ted) a short course be usually delivered; attendance on these is not more required or expected than attendance in the music-room. For every degree in every faculty above Bachelor of Arts, standing on the books, is allowed to count for residence in the University and attendance on the public courses; and though, under these circumstances, examinations be more imperatively necessary, a real examination only exists for the elementary degree, of which residence is also a condition.

It is thus not even pretended that Oxford now supplies more than the preliminary of an academical education. Even this is not afforded by the University, but abandoned to the Colleges and Halls; and the Academy of Oxford is therefore not one public University, but merely a collection of private schools. University, in fact, exists only in semblance, for the behoof of the unauthorized seminaries by which it has been replaced, and which have contrived, under covert of its name, to slip into possession of its public privileges.*

But as academical education was usurped by the tutors from the professors so all tutorial education was usurped by the fellows from the other graduates. The fellows exclusively teach all that Oxford now deems necessary to be taught; and as every tutor is singly vicarious of the whole ancient body of professors-ἀνὴρ πολλῶν ἀντάξιος ἄλλων the present capacity of the University to effect the purposes of its establishment must, consequently, be determined by the capacity of each fellow-tutor to compass the encyclopædia of academical instruction. If Oxford accomplishes the objects of an University even in its lowest faculty, every fellow-tutor is a second Universal Doctor,"

Qui tria, qui septem, qui omne scibile novit,

But while thus resting her success on the extraordinary ability of her teachers, we shall see that she makes no provision even for their ordinary competence.

As the fellowships were not founded for the purposes of teaching, so the qualifications that constitute a fellow are not those that constitute an instructor. The Colleges owe their establishment to the capricious bounty of individuals, and the fellow rarely owes his eligibility to merit alone, but in the immense majority of cases to fortuitous circumstances. The fellow

* How completely the University is annihilated-how completely even all memory of its history, all knowledge of its constitution, have perished in Oxford, is significantly shown in the following passage, written by a very able defender of things as they now are in that seminary. "There are, moreover, some points in the constitution of this place, which are carefully kept out of sight by our revilers, but which ought to be known and well considered, before any comparison is made between what we are and what we ought to be. THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IS NOT A NATIONAL FOUNDATION. It is a congeries of foundations originating, some in royal munificence, but more in private piety and bounty. They are moulded indeed into one corporation; but each one of our twenty Colleges is a corporation by itself, and has its own peculiar statutes, not only regulating its internal affairs, but confining its benefits by a great variety of limitations." Reply to the Calumnies of the Edinburgh Review, p. 183. We shall content ourselves with quoting a sentence from the "Abstract of divers Privileges and Rights of the University of Oxford," by the celebrated Dr. Wallis, the least of whose merits was an intimate acquaintance with the history and constitution of the establishment of which he was Registrar. "The rights or privileges (whatever they be [are] not granted or belonging to Scholars as living in Colleges, &c., but to Colleges, &c. as houses inhabited by Scholars, the Colleges which we now have being accidental to the corporation of the University, and the confining of Scholars now to a certain number of Colleges and Halls being extrinsical to the University, and by a law of their own making, each College (but not the Halls) being a distinct corporation from that of the University."

This is candidly acknowledged by the intelligent apologist just quoted. "In most Colleges the fellowships are appropriated to certain schools, dioceses, counties, and in some cases even to parishes, with a preference given to the founder's kindred for ever. Many qualifications, quite foreign to intellectual talents and learning, are thus enjoined by the founders; and in very few in

ships in Oxford are, with few exceptions, limited to founder's kin,—to founder's kin, born in particular counties, or educated at particular schools -to the scholars of certain schools, without restriction, or narrowed by some additional circumstances of age or locality of birth,-to the natives of certain dioceses, archdeaconries, islands, counties, towns, parishes or manors, under every variety of arbitrary condition. In some cases, the candidate must be a graduate of a certain standing, in others he must not; in some he must be in orders, perhaps priest's, in others he is only bound to enter the church within a definite time. In some cases the fellow may freely choose his profession; in general he is limited to theology, and in a few instances must proceed in law or medicine. The nomination is sometimes committed to an individual, sometimes to a body of men, and these either within or without the College and University; but in general it belongs to the fellows. The elective power is rarely, however, deposited in worthy hands; and even when circumstances permit any liberty of choice, desert has too seldom a chance in competition with favour. With one unimportant exception, the fellowships are perpetual; but they are vacated by marriage, and by acceptance of a living in the church above a limited amount. They vary greatly in emolument in different Colleges; and in the same Colleges the difference is often considerable between those on different foundations, and on the same foundations between the senior and the junior fellowships. Some do not even afford the necessaries of life; others are more than competent to its superfluities. Residence is now universally dispensed with; though in some cases certain advantages are only to be enjoyed on the spot. In the church, the Colleges possess considerable patronage; the livings as they fall vacant are at the option of the fellows in the order of seniority; and the advantage of a fellowship depends often less on the amount of salary which it immediately affords, than on the value of the preferment to which it may ultimately lead.

But while, as a body, the fellows can thus hardly be supposed to rise above the average amount of intelligence and acquirement; so, of the fellows, it is not those best competent to its discharge who are generally found engaged in the business of tuition.

In the first place, there is no power of adequate selection, were there even sufficient materials from which to choose. The head, himself of the same leaven with the fellows, cannot be presumed greatly to transcend their level; and he is peculiarly exposed to the influence of that party spirit by which collegial bodies are so frequently distracted. Were his approbation of tutors, therefore, free, we could have no security for the wisdom and impartiality of his choice. But, in point of fact, he can only legally refuse his sanction on the odious grounds of ignorance, vice, or irreligion. The tutors are thus virtually self-appointed.

But in the second place, a fellow constitutes himself a tutor, not because he suits the office, but because the office is convenient to him. The stand

stances is a free choice of candidates allowed to the fellows of a College, upon any vacancy in their number. Merit therefore has not such provision made as the extent of the endowments might seem to promise. Now it is certain that each of these various institutions is not the best. The best of them perhaps are those [how many are there?] where an unrestrained choice is left among all candidates who have taken one degree. The worst are those which are appropriated to schools, from which boys of sixteen or seventeen are forwarded to a fixed station and emolument, which nothing can forfeit but flagrant misconduct, and which no exertion can render more valuable." Reply to the Calumnies, &c. page 183. We may add, that even where "a free choice of candidates is allowed," the electors are not always Fellows either of Oriel College, Oxford, or of Trinity College, Cambridge.

ard of tutorial capacity and of tutorial performance is in Oxford too low to frighten even the diffident or lazy. The advantages of the situation in point either of profit or reputation are not sufficient to tempt ambitious talent; and distinguished ability is sure soon to be withdrawn from the vocation,-if marriage does not precipitate a retreat.* The fellow who in general undertakes the office, and continues the longest to discharge it, is a clerical expectant whose hopes are bounded by a College living; and who, until the wheel of promotion has moved round, is content to relieve the tedium of a leisure life by the interest of an occupation, and to improve his income by its emoluments. Thus it is that tuition is not solemnly engaged in as an important, arduous, responsible, and permanent occupation; but lightly viewed and undertaken as a matter of convenience, a business by the by, a tate of transition, a stepping-stone to something else.

But in the third place, were the tutors not the creatures of accident, did merit exclusively determine their appointment, and did the situation templ the services of the highest talent, still it would be impossible to find a complement of able men equal in number to the cloud of tutors whom Oxford actually employs.

This general demonstration of what the fellow-tutors of Oxford must be, is more than confirmed by a view of what they actually are. It is not contended that the system excludes men of merit, but that merit is in general the accident, not the principle, of their appointment. We might, therefore, always expect, on the common doctrine of probabilities, that among the multitude of college tutors, there should be a few known to the world for ability and erudition. But we assert, without fear of contradiction, that, on the average, there is to be found among those to whom Oxford confides the business of education, an infinitely smaller proportion of men of literary reputation, than among the actual instructors of any other University in the world. For example: the second work at the head of this article exhibits the names of above forty fellow-tutors; yet among these we have not encountered a single individual of whose literary existence the public is aware. This may be an unfavourable accident; but where is the University out of Britain of which so little could at any time be said?

We at present consider the system de facto in itself, and without reference to its effects; and say nothing of its qualities, except in so far as these are involved in the bare statement of its organization. So much, however, is notorious; either the great University of Oxford does not now attempt to accomplish what it was established to effect, and what every, even the meaest, University proposes; or it attemps this by means universally proportioned to the end, and thus ludicrously fails in the endeavour. That there is much of good, much worthy of imitation by other Universities, in the present spirit and present economy of Oxford, we are happy to acknowledge, and may at another time endeavour to demonstrate. But this good is occasioned, not effected; it exists not in consequence of any excellence in the instructors; and is only favoured in so far as it is compatible with the interest of those private corporations, who administer the University exclusively for their own benefit. As at present organized, it is a doubtful problem whether the tutorial system ought not to be abated as a nuisance. For if some tu

"So far from a College being a drain upon the world, the world drains Colleges of their most Mcient members; and although the University thus becomes a more effectual engine of educa [how?] it loses much of that characteristic feature it once had, as a residence of learned and an emporium of literature." Reply to the Calumnies, &c. page 185.

tors may afford assistance to some pupils, to other pupils other tutors prove equally an impediment. We are no enemies of collegial residence, no enemies of a tutorial discipline, even now when its former necessity has in a great measure been superseded. To vindicate its utility under present circumstances, it must, however, be raised not merely from its actual corruption, but even to a higher excellence than is possessed by its original constitution. A tutorial system in subordination to a professorial (which Oxford formerly enjoyed) we regard as affording the condition of an absolutely perfect University. But the tutorial system, as now dominant in Oxford, is vicious, in its application-as usurping the place of the professorial, whose function, under any circumstances, it is inadequate to discharge; and in its constitution-the tutors, as now fortuitously appointed, being, as a body, incompetent even to the duties of subsidiary instruction.

II. We come now to our second subject of consideration—to inquire by what causes and for what ends this revolution was accomplished; how the English Universities, and in particular Oxford, passed from a legal to an illegal state, and from public Universities were degraded into private schools? The answer is precise: this was effected solely by the influence, and exclusively for the advantage, of the Colleges: but it requires some illustration to understand how the interest of these private corporations was opposed to that of the public institution, of which they were the accidents; and how their domestic tuition was able gradually to undermine, and ultimately to supersede, the system of academical lectures in aid of which it was established.

Though Colleges be unessential accessories to a University, yet common circumstances occasioned, throughout all the older Universities, the foundation of conventual establishments for the habitation, support, and subsidiary discipline of the student; and the date of the earliest Colleges is not long posterior to the date of the most ancient Universities. Establishments of this nature are thus not peculiar to England; and like the greater number of her institutions, they were borrowed by Oxford from the mother University of Paris-but with peculiar and important modifications. A sketch of the Collegial system as variously organized, and as variously affecting the academical constitution in foreign Universities, will afford a clearer conception of the distinctive character of that system in those of England, and of the paramount and unexampled influence it has exerted in determining their corruption.

The causes which originally promoted the establishment of Colleges were very different from those which subsequently occasioned their increase, and are to be found in the circumstances under which the earliest Universities sprang up. The great concourse of the studious, from every country of Europe, to the illustrious teachers of law, medicine, and philosophy, who in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries opened their schools in Bologna, Salerno, and Paris, necessarily occasioned, in these cities, a scarcity of lodgings, and an exorbitant demand for rent. Various means were adopted to alleviate this inconvenience, but with inadequate effect; and the hardships to which the poorer students were frequently exposed, moved compassionate individuals to provide houses, in which a certain number of indigent scholars might be accommodated with free lodging during the progress of their studies. The manners, also, of the cities in which the early Universities arose, were, for obvious reasons, more than usually corrupt; and even attendance on the public teachers forced the student into dangerous and

degrading associations.* Piety thus concurred with benevolence in supplying houses in which poor scholars might be harboured without cost, and youth, removed from perilous temptation, be placed under the control of an overseer; and an example was afforded for imitation in the Hospitia which the religious orders established in the University towns for those of their members who were now attracted, as teachers and learners, to those places of literary resort. Free board was soon added to free lodging; and a small bursary or stipend generally completed the endowment. With moral superintendence was conjoined literary discipline, but still in subservience to the public exercises and lectures: opportunity was obtained of constant disputation, to which the greatest importance was not unwisely attributed through all the scholastic ages; while books, which only affluent individuals could then afford to purchase, were supplied for the general use of the indigent community.

But as Paris was the University in which collegial establishments were first founded, so Paris was the University in which they soonest obtained the last and most important extension of their purposes. Regents were occasionally taken from the public schools, and placed as regular lecturers within the Colleges. Sometimes nominated, always controlled, and only degraded by their faculty, these lecturers were recognized as among its teachers; and the same privileges accorded to the attendance on their College courses, as on those delivered by other graduates in the common schools of the University. Different Colleges thus afforded the means of academical education in certain departments of a faculty-in a whole faculty -or in several faculties; and so far they constituted particular incorporations of teachers and learners, apart from, and independent of, the general body of the University. They formed, in fact, so many petty Universities, or so many fragments of a University. Into the Colleges, thus furnished with professors, there were soon admitted to board and education pensioners, or scholars not on the foundation; and nothing more was wanting to supersede the lecturer in the public schools, than to throw open these domestic classes to the members, of the other Colleges, and to the martinets or scholars of the University not belonging to Colleges at all. In the course of the fifteenth century this was done; and the University and Colleges were thus intimately united. The College regents, selected for talent, and recommended to favour by their nomination, soon diverted the students from the unguaranteed courses of the lecturers in the University schools. The greater faculties of theology and arts became at last exclusively collegial. With the exception of two courses in the College of Navarre, the lectures, disputations, and acts of the Theological Faculty were confined to the College of the Sorbonne ; and the Sorbonne thus became convertible with the Theological

"Tunc autem," says the Cardinal de Vitry, who wrote in the first half of the thirteenth century, in speaking of the state of Paris," tune autem amplius in Clero quam in alio populo dis soluta (Lutetia sc.), tamquam capra scabiosa et ovis morbida pernicioso exemplo multos hospites suos undique ad eam affluentes corrumpebat, habitatores suos devorans et in profundum demergens, simplicem fornicationem nullum peccatum reputabat. Meretrices publica ubique per vicos ef plateas civitatis passim ad lupanaria sua clericos transeuntes quasi per violentiam pertrahebant Quod si forte ingredi recusarent, confestim eos Sodomitas, post ipsos conclamantes dicebant. Is una autem et eadem domo scholæ erant superius, prostibula inferius. In parte superior: magistri legebant, in inferiori meretrices officia turpitudinis exercebant. Ex una parte meretrices inter se et cum Cenonibus [lenonibus] litigabant: ex alia parte disputantes et contentiose agentes clerici proclamabant."--(Jacobi de Vitriaco, Hist. Occident. cap. vii.-It thus appears that the schools of the Faculty of Arts were not as yet established in the Rue de la Fouarre. At this date in Paris, as originally also in Oxford, the lectures and disputations were conducted by the masters in their private habitations.