COLLEGE EXPENSES.
So long as there is any force in the implied obligations of social usage, young men at college will, for the most part, follow the fashion of the day, and will regulate their expenditure by that, rather than by the strict requirements of collegiate life. The po- tent rule of this kind of common law is systematically ignored, on one side at least, in the controversy respecting College expenses. Lord John Russell's statement, that 800/. is the very least sum at which a degree can be obtained in four years at Oxford, may not be literally correct. A Fellow of Oriel brings forward the details of his own expenditure to show that the thing may be done for less than 5161.; and he adds, "what the University and the Col- lege are to be judged by is that portion of the expense which is under their control, and this, I am sure, might have been reduced below 3501." Mr. Mucklestone, the Tutor and Vice-Provost of Worcester College, takes to pieces an account previously pub- lished in the Times by Mr. Collis "formerly a Postmaster of Mer- ton College, and afterwards a Scholar and Fellow of Worcester," and shows that it contains items not justified either by collegiate law or by scholastic necessity. Mr. Mucklestone disallows the Charges for wine, dessert, and occasional dinners, 38/. 103.; tailor, 851.; books, 401.; boots, 231.; subscriptions and private disburse- ments, 22/. 14s.; and "various," 29/. 198. "Ignorance and exag- geration," he says, prevail upon the subject : "it invariably arises, as in the present instance, from confounding private prodi- gality with Collegiate and University expenses.' Now it may be quite true that a young man, bent upon scholastic objects and those alone, and possessing either a strong distaste for social enjoy- ments or a very strong power of resisting temptation, may get his degree at the regulation-price or a very little above it ; but it should be remembered that the Universities are necessarily open to a mixed class, and that such qualities of scholastic distaste for pleasure or a strongminded resistance against temptation are the qualities not of the many but of the few. It is, as in other in- stances, not the regulation-price which will determine the expen- diture, but "what is usual.'
At College, the mixed character of the society, coupled with a strong ambition for social equality on the one side and for social distinction on the other, necessarily leads to expensive fashions. These who desire their sons to make way in life through the learned professions supply one portion of the College population. Those whose station in life requires that their sons should be adorned by the accomplishments of the University supply another. The young men are taught that they are to associate as equals ; and the section whose position is equivocal have a strong desire to be upon an equality with those whose position is assured. Among young men of spirit, perhaps the greatest fear is to be thought mean or vulgar ; and it is a natural fear. Those who possess money feel bound to be openhanded, and they set a fashion of liberality, which those who have less money make an exertion to emulate, while those who have no money at all are forced into painful exclusion from society where fashion is inexorable, or are driven to use the fatal facilities of a University town for "raising the wind."
One easily suggested remedy for this difficulty is the foundation of Halls for poor students, the regulations of which shall be de- cidedly on a moderate scale, and which shall thus protect the scholars belonging to them. There will be two consequences of such foundations. Either they will be entered by a wealthy class, and then fashion will dictate a high expenditure in lieu of the technical but imaginary thrift ; or the students belonging to those Halls will form a distinct class, and then they will be looked down upon by the students of the other Halls. Oxford itself may be cited for the example of a poor hall converted into a rich one by fashion ; and Durham may exemplify the social distinction between a poor hall and the richer hall. Economical halls, we know, may be successfully established even at Oxford ; and their success will be encouraged as the system is extended. At present, the ten- dency towards a peculiar tone of disparagement peeps out even in the letter of Mr. Mucklestone—who controverts the position of "a Mr. Collis," and the right of that gentleman to expend such sums while he was enjoying " eleemosynary " aid from his College.
The fact is, that the difficulty is not peculiar to the collegiate system, but inherent in the state of society. At College, indeed, the direct and natural remedy would be easier of application than it is in society; and we shall attain to it when the common vice of attaching admiration to the possession or lavish display of wealth has been corrected alike by the wealthy and the poor—when the rich can be openhanded without taking a pride in the ostentation, but still more when the needy can confess their actual circum- stances without feeling shame at a failure in the purse which does not imply a failure in personal qualities. Then the rich and the poor will be able to meet on a footing of social equality, with- out the necessity for a lavish expenditure out of empty purses. This kind of mingling, indeed, is seen in the very best class of English society, where men of enormous fortunes meet upon a social equality with the cadets of good family whose income would scarcely exceed that of a small shopkeeper. In this class, men poor in purse may share the hospitality of a man whose revenue is like that of a state, without feeling any necessity for emulating the princely expenditure. It is not to be expected that young men of average independence of mind and average poorness of purse could possess sufficient firmness to set a better example to Oxford ; but when parents of all classes really understand the na- ture of the present evil—when they have prepared the minds of their sons for a better spirit in University society—then young men of high birth and princely means might very gracefully set the example of a more modest expenditure, and then, but not till that time, shall we have the proper remedy for an evil which can- not be cured by statute or by University regulations.
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