DURHAM UNIVERSITY REFORM.
Ir is not without reason that the condition of Durham University attraots attention. After an existence of twenty years it has dis- appointed the expectations, if not of its founders, at all events of those who indulged the pleasant delusion that an institution es- tablished in the nineteenth century must exhibit some sympathy with the requirements of the time. With little cause, however, for triumph in the past, with diminishing prospects of success for the future, the University exhibits daily proofs of the fatal influences to which it has been exposed by a too intimate connexion with the Cathedral. If, indeed, the ambition of the original promoters em- braced no wider scheme than the foundation of a theological school, or even of an institution framed after the Oxford model, the end has been fairly answered. But by those who hoped to realize the notion of a national university which should seek success by an adaptation to existing wants, rather than by a strict compliance with the forms of an antiquated and quiescent period, the Uni- versity will be regarded as a signal failure. It is useless to con- ceal the fact, that, with few exceptions, it is more imperfect in its constitution, more hopelessly inefficient for all purposes of educa- tion, than the older Universities of Oxford and Cambridge : it is like them antiquated, without being able to boast their antiquity.
The constitution of the University of Durham appears to have been ingeniously devised for presenting all possible obstructions to reform. The present Warden is a member of the Cathedral body, and this intimate connexion between the University and the Ca- thedral is perpetuated by a provision in the charter, which enjoins that, in future, the Dean of the Cathedral shall, ex officio, be War- den OS the University. Practically, all power is vested in this officer, who exercises as complete an autocracy as Nicholas in Russia or Louis Napoleon in France. lie matriculates all mem- bers, and his presiding guardianship is extended through all the stages of their University career. He alone has the power to in- flict punishment, although in ease of rustication or expulsion the form is gone through of an appeal to the Senate. This body con- sists of a certain number of professors and tutors ; but its jurisdic- llon is curtailed by two restrictions, intended, it would appear, to preserve the complete autocracy of the chief officer. It can never sit except when summoned by the Warden ; and although, in fact, it is assembled every week, the statutes do not require it to be convened more than four times in each term : it meets, therefore, on the sufferance of the Warden. The Warden has a veto on all measures proposed; and as nothing can come before Convocation which has not previously passed the Senate, his authority is prac- tically unlimited. It is true that an appeal may in some cases be made to the Dean and Chapter; but as the Warden and two Pro- fessors are members of the Cathedral body, they can scarcely be regarded.as an exception to the rule. Again, the patronage of two Professorships is in the hands of the Bishop ; but the other teachers in the University are appointed by the Warden, and hold their offices at his will and pleasure. Nor are the Fellows in a better position; for although they are in theory ohosen by the Senate the Warden has full power to sus- pend their stipend, or even to deprive them of it altogether,—sub- ject only to the regulation that "in graver cases he must consult the Senate." The qualification is capable of various interpreta- tions; and a Warden of a gay turn of mind might take a very pleasant and tolerant view of almost all cases that could occur— might even speed a distinguished sinner on rustication with a parting dinner and a "bon voyage," without asking the Senate to 90i1 the hilarity by its austere presence. It would be difficult to define a system more admirably adapted to throw the whole ma- nagement of the University into the hands of one man ; and it is obviously impossible to expect reform from the administration of an ecclesiastical autocracy.
We need not enter into the details of the educational system, which exhibits a servile adherence to the Oxford system ; but as false notions might be derived from a reference to the University Calendar, one point should be explained. It is true that we are furnished with a list of Professors and Readers on almost every subject in which a University should provide the means of in- struction; but, alas ! they exist only in name. There is scarcely an approach to a professorial system. The Professor of Greek, although an able scholar, and rewarded for his exertions by a Canonry in the Cathedral, is a mere College Tutor. He delivers five lectures in the week on Homer and Thucydides to a class of under-Faduates com- posed of young men in different stages of their University career, and two on Aristophanes or Demosthenes to a class of graduates who are preparing for the final examination for the degree of M.A. The Professor of Mathematics is in the same position. The Reader in Natural Philosophy is never known to give any public instruction. The Readers in Law and History have paid occasional visits to the University ; but have met with little success, and received but lit- tle encouragement from the authorities. We have been the more minute in showing the working of the Durham machinery, because it is evident that the defective results are due to the very structure of the body ; and that any improvement, to be fruitful, must be di- rected to the root of the evil.
The two exceptions to the general rule of failure and inefficiency are to be found in the Theological school and the establishment of two cheap Halls. The Theological school affords the single illus- tration of an attempt to carry out the professorial system ; and it has supplied a want which was long keenly felt in the older Uni- versities. The Halls, on the other hand, have opened out the ad- vantages, honours, and rewards of the University, to a class of men who have hitherto lacked sufficient opportunities to gratify a laud- able ambition. But in spite of all that can be said in its favour, it is obvious that the University of Durham stands in need of strin- gent reform. Nor is it a sufficient reply to repeat that it is a thing of yesterday. The bitterest complaint is, that, like the child of a diseased parentage, it sprang, at its birth, out of a rich but poisoned soil laden with the abuses of centuries. It started in the race en- cumbered with impediments, which it will require no ordinary vi- gour to shake off. The atmosphere by which it is surrounded has blighted every hope, and must ultimately prove fatal to its growth. That Durham must follow in the steps of Oxford, reform and all, —that it is of little use to accumulate charges against a University which, having once refused to exert an independent will, has bound itself to a servile imitation of its competitors,—is an idea equally fallacious. We are convinced that only when it comes to a ques- tion of reform will Durham proclaim her right to pursue her own course. Whatever changes may be introduced, whatever im- provements adopted, must come from without. It is only by the help of an extraneous impulse that the splendid endowments of that University will be employed to advance rather than to retard the spread of education, in conformity with the requirements and opportunities of our own day.
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