John's College, Cambridge

“ John's College, Cambridge, born in London on 27 May 1840, was son of William Taylor, tea-dealer, by Catherine his wife. The family had formerly been settled near Woburn in Bedfordshire. His grandfather, a man of energy and foresight, had come to London, where he acquired considerable property in Regent Street, then in course of construction. He is said to have been the first job-master in London. ”

“ John's College, Cambridge, and in 1839 was elected a scholar, graduating B.A. as third wrangler in 1840 and M.A. in 1843. He was incorporated M.A. at Oxford on 28 May 1856. In 1840 he was elected a fellow and tutor of St. John's College. Among his pupils was the astronomer, John Couch Adams. ”

“ John's College, Cambridge, 13 June 1678, died in Cambridge on 14 Aug. 1680, and was buried in All Saints' Church. John, the third son, born at Kirkby Wiske, was educated at Northallerton and Christ's College, Cambridge (admitted 30 June 1682) , and graduated B.A. in 1685. Luke, his father's executor, Charles, and Katherine were mentioned in Meriton's will, made 26 Sept. 1701 and proved 15 March 1711. His wife survived him. ”

“ Milton, whose life is very largely bound up with Cambridge, brings us to another critical point in University history. It is difficult to estimate the attitude of Cambridge as a whole to the Civil Wars. Oxford remained faithful to the King, but, while Cambridge possessed no college so unanimously loyal as St John’s at Oxford, there were one or two colleges, such as Sidney and Emmanuel, whose sympathies were undeniably Puritan. An University cannot help a certain amount of conservatism, and Cambridge sacrificed a great deal in the Stewart cause. ”

“ Pitt and the two girls spent the remainder of the evening in talking over plans for the next day, but John’s thoughts had been turned to college, and so he and Philip had a lively time comparing notes about English and American colleges.
“Where do you mean to go, Philip?” John inquired.
“Oh, to Cambridge, of course! My father, his father, and all my family for generations back have been to Trinity College, Cambridge. That’s the largest college in England, and was founded by Henry VIII. Oh, it’s jolly there! There are old quadrangles around which the men live ”

“ John Dee was born July 13, 1527, in London. His parents were in good circumstances. At an early age (fifteen years) he studied at St John's College, Cambridge. His application was intense. For three years, by his own account, he only slept four hours every night. Two hours were allowed for meals and recreation, and the rest was spent in learning and devotion. Five years afterwards he went into the Low Countries, for the purpose of conversing with Frisius, Mercator, and others. Returning to Cambridge, he was chosen a fellow of Trinity College, then founded by Henry the Eighth. ”

“ This was in the year 1284, and marks the foundation of Peterhouse as the earliest of Cambridge colleges. The Hospital of S. John, thus freed from the scholarly element, went quietly on its career, to become, as we shall see later, the nucleus of the great foundation of S. John’s College. It may have been a disappointment to Bishop Hugh that he had not been able to fuse together the two dissimilar elements—“the scholars too wise, and the brethren possibly over-good”—in one corporation. ”

“ John's College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1723, and was soon afterwards elected fellow of Christ's College, where he proceeded M.A. in 1727. He was always an earnest student. At Cambridge his chief friends were Dr. ”

“ There is something very ugly in the possibility of a young man's coming to Cambridge, and while here sleeping and studying alone in a cheerless lodging, eating alone in a dismal restaurant, feeling himself unknown, and so alone in his lectures, his chapel, and his recreations, and not even having the privilege of seeing his administrative officers, who know most of his record, without having to explain to them at each visit who he is and what he is, before they can be made to remember that he is a living, hoping, or despairing part of Harvard College. ”

“ No other college unfolds its architectural history in so leisurely a way as St John’s. We pass from the first to the second court, from 1520 to 1598. In the latter year, Ralph Symons, who was supplying Dr Nevile at Trinity with designs, began to build this beautiful quadrangle. Mary Cavendish, Countess of Shrewsbury, is the benefactress to whom the college is indebted, and her statue occupies the niche over the gate-tower between this and the third court. ”

“ The Hospital had the opportunity of becoming the earliest College in Cambridge. Hugo de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, obtained in 1280 a licence from King Edward I. to introduce a certain number of scholars of the University into the Hospital, to be governed according to the rules of the scholars of Merton. The regular canons and the scholars were to form one body and one College. The Bishop gave additional endowments to provide for the scholars, but the scheme was a failure. Thomas Baker, the historian of the College, suggests that "the scholars were overwise and the brethren over good." ”

“ Illa polit mentes; et polit illa genas.
THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ.
The men of St. John’s College, Cambridge, like every other society in both Oxford and Cambridge, have their soubriquet. From what cause they obtained that of “Johnian Hogs” is yet scarcely settled, though much has been written thereon, extant in The Gradus ad Cant., Facetiæ Cant., and The Cambridge Tart. ”

“ But with the great extension of the University curriculum, by the addition of a host of literary and scientific subjects to the Mathematics which had previously been the sole avenue to a Degree, there has come as marked an increase in the number of students, and the old College classification has broken down. Trinity, indeed, remains at the top, even more than ever, having almost doubled its overwhelming numbers; but St. John's has been caught up and overpassed by several of the once "small" Colleges, amongst them by Pembroke. And yet, in the year 1858, Pembroke had only one solitary freshman ”

“ The colours of the College, white and black, are thus of wide renown. They are derived from the College Shield, which in heraldic language is sable a crescent ermines with a bordure ermines. Visitors who approach Cambridge by the London road see this device upon the milestones near the town, which were set up by the College in the eighteenth century, and were the first milestones erected in Britain since the days of the Roman occupation.
The Library here (which is open to visitors from noon to 1 P.M. in Full Term) is the best example left us of what (p. 83) libraries were of old in Cambridge. ”

“ So also were many of the preachers who kindled and sustained the ardour of the Roundheads through the stress of the Civil War. Even after the Restoration the College retained the impress of its Founder's hope. When, in 1664, the Duke of Monmouth visited Cambridge, a satirical guide to the University, written in doggerel Latin verse for his benefit, sneers at the strict moral tone of Emmanuel: "You may well perceive that they are all Puritans here." ”

“ In early days the College was filled with men saturated with the spirit of the Renaissance; casting aside the studies of the Middle Ages, they returned to the literature of Greece and Rome. The ideals of the present day are not less high, but more complex and less easy to state briefly; the aim is perhaps rather to add to knowledge than to acquire it for its own sake alone.
For the first half of the century College life was still regulated by the statutes of Elizabeth. ”

“ John.
Towards the end of the fifteenth, or beginning of the sixteenth century, the old house seems to have fallen into bad ways. The brethren were accused of having squandered its belongings, of having granted improvident leases, of having even sold the holy vessels of their Chapel.
At this juncture the Lady Margaret came to the rescue. She had already founded Christ's College in Cambridge, and intended to still further endow the wealthy Abbey of Westminster. ”

“ You are doubly rewarded, for not merely is Cambridge a perfect specimen of a colonial village, but in Harvard there breathes the true spirit of humane letters. Nor is the college a creation of yesterday. It is not far short of three centuries ago that John Harvard, once of Emmanuel College in England, endowed the university which bears his honoured name. The bequest was a poor £780, with 260 books, but it was sufficient to ensure an amiable immortality, and to bestow a just cause of pride upon the mother-college. ”

“ John's College. The college was conspicuous for its attachment to the new doctrines of the reformation, and on the accession of Queen Mary, Cartwright, in common with most of those who refused to revert to catholicism, was compelled to quit the university. He obtained employment as a clerk to a counsellor-at-law, an experience which he is said to have subsequently turned to account, owing to the skill in dialectical fence which he acquired from his study of the common law. On the death of Queen Mary, the reformers returned to Cambridge in triumph. ”

“ John's College, "in which house once I tooke up my inne for seven yere together lacking a quarter, and yet love it still, for it is and ever was, the sweetest nurse of knowledge in all that university." [255] "Saint Johns in Cambridge," says he at another place, "at that time was an universitie within it selfe ... having, as I have hearde grave men of credite report, more candles light in it everie winter morning before foure of the clocke than the foure of clocke bell gave stroakes." [256] Like Greene and Sidney, he [296] imbibed early a passionate taste for literature ”

“ At the present time there is no difference in status among members of the College; the foundation scholars, however, having special seats in Chapel and a separate table in Hall if they choose to make use of it.
Until 1882 the condition of celibacy attached to all fellowships in the College; Queen Elizabeth held strong views on the matter, even discouraging the marriage of Masters. The necessity of taking orders was somewhat relaxed in 1860. The system had its advantages—it tended to produce promotion; for the natural inclination of mankind to marry, vacated fellowships ”

“ A man got little or no instruction outside his own college; the University examined him and gave him his degree—that was all.
[Pg 143]
The real rulers of the University were the Masters of the colleges. Most of them were highly placed ecclesiastics, and, consequently, had frequently to be absent from Cambridge; but as the “Heads” might marry, and fellows had to resign their position on taking a wife, they constituted a permanent element, and became all-powerful. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lord Keeper Williams, who gave [Pg 90] to the College the advowsons of Soulderne in Oxfordshire, Freshwater in the Isle of Wight, and the sinecure rectories of St. Florence and Aberdaron in Wales, made it part of the conditions of his gift that the Master should always be entitled to take one of these livings if a vacancy occurred. Many of the Fellows also held benefices or curacies near Cambridge. In the eighteenth century the business of holding ecclesiastical preferment in plurality became almost a fine art ”

“ Next we have the book-plates of five Cambridge Colleges,—Jesus, Pembroke, Queens', St. John's, and Trinity Hall; all bear the same engraved date—1700. These, and many like them dated in subsequent years, are no doubt the work of one man: the design consists of an escutcheon, on which are the College arms, set in a finely-drawn, scale-patterned frame, bedecked with hawk-bells, [58] ribbons, wreaths, and sprays of flowers. Other College plates—except that of New College, Oxford, which is 'Simple Armorial' in its style—are Jacobean.
In 1701 comes the book-plate of Dame Anna Margaretta Mason. ”

“ John Williams, then a Fellow, afterwards Lord Keeper, Dean of Westminster, Bishop of Lincoln, and Archbishop of York, exerting himself on Gwyn's behalf. It appears that Williams in after years repented of the choice, and Thomas Baker, the historian of the College, speaks slightingly of Gwyn. Still, under his rule the College flourished, and Williams himself marked the period by providing the greater part of the funds for the new Library.
King James I. and Prince Charles (afterwards Charles I.) frequently visited the University; James holding his Court at Trinity, but being entertained at St. ”

“ In 1832, when Hare left Cambridge, his friend succeeded him as assistant tutor, to give classical lectures to the undergraduates on Whewell’s ‘side.’ For a time all went well. His lectures were exceedingly popular with those capable of appreciating them, as was shown by the large attendance not only of undergraduates, but of the best scholars in the college, men who had already taken their degrees, and who were working for the Fellowship Examination or for private improvement. ”