THE STATEMENT OF THE OXFORD COMMISSIONERS.
T"" Statement "I which has been published by the University of Oxford Commissioners will relieve any anxiety which may have been felt in Conservative circles as to the revolutionary nature of their designs. For anything that the Commissioners threaten to the contrary, the Oxford of to-morrow will be the Oxford of to-day. The main changes will be that a certain number of additional Professors will swell the chorus of lamentation that nobody attends their lectures, and that the young ladies who come up in the summer term will have another museum to be escorted through. Considering how little we expected from the labours of the Commissioners, it would be unreasonable to express much disappointment at the barrenness of these results. Nor would it be fair to lay them entirely at the door of the Commissioners. It would have been easy, no doubt, to frame proposals of a far more drastic character, but it by no means follows that they would have been any more fertile in good consequences. A University, after all, is made by its students. What they really want they will in the end get, and what they do not want it is of very little use to give them. The Professorial system at Oxford appears destined to remain an eminent example of the moral interval that exists between bringing a horse to the water and making him drink. The magnificent staff of a German University might be repro- duced there, indeed the magnificent staff itself might be brought over, without the habits of the place undergoing any change. It may be quite true that an old professor will know more of his subject than a young tutor, but so long as the sole object of the student is to do well in the Schools, the young tutor will have attractions for him which the most venerable of professors cannot hope to rival. If Aristotle were to appear at Oxford in person and give lectures on his own "Ethics," he would be neglected, if it were found that Sir Alexander Grant was a more useful interpreter to a man confronted by an examination-paper. Universities do but reproduce the views of the age and country in which they exist. If knowledge for its own sake were popular in England, there would be abundance of research at Oxford. So long as knowledge is chiefly valued for the sake of the prizes it brings, students may be trusted to find out for themselves the quickest way of obtaining it in its most available form. The Commissioners could not be expected to take this view. The mere enunciation of it implies that the work they have been appointed to do is not likely to leave any striking mark on the University. But they might have been expected to show a somewhat clearer grasp of the conditions on which the success of their recommendations must depend. They begin by saying that they are unable to "adopt the views of those who would desire to transfer to the University the whole or the chief part of the teaching work now done by the Colleges, either separately or by means of inter-collegiate arrangements." They think "that the combination of intellectual with moral discipline which is thus obtained is extremely valuable, and that the system of inter-collegiate arrangements, which has of late years grown up spontaneously and attained a large development, has produced good results." Assuming, as, for the sake of argument, we are quite ready to do, that the Commissioners are right in coming to this conclusion, it is difficult to see what is to be gained by the foundation of new Chairs or the increase of the stipends attached to existing Chairs. The Commissioners answer that "among the recognised studies of the University, there are some for which the Colleges cannot be expected to make ade- quate provision," and that "with respect even to those studies to which it is best adapted, the system of inter-collegiate arrangements (besides being precarious, and hitherto dependent for the extent of its operation on the will of each particular college) appears to be deficient in organisation and economy of power, and to be hardly adequate to the wants of the highest class of students, who look beyond the University examinations." As regards the first reason, the Commissioners scarcely seem to give sufficient weight to the fact that these inter-collegiate arrangements have the very great merit of being spontaneous. They have not been adopted by reason of any lack of Pro- fessors, but because, for some reason or other, they were better suited to the needs which the Colleges had to meet. The attitude of the Commissioners is that of men who recognise in the recent developments of the Collegiate system a blind but well-intentioned groping after something better than Oxford has at present to give. They seem to have gone about the University, and discovered an altar raised to the Unknown Professor, and to burn with desire to reveal to the Colleges the object which they have ignorantly worshipped, under the veil of inter-collegiate lectures. Unfortunately for the Commissioners' purpose, these inter-collegiate lectures have grown up under the very shadow of a Professorial body which, though less imposing than the Commissioners propose that it shall become, is still far more than adequate to any demands that have been made on it. That the inter-collegiate arrange- ments do not meet the wants of the highest class of students, who look beyond University examinations, is likely enough. The appearance of a student of this type at his lecture would probably startle a College tutor more than the most fantastic ex- hibition of idleness. But do such students exist at Oxford ? The Commissioners may have come across one here and there, in the course of their inquiries, but hardly, we should think, in sufficient numbers to justify the foundation of a single additional Chair, or any large addition to the endowment of an existing Chair. The proposals of the Commissioners as regards Pro- fessors are as follows :—Twelve of the present Chairs are to be left as they are, with the exception that the stipends attached to them are to be fixed so that the lowest of them shall not be less than £700, nor the highest more than £900 a year. Ten of the existing Chairs are to be redistributed, under the same regulation as to salary. Three new Chairs of equal value are to be founded, one of English, one of pure mathematics, and one of mechanics and engineering. These will constitute the first rank in the Professorial hierarchy. The second rank will consist of Professors receiving salaries varying from £400 to £500 a year. Nine of them will hold existing Chairs, and three more—one of Persian, one of the Romance languages, and one of classical archwology—will be created. It is among the attendants on the lectures of these last-named Professors that that highest class of students, who look beyond University examinations, will perhaps be found. The larger part of the funds which the Commissioners ex- pect to have at their command will be disposed of in this way, the most important of the other suggestions being one that £3,000 a year shall be provided for the better maintenance of the Bodleian Library. In saying this, we do not forget the recommendation that Research should be encouraged, by the employment of properly qualified persons, under the direction of some University authority, in doing some definite work, or conducting some prescribed course of investigation, or by offer- ing prizes or rewards for any such work or investigation, but we confess to feeling doubtful whether the University will avail itself of this permission to an extent which will consti- tute at all a serious drain on its resources.
The suggestions of the Commissioners as to the manner in which the necessary funds are to be raised call for no special remark. These funds, they say," must necessarily be obtained from the Colleges." Their own wants must be met first, and among these wants the Commissioners include "a considerable number of Prize Fellowships, for the encouragement and reward of meritorious students." But though the principle of rewarding a man for doing well unto himself is to be retained, the Commissioners think that the Prize Fellowships should, "as a rule," be ter- minable, thus reserving apparently the right of rewarding cases in which a student has done extraordinarily well to him-
self by a prize which shall last for life. Further, these Fellowships should be uniform in value, and should not exceed £200 a year. The Commissioners evidently feel that they may be bringing a hornet's nest about their ears by this pro- posal, for they guard themselves by saying that this is only their "present impression." When all these objects have been provided for out of the College revenues, the distribution of the surplus will begin. The charges for the Professoriate, the Bodleian Library, and the new Arclueological Museum is to be fairly apportioned among the Colleges, as they may be capable of bearing them, and such of the Colleges as may have a further disposable surplus will have to pay over a portion of it to the University chest. Perhaps, when the final inten- tions of the Commissioners as to Prize Fellowships have borne fruit, the amount of this further disposable revenue will not be very great.
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