UNIVERSITIES : BUREAUCRATIC PROGRESS..
Tun impending fate of the great -English Universities illustrates the tendencies of this country towards a new system of govern- ment. Those ancient institutions are in a great measure worn out. Apparently incapacitated by their constitution from keeping pace with the advancing spirit of the age, they have lagged behind amidst a general movement, the result of increased mental activity in individuals and of the spread of intelligence from hundreds to thousands of Englishmen. They are accordingly regarded, by that public opinion whose decrees are necessarily irresistible—the opinion of the classes who virtually command the government and rule in this country—as a sort of lumber, which, however vene- rable from their antiquity, however upheld by the prestige of their former greatness, must needs give place to something of a very different quality ; something more useful, more consonant with the present wants of the nation as respects learning and learned and scientific teaching ; some kind of Universities really capable of performing for England as it is what the old cor- porations used to accomplish for :land as it was long ago. Among the disinterested and imparti, there might still be found perhaps some few old people who would deliberately pronounce in favour of preserving the Universities unaltered; but it is a remarkable feature of the present times, and a natural consequence of the educational activity and the sharp competition which have grown up in this century, that age has an influence less in pro- portion than formerly—that those who really decide public ues- tions are on the average younger than when George the T • was King; and among that class, exclusive always of the in- terested and partial, it would not be easy to find one person of or- dinary knowledge and sense desirous of preventing important changes in our whole University system. The present Universities, apeeedingly, cannot stand. Altered, essentially and radically al- tered, they Must be presently. It is perhaps hardly a question what sort of revolution they will undergo. We stated last week in general terms the nature of the •changes which public opinion requires. They are not now demanded for the first time. For many a year past, certainly ever since Par- liamentary Reform, the national desire for a modernization of the Universities has been steadily growing. At first the Uni- versities were deaf to the public voice, blind to the approach of unavoidable necessities. Recently, indeed, moved by. a few of the more active spirits within their walls, they set about some improvement, but of a kind and scope too small, and at a time too late, for so much as diverting their assailants. Somewhat more of somewhat better teaching, not adopted till a thoroughgoing change was in view, could no!: serve even as a tub to the whale. What little the Universities h:tve done by way of reform, is re- gelded but as an acknowledgm cut that they ought to have done much more, and could have done It had they pleased. Here is the sore place : they are believed to they are supposed to have proved themselves—incapable of Oatisfying the national desires, and incapable from unwillingness. Therefore, prevailing opinion sanctions if it does not demand) the interference of the general
Government. Prevallinr no organ but the government;
ly,-thatoginien ri*.hgekits no w I affected to Dowmtg SirL40 authoniviifinnia - ' ve httherte,Out of the' jnrielicti ' af I-- - ines gqi tia solita to obtain ciaiteltai% tk '''arifficzert Universitiee, it iserM.:4,-, if eeds -must, -Wigan jiliein over ''flii reform-and VatforiinzOtolfo Wililinistry of Pubho' InstiliWtIon. 'Yet lira-government )its well as-rreform : for the- pnblie' Ind is ride uncoil scions )1ef -What ,keener i observers know '-1 fhllW H—namel% that if . the ventral Onverninent irthotild' refeinfittliil .-iii" will little, 'them rifterWarda:ffiThe irtilied V 'Pre Pruasian syidern for that ciffithe-Old, ... :lish fn meat, theUmlVertirties[WilPher'in: I. ", ... 'nkj,. reitykineneesen-) paid-is linifiloq rzfiN 7. 1_, 1111)1111W t,) The-probibleitilbjelAiton 10).1111iblUitiversit*tti is not, AndeethielieclusiVay thiienten fault. "I'lleird# tiun and- mode' of gnverrenient must take ap This =country being " free ''having a real sys 91!iti tion—is necessarily, in the long run; governed' by
government, with all its corruption and other s; is the
purchase-money of freedom. Whichever party may at any time possess the Government, necessarily endeavours to use its power for strengthening itself. Every Government, therefore, is kindly disposed towards changes that promise to augment its patronage, and to put its friends into positions where they may influence party opinion. Even a High-Church Tory Government would like to have its -Minister of Public Instruction managing the Uni- versities and the noble property of the Colleges. But such a Go- vernment could only long—it would not dare to grasp : depending in a great measure on the party- support-of the 'Church and the Universities, it must resist attempts made by the Whig-Radicals opposition to unchurch and Prussianize the Universities. The
gs in power have an interest the other way. It doubly " suits
their book ' to place the Universities under Downing Street ; first, at the increase of patronage would be pleasant for any Govern- ment, and next, as the measure would augment the influence of the Whig party by enabling them to fill the Church and the Uni- versities with their partisans, and to overthrow the old-fashioned Church and University influence, which is naturally hos- tile to the Whigs as a party. As the Universities are natural enemies of the Whigs, so is the Whig party their natural enemy. In the turning of the wheel of party politics, the Uni- versities, just at the time when opinion is ripe for overhauling and reconstructing them, find the authority and influence of Govern- ment opposed to them, and on the side of enemies still more hostile, namely, those Dissenters and ten-pound constituencies who would take a pleasure in rifling the old Alm e Metres and listening to their screams.
Brit how quiet they are ! yes ; and therefore does the hold of the spoiler appear so gentle. Let them only begin to struggle, and then will fang and claw -be struck deep into their sides. The still- ness of the mouse and the velvety touch of-the cat naturally fore- run the rough scene which follows in rine time. In the actual case,, the prey might escape if it were not handledvery tenderly at first, nay, approached with a benign and friendly aspect. If the treatment were rougher at this stage, we might think that the other would never come. Nevertheless, we should not be justified in- concluding that either the Commissioners or the Government purposely conceal a settled design far exceeding what they intimate. They probably intend somewhat more than they say, and will have to do a great deal more than they intend. Like Commissioners and Ministers in ge- neral, their function is rather instrumental than impulsive : they are not an original power, but parts of a machine which obeys one. The primary causes of the whole process are the public dissatisfac- tion with the Universities and their own apparent incapacity for self-improvement The folly which precedes rain was never-better illustrated. If a like fate awaits other self-governed Corporations, such as the Trinity. House, the Bank of England, and -East India Company, it will come because they lag behind advancing opinion, and, by declining the task of self-reform, provoke the action of the general Government ; a power -which in this free party-governed country. is ever apt to keep whatit touches. It is not the less true for being so-odd to say, that the dignitaries of Cambridge and Ox• ford are taking a conspicuous part in the march of that.democratie centralization which impotence of self-reform in her old institutions of self-government seems to render necessary for England. For the general reflection which all this suggests is, that England exhibits some appearance of having entered on the process of ef- fecting a mighty change in her domestic polity—the change from a system of eountless institutions of self-government for local and
• cal purposes, to a system under which the administrative an- ority of the general Government would be almost universal, as in France. Perhaps we cannot help it : it may be a necessity of progress in this stage of the national development. Perhaps it will be for good : the practical English, made so -by an independent, self-relying, originating habit of mind, the product of- infinite ramifications of self-government, may frame one great central ad- ministrative power capable of ruling the country better than the present varied host of subordinate authorities. But at any rate the prospect is not yet satisfactory : the sufficient improvement of the French mode remains to be promulgated, if not discovered. If we were to judge solely by the experience of France from the time of Richelieu, her first centralizer, to that of Louis Napoleon, whose Uncle was the greatest, we should carefully preserve the roots of the tree whose finest fruit is English liberty and English stability in government.
• • s I• a•Ill III: I
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