Trinity College, Oxford

“ In the latter year he proceeded with a Pauline exhibition to Trinity College, Oxford, and, like another distinguished sympathiser with tractarian doctrines, was first a scholar and then a fellow of that college. Trinity College ranked second to Oriel only in sympathy with the Oxford movement, and Copeland, though never wavering in his attachment to the English church, entered into close connection with all the leading tractarians of the university. While at college he was ill and took no honours; but he was always known as one of the best Latin scholars at Oxford. ”

“ POPE, SIR THOMAS (c. 1507–1559) , founder of Trinity College, Oxford, was born at Deddington, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, probably in 1507, for he was about sixteen years old when his father, a yeoman farmer, died in 1523. He was educated at Banbury school and Eton College, and entered the court of chancery. ”

“ TRINITY COLLEGE TRINITY COLLEGE was founded by Sir Thomas Pope, a rich lawyer, in 1555. The site was previously occupied by Durham College, a now extinct foundation, which existed for the training of students from the Benedictine monastery of Durham.
There is much that is admirable about the buildings and grounds of Trinity; and its position is so little secluded that anyone passing down Broad Street or Parks Road can hardly help noticing its beauties. The first illustration shews the College as seen from Broad Street. ”

“ Trinity College is said by some to be the fairest quadrangle of any university in Europe; but in truth is far inferior to that of Christ Church, in Oxford; the hall is ample and of stone, the fountain in the quadrangle is graceful, the chapel and library fair. ”

“ Trinity College, Dublin, was founded in 1591, under the auspices of Sir John Perrot, the Irish viceroy. A royal charter nominated a provost and a minimum number of Trinity College, Dublin. three fellows and three scholars as a body corporate, empowered to establish among themselves “whatever laws of either of the universities of Cambridge or Oxford they may judge to be apt and suitable; and especially that no other persons should teach or profess the liberal arts in Ireland without the queen's special licence.” ”

“ Trinity College is one of the few great institutions of Europe which give full degrees to women on the same terms as to men. There is no distinction in rules or conditions or in any other respect. Women are admitted to all of the several schools—arts, science, engineering, law, and medicine—on an equal footing. There are now about one hundred in attendance. At first the university gave degrees to all women who could pass the regular examinations, and they came here in droves from Oxford, Cambridge, and other institutions where they had been hearing lectures but are not given degrees. ”

“ Oxford has now 21 colleges, among which are Balliol, Christ Church, Magdalen, Oriel, Trinity, and University College; 64 professors and teachers, and 3000 students. It is rich in museums and libraries; the Bodleian Library is of great value, the Taylor Library is devoted to modern literature. The Oxford or Tractarian Movement, one of the most remarkable religious impulses of modern times, had its centre in the University between 1834 and 1845. Among distinguished Oxford alumni were Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Wesley, Newman ”

“ The Colleges do not in general, stand so as to give ornament to the town, as those of Oxford, but if the town is the worse for it, the Colleges are the better, as they open to the fields, and from thence receive and give a fine prospect. King’s College, Clare Hall, and Trinity Library, and the finest of Gothick buildings—King’s College Chapel, makes a beautiful appearance from the public walks. Trinity College is a most noble thing; the Quadrangle is a sixth part bigger than that of Christchurch in Oxford. The Library is very handsome, and esteemed one of the finest rooms in the World. ”

“ In Oxford he was a benefactor of the college which had existed for the use of monks from Durham since the last years of the thirteenth century, and whose buildings stood on the site of the present Trinity College. The scheme which Bishop Richard of Bury had drawn out for the foundation of a regularly established college was elaborated by his successor, who provided for the maintenance of eight monks and eight secular students. ”

“ In 1796 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, but did not graduate, and on 19 Nov. 1803 matriculated at Oxford as a gentleman commoner of Exeter College, chiefly in order to study at the Bodleian and other libraries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Space does not permit us to enlarge further on the Library; and we return to our station at the old gate of King's College. As we look along the lane our view is bounded by the College whose name it now bears, Trinity Hall. This must not be confounded with the larger and later Foundation of Trinity College, next door to it beyond. Trinity Hall was founded in 1350, by Bishop Bateman of Norwich, specially for the education of Clergy. It has, however, actually, become especially given to the study of Law, and is yet more widely known by its prowess in aquatics. ”

“ If Oxford thus, to some extent, moulded to her pattern men who, welcome as they were, were only accidental, surely the college spirit may be trusted to assimilate whatever material the changed conditions of social or of political life furnish to it. The hope of many at Oxford is that there will be a great development and a great change. On one side it will be good if Oxford becomes to a much greater extent not only an all-British, but also a world university; on another side it is to be hoped that far more than ever before men of all classes in England will come to Oxford. ”

“ I demand to be let alone. I shall keep on the right side of the law in the future, as I have done in the past, and I challenge—I dare the college to touch me. Let me remind you, Mr. Rimington, that this University has been thrown open—yes, open, sir. The old iniquitous Test Acts have been done away. One man has as much right here as another. If I am interfered with further, I will raise such a storm throughout the country, that not only Trinity College but Cambridge University shall tremble in its shoes. ”

“ While the University is thus only a union of the Colleges for attaining such ends and such status as can better be attained by united than by isolated existence, the College is a real and concrete thing, the foundation stone of the ‘Oxford System’. Each College is within itself independent; each has its own traditions and some characteristics of organization, life, and system which are peculiar to itself. With the affairs of the College individually the University is not concerned. ”

“ 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. ”

“ True to the spirit of the royal founder, Bentley wished Trinity College to be indeed a house ‘of all kinds of good letters,’ and at a time when England’s academic ideals were far from high he did much to render it not only a great college, but also a miniature university.” [88]
And “a house of all kinds of good letters” Trinity has remained, and will surely always remain. As we walk lingeringly through its halls and courts what thronging historic memories crowd upon us! We may not forget the failures as well as the successes; the defeats as well as the triumphs ”

“ Trinity College is the most distinguished fruit of that revived learning which paved the way for and accompanied the Reformation: from the very beginning its tendencies were liberal and progressive; every genius which it nourished was eminently constructive. The names of its three greatest alumni, Newton, Bacon, and Barrow, form, so to speak, the three fountain-heads of organized philosophical thought in England; and there are a hundred less monumental names which are sufficient guarantee of the intellectual supremacy of Trinity over her sisters. ”

“ The ordinary English man or woman, unconnected with Oxford, has never heard of them. The undergraduate and the ordinary don has seen some part just now and then, when some enthusiastic guests have had to be taken round the sights.
And yet a book of many volumes might be written to tell of the things both rare and exquisite that Oxford hugs most close to her breast. He who cares to look may find them everywhere. There is not a college in all the University that does not possess something precious, either for its intrinsic beauty or for its historical interest. ”

“ It is like a great family mansion, which owner after owner has enlarged or improved to meet his own needs or tastes, and which, thus chronicling successive phases of social and domestic life, is wanting in uniformity but not in living interest or beauty.
Oxford is a federation of Colleges. It had been strictly so for two centuries, and every student had been required to be a member of a college when, in 1856, non-collegiate students, of whom there are now a good many, were admitted. The University is the federal government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As a teaching institution Oxford is expensive, but (on the whole) efficient. It is expensive because it sacrifices the teacher to the taught, and leads the former to bestow upon the latter a great deal of individual attention, more, possibly, than is good for him, more, certainly, than is necessary or than he gets elsewhere. It is efficient because the college spirit is strong, and the competition between the colleges is keen. ”

“ There is what is called an "election" every year, from the senior boys on the foundation at Westminster, to scholarships at Christchurch, Oxford, and Trinity, Cambridge. As the scholarships at Oxford are understood to be worth three or four times as much as those at Cambridge, all are anxious to obtain an Oxford scholarship. ”

“ The educational function of the University had, in fact, been almost wholly merged in college tuition, but the scholarships, as well as the fellowships, of the colleges were fettered by all manner of restrictions, which marred their value as incentives to industry. The great majority of fellows were bound to take Holy Orders, and the whole University was dominated by a clerical spirit, which directly tended to make it, as it had so long been, a focus of theological controversy. ”

“ But Christ Church is not the only unique college in Oxford. As there is no other to be found in any university so curiously combined with the cathedral and ecclesiastical dignitaries of a see, so is there no other, in this country at all events, that has preserved its original intention, as a college for Fellows only, as has All Souls. Here no noisy undergraduate is allowed to disturb the calm. ”

“ There is a rare freedom from ‘’Varsity Politics’. Athletic professionalism is an absent quantity. Oxford neither knows nor understands the spirit of the German student Verbindung or of the American ‘College Fraternity’. In fact many phases of the ‘fraternizing’ spirit seem lacking in Oxford life.
The nearest approach to the ‘Class organization’ or organization by Departments which influences University life in America, is the predominance of the College in Oxford life. Clear lines between ‘Senior’, ‘Junior,’ ‘Sophomore,’ and ‘Freshmen’ are not drawn ”

“ The number of students and of residents, the dignity of the authorities, the value of the foundations, the history and the architecture, the known sympathy of entire Britain in what is done there, justify a dedication to study in the undergraduate, such as cannot easily be in America, where his college is half suspected by the Freshman to be insignificant in the scale beside trade and politics. Oxford is a little aristocracy in itself, numerous and dignified enough to rank with other estates in the realm ”

“ It had at length become possible again for [Pg 182] a man to keep his terms and take his degree without continual residence within college walls. The numbers of the University grew rapidly, and at a time when more efficient tutors and discipline made Oxford attractive to many who were neither frivolous nor rich. Oxford became, in fact, a place of education. The previous century had been conspicuous for great names and lack of system; what was achieved was due to individual endowment and energy; and the able men stood somewhat apart from their contemporaries. ”