LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
RELIGIOUS TEACHING AT OXFORD.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Mr. Horton must allow me to say that he is hasty. He will be surprised to learn that your correspondent, whose " school" he so readily discerns, was a public promoter of the removal of University Tests, and took part in their repeal. The remarks about "artificial tests " and " antiquated restric- tions " are relevant neither to myself nor to my letter. They constitute an ignoratio elenchi, of which a distinguished Oxonian ought not to be guilty. I addressed myself to the assertion in your columns*" that the province of a University is to test intellectual proficiency, and I argued that if that were its only business, the requirement of residence would be un- reasonable and oppressive.
Mr. Horton appears to contend that the University will be a teacher of " true religion," although it shall have ceased to teach, because good Christians outside the University may fill the teacher's place. It would teach "sound learning" also, I presume, if Academical tutors were silent, and learned strangers read lectures in their stead.' So it was in the twelfth century, when a curious but undisciplined crowd flocked to Oxford, attracted by the fame of Schoolmen who lectured to all corners at will. Of that Oxford scarcely a trace remains. Oxford, as we know it now, with its noble chapels, and libraries, and halls, was born of the Collegiate system, which Walter de Merton, in the thirteenth century, may fairly claim to have created. Of the discipline, the moral guidance, the religious instruction, and the religious worship, which the Colleges were intended to cherish, I need not speak. If those elements are to Reriali, and Oxford is to be a place of examination only, the day oift. Colleges is past. There is no place for Fellows of New College, or of any other Society. William of Wykeham's Chapel might have been converted into a place of examination, and the University have been spared the extravagant expenditure of £100,000 on its new Schools; the methods of that excellent examining body, the University of London, might supersede the Oxford of our affections .and our memories. I only ask Whether this is what your correspondents mean.—I am, Sir, &c.,
OXONIENSIS.
Previous page
