MR. LOWE ON THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY BILL.
IT is difficult to differ more widely with a man of knowledge and ability than we differ from Mr. Lowe, in relation to the principles which are needed for the efficient working-out of the Oxford University Bill. We can agree, indeed, to some extent, with the personal criticism he passed upon the constitu- tion of the Commission, though not with his depreciation of Sir Henry Maine. It is quite possible that, in relation to India, Sir Henry Maine may be Lord Salisbury's alter ego,' but it does not in the least follow that the' alter ego ' is not the more original ego of the two, and that the mind which is superior in general grasp and in speculative force, has not had, even in relation to the affairs of India, its full proportionate weight in determining the volitions of the primary ego to which Sir Henry Maine stands in the relation of assessor. And assuredly we do not suppose that in the redistribution of the endowments of the Oxford Colleges, Sir Henry Maine, so far as he gives his mind to the subject at all, is in the least likely to take his instructions from Lord Salisbury. For the rest, no doubt, the Commission is rather too ecclesiastically biassed, though no man showed more statesmanlike Liberalism in rela- tion to the Burials' question than Lord Selborne ; and of course, as we insisted strongly months ago, the appointment of the Dean of Chichester,—who has been rather remarkable lately at Oxford for the somewhat heavy artillery of his laborious humour, which was, we suppose, what prompted Mr. Lowe to call him a " jocose fanatic,"—was about as big a blunder as a man of Lord Salisbury's capacity ever contrived to commit. Still, when we have so far assented to the general criticism of Mr. Lowe on the personnel of the Commission, and also to the condemnation he passes on lodging power so utterly undefined in persons whose views are so undefined, we can agree with him no farther. We do not hold with him that the experi- ment of 1854, satisfactory as, in some respects, it has been, is now working so satisfactorily that it should be let alone. We do not agree with him at all that the " idle Fellowships," as they have been called, great prizes as they are, are really the prizes which attract any considerable number of men to the Univer- sities ; we do not agree with him that the University of Oxford, as distinguished from the Colleges, is teaching young men nothing, and still less that there is nothing further which it could do for them which the Colleges could not do ; and we do not agree with him that the endowment of Professorships, or the endowment of Research, must be the en- dowment of " laziness and ignorance." It is hardly possible to set down, as it seems to us, a larger number of mistaken obser- vations and mistaken criticisms on Oxford, than are contained in Mr. Lowe's speech.
Ia the first place,—is the new system at Oxford working so well as Mr. Lowe maintains ? The Rector of Lincoln, one of the acutest and best judges of Oxford life, and one of the most genuine scholars of his age, says " No." And Professor Bonamy Price, one of the ablest and most scientific teachers of his time, says "No" too, and says it still more emphati- cally. They both agree that if we compare the Oxford of to-day with the Oxford of thirty years ago, we shall see this difference ; —now, no doubt, a larger number of men get themselves or are got through the schools, and in passing the schools are compelled to show a much wider superficial acquaint.. ance with a variety of subjects than ever they were then ; they can give some account of Spinoza and Kant and Schelling and Hegel, as well as Aristotle ; of Mill and Bain and Herbert Spencer, as well as Butler ; of Trendelenburg and Mansel and Hamilton, as well as Aldrich or Whately. But where now is the reality of mind which then divided the University into eager philosophical parties, intent on working out their prin- ciples in their lives ? Where is the intellectual influence which men like Newman and Arnold and Whately wielded then ? Where is the nexus between the higher intellectual influences of the place and the Undergraduate studies ? The com- plaint is universal that a good tutor must be young, must be just out of the schools himself, in order to be a fitting "coach" for the undergraduate who is going into the schools. The older men, it is asserted, lose the happy art of solving the difficult problem—how to get the largest possible surface and show of knowledge out of the very limited period allowed for preparation. Tutors are at their best at twenty- five or twenty-six, and before they are thirty-five are quite sure to be on the semi-retired list ; or if they are able and ambitious men, to be off to some other career. In a word, the bounty-system on attainments, which Mr. Lowe thinks so admirable,—a sort of 6 payment by results' in exeelsis,—is thought by Mr. Mark Pattison, in the admirable introductory essay of the volume on the " Endowment of Research," to be eating away the very life of the University, as Universities ought to be,--namely, institutions intended to excite and gratify the passion for the larger kind of knowledge. At all events it is certain that there is not now the same close con- nection between the larger ideas of the foremost men and the tutorial teaching of the Colleges, as there used to be, and that the schools have no longer the same vital relation to the original investigation of maturer thinkers. And no doubt this is greatly due to the early removal of the best men from the University for the purpose of pursuing the practical career which leads to the greater positions of life. Great clerical positions are no longer open to University scholars as such, and great University positions there are few. There ought to be more, and those who hold them ought to exercise a more direct influence over the Examining system of the University. Lord Salisbury's Bill sins not in proposing too much in this direction, but in proposing it vaguely, and leaving far too much to the discretion of the Commissioners. If the University Professors were placed in altogether higher positions, and constituted into the highest class of teachers,—if each of them (instead of the Proctors, who are always young men) were associated with the Vice-Chancellor in selecting the Exami- ners for the schools,—if the range of study, especially in philosophy, were contracted, and the old thorough drilling in special books were reverted to ; if one or two great schools of original research were founded,—All Souls, for instance, seems meant for such a school, since it has always aimed at some- thing beyond the mere drilling of boys, but has fallen short of its aim,—and if the funds of a good many of the " idle Fellow- ships " were appropriated to the endowment of these higher teachers and higher students of scholarship and of science,—then we might once more see the larger minds impressing them- selves on the University, instead of a gigantic prize-system for boys, which ends in teaching them not so much how to observe and think, as how to seem to have observed and thought.
But, says Mr. Lowe, the " idle Fellowships " are the great prizes which bring able men to the University, and if you seriously diminish their number, you will lose a great part of the best element in the University. We do not agree. There can be no doubt at all that the scholarships and exhibitions which help to keep young men while they are at College are very great educational attractions indeed. They are so accessi- ble, with common diligence and ability, as to make the prospect of getting one a very probable prospect to a man of good natural talents, and they no doubt relieve a vast number of poor men of a great physical difficulty in extending the years of study so long. But it is only the very ablest who, at the time they first go to college, can count upon a Fellow- ship with anything like confidence ; and we do not suppose that of every fifty men who enter the Colleges, more than one or two look with a confidence amounting to a practical motive to the chance of an ultimate Fellowship. These "idle Fellow- ships" are not really, to any substantial extent, educational endow- ments at all. No doubt they are excellent things in bridging the way between the life of study and the life of action for the very ablest men, and we should be sorry to see them wholly done away with. But the good they do is not by promoting education, but by assisting clever and highly-educated men to obtain their due influence in practical life. That is an excellent end in itself, but it is not properly an educational end. It is not, therefore, one to which the higher educational ends should be sacrificed. The greatest of really educational ends is to promote the love of pure knowledge and investigation, for its own sake, in the minds of those who have any bent in that direction. That is an end now comparatively neglected in the Universities, yet it is the highest and best justification of the existence of Universities. We see all the difficulties in the way of securing that endowments devoted to original research, and conferred on men who have shown their capability to enlarge the sphere of knowledge, shall never be wasted,—shall not pamper the idleness and selfishness of slothful genius. But after all the danger is avoidable, and whether avoidable or not, the highest class of teachers may at least be secured a career commensurate with their abilities ; and not only a career, but a due influence over the guidance of the young men's studies. This is already the case in Oxford in Natural Science, and largely the case in Mathematics. With deference to Mr. Lowe, nearly all the Law and the Natural Science taught, all the Divinity taught, and much of the Mathematics taught, are taught by University Professors of eminence, and not in the Colleges. It is in the direction of enlarging this kind of University influence that we look for the good working of Lord Salisbury's Bill, if it is to work well, and not ill. But it should be so amended in Committee as to enable the Commission not only to found and endow such higher Chairs as may be needful, but to give the men appointed to those Chairs their proper influence in determining the examinations for the degrees. If, as we have suggested already, the University Professors (instead of the Proctors) were associated with the Vice-Chancellor in the choice of the Examiners, we should soon see examinations better fitted to test the grasp of real knowledge, though less fitted to test the faculty of display. The real danger of Lord Salisbury's Bill is the vagueness of the aims set before the rather ambiguously- minded Commission which he has appointed.
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