ideas by the experiences of "Greats." Without attempting to adjudicate in so nice a controversy, we may point out the indisputable fact that great sacrifices are made by College teachers at both Universities to the personal education of the undergraduate, and that for this reason there is pressing need of the further endowment and encouragement of research (see our recommendations, paragraphs 92 and 108 below). It is interesting to note that whereas the earlier Royal Commissions were concerned with providing against the indifference and want of conscientiousness of some of the Fellows, the charge now made in some quarters is that the Fellows overwork themselves at teaching and administration. However this may be, they have their reward in supplying the country with a system of higher instruction which perhaps gives more attention to the individual student than is given anywhere else. If complaint is made that education at Oxford and Cambridge costs more per man than elsewhere, one reason is that the undergraduate gets more teaching in return for his money, over and above the peculiar residential advantages. 24. Parallel with the increase in the number and scope of the subjects studied, and the improvement in the methods of teaching, has gone a corresponding increase in material equipment of teaching and research. This has not been confined to the Scientific Laboratories; technical Museums and Libraries. are scarcely less essential for linguistic, archæological and historical study. The aspect and character of Oxford and Cambridge have for this reason undergone great changes since the last Commission. 25. Efforts by College authorities to reduce the cost of life and to help poor students. Another cause of the high cost of education at Oxford and Cambridge is the maintenance of the beautiful old College buildings and the whole apparatus of Collegiate life. It must never be forgotten that the Colleges are the custodians of national treasures, which are a great charge upon their endowments. The upkeep of King's College Chapel for example is very expensive to the society. The site value of the open spaces of Tom Quad at Christ Church, and the Great Court at Trinity, Cambridge, could never be realised without the commission of a crime against posterity. The older and more beautiful parts of a College are too often the least economical and the least convenient under modern conditions. But no one would propose to replace them with modern space-saving and labour-saving institutional buildings. They remain as unavoidable sources of expense. But the authorities have during the last generation made repeated efforts to reduce the cost of life for students, and have tried a number of experiments, unco-ordinated, and differing in different Colleges, but of the same general character. These measures and the possibility of improving on them are discussed in other parts of this Report (see paragraphs 160 to 172). It is enough here to point out that efforts of this 37458 B 4 kind have been very general in Oxford and Cambridge Colleges of recent years. More positive assistance, though necessarily to a limited extent, is also given; over and above scholarships and exhibitions, almost every College has a fund for helping poor students after they have come up; some Colleges have small loan funds; great care and trouble is taken in examining and helping particular cases by the College authorities. As a result of all this, and of the steps taken by Local Education Authorities, City Companies and other bodies, and by private individuals, to provide funds, the proportion of poor students is rapidly increasing, and is greater than is generally thought.* A large proportion of the undergraduates, in some Colleges bordering on half, are in receipt of financial aid, public or private, from other sources than their parents and natural guardians. + Serious extravagance on the part of the undergraduates, complained of by the Commissioners of 1852, has become uncommon. Even since the beginning of the twentieth century there has been a marked change. At Cambridge the refusal to allow the tradesmen to give any but limited credit to undergraduates is now an old-established and effective policy. At both Universities the custom of supervising the College bills of undergraduates is general. But the chief cause of moderate living is a change in the undergraduates themselves. The usual policy of Colleges with regard to athletics represents a serious attempt to deal with a difficult problem. On the one hand, a certain amount of athletics is good for the student, rich or poor; on the other hand, it is becoming increasingly expenive, especially in view of the value of land in and around Oxford nd Cambridge. The general course adopted is to have an amalgamated club in the College, membership of which is usual though not obligatory. In some cases provision is also made for students. to join a single club at a small fee. The fees are really lower than the money value of what is obtained, owing to assistance from various sources. The College often owns playing fields, and helps by remitting part of the commercial rent. The officers of clubs or the College authorities sometimes exercise the power of privately remitting fees in special cases. If the policy of assistance by the Colleges were not adopted, athletics would be impossible for a large number of men, and the social or financial differences which are now ignored, would pro tanto become more noticeable. *For further observations and statistics on this point see paragraphs 154 to 156 below. † In one College at Cambridge, not regarded as specially a poor man's College, an enquiry respecting the students matriculated in 1920-21 yields a proportion of five in receipt of such aid to every six provided for solely by their parents. 26. Extra-mural work of Oxford and Cambridge.--One of the most important modern developments, implying a whole new principle of academic responsibility towards the community at large, has been taken up by the two senior Universities of their own accord, not from any suggestion made by the former Royal Commissions, or owing to compulsion by Parliament. Cambridge first, under the inspiration of James Stuart, initiated in 1873 the University Extension movement, and sent some of its best men to lecture at a distance from its walls. Oxford speedily followed suit. Professor Stuart's original idea of a "peripatetic University" affording systematic education of a University type" in liberal arts and sciences to "busy adults," was realised in the Extension lectures, enough at any rate to stimulate local demands for education and to assist the formation of local University Colleges, of which several have already become Universities. These in turn have developed systems of Extension lecturing of their own, but the main burden for the country at large has continued to fall on Oxford and Cambridge, and on London for the London area. In the twentieth century Oxford took the lead in giving the assistance of the older Universities to a new development of the extra-mural principle, the Tutorial Classes in connection with the Workers' Educational Association. Here again the sister University immediately followed suit. The idea of the Tutorial Classes is to obtain for the extra-mural student the careful and continuous personal instruction obtainable by Honours students in an Oxford or Cambridge College. Summer schools held at Oxford and Cambridge for outside students have also become an important and promising feature of the extra-mural movement. Recommendations will be found in paragraphs 146 to 153 below for the further development at both Universities of these vital and national movements, which are good for the University that sends the teachers as well as for the community that supplies the students. It is enough here to point out what the Universities have already done on their own initiative, and have helped to subsidise from University and College funds. 27. Another equally important, and at one time equally novel, departure from the limitations of the past, the admission of women to the studies of the Universities, has also been taken by Oxford and Cambridge, voluntarily and on their own initiative. Cambridge was by a little the first to extend this hospitality-first to the Women's College started at Hitchin, 1869, which moved near to Cambridge and became Girton College in 1872; and then to Newnham College, which began its work in a house in Cambridge in 1871. At Oxford, Lady Margaret and Somerville were opened in 1879. At the time of these foundations the infant cause of higher education for women was very materially benefited at a critical moment by the hospitality of Oxford and Cambridge. Admission to lectures and even to laboratories (a more material concession) was so complete that the laboratories originally set up by Newnham and Girton were abandoned shortly before the war.* Since the war Oxford has granted degrees and University membership to its women students. Cambridge has granted titular degrees, but has refused to grant University membership (see paragraphs 194 to 199 below). 28. Objections have been raised in some quarters to the presence of Pass Men in the Universities. We submit recommendations in paragraphs 184 to 188 below for imposing a University Entrance Examination (or its equivalent), which will tend to eliminate students of insufficient intellectual calibre, some of whom would no doubt have been Pass Men if admitted to the University. But we are not in favour of the abolition of the Pass degree. Great improvements have recently been made at both Universities in the Pass courses and education, and the Pass students are much more serious students than they used to be. Their record in after-life proves on examination to be very good+; many of them hold important positions and have become valuable citizens. The abolition of the Pass degree would flood the Honours courses with students for whom a more general education is desirable, and the Honours standards of teaching would suffer. In many men ability of a genuine kind, but not suited to specialisation, requires a more general education than that afforded by an Honours course. 29. Some modifications have been made at both Universities in their constitution since the Statutes of 1882, though these Statutes still remain the framework of the existing state of things. These alterations have been most important at Oxford, where a movement for Reform began about the year 1905, and received stimulus from a printed volume on "University Reform issued by the Chancellor of the University, Lord Curzon, in 1909. Since then the following changes, among others, have been carried into effect : (1) The Classes" or "Orders" in which members of Council are elected have been revised, by the reduction of the number of Heads of Houses and the increase of members of Convocation elected as such. (2) The Faculties and the Boards of Faculties have been reconstructed, and a General Board of the Faculties has been created to improve the co-ordination of teaching and to relieve Council. (3) Congregation has been revised by restricting membership to all persons engaged in teaching and administrative work in the University or Colleges, and withdrawing (subject to the preservation of * Except the Girton chemical laboratory which is still working. See the interesting report on the subject in the Cambridge University Reporter, 28th May, 1918. vested interests) membership based solely on residence; (4) A new Board of Finance was created to supplement the work of the University Chest; recently, however, in order to secure co-ordination of financial control, both these bodies have been superseded by a new Board of Curators of the University Chest, which has new powers over financial policy. At Cambridge the amount of the degree fees and composition fees for University and College alike have been reduced to small sums, and replaced to some extent by quarterly dues payable during residence. This has facilitated the general taking of degrees, and the raising of revenue from those undergraduates who go down without taking a degree at all. At both Universities, besides the abolition of compulsory Greek in Responsions and the Previous Examination, the denominational and other restrictions attaching to the degrees in Divinity have been abolished. III.-GENERAL POSITION OF THE TWO UNIVERSITIES AND THEIR SPECIAL VALUE TO THE NATION. 30. The foregoing historical sketch, especially Part II on recent development, has indicated many points illustrative of the special value of present-day Oxford and Cambridge to the community. But at the risk of a little repetition, a few general remarks on this subject seem to be called for by the proposal for a grant from public funds. In the student democracy of Oxford and Cambridge, members of all classes and students of all subjects mix in the Colleges on terms of perfect social equality and close intellectual companionship. The frank and friendly relation with the teachers, who devote so great a part of their time to personal instruction, is another element in the life of the student. The beauty of the ancient buildings, devoted from time immemorial to purposes of thought and learning, and their historical associations with so many great men, help to create an atmosphere favourable to disinterested intellectual life. We understand that of recent years the intellectual activity among the body of undergraduates has been very remarkable; among its features are a wide-spread interest in social questions, an increase in societies for discussion, speculation and study, and for literature, music, and the drama, and an increasing connection with many activities of the outside world. If in some cases these unduly interrupt work, the educational advantages on the whole more than counterbalance the disadvantages; a many-sided preparation for the world into which the students are about to enter is constantly. going on under favourable conditions. The students are no longer, as in the time of the Commissions of 1852, mainly designed for the Church and schoolmastering, with a minority going to the Bar or preparing for great inherited positions as landowners or public men. To-day they not only |