleges which, though nominally united to form one institution, are really distinct, inasmuch as each is a separate community with its own buildings and grounds, its own resident students, its own lecturers, and Fellows—a community which is supported by its own moneys without aid from the university exchequer, and which in most matters legislates for itself. ”

“ The academical authorities at Cambridge and Oxford stand in a parental relation to the student. They undertake, not merely to instruct him in philology, geometry, natural philosophy, but to form his religious opinions, and to watch over his morals. He is to be bred a Churchman. At Cambridge, he cannot graduate, at Oxford, I believe, he cannot matriculate, without declaring himself a Churchman. The College is a large family. An undergraduate is lodged either within the gates, or in some private house licensed and regulated by the academical authorities. ”

“ One of the prettiest spots in the whole University is the tiny medieval court on the north side of Corpus. You have only to turn your back on the ugly Hall, and look at three sides of a venerable, low quadrangle clothed with ivy and stained with age, and you can imagine yourself back in the days of the Edwards, when the pious members of the Cambridge benefit societies founded the college. Times have changed, and the court has been repaired fairly often ”

“ The first court of St John’s is almost as composite as the Great Court of Trinity, and the want of harmony between its parts is rather painfully evident. The chapel, however, is the only important extension of the original plan as carried out by the Lady Margaret’s executors, and the rest of the court survives with certain changes. The gateway of the college is one of the gate-towers so characteristic of Cambridge, and is perhaps the most beautiful of all. One of the great advantages of St John’s is that it is built of red brick, which, with time, has assumed a mellow appearance ”

“ It is a fine church, a good deal modernised, but containing sedilia in the chancel, which are not unlike those at St Edward’s. The stalls in the choir are very complete, and are very excellent examples of fifteenth-century woodwork. At the end of the south aisle is a picture of Charles I. which bears a very close resemblance to the famous frontispiece of the Eikon Basilike. When Henry VIII. amalgamated the numerous foundations in this quarter of the town, and founded Trinity College, this church, like Great St Mary’s, became college property, and the living is still in the gift of Trinity. ”

“ The reputation and the popularity of colleges of course wax and wane: for the past two years the largest number of entries (excluding Trinity) has been for Caius and Pembroke, Emmanuel coming next, and then S. John’s. [379] The number of non-collegiate students is steadily increasing.
Religion at Cambridge.
There are no ‘high Church’ centres among the colleges, and there is no ‘broad Church’ movement among the undergraduates. The ‘broad Church’ movement is among the younger dons{247} and in connexion with the University Settlement. ”

“ And now, for centuries, founding at Cambridge ends. Puritanism has set the world astir. The church, reformed as she prided herself to be, had her hands full to look after the already educated ones, and so no more founding of colleges for a long time was to be done; and we bridge over the chasm of 121 years, till, in 1717, Sir George Downing qualifiedly devised several valuable estates for the founding of a college within the precincts of the University ”

“ In this great foundation then the three characteristic features of a college are found—a common life, powers of self-government, with the right of choosing future members, and endowments that enable religion and learning to flourish, free from more pressing cares. It is these features which distinguish the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and which have determined their history. ”

“ Thomas of Eltisley, a village between Cambridge and St Neots, was the first master. Like most other colleges, its medieval history is not very extraordinary. Like most other colleges, too, its scholars “kept” their chapels in a parish church, the adjacent church of St Bene’t. College and church have always been closely connected, and even to-day, when the college has ceased to bear its familiar name of Bene’t College, the advowson of St Bene’t’s is in its gift. In process of time, it built the south chancel aisle, which it reserved for itself. ”

“ The Gild or Benefit Society was an important institution in medieval Cambridge, and each church had one attached to it. Somewhere towards the end of the thirteenth century, when the festival of Corpus Christi was become a recognised feast of the Church, a society of this kind was founded in the parish of St Bene’t, and took the title of Corpus Christi in honour of the Blessed Sacrament. What induced the corporation to found a college is unknown; its action is at all events a testimony to the love of learning which was spreading at this time among the middle classes. ”

“ And again: it is well to call attention to the fact, that every literary and scientific university in Christendom, where the ablest men in all intellectual culture do congregate, is mainly under the control of those who bow in cordial assent to Jesus of Nazareth as their Teacher and Lord.
The Universities of Cambridge and Oxford in England, of Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland, of Harvard and Yale in the United States, declare through their learned professors, with almost one united voice, that the salvation of humanity can come only through the religion of Jesus the Christ. ”

“ To experts well acquainted with both places the minute shades of difference are of extreme interest; but to the average visitor the places are as like as twin sisters. The very names of the Colleges are the same in no less than a third of the cases. If there is a Trinity at Cambridge there is also a Trinity at Oxford, if there is a Magdalen at Oxford there is a Magdalene at Cambridge; while St. John's, Jesus, Corpus Christi, and Pembroke are all in like manner duplicated. And, both at Oxford and Cambridge, Colleges are named from Queens ”

“ Major scholarships are open to undergraduates, not being of standing to take the degree of bachelor of arts, as well as to non-members of the university under nineteen years of age, while minor scholarships and exhibitions are open only to the latter. There are valuable exhibitions appropriated to certain schools, of which the most important are those confined to Westminster school. Trinity College is entered from Trinity Street by the King’s Gateway (1518-1535) preserved from King’s Hall, but subsequently altered. The principal or Great Court is the largest in Cambridge and very fine. ”

“ A new tuitional field would be open to the young graduate in the numerous schools of Cambridge and Oxford, but this would only accentuate the vicious circle of an education which might come to suggest the ecclesiastical seminary rather than the English university. Perhaps, too, a young man loses more than half the social and worldly advantages of a college life if when{249} ”

“ The accounts of the institution remain, and point to a style of living which would not be very highly accounted of now, but was positively luxurious for medieval Cambridge. The scholars attended chapel at St Mary’s by the Market and All Saints’ in the Jewry, until, in Edward IV.’s reign, they obtained leave to found a chapel for themselves. King’s Hall naturally became the nucleus of Henry’s college, and the lesser buildings found their centre in its court, enlarged and beautified. John Redman, the last master of King’s Hall, became the first master of Trinity College. ”