New College, 1856 - 1906. By Hereford B. George, M.A. (H. Frowde.
2s. 6d. net.)—This volume is, in a way, a parallel to a book lately reviewed in the Spectator,—the Life of Provost Austen Leigh (of King's College, Cambridge). Mr. Hereford George tells the story of events quorum pars magna fuit. Happily he survives to tell it for himself; Mr. Austen Leigh's very similar work at Cambridge had to be described by another. New College in 1852 was in precisely the same condition as King's. It had initiated certain reforms. It had raised the character of the examinations at Winchester. It had given up the privilege of exemption from University examinations. Then it opened its doors to commoners, though for a time with but small results. Greater changes followed, but had to be made possible by statute. This is the story which Mr. George tells, and a very creditable one it is. Of course, there was opposition ; in such a place the conservative forces are strong. But the lovers of the old order gave way with a good grace, chief among them being the Warden, Dr. James Edwards Sewell (1860-1902), whose loyalty was beyond all praise. But the waive reformers were Alfred Robinson (ob. 1895) and E. C. Wickham, now Dean of Lincoln. We cannot enter into the details of the narrative. Let it suffice to say that New College, which in 1856 numbered loss than twenty undergraduates, now limits itself to two hundred, and stands, in the way of University distinetions, in the very front rank. Mr. George supplements his strictly academical narrative by an account of what has been done in restoring the old build- ings, in adding new, in the administration of revenue, and other matters which make the Oxford of to-day so different from the Oxford which he saw half-a-century ago. It is a most interesting story, admirably told.
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