THE WINCHESTER JOB.
AGROSS job has recently been perpetrated at Winchester College, not perhaps equal in enormity to those which were common among the old Foundations, before they were submitted to Parliamentary scrutiny, but one nevertheless entirely similar to them in character, involving, like them, an abuse of an important public trust, and the sacrifice of a considerable public interest to private considerations ; and therefore, like them, scandalous and indefensible.
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to remark, that Winchester College is as much a public institution as the Crown, or the British Museum ; that that huge and overgrown educational property, reckoned by the Schools' Inquiry Commission at about 17,0001. a year, ought not to be administered by its Trustees, the Warden and Fellows of Winchester, on any but the most disinterested public considerations ; and that, there- fore, so far at least as the duty of carefully watching, and the right of criticizing, the administration of any high trust are inherent in journalism, this journal is competent to take notice of any abuse of patronage, of any improper appoint- ments, and in short of any malversation in their office, on the part of the Warden and Fellows of Winchester. It is not, therefore, necessary to make any apology for the following plain statement of facts. If any part of the following narra- tive gives pain to innocent persons, or appears to draw invi- dious comparisons between young men who are all confessedly meritorious, the responsibility of the painful effects of such criticism must lie at the doors of those who, by their partial exercise of patronage, have called it forth.
The Second Mastership of Winchester College is one of the most ancient and honourable educational posts in the kingdom. It is one of the two Masterships originally created by the founder, William of Wykeham, and, therefore, like the Warden- ship, Fellowships, Scholarships, and Head Mastership, dates from near the middle of the fourteenth centry. The Head Master (Magister Informator) and the Second Master (Ostiarius) are the only two statutable teachers in the College. They are both elected by the Warden and Fellows of Winchester, and to a certain extent their positions are co-ordinate. The Head Master is supreme in school hours, or, as the Winchester expression is, " at books," over all the boys, whether scholars or commoners, and over all the masters, whether statutable or not. But he has not the control and superintendence of the scholars, or of the Second Master, out of school hours. He lives in the part of the school premises called " Commoners," where he keeps a boarding-house, occupied only by commoners ; the scholars, and in fact the whole of the College, being under the charge of the Second Master. Except in school, therefore, the Second Master is not under the Head Master's control. He is, in fact, subject of course to the superior control of the Warden, the virtual Principal of the College, and, in case of the Head Master's absence, it is his duty and his right to fill his place in all respects. As regards its dignity, therefore, the Second Mastership of Winchester is inferior only to the five or six great public school Head Masterships. It is one of the very few scholastic positions in this country which may be said to emerge above the general dead level, and, apart from personal qualifications, to render its occupant a man of mark in the scholastic world. It is, therefore, an office which is coveted, and ought always to be well filled ; and though its direct pecuniary value has lately been decidedly diminished, yet, on the other hand, a fresh attraction has been added to it by the newly established eligibility of the Second Master to a Winchester Fellowship.
Towards the close of last year this office became vacant by the removal of Mr. Hornby to the Headmastership of Eton. The vacancy thus occasioned was advertised by the Warden and Fellows in the newspapers, and they seem to have taken all due care to secure the candidature of first-rate men. It is, however, as the sequel will show, not sufficient that the patrons of such an appointment should be desirous that the best man possible should stand for it ; they must also be prepared to elect him, when he does stand. To invite com- petition simply in order to mask a foregone conclusion, to call upon the best men to come forward with the deliberate design of preferring their inferiors, is to add treachery to the other evil characteristics of a job. Nor is the corrupt nature of such a transaction made more defensible by the fact that the candidate actually selected may be considered fairly qualified for the post. The mere fact that there was a candidate who in all respects was better qualified than he, is for him a relative disqualification ; and ought to make it as impossible for the electors to choose him, as if he were positively dis- qualified. Whether this was the case, the public may judge from the following statements. Among the candidates whom the advertisement of the Electors called forth, there were three who appeared to be the most suitable, and among whom the contest practically lay. They were all young men, the oldest decidedly under thirty-five years of age ; they were all in Holy Orders ; they were all actually at the time Assistant - Masters in the school ; they had all been successful in the teaching and management of their forms; and they were all well qualified in respect of attain- ments. The public claims of each of these three can- didates were, briefly, as follows :—The first is a Wyke- hamist, a former scholar of the College, a Fellow of New College, and the first Wykehamist who ever gained that Fellowship by open competition. Universal negatives are proverbially dangerous propositions, but, in this case, it may safely be declared that no scholar of Winchester has ever passed such a distinguished school and college career as this gentleman. As head of the school—a position which he occupied at an early age, and held for some time—he carried off all the chief prizes and scholarships ; among them the "Goddard," the great classical scholarship corresponding to the "Newcastle " at Eton ; the "Duncan," the great mathe- matical prize answering to the " Tomline " at Eton ; the historical prize, the two gold medals, and three out of the four Maltby prizes. At Oxford he was double first (classics and mathematics) in moderations, and again double first (classics and mathematics) in the final examination ; being the first scholar of Winchester who has ever attained that honour. He subsequently became Fellow and Tutor of New College, and President of the Union ; and was, when he left last midsummer to take an Assistant-Mastership at Win- chester, in all respects one of the most distinguished young tutors of the University. It would be very difficult to find any man in England, under the age of thirty-five, whose claims to the Second Mastership could have been so strong as these. The second is an Harrovian. He occupied a good, though not the first, position in that school, and obtained two of the leading prizes. As a Commoner of Balliol, he gained a first class in classics, at moderations ; and the same at the final examination. He left Oxford without obtaining a Fellowship, at a time when, owing to University changes, open Fellowships were singularly scarce ; and has been for some time an Assistant-Master at Winchester. The third is a Wykehamist. He was formerly a scholar of Winchester, and occupied a good, though not the first, position at the school. He did not obtain the Goddard or the histori- cal prize, or any of the Maltby prizes ; but he obtained one of the gold medals, and the Duncan prize in mathematics. He was afterwards a Commoner of Balliol, at which college he obtained a single first class in classics, at moderations ; and the same at the final examination. He was subsequently elected to an open Fellowship at Queen's College, and loft Oxford last midsummer to become an Assistant-Master at Winchester.
Now it is not disputed that either of these two last-named candidates might have been considered sufficiently qualified for the vacant office, had not the first-named been in the field. Between the second and third the electors might fairly have hesitated. Their school and University honours were pretty nearly equal ; the general balance, if anything, inclining perhaps a little in favour of the Harrovian, who-is at least six years the senior of the Wykehamist, and has had seven years more experience of teaching. But it would be requiring to much to expect the Warden and Fellows of Winchester to elect an outsider to a Winchester office, when a passable Wykehamist is in the field. It would be almost as natural to expect the patrons of a Scotch professorship to elect an Eng- lishman. As matters stood, however, there ought to have been no hesitation whatever in choosing the first-named can- didate. On all grounds he was the fittest person for the post.- Only one argument—namely, the greater scholastic experience of the second—could fairly have been alleged in favour of preferring him to the first ; and this, though a reasonable argument, would be outweighed by the much greater attain- ments of the first. But there was no argument whatever, such as will bear the light of day, in favour of preferring the third candidate to the first. He was probably inferior to the second, and most unquestionably inferior to the first. He was in short, the least eligible of the three. Yet he was elected.
It is due to the public that some explanation should be- given of what certainly appears to .be a gross abuse of patronage. The Second Mastership of Winchester is a most important public appointment ; and in any such case, if a candidate whose public claims largely preponderate has been postponed to one whose public claims are decidedly inferior, the country has a right to ask what were the reasons, public or private, which determined the choice of the electors. And. in the present instance it is particularly desirable that the electors should satisfy the public that they have not been in any degree influenced by favouritism or by spite, those two elements one or both of which will be found at the root of almost every job when it is carefully analyzed, because there- were not wanting those who, when the vacancy was adver- tised, declared that the advertisement, the scrutiny of testi- monials, and the supposed competition were all a sham ; that the Warden and Fellows had long ago made up their minds as to the election ; and that there choice was a foregone conclusion.
Those who thus claimed to see behind the scenes prophe- sied that some of the Fellows would be influenced by ties of marriage and ties of friendship to choose the candidate whom, in fact, they did eventually select ; while others would be influenced by a strong sense of animosity against New College, that nest, as they consider it, of liberal thinkers and young reformers,—which would make it impossible for any young Fellow of New College to obtain their favour.
It is difficult to believe that at the present day, when the public is so determined that educational abuses shall not con- tinue in our old foundations, the Warden and Fellows can have- allowed themselves to be influenced by such considerations.. And yet it is equally difficult to see what other considerations. influenced them. It is possible, indeed, that they may justify themselves in acting from motives of animosity to New Col- lege, and may glory in the possession of the power to snub, progress and reform in that as in other quarters. It may be that this Winchester election has afforded but one more example of the optimistic spirit of the past conflicting with the progressive spirit of the future, and winning over it once more one of those Cadmeian victories which are among the surest signs of the victor's approaching doom.
Jobs like these are the scandals which encourage busybodies, in and out of the House of Commons, to bark incessantly against our ancient Foundations, and to depreciate all permanent en- dowments ; which seem to many almost to excuse our wretched policy of chronic Parliamentary meddle and muddle with schools and colleges ; which justify educational reformers like Mr. Arnold in their cry for a Minister of Education, and verify their oft repeated declaration that Trustees are found, in their corporate capacity, to be guilty of malpractices from which they would, as individuals, shrink with disgust.
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