"Zbe 6pettator," Robentber 29t1j, 1851
[From a review of Oxford University Statutes.]
As, the [new] statute was only passed in 1850, it is impossible to speak of its effect ; but it shows that, whatever may have been her past faults, Oxford is at last alive to the necessity of providing a wider range of instruction for her alumni. The great point now to be aimed at is to elevate the character of University education by some regulations which may prevent young men from coming up in a state of disgraceful ignorance. No one can have talked much with Cambridge or Oxford men without finding out that the great difficulty of either University is not to stimulate its reading men to more strenuous efforts, but to make its lazy ignorant men work at all. When boys have grown up to eighteen or nineteen, their habits are pretty well formed: if they know nothing then, they are not very likely to learn anything; and from this class come most of the difficulties which beset our Universities, and the scandals that disgrace them. Nor will these difficulties or scandals cease till the interests of Colleges and mainly of College tutors, whose incomes depend on the number of admissions to their Colleges, are made to give way to the higher interests of the University. Upon a rigorous entrance-examination seems the whole future of Oxford and Cambridge to hang: and to effect this, the non-residents must not only join to pass a statute, but also be willing to act as examiners, in case it should be found that such examination is from self-interest conducted in a slovenly, careless, indulgent manner, by those who are usually appointed to carry on University examinations.
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