TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE ALL SOULS CASE.
WREN the Statutes instituting the Oxford University Commission first became the law of the land, many foresaw, or thought they foresaw, a long vista of disputes in the probable recnsancy of the ancient foundations which were to be reformed. Happily, all such forebodings have proved groundless. The changes converting the obsolete beneficence of bye-gone ages to the practical requirements of the day, have been effected without difficulty—though not without some murmurs ; and since, the autumn of 1856, when the Commissioners first applied the pruning-knife, only one case has arisen suggesting even a desire on the part of the University au- thorities to resist or to evade the inevitable doom. As, however, that ease has attracted this week considerable public attention, and as it involves an important principle, a few words respecting the circumstances which have given rise to it may be of assistance to the general reader.
One of the earliest steps which were taken by the Commis- sioners, or by the different foundations at the instance of the Com- missioners, was the abolition of all those restrictions upon
Scholarships and Fellowships which existed in respect to the place of birth, age, and family of the candidate. Very little difficulty was experienced in effecting this until the Commissioners came to All Souls College, the exceptional character of which seems at first to have caused them some perplexity. All Souls College was originally of a peculiarly monastic constitution. All its Fellows were devoted to God, and bound down by strict rules. As in the ease of other Colleges, the intentions of the founders had in 1856 become obsolete. The fellows formerly distinguished as pauperes et in- digentes clerici, were laughingly said in the University to be chosen according as they were bene nati, bene vestiti, mediocriter docti " birth and general social qualifications having" in the words of the Commissioners " considerable influence in determining the elections." For, during a period of forty years, out of 115 Fellows elected, 16 only had been first-class men, and 29 noblemen's sons. In 1856, out of 40 Fellows on the books, 14 were sons of noblemen and 6 only first-class men, against 11 first-class men out of 17 Fellows at the great open foundation of Oriel, and against 10 Fellows, all first-class men, at that of Balliol. Add to this, that All Souls takes no undergraduates except four Bible clerks, and the high exclusive state at which the College had arrived will be evident. In order to restore the College to the position originally intended, namely, that of a foundation for " religion and learning," the Commissioners, acting under the powers vested in them, and after communication with the College itself, determined to appropriate ten of the forty Fel- lowships to the creation of two Professorships ; one, of Jurispru- dence and Modern History, and the other, of International Law and Diplomacy. They framed also an ordinance forming a com- plete code of regulations for the guidance of the College, and es- pecially of the Warden and Fellows. This ordinance, after throwing open the Fellowships to all candidates without reserve, who had passed their B.A. examination, and had taken a first- class or some open University scholarship or prize, ran thus— "The intellectual qualifications of the candidates for Fellowships shall be tested by an examination in such subjects, recognized in the school of Jurisprudence and Modern History within the University, as the Warden and Fellows shall determine ; and the Warden and Fellows shall elect that candidate (being otherwise duly qualified according to the Statutes in force for the time being,) who, after such examination, shall appear to them to be of the greatest merit and most fit to be a Fellow of the College, as a place of reliehm and learning, with special reference to the subjects recognized is the said school."
In pursuance of this ordinance, the Warden and a majority of the Fellows created a board of examination of four, shut out the rest of the Fellows from any participation in the examination, and left it to the Examiners "to report at the time of election the names of the candidates who had satisfied them." The three petitioners in the present proceeding at Lambeth Palace, feeling that this modus operandi had no other effect than that of convert- ing an examination for honours into:a mere pass-examination, ap- pealed for information on two occasions to the Commissioners, who in reply explained the ordinance to mean " that the fellowships of the College would only be accessible to a very high order of in- tellectual merit in the cultivation of a special duty," and that such could not be secured "if neither the names of the candidates were placed by the Examiners in order of merit," nor pains taken by the electors to fit themselves for judging by perusing the ex- amination papers themselves. In consequence of this intimation the College, in the following year, reconsidered the obnoxious bye-law and created a system, if anything more unfortunate. The Board of Examiners was established as before. At the close of the examination, the papers were to be laid before the College to the end that each one elector might form his opinion upon them. On the day of election, a preliminary or informal meeting was to be held in the Common Room, at which the electors were bound to secrecy. At this meeting, the Examiners were to answer all questions put to them upon the papers (!) but not upon the relative merits of the candidates, and they were not bound " to make any substantive report to the College with respect to the merit displayed by the candidates in their examination." The meeting was then to proceed to a vote, and each elector was to be considered bound to record the same vote at the formal meeting, in the College Hall, which was to take place immediately afterwards. In November, 1858, an election took place under these bye-laws. According to the three dissentient Fellows, the papers containing the answers of candidates were, " without
the knowledge of the greater part of the College," burnt by the Examiners on the afternoon preceding the informal meeting. At the meeting itself, the pledge of secrecy was first extorted, and, therefore, what passed afterwards will not be known even by the tribunal which is sitting on these matters. But the petitioners state their " conviction that two out of the three successful can- didates were elected contrary to the results of the examination, and on grounds unauthorized by the ordinance." In April of the following year, several discussions seem to have taken place upon the points raised by these differences ; but the three dissentient Fellows made little way, being outvoted in nearly all their reso- lutions. Fresh bye-laws were, however, enacted, which rendered it necessary for every candidate to bring with him-1. A testi- monial from his College of three years' good conduct; 2. A certi- ficate of his baptism; and 3. A certificate of his having passed the B.A. examination, and of having gained one of the distinc- tions specified in the ordinance ; but the course of proceeding at election was altered in only one particular—namely, that at the preliminary and informal meeting the candidates answers were to be held in the custody of the Warden, in case any of the elec- tors wished to refer to them, and were to be destroyed by him before the vote was taken. The grievance, therefore, of the peti- tioners remained the same. They applied for redress to the Archbishop of Canterbury, as Visitor, who at first refused to hear them by counsel ; but, after application to the Court of Qneen's Bench, his Grace's scruples were removed ; and the subject has this week been before him, assisted by Lord Wensleydale and Dr. Travers Twigs.
From the foregoing account, the reader will perceive that, tech- nically, the question at issue is, whether or not the mode of elec- tion, as pursued by the College, under the bye-laws which have been quoted, is repugnant to the ordinance of the Commissioners of 1857. But there is, besides, a much broader question lying upon the surface of the whole inquiry. What the intention of the Commissioners was with respect to All Souls, may be easily gathered from the nature of the reforms they effected in other colleges, as well as from the interpretation placed by themselves upon their own ordinance, as quoted above. They intended that the fellowship to be gained was to be looked at in the light of an " honour" or prize, and that the highest order of intellectual merit should gain it if there was no exceptional drawback. Giving the College credit for the most single- minded motives, and granting for the sake of argument that the best men have been hitherto elected, was it not an act of itself sufficient to cast suspicion on the elections so to surround them with secrecy and elaborate rules, that they resembled rather the ballot of a club-house than meetings to confer honour on the winner in an exalted contest ? Much has been said in the course of the trial about the danger of admitting "notorious evil livers" to the coveted reward—and the question has somewhat to our sur- prise been treated by the counsel engaged as if the three petitioners wished the elections to be decided on the ground of intellectual merit absolutely, while the Warden and Fellows desired entirely to extinguish that element in those of religion end morality. Such a supposition is childish. Immorality or evil living would, of course, be a disqualification to the beat candidate that ever tried for a Fellowship on any religious foundation. At the great Colleges of Oriel and Balliol, where the Fellowships have always been open, and where intellectual merit is also the principal test a bad chaa meter acts as an instant bar to the ablest man. And, if All Souls had followed the system adopted at either of these Colleges, we should have heard nothing of this dispute, and her immaculatb reputation would have been in as little jeopardy as under the mysterious " close-tiling" with which her elections are now con- ducted. The worst of it is that the secrecy she has invented and prescribed tells against herself in a double way. It is impossible for any one who has read through the papers connected with this matter to stifle a suspicion that some element besides religion and intellectual merit, did weigh with the electors during these pre- liminary meetings. The suspicion may be unworthy—it is im- possible to say. The three petitioners cannot tell us what passed at that election of November 1858, as they are pledged to silence, but they are convinced that the best papers did not win the day ; so immorality or something else, must have been the disquali-
fication. At all events, it is the mystery which suggests these painful surmises, and we would recommend the Wardens and Fellows, even if their Visitor does in this instance declare them in the right, for the sake of honesty and their English character, to have done in future with sealed doors. All Souls, like other colleges at Oxford, should be a College, and not, as it is, an exclu- sive Club.
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