SCHOLARSHIPS AT SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES.
ACORRESPONDENT'in another column draws attention to a question which has before now troubled the minds of certain University and school authorities, but which has not yet been settled in a satisfactory manner. Briefly stated, his complaint is that the scholarships at the great public schools and at Oxford and Cambridge do not go to the persons for whom they were intended. He deals first with the University Colleges, and calculates that they spend in scholarships " an annual income of some £10,000 to £12,000, lasting perhaps on an average for three years,"—which, we take it, amounts to calculating that some £30,000 a year is awarded to scholarship-holders. He estimates, further, that this sum of £10,000 to £12,000 " is now being awarded in College scholarships alone among some two hundred to two hundred and fifty young men who will begin residence at Oxford and Cambridge next October," and, he asks, "How many of these young men would be debarred from their University life by the want of the money thus offered to them, and accepted by them or their parents on their behalf, probably without any real thought as to the position ? "
It is an important question, and it is one which we believe could be settled with much less difficulty than the attitude adopted hitherto by the University and College authorities would seem to suggest. But to deal first with a alight mis- conception which appears to underlie some of the calculations made by our correspondent " H. W. S." Is he- correct in referring to the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges as if, in awarding scholarships, they were actually paying out so many thousands of pounds a year in hard cash to the holders of scholarships ? Can the Colleges be correctly described as being "prodigal of their funds" in this respect P When "H. W. S." writes of "this large academical revenue," and suggests that it should be diverted from its present channels and applied for "providing funds for the proper equipment of branches of study which are now starved for want of buildings, apparatus, and teachers," be is surely under a misconception. Surely it is the fact that if, for the sake of argument, all scholarships now in existence at Oxford and Cambridge were to be suspended, such suspension would not suddenly make available a sum of £30,000 a year to be used for any purposes the Colleges might propose. In awarding a scholarship, in effect, a College remits certain fees, some of which are due to itself, so that although no doubt a large gum might be regarded as set free if the scholarships were suspended, the whole amount would not necessarily become available for fresh purposes. That is, the sum total of all existing scholarships can hardly be regarded as a permanent income which could be redistributed at will.
That, however, does not affect the question whether, in fact, the scholarships are awarded to candidates whose parents could perfectly well afford to do without them. We should not in this matter go so far as our correspondent. "H. W. S." appears to hold the opinion that in all cases of scholars, as distinct from sizars and exhibitioners, the money is not necessary to enable the newly elected candidates to proceed to the University. That cannot always be the fact, and for this reason. An open scholarship is nearly always of greater value than a sizarship or exhibition, and although the successful sizar or exhibitioner has had to make a declaration of poverty, and the scholar has not, it does not follow that the successful scholar is a richer man than the sizar. What candidates for scholarships actually do is to make a statement before the examination indicating the order of their preference for the scholarships and sizarships, readerships, or exhibitions which are offered.. It may often happen, therefore, that a poor man misses the £80 a year scholarship, but gains the £50 a year exhibition ; but it often happens otherwise, and it could quite conceivably happen that out of a dozen young men, rich and poor, who were candidates for, say, four scholarships and two exhibitions, four poor men might be first in the examination, and gain the four scholarships, while two rich men might come next, but be debarred from taking the exhibitions, so that all six scholarships and exhibitions would go to poor men. But even so, the scholars might be more in need of money than the exhibi- tioners. So much in regard to the Universities. We think that our correspondent also a little overstates his case in regard to the admission to scholarships at the public schools. He says that "at Eton, Winchester, and Charterhonse the Foundations are largely occupied by the sons of parents who have been able to pay for five or six years' expensive education at one of the few well-known preparatory schools which now between them almost monopolise the successful candidates." Five or six years at a preparatory school is rather a long time, to begin with ; the average length of time spent by a boy at a preparatory school is probably not much more than three years. But a parent need not necessarily be a rich man to send his boy to a preparatory school which prepares boys for scholarships. The writer has known cases in which parents have spent the savings of years in order to afford the prepara- tory school fees, in the hope that their boy may be able to win a.scholarship at a public school, and so bring relief to an overstrained yearly income. Again, the statement that the Foundations are "largely " occupied by the sons of parents who could afford the ordinary school fees is vague, but if it is intended to suggest that the parents of the majority of scholars at Eton, Winchester, or Charterhouse are too well off to be justified in taking scholarships, that suggestion also, we think, pies too far. It does undoubtedly happen occasionally that a rich man is not ashamed to take a scholarship for his son, but that in any given year the majority of boys who are elected to scholarships at Eton, for instance, would not be sent to Eton unless they obtained scholarships could, we believe, be proved over and over again.
But if it is not the fact that the majority of boys and young men holding scholarships at the schools and Universities do not need pecuniary assistance for their education, it is none the less desirable to see that such unnecessary " assistance" should never be given to the rich. It is entirely wrong that any parent who can well afford to pay the ordinary bills of a public school should, by accepting a scholarship for his son, debar the son of a poorer man from obtaining the education at the school which the Founders intended he should receive. It is, again, detestable to hear a University graduate boast, as the writer once heard an acquaintance boast, that he bad "made" so many hundred pounds out of his University. Certain scholarships at the Universities, which can only be gained by resident undergraduates, must clearly always remain open to rich and poor alike, or the distinction of winning them would disappear. The winner must hold the scholar- ship ; he cannot pass it on to the next man. But although the ordinary College scholarships might well remain "open" to rich and poor alike, ao that a young man with rich parents should not be debarred from the honour of belonging to the Foundation of his College, or wearing a scholar's gown, there is no reason why the son of rich parents should be allowed to accept the emoluments carried by the scholarship which be has gained. He ought to be allowed the honour without the money, and there is no more reason why a candidate for a scholarship should not sign the formal " declaration of poverty" if he needs the money than there is in the case of a sizar or an exhibitioner. It may be argued that the exaction of such a signature is invidious and unpleasant ; also, that there is no precise standard of wealth by which it is possible to measure the circumstances which should permit the acceptance or dictate the refusal of a money scholar- ship. The answer to that is, first, that parents of candidates for certain exhibitions are able every year without loss of dignity to make the necessary " declaration of poverty "; second, that the declaration need not be one of "poverty," but merely a perfectly formal claim by which the signatory should indicate that his circumstances were such as made it justifiable, in his opinion, for him to accept the scholarship. Such a declaration would never be signed by a really rich man, but it might rightly be signed by a man who, although to all appearances well off, yet found the strain of educating his children heavier than his neigh- bours might suppose. A parent may well be able to afford to pay the ordinary fees at the University or at an expensive school for one son, and yet be unable to afford them for a second or a third. He should certainly be entitled to hold a scholarship for one of his sons, if either could obtain it. What is needed, in short, is a greater elasticity in the dis- tribution of the emoluments of scholarships. It might happen, for instance, that a moderately well off parent had three sons, of whom, perhaps, only the eldest had a good chance of obtaining a scholarship. If the eldest obtained a scholarship, the parent still might think himself justified in accepting the money relief, if he intended to pay the ordinary fees for the other sons later; or he might decide not to accept the money until the second son had tried for a scholarship and failed. He might, again, desire that his son should be on the Foundation, and yet be willing to pay full fees; many men, for instance, especially those with family traditions in the matter, would prefer their sons to be in College rather than at a boarding-house at Eton, apart from all questions of expense. In such a case the money refused might still be devoted to the purpose for which the Founder intended it, by giving the money proceeds to the next boy on the scholarship list, who would, however, be debarred from the privilege of boarding in College, and inheriting College traditions. Elasticity of acceptance or refusal, then, should be the first object to aim at; but above all, there must be the formal claim in the case of acceptance. It should surely not be impossible for the Heads of Colleges at Oxford and Cam- bridge, and the Governing Bodies of the public schools, to contrive such elasticity, and to make necessary such a formal claim. They would not be in advance of public opinion if they were to act without delay.
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