Ittirrs to tot eilitur.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY STUDIES.
Oxford, Mla January 1857. Sin—Your insertion of Mr. Freeman's letter induces me to hope that you will allow me to state briefly, for the benefit of those of your readers who are connected with or interested in Oxford, the great advantages, as I coneider them, of the New Examination proposition, regarded as a whole. So far as I am qualified to judge of Mr. Freeman's remarks, I am quite disposed to concur in their general drift. The omission of Ancient History from the subjects for the Final Examination is so patent and obvious a blot, 'that the only wonder is how the framers of the proposed statute came to introduce it. It discredits a study which has for a long time past been held in high honour in Oxford ; it discourages a species of ability and attainment which has hitherto been one of the most valuable fruits of the Oxford system; while as an educational anomaly it is fully exposed to the battery which Mr. Freeman has brought to bear upon it. But it may be easily removed, without any prejudice—I should rather say, with positive advantage—to the general object contemplated by the statute. A general school .of History might easily be founded; the additional requirements being compensated by the omission of Jurisprudence, which might be constituted into -a.separate school with a more distinctly professional object. Or, if the principle involved in this latter suggestion be thought too innovatory, the school might be left nearly, as it exists at present ; Ancient History being offered, as two periods of Modern History are now offered, as an alternative for special study, and a general knowledge of history secured by a brief examination in the outlines of the whole subject. This would not altogether meet Mr. Freeman's views, but it would go some little way towards them, at the same time that it might be more easily carried than a more extensive change; so that perhaps he would be willing to accept the application of the proverb which he quotes, and admit that "half a loaf is better than no bread." I ought to apologize for having said so much on a topic on which I have no special claim to be heard ; but I am anxious to show that those who, like myself, concur generally in Mr. Freeman's view are not thereby placed in hostility to the main provisions of the statute. The grand recommendation of the statute I conceive to be, that it provides adequately, for the first time, for the separate interests of special branches of knowledge. Hitherto, one great drawback to the intellectual efficiency of Oxford has been the want of special men. In our anxiety to train the whole man for after life, we have lost sight of the duty of raising up men who may act as students, teachers, or examiners, in the several departments of learning. Of course there is much to be said on the other side, but nothing, I think, which need militate against a proposition which professes, not to set aside one class of claims in favour of another, but -to reconcile the two. Such an attempt is made in the proposed statute. The system now in force was a step in that direction ; that which is now contemplated is, in my judgment, far in advance of it. The amount of work required from each student will probably be nearly the same as at present; the disposition of that work will, I think, be greatly/ improved. The principle of an intermediate examination with honours—of the working of which, though it has been much canvassed, my own experience as a "Moderator" would lead me to speak most favourably—is retained : the etaaracter of it is altered, so as in some measure to anticipate what at present form the subjects of the Final Examination, and thus leave the ground vicar afterwards for those special studies which at present obtain but a very partial and incomplete recognition. Something will doubtless be lost by this, as by every alteration ; but much more, I trust, will be gained. It is surely a gain to enable a student, after in some sort laying the foundation of a general culture, to make some real and uninterrupted progress under competent direction in that particular branch of knowledge to which he feels himself most attracted. Under the present system, he is distracted (I apeak of the student of classical literature) by several subjects, which, though they may not equally command his sympathy, must equally command his time and thought, so that he has no leisure to pursue one with that whole heartedness which as a general rule is essential to success. If it be replied that he can follow his bent afterwards, the rejoinder is easy. As soon as he is emancipated from the task of preparing himself, he has to think (supposing him to reside in Oxford) of preparing others for the same ordeal, either as a private tutor or as a college lecturer. Thus the evil propagates itself. The student becomes a tutor, and the tutor an examiner, without ever haying had time or inducement to attain great eminence in any special department. It is this which weakens the hands of the University as an educator, and it is for this that the proposed statute offers a remedy.
I need not dissemble that I have myself a strong interest in the acceptance of this proposition. As a Professor, I am naturally anxious to find pupils who will work with me effectively and appreciate any guidance which I can offer them in the higher walks of my subject. That subject, I believe,
in its length and breadth, affords an indefinite scope for the development of a student's powers; so that I should not fear the imputation of unduly narrowing or confining the energies of any one whom I could induce to enter heartily into it. But under the present system, the students who attend my lectures are chiefly those who wish for help in the intermediate examination, or, as we call it, "moderations,"—persons who, as such, generally aim at little more than a superior schoolboy knowledge of them books, and who, from press of work, are unable, even where they might be willing, to prosecute the subject further. This is my reason for feeling a personal interest in having a special and separate school for classical scholarship in the final examination. The details of this school seem to me to have been rightly apprehended by the framers of the New Statute. I agree, indeed, so far with Mr. Freeman, that Numismatology might find a more appropriate place in a School of History : but Paleography, whether as em
bracing a knowledge of ancient inscriptions (that is, o7ancient orthography) or of manuscripts, may surely he called "an advanced branch of scholarship." But the question is of course not limited to the interests of classical scholarship ; though it is with those that I ain personally most concerned. To those who are interested in mental philosophy it offers a separate school of Mental Philosophy; to those who arc interested in history, what may be made into a genuine school of History. May I add, that it appeals also to followers of mathematics and physical science, who may fairly be expected to vote for extending to others those liberties ahd facilities which it continues to themselves ?
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, JOHN CoNINOTON.
26th January 1857. SIR—May I be allowed to add one or two more " hints " to your own forcible remarks on the study of History at Oxford ?
The failure of the present school of Modern History and Law is clear enough : its causes lie on the surface.
In the first place, by the existing statutes, every under-graduate has to pass through two schools at his final examination. The result is that the ablest men of their year, after attaining their position (whatever that may be) in the school of Littera) Humaniores, find that another examination must be passed in some other school within a few months. For instance, the man who finds his name down in the first class in November, has atonee to choose the school in whirls he will be examined after the following Easter. He has just passed, with great mental effort, an examination which, besides testing the result of a classical education that began almost in the nursery, has included a very considerable amount of Greek and Roman history. This portion of his work has been mastered by the aid of, in a great measure, contemporary and indigenous historians, and read by the light not only of modern commentators but of Greek and Roman philosophy, poetry., and letters : is it to be wondered at; if for the short interval left him, he shrinks from the exertion of encountering so new a study as mathematics or natural philosophy—sciences of which perhaps he scarcely knows the alphabet, and in which distinction is simply out of the question. But he has tested his power of mastering, or as he says getting tip historical books; and his tutors, his friends, and himself, attach a mysterious value to the title of a "Doublefirst." He finds that the carrying in his head a considerable but not excessive portion of Hume, a smaller amount of Hallam, together with sonic Blackstone or Justinian, is all that is needed for a that class in History ; and he sets to work for ten or twelve weeks, with a very fair chance of success: and though he may grumble over Blackstone, it is ut any rate not so tough, if not so interesting as the Ethics, which he has at his fingers'-ends.
Is it possible that the standard can be high, where it is notorious that the best candidates face the examination with such preparation as this ? is it conceivable that students of modern history can be fanned by a system which asks, I speak under correction, for no single contemporary authority, for no contemporary literature ; which only demands Huine's view of the Reformation, corrected by a dash of Hallam ; flume's account of Charles and Cromwell, with the same adjunct; and leaves those on whom it confers its highest honours to wear them unquestioned, without imposing the slightest necessity or inducement to open an Elizabethan author, or even to read a tract of Milton or a page of Whitelocke ?
This error at least the New Statute will provide against. Instead of three or six months, there will be an interval of about a year and a half between the general examination—(that which is now the final one in Literia Humanioribus being placed a year earlier than at present)—and the single, not as now the twofold examination which is to precede the B.A. degree.
This is surely a great step gained by those who, like your present correspondent, attach a very high value to the study of history. The authorities may or may not be right in insisting on snaking Engliali history the principal or only subject in the Historical School : it is at all events to be hoped that candidates for honours will have every encouragement to enter on this noble and attractive field. But it cannot be doubted that the days of mere Hume, and of meiely eighteenth and nineteenth century writers, however admirable as commentators or narrators, must soon come to an end ; and that the careful reader of a well-worn Thucyclides every page of which he has pondered, underlined, and annotated, will not be allowed to receive the highest honours which the University can bestow, because he has managed to run through and retrace a large surface of the clear and vigorous style, and shrewd yet purblind views, of a writer like Home; but will be called upon, as a first requisite, to have made himself fairly acquainted with the current writers and literature, and with the laws and statutes at largo, of some one period in the history of his country. It is for this reason, that, agreeing in much that your able correspondent Mr. Freeman has urged, I differ from his practical conclusion; believingia, I do that the New Statute is or may become, a great boon tothosewho woule gladly see the study of English history raised to its due place in that one of our old seats of learning to which he and I belong. Your obedient servant, G. G. B.
27th January.
Sin—The writer of a letter on the Oxford History School, in your last number, has left one of the greatest blots upon the present system almost untouched. That ancient history should be diasevered from modern, is, 48 he says, most irrational. It is equally irrational that it should be looked upon as a mere pendant to the study of classical literature. Yet such has been the case hitherto, and such will the case remain if the proposed University changes be not seriously modified. There is no independent study of ancient history at all. For the purposes of classical education, such Greek and Latin historians are chosen as are distinguished for their style. But Oxford scholarship, to do it justice, has always been honourably distinguished for studying the matter as much as the manner ; and hence it has followed, that excessively minute attention has been given to the historical events related by such authors. Such attention has been not only niinute but exclusive. Herodotus and 'fhucydides are taken into the schools : therefore Greek history is studied very carefully as far as the close of tin' fifth century. But no farther. Again, Livyand Tacitua are taken as models of Latin historical style. The first decade of the one and either the Annals or the Histories of the other are taken up for examination. Accordingly, such facts of Roman history as are contained in those portions of those authors are studied, but no other. In the ease of Livy, it happens to be the most obscure and least instructive period of Roman history. But even were the second decade or any other substituted, the fact would remain, that ancient history, taken as a whole, is not studied at all. Two general questions, perhaps three, are asked : but a man may obtain very high marks for his history paper and yet he ignorant of the larger number of the great names of antiquity. The life of Perielea, indeed—of Themistocles, of Socrates—he has got up with a minuteness that might be called pedantic; but of Epaminondas, of Demosthenes, of Dionysii, of Alexander, no knowledge whatever is necessary. He is required, indeed, to tell his examiner about the early Spartan kings, about the rivers of Scythia, about the number of ships sunk in the battles between Corinth and Corcyra; but it is almost a waste of time, as far as the schools are concerned, to read of the last struggle for Grecian independence, of the conquests of Alexander, of the division of his empire, of the Alexan
packing of facts by Mr. Thaekeray, and the extreme subtilty of his satire, appeal to a quick intelligence and a critical judgment, in the absence of which the different parts of his large historical pictures might pass unnoticed and his " points " remain unfelt. By the appreciation of Wednesday's lecture, the audience proved their possession of the mental qualities most in requisition.
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