LAST MOVE OF THE HEBDOMADAL BOARD.
IF it were possible to watch the progress of a movement so practi- cally important as University Reform with an interest dependent simply on the cleverness displayed by parties taking opposite -views of the question,-,-or if we could yield to the temptation of indulging a malicious pleasure in noting and criticizing the false moves made by those who tale a view of the matter in dispute antagonistic to our own,—our comment on the latest proceeding of the Oxford Governing Body Would be undisguised triumph at the crowning proof they have just exhibited of their incompetency and reckless partisanship, and at the advantage they have thereby given -to their bitterest opponents. We certainly shall not pretend to he -very sorry that the body, to whose influence, direct and Till dOf Y-t° inIKer which it has for two hundredyears exercised. The atest-preceed, - ing of the 3,-:iebdoraadal,Board has certainly the advanLae,,of haying removed every shadow of doubt from the very euar eSIA- viction entertained before„ that its members were neither setitse, eo discreet, so devoted to the hest interests of Oxford, nor even eo politically clever, as that the sole -legislative and administrative au- thority at Oxford should continue to be committed to their keeping Without available check or eentrel., Still we cannot but regret that, to purchase this advantage, men eminent in station, reveneneliby profession and age, nominally devoted to the interests of_ science, and learning, should sink in public esteem; that vcrsity, whose honour and interests they have so shamefu p, ,gr- looked in their whole course of proceeding, with respect;tq4e Royal Commission and its results, should be by their miscandiict placed in. formal hostility to the Government, and committed to a contest from which it cannot but he damaged ;_ that the Hebdoma- dal- I Board itself should so indeeorouSly terminate an exisynce whiph has lasted froni-the lime of the Stuarts, and which, if iklias lost its usefulness, Might at least have expired Without ontrigiipg the good taste and the common sense of the Public of QxfOrd-and of England. Since, however, it has pleased the Hebdomadalpprd to act otherwise, we have hut to recapitulate the stig10,,op their proceeding, record the result, and pmgeent how the qiiesti)iir. of University Reform stands affected by they--nte of Convocation girl' on Friday last week. The Commission to inquire into the state of the University of Oxford was appointed in August 18W, and issued its report and evidence in April 1852. The liebdorliedal Board,, Tahepiapplied to by the Commission for information, ,refused, it, on timistemid that the Cmiainission was illegal, basing their refnialpireA eminron ;obtained from eminent counsel. A case inchiduig Alini,ppThu.. on was submitted on behalf of the Commission, to the: lievE.914,eers of the Crown ; who gave a contrary opinion, and affirmed the legal and constitutional nature of the Commission. Whereupon the Pleb.- &modal Board proposed and carried through Convocatien ,a peti- tion to the Crown either to recall and cancel the Commiseipa, or to allow them to be heard by counsel in opposition to it. This peti- tion was refused by the Queen in Connell. The subsequent course _adopted by the Hebdomadal Board is best stated in the Lkusgeege of the Commissioners' *port. The 00i-wiling l4ulyliakitatUfld from us the information which we songht from thejrareeraity through the 'Vice-Chancellor as its 0144 resident oftioer,r ft,FX013! the m al ority of Colleges, as societies, we have received noliamist4nee• As the Reads, are the governors respectively of their own College% these two sentences amount to the fact that both in their corporate paeity as a 13eArd, and individual Heeds of Colleges, they did 'their utmost to withstandand obstruct gig Commission, and to prventit from gaining emirate and especially Official inform ation on the matters submitted by her„gajc,07 to its0quiries.: 'This attitude of the Heads is rendered more -emphatic and signifieaut hy the further fact, that as private Members of the University they almost all re- frained from communicating to the Commission their views on
in our opinion, mainly to be attributed the slow pro Oxford in literary and scientific activity and educational e during the last thirty years, should have shown convin the nation how utterly unfit it is for the monopoly
University Reform, or any facts which might have modified in their own sense, if well authentieated, the final report of the Com- mission. Thus, with a studious and marked emphasis of resist- ance, they allowed the 'report of the Commission to issue without availing themselves of the opportunity afforded ;them to impress their own views on the Government and the nation, to justify their past exercise of power, or to afford the faintet s guarantee that thy possessed among them one single idea on the various and in- terefiting questions touched by the Commissioners, beyond the ob- stinate' intention t prevent o admit no change they could Prent and aban- defi-no power:they:6mM retain. Perhaps up to the date of their petition to the Queen in Council, no greater blame attaches to the-f.proceeclings than that of insensibility to the Strong desire -thi existed both within and without the University for a reform of i 's constitution. Beyond that date p ply the Commission wit-, . we conceive that their re- fusal to suh information was not only im- politic, but disrespectful to the Crown, and therefore highly in- -consistent with Oxford traditions of loyalty, and very Unbecoming in a body of "grave and reverend signiors." ., -, As soon, however, as the Cummission, unaided and uncorrected -14.iiknowledge and opinions of the Heads, had published -their ;rePort _these gentlemen began to bestir themselves, and proceeded ,t,C' ipie.ineasures,46- furnish a counter-report, supported k by,,,,,,,,,, ioeuuter-evidenee. The task occupied nearly as 104 'tithe as herkirger and-Mere original 'effort of the Commis- sion. It was at last completed, and the result given to the publitieLDqempihert144ia- :Tip) :,rapst impertant- remarks to be mad upon n that report -ere,. firstt that it we's framed by a Com- , ifirlIribd4niiiiiell"Bbard, where the UniveriftY has fie --. P ' ' Near 4e-with the exception of 'the two tites; and where Colleges are `467Pielfenta' ft Heade' eine, even though the Whole College Pri, fbif., `'SJecindly, that its conceieione are to be re- '00in* from its Head on every University cfif taS vili t fliellebdentailal Board voluntarily makes in the , al Of sound principles of University education and govern-
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.. of t as what is wrung from it by the pressure of fear of coin- A cli from without and vehement hostility within the -niter- si '.', e exclusive character of the reporting Committee marks rah acteristieally the "foregone conclusion" with Which the
n ,
wo undertaken. Its recommendation on the head of ' Uni- versity -. ,government—the most important subject submitted ' toit as da•rniining the course of futureprogrees—marks as character- lie' .y the blindness of the Il6bdonaaclaI Board to the real state of public feeling, and its determination to extend its long tenure • power into the future practically unimpaired. , The Committee, - after reciting several schemes thitt had been suggested to it for ad- mitting other'ela es of the Utitversity and Colleges to a share "that the IfOci Shaer I Board retaining all . its present func- hi the _ power hit - to`-• inonoridlized by , the Heads, recommends, ' Edna; its composition- ihall be altered by the addition of eight 'Other' members of -Coniciention." - When it is remembered that - the Hebdomadal Board'ehnsists of twenty-four Heads and the two Proctors; that the -Heads are ,a, permanent body, and that - Of the, eleetedrlight tts-n Were tO 'retire 'each' year and not to be eelifri_pie tfirawo a certain period, the impudence of theprOpocalis ' unparalleled-in di* exPerience; , Then, however, came Lord Palmer- - ston'ilefter ; and the Beard - for the, first • thin began to have some faint glimmering Of the truth that the Government had been in earnest all the time—that the Comiiiission and the blue-books were tibt. a .sol mu farce enacted for the amusement of 'eel-L(02e of Maeda( berough constituencies—that, in brief; University Ralf6 . , 10- the prime essential of if, it thorough remodelling of ' icivietni • - body', were real and iinminent facts. From that no epanie a age have reigned in the ' 'camp ; the Academic - Capitol - has reset:nailed With' 'the "eickling of the -guardian geese; • Manlinsi'Derby has rushed 'to 'hie post; and Whatever most idal • alarir aid desire to drive off' the invading Genii from the seine- tuary could effect has been done. Plans, it it. said, have been haStily 'formed, and ea- hastily abandoned; in the precipitation with Which the final step is marked we read the vacillation and desperation of men whom the gods are ahandoning te their *fate. But what thp Fitiblic knows -for certain is that a deplitation from the Ifebdeinadailloard submitted its finallalan to the'Government; solititedits aCeeptiike"sts what -might .lieli fairly taken as a satis- faction of the Government promise and the public in refer- ence to Oxford Reforni; -receited 'an :unqualifiectrefusal ; and none the less determined, in spite Of the declared opposition of the- to propose it to Centeerition. 'Tithe, however, pressed; three years' and a half had been wasted under the delusive hope 'that nothing after all would ' be really done. by Government ; and liOw the very day was flied for the announcement of the Govern- -molt proposals with respect to Oxford in the Bailee of Commons. Trueoinder the circumstances, the Heads having dallied with the question so long, and having A last succeeded Only in framing a scheme which the Government declared to be utterly uneatiefac- tory; there could not be much practical- use in 'attempting by a vete in Convocation on that scheme to influence the action of Go- vernment Still it would be something for Doctor 'Disraeli in the Commons and Chancellor Derby in the Lords to point a sophism and round- a sentence by appealing to the solemn opinion of Oxford as embodied in a petition to• the Crown 'adopted by Convocation as- sembled expressly for the purpose. And who that has watched Oxford politics but would have feared to prophesy the failure of this mancenvre ? It did, however, fail, more utterly than we should have ventured to hope. Out of a constitueneyof nearly four thousand, not four hundred assembled in the Convocation House on Friday week ; and While the Heads obtained a majority of the whole number present, the residents voted against them With remarkable unanimity, and a dedication of dissent from the petition to the Crown was immediately signed by a list of gentle- men comprising all shades of university Reformers and most. of the distinguished residents at Oxford. Are we wrong in calling such a result a total and utter failure of the Heads? Can even Lord Derby or Mr. Disraeli venture to appeal to a decision thus obtained, and thus protested against, asof more value than a vote of the House of CoMmone improvised on a Derby day or after the 12th of August? We have never fathomed the capacity of -either gentleman for cool assertions but we doubt its extending so -fir ; and -e have no doubt. whatever of the reception such an ap- peal would meet with, if venttired upon, from the Government, the House of :Common's' and the nation at large. In fact, Oxford her- self has declared, by the most significant absence on Friday week of ninety per cent of her graduates qualified to vote on the occa- sion, her contempt for them-an:entre of the Heads, her slight re- gard for a decision Of Ca-avocation tinder Such circumstances, and _ her intention to leave the question in the hands Of Government. 'Titre is the sole meaning of Friday's vote : our only regret is that : 's was not still More .emphatitally Marked by the abstinence of a University Reforniers froth taking an part in the proceedings. any hart may, however, well hatehappened;'1. at,' in the indecent 'hurry of the .Hehdtinutdal Board, no tinfeWae- end for that general. con- Celt and deliberation aineisCROftirniere-that tieuld elone have kis- tified such a Step, and' hate rendericT ireffectite; vrhile no sub- stantial injury has beere'dbrie' by 'The opPesite conirae. Nothing -tends to exhibit the 'emidnct of the Heads in 'a inoite •diE- graceful light than the 'filet; that the most important measure proposed- to Convocation for two -hundred rears should ' have -been proinulgitted" on Crie Saturday and the vote upon it fixed for the following 'Friday. : We Call it the most important measure, because it Changes or pretends to change the government of oi- - ford, and; if it Were a rearehatage, would effect the'whOle Course of ' 'special legislation and administration. - Bait it was in fact ho real Change that was proposed, nor was it proposed with the faintest hope of influencing events ; and so the Heads Were perfectly con- :si.stentin giving - to time for deliberation, no time for collecting the constituency from all parts of country. There was time• to Make the vote of Convoeittien formally -valid, there was Cate for collecting it troop from the Carlton Land other places of Tory resort about town ; there was -tin* • for Di. Posey, who wile in the eon- ' fidenee of and in fact the adviser of the Heads,' to summon the gentlemen with the M. II. coats who hold themselves in constant readinessAn'olley the signals of the genethl of their order ; there was time for striking widow for mischief and revenge, if net for victory. The Heads deserve.some thanksf' after all; •for the very undisguised Manner in which they have played their game. They -might have done serious mischief if th-- had not Shown their hinds :•• as it is,' they have bfilymanifested the intention and will to be redichietbils '; and 'if last Tridity's tieste is . accepted by thetn as consolation for their approaching fall, it would beheedto mdge -theinthe eonifort; seeing that itcwili-not defer that fall one
one 'Minute or soften it by one concession. -
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