CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY RE'FORM BILL.
WHAT an immense amount of thought and trouble would be sated to our statesmen and others who help to conduct the legislative business of the country, if only today were as yesterday ; if the facts with which legislation has to deal, the ideas and feelings of the persons upon whom it operates, underwent no more rapid changes than suited the convenience of administrators, with their hands always too full of pressing business to forecast the require- ments of tomorrow, or to take an adequate estimate of the rate and direction of the current of public opinion! What a " deice far niente " would brood over Downing Street and Whitehall, if people would only fairly make up their minds what they wanted, wait for it as many years as squared with the party interests and personal ease of noble and right honourable leader's of faction, quietly go to sleep in the mean time, and finally receive with pro- found gratitude and loud acclaim the measure they would origi- nally have accepted as a perfect or at least a long settlement of a vexed question—a satisfactory compromise between contending powers ! That this is not the process by which English history has evolved itself, by which English institutions have received their present forms, is obvious enough to be a political commonplace. But, to judge by the bill for the improvement of Cambridge Uni- versity, laid before the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor, the perception of the truth has only partially dawned upon Lord Palmerston's Administration. In many respects, the bill, as was to be expected, simply copies the Oxford bill of last year, avoiding the original error of that bill by at once referring the settlement of minor arrangements to Commissioners, with power of appeal from their decision to Parliament and the Crown. It thus reduces it- self to three really important provisions ; one of which establishes a new constitution for the University ; another abrogates oaths, declarations, &c., at matriculation and degrees, which have hitherto prevented Dissenters from the Established Church from proceeding to the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Law, and Physic ; the third allows the establishment of Private Halls, under licensed Masters of Arts, within the precincts of the University. We shall not re- peat what we said last year upon the Private Hall question ; pre- ferring to leave it to time and practical experience to determine the value of this addition to our University system. On the ad- mission of Dissenters to the first degree, all we have to say is that it was matter of course, and that the measure does not go a step farther in this direction than was compulsory after the decision of Parliament in opposition to the Ministerial proposition of last year. We beg to remind Dissenters, that the degree of Incepting Master of Arts at Cambridge is due to them, on the principle-that they are to be denied no academical honour except such as would admit them to a share in the government of the University ; and we trust that they will not allow the bill to pass through Com- mittee without attempting to assert this principle to the extent of claiming the privilege of becoming Incepting Masters of Arts. Much of the permanent value of the concession will depend on the spirit in which the Colleges attempt to adapt their existing mode of religious worship and theological teaching to the new circum- stances. For it will be a very questionable benefit to the com- munity to raise up at Cambridge and Oxford a set of Dissent- ing Academies by the side of the older Colleges. Unless the Dis- senters can be received into the Colleges as they now exist with- out offence to their convictions, it will be no long time before the Church and the Colleges are finally separated. It is in the interest of the Church, more than of the Dissenters, that no ob- stacles should be raised by the Colleges to the fullparticipation by Dissenters of their educational advantages, and that the next few years should be employed in smoothing the way to the full ad- mission to academical honours and emoluments of persons of all or no theological opinions. That is all we think it necessary to say just now on these two points ; which repeat exactly the provisions of the Oxford bill of last year, though Cambridge was already a step in advance of Oxford. It is to the first point—the new constitution proposed for Cam- bridge University—that our introductory remark applies. The ex- perience of last year, the growth of public opinion since the quoit- tion became the subject of Parliamentary discussion, are flung aside, and we find ourselves thrown back upon the conclusions of 1852. At that time an unprecedented display of determination OH the part of the members of the Senate had succeeded in wringing from the reluctant Heads of Colleges a proposal to constitute a represent- ative Council to take the place of the old Caput Senatua. A long and hard-fought struggle terminated in a compromise, which, if not entirely satisfactory, was yet the utmost the friends of Univer- sity Reform were then justified in expecting. The Professors were recognized as a constituent element in the Univefsity; the Doctors of the Faculties received a clear accession of power; the Senate was represented, however imperfectly, in the election of six mem- bers of Council by Colleges according to a cycle. Compared with the old constitution, compared with that of Oxford, the change was tad, and especially in no longer intrusting an absolute veto to each single
member of the Council, but vesting this safeguard in the majori Had nothing occurred since, we should still have deemed it wise, accept this compromise, though the-real University, consisting of graduates, was most inadequately represented in the Council. B last year the constitution granted to Oxford by act of Parliament est
Wished the principle that the resident graduates without exception were the persons properly entitled to conduct the legislation of the University ; that to them belonged the right to elect the Coun- cil which was to prepare and initiate all measures, and the equally important right to discuss in English those measures that were brought before them. Instead of proposing for Cambridge a sys- tem twelogous to that bestowed upon Oxford, one that repeats with a trifling modification the scheme of 1852 is now laid before Parliament. The Doctors no longer appear as a distinct body of electors, and so far the University element is diminished in in- fluence: but, according to existing facts, this matters little, there not being a dozen Doctors resident in Cambridge, exclusive of Heads of Colleges. A Council of sixteen is now proposed, to con- sist of four Heads to be elected by the Heads, of four Professors to be elected by the Professors, of four Regent and four Non- Regent Masters of Arts to be elected by the Colleges according to a cycle, four members to retire every year, and to be reeligible. It is to the body that elects- the:eight Masters of Arts who are to be upon the Council, as well as to the choice of the sectional mode of election, deliberately condemned by Parliament last year, that the attention of Members of Parliament should be especially di- rected. The election by Colleges means election by the Master and Fellowaof Colleges,—that is, supposing the interpretation-clause of the bill to supersede existing arrangements ; fur, to take Trinity College for example, existing arrangements vest all power in the Master and eight senior Fellows, and the power of the Master is so preponderant that in extreme cases he with one Fellow can carry his point against the majority of even this limited representa- tion of the College. Allowing, however, that the election by Colleges is to mean election by the Master and all actual Fellows, we ask, on what grounds will it be attempted tojustify the ex- clusion of all members of the Senate but actual Fellows of Col- leges from having the smallest share in electing the legislative Council of the University ? Are the Cambridge Heads so much wiser than the Oxford Heads ? are the Cambridge Fellows so markedly superior to the Oxford Fellows ? or is the average stand- ard of intellect and sense among resident members of the Senate, not Fellows of Colleges, so much lower at Cambridge than at Oxford? To ask these questions, is to condemn the proposed arrangement. And we trust that Liberal Members of Parliament will not consent to make the basis of the Cambridge constitution so much narrower than that of Oxford, because Lord Palmerston's Government is either ignorant or indifferent on questions of Uni- versity Reform.
These remarks apply merely to the constituency which is to elect the Council, and to the mode of election by sections adopted in the teeth of Parliament. But it has been ably pointed out in the Times newspaper, and more ably still in a paper circulated amongst members of the Senate at Cambridge, that, under colour of changing the constitution of the University in a liberal sense corresponding to the change made at Oxford, a great sham is at- tempted to be palmed off. The Caput Senatus, whose functions the proposed Council is to assume, is not in fact the body at Cambridge corresponding to the Hebdomadal Board at Oxford. The Hebdomadal Board really governed Oxford, as the Heads of Colleges in conclave really govern Cambridge. It is argued with perfect truth, that so long as the Heads retain their corporate au- thority, and have the power of governing by ordinance—so long as they retain the nomination of the Vice-Chancellor, and other important officers—so long they will continue to be the really su- preme authority in the University, so long the Vice-Chancellor will be practically responsible to them and not to the members of the Senate, and so long the proposed Council will act merely as a shelter and intrenchment between the Heads and the rest of the University. Any effective reform of the Cambridge constitution must take away from the Heads the power of collectively issuing ordinances and the nomination to the Vice-Chancellorship, and transfer these functions to the elected Council. In one word, the Council must be practically as well as nominally the supreme au- thority in the University, unless Cambridge is to be dealt with on principles entirely contrary to those sanctioned by Parliament in the ease of Oxford.
What is wanted at Cambridge just as much as at Oxford—what will work at Cambridge just as well as at Oxford—is to constitute the resident graduates into en elective and deliberative assembly ; to give them the power of choosing the members of the Legislative Council, according to certain proportions among Heads, Professors, and other members of the Senate ; to allow them to discuss in English the measures the Council prepares and lays before them; and to vest in the legislative Council the same authority that has been vested in the new Council at Oxford. No more is asked, no leas will accord either with the necessities of the case, the demands of public opinion, or the precedent established in the case of Oxford last year. We cannot believe that a weak makeshift Government will be allowed to perpetrate an outrage which would have seriously damaged the reputation of a strong and respectable Administration such as brought in the Oxford bill of last session. Meanwhile, we hope many days will not be allowed to elapse without a decided expression of opinion from those resi- dent members of the Senate at Cambridge whom the bill proposes to exclude from their rights and to place in a degraded position of c't feriority to the same class at the sister University; and from .e Members of the Senate generally, on the sham reform which ofin place the University at large in a less favourable position inn Oxford has been placed. Lord Cranworth promises alters- ions, in a tone that shows how utterly he has neglected his duty
and the honour of the Government in painstaking preparation of the bill. All that is needed is " pressure from without." That, we trust, will be supplied in proportion to demand.
Previous page
