institute a Moral Sciences Tripos and a Natural Sciences Tripos. The ground was well prepared for science by the long reign of mathematics, and the connection of Cambridge with men of a mathematical turn of mind, many of them from the smaller schools of the North. In Oxford, since the beginning of the Century, there had been a small mathematical school following in the wake of "Literae Humaniores." It is remarkable that both Peel and Gladstone took firsts in Mathematics as well as in Classics. In the early fifties a separate school of Natural Science and a school of Law and Modern History were founded at Oxford. A new era in the history of the two Universities was opened when the Physical Sciences were given a proper place in undergraduate studies. The zeal and excitement aroused year after year in both Universities over the examinations for degrees, put fresh life into the stagnant, waters of Oxford and Cambridge, and gave to the system of competitive examination a prestige in the country at large which led to its adoption, not only as the fashionable panacea in all matters educational, but as the peculiarly British method of selecting Civil Servants. 66 66 This new zeal over examinations increased somewhat the activity of College teaching, though the Colleges still contained many sinecurists and indifferentists. The University Professors, especially at Oxford, were still left outside the main current of the new studies. The fiercely competitive spirit among the undergraduates was further stimulated at Cambridge by the custom of arranging the Tripos lists in personal order of merit, instead of merely grouping the men in classes as at Oxford. A characteristic figure of the Victorian era was the Private Tutor" or or Coach," an unofficial teacher paid by the student to help him to prepare for the examination. "Private coaching was specially prominent at Cambridge, where the Dean of Ely in 1852 calculated that the "sum annually spent "for private tuition was £50,000"; most of the students of Trinity, according to Whewell, used to pay 40 to 60 guineas a year to private coaches. (Commission Evidence 1852, p. 416.) At both Universities these "Coaches have included men of marked learning and ability. The Coach" marked a stage in development. When he arose he filled a void. But in the last generation his functions have been almost entirely superseded by the greater activity and public spirit of the authorised College teachers at Oxford and Cambridge. 16. The Reports of the Royal Commissions of 1852 give us a faithful picture of the good and evil in the two Universities at the end of their half-century of self-reform. The greatest progress had been in the curriculum and the examination system, and this had reacted favourably on the discipline of the students and the conscientiousness of the Fellows. On the other hand, there was still much extravagance and idleness among the wealthier undergraduates and unjustifiable expenditure by many who could not afford it, "in consequence (among other causes) of the expensive habits which students bring with them from the public schools." (Comm. Camb., p. 147.) There was still a great deal of absenteeism and laziness among the Fellows, though less than in a former age. Either University was still by its unalterable statutory constitution held in leading strings to the Heads of Colleges. The Colleges were still everything, the University nothing save an abstraction, or at most, an examining body. Some of the Colleges were by statute governed by an oligarchy of older Fellows, often in a narrow and unenterprising spirit. The restrictions on the choice of Fellows imposed by Close Fellowships tied to particular schools, districts or families, still more the system of life-Fellowships held on condition of celibacy and taking orders, but without any obligation to work or even to reside, resulted in a lower intellectual standard among the Fellows than prevails to-day, although there were not a few men of the very highest type taking the lead in both Universities and affecting the thought of the rising generation throughout the country.* The fact was that the Universities had done all that they could do for themselves without the intervention of the State. The State had, in Tudor and Stuart times, bound the Universities up in statutory knots, and it alone could disentangle its own handiwork. So long as the ancient University and College Statutes remained unaltered and unalterable, the Universities and Colleges must needs remain in great degree what the Statutes made them. It is true that at both Oxford and Cambridge a powerful body of men representing much of the highest intellect of the country, and becoming increasingly influential between 1850 and 1882, was constantly promoting the cause of Reform. But the Universities, left to themselves, had not the collective will, or indeed the statutory power, to follow these leaders far along the path of change. Parliamentary Legislation was overdue. 17. The period of Parliamentary Legislation connected with Royal Commissions (1850-82).-This period may here be treated as a whole in estimating its chief results, although the reforms came in three clearly defined stages : (i) The Royal Commissions of enquiry and recommendation sitting 1850-1852, followed by the Oxford Act of *Lord Curzon, the Chancellor of Oxford University, in his "Principles and Methods of University Reform " (1909), p. 93, thus sums up the situation at Oxford in 1852 :-" The first Commission found the Fellows a powerful body nearly 550 strong, appointed by favour from a narrowly restricted class, drawing large but irregular stipends, all unmarried and in Holy Orders, holding office for life, and mostly living away from Oxford." 1854 and the Cambridge Act of 1856, and the subsequent legislation of the Statutory Commissions set up by these Acts. (A summary of the recommendations of the Royal Commissions of 1850-2 is given in Appendix 5 of our Report.) (ii) The Universities Tests Act of 1871, which, with some few exceptions, completed the work, very cautiously touched by the Acts of 1854 and 1856, of opening the Universities and the existing Colleges and their offices. and emoluments to persons of all ways of thinking about religion. (iii) The Royal Commission of 1872-4 to report on the financial resources of the Universities and Colleges (about which information had been largely refused to the Commissions of 1850-2 in the absence of statutory power). The Report of this Commission was followed by the Oxford and Cambridge Act of 1877 and the Legislation of the Statutory Commissions of 1877-82. The first stage (1850-56) marked the initial victory over a strong and indignant opposition, offered in both Universities to the principle of Parliamentary interference. The work of subsequent enquiry and legislation was thereby rendered far more easy. The turning point in this first and most formidable crisis was the Oxford Act of 1854, passed by the Whig-Peelite Government, by help of Mr. Gladstone's local knowledge, energy and mastery of the art of legislation. The second stage, the Tests Act, was the work of Mr. Gladstone's own Ministry; by clearing away the religious question it had the happy effect of extricating future controversy about Oxford and Cambridge from the atmosphere of party politics in which till then it had to some extent moved. It is highly significant that, in the third stage, the sweeping measure of 1876, the prelude to the Act of 1877, was introduced first into the Upper House by Lord Salisbury as representing a Conservative Government. 18. The net effect of the legislation of 1850-1882 was :(i) To abolish the element of oligarchy (chiefly of the College Heads as such) in the constitution of either University, putting power more freely in the hands of the general body of M.A.'s (Oxford Convocation and Cambridge Senate), and making the executive of the University (the new Council) mainly elective by the residents (Oxford Congregation and Cambridge Electoral Roll). A corresponding change was effected in some of the Colleges, where the oligarchies of older Fellows were abolished, and the power of the Heads reduced. The younger Fellows thus obtained an influence which in some Colleges they were not slow to use in the cause of educational progress. (ii) The governing bodies of University and College, thus reconstituted, obtained the power to alter their own Statutes, if no objection to the changes was raised in Parliament and if the Privy Council gave assent, subject to the condition that the consent of the University must first be obtained for any change of the Statutes of a College affecting the University, and vice versa. This power has frequently been used with good effect. The impossibility of modifying the old constitutions had been a source of much mischief. (iii) The conditions of the tenure of Fellowships were radically altered. The obligation to take Holy Orders and to abstain from marriage as a condition of retaining a Fellowship was no longer imposed. In addition, life-Fellowships, or Fellowships of indefinite length of tenure, without conditions of work or residence, were abolished, except as a form of pension. On the other hand, the emoluments of Fellowships might still be drawn for a limited number of years. without conditions of residence or of academic work, with a view to helping able men of small personal means to go to the bar or to enter public life-objects. attained with success in some cases. But the number of cases in which Fellowship emoluments have been used by those entering unacademic walks of life has been small of recent years, chiefly because the increase both in the number of subjects studied at Oxford and Cambridge, and in the number of students, has compelled the Colleges to use nearly all their available Fellowships for teaching, and has not left proper provision for research and study. In these circumstances, the use of emoluments to launch able young men in other walks of life than the academic, has come to be regarded as a luxury that can no longer be afforded. The general effect of the change of conditions in the tenure of Fellowships has been to abolish nonresidence and sinecurism and to enforce a higher standard of work. As will be seen below, a common evil of the present day is the overworking of College Fellows in teaching and administration, to the detriment of research and originality. A conscientiousness in discharge of duties that is perhaps sometimes misdirected, and occasionally almost excessive, is commoner than the old negligence. (iv) A great step was taken in the direction of restoring the University to its proper place and redressing the balance between University and Colleges. The Colleges were taxed to supply a fund for University purposes, on a scale properly graduated at Oxford, but at Cambridge by a flat rate that falls with undue severity on the poorer Colleges. A means was thus supplied by which the demand for new and neglected subjects could be met by the University; without such provision for educational change and expansion, Oxford and Cambridge must in our time have fallen out of date as educational institutions, and scientific development would have been impossible on a large scale. By the help of this same fund directly, or indirectly by the charging of the maintenance of Professors on College establishments, the Professoriate was enlarged in numbers and its emoluments fixed on a higher, though not always adequate, scale. This scale is sadly insufficient in many cases to-day, especially in view of the change in the value of money. Unfortunately no all-round provision was made for pensions or for the closely related question of retiring age. (v) The Commissioners of 1877-82 taxed the Colleges and fixed their establishments, assigning to each the number of its College Fellows, and the number of University Professors whom it was to support, on the assumption that the agricultural depression of that day was temporary only. This assumption proved erroneous, and the result has been that some Colleges were overloaded with an establishment which they could not really afford, and the stipends or dividends of the Fellows have sometimes been miserably small. Both rich and poor Colleges have sometimes fallen far below the standard Fellowship emoluments aimed at by the Commissioners. In some cases it has been necessary to alter the Statutes and reduce the number of Fellows assigned to a particular College by the Commission. (vi) A case of over-strict legislation resulted from the suspicion obviously entertained by the Oxford Commissioners towards the Professoriate. They tied the Professors down to a defined amount of lecturing work on the apparent assumption that unless bound over statutorily a man would be idle. Thus the new statutory conditions of the Oxford Professorships laid down the number, of lectures to be delivered, irrespective of the fact that other professorial duties research, graduate teaching, organisation of the school, school, personal aid to students-often render SO much lecturing oppressive burden. This was pointed out by Professor Stubbs long ago, and what he said an |