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Collegial tuition engrossed by the fellows, a more important step was to raise this collegial tuition from a subsidiary to a principal. Could the professorial system on which the University rested be abolished, the tutorial system would remain the one organ of academical instruction; could the University be silently annihilated, the colleges would succeed to its name, its privileges, and its place. This momentous-this deplorable subversion was consummated. We do not affirm that the end was ever clearly proposed, or a line of policy for its attainment ever systematically followed out. But circumstances concurred, and that instinct of self-interest which actuates bodies of men with the certainty of a natural law, determined, in the course of generations, a result, such as no sagacity would have anticipated as possible. After the accomplishment, however, a retrospect of its causes shows the event to have been natural, if not

necessary.

The subversion of the University is to be traced to that very code of laws on which its constitution was finally established. The académical body is composed of graduates and under-graduates, in the four faculties of Arts, Theology, Law, and Medicine; and the government of the University was of old exclusively committed to the Masters and Doctors assembled in Congregation and Convocation; Heads of houses and college Fellows shared in the academical government only as they were full graduates, and as they were regents. The statutes ratified under the chancellorship of Laud, and by which the legal constitution of the University is still determined, changed this republican polity into an oligarchical. The legislation and the supreme government were still left with the full graduates, the Masters and Doctors, and the character of Fellow remained always unprivileged by law. But the Heads of Houses, if not now first raised to the rank of a public body, were now first clothed with an authority such as rendered them henceforward the principalin fact, the sole administrators of the University weal. And whereas in foreign Universities, the University governed the Colleges-in Oxford the Colleges were enthroned the governors of the University. The Vice-chancellor (now also necessarily a College Head), the Heads of Houses, and the two Proctors, were constituted into a body, and the members constrained to regular attendance on an ordinary weekly meeting. To this body was committed, as their especial duty, the care of "inquiring into, and taking counsel for, the observance of the statutes and customs of the University; and if there be anght touching the good government, the scholastic improvement, the honor and usefulness of the University, which a majority of them may think worthy of deliberation, let them have power to deliberate thereupon, to the end that, after this their deliberation, the same may be proposed more advisedly in the Venerable House of Congregation, and then with mature counsel ratified in the Venerable House of Convocation." (T. xiii.) Thus, no proposal could be submitted to the Houses of Congregation or Convocation, unless it had been previously discussed and sanctioned by the "Hebdomadal Meeting; and through this preliminary negative, the most absolute control was accorded to the Heads of Houses over the proceedings of the University. By their permission, every statute might be violated, and every custom fall into desuetude: without their permission, no measure of reform, or improvement, or discipline, however necessary, could be initiated, or even mentioned.

A body constituted and authorized like the Hebdomadal Meeting, could only be rationally expected to discharge its trust: 1, if its members were subjected to a direct and concentrated responsibility; and 2, if their public duties were indentical with their private interests. The Hebdomadal Meeting acted under neither of these conditions.

In regard to the first, this body was placed under the review of no superior authority either for what it did, or for what it did not perform; and the responsibility to public opinion was distributed among too many to have any influence on their collective acts.

In regard to the second, so far were the interests and duties of the Heads from being coincident, that they were diametrically opposed. Their public obligations bound them to maintain and improve the system of University education, of which the professors were the organs; but this system their private advantage, both as individuals and as representing the collegial interest, prompted them to deteriorate and undermine.

COLLEGES, THE CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES.

By a College, I suppose, is meant, not merely a body of men living together in one dwelling, but belonging to one establishment. In its very notion, the word suggests to us position, authority, and stability; and again, these attributes presuppose a foundation; and that foundation consists either in public recognition, or in the possession of revenues, or in some similar advantage. If two or three individuals live together, the community is not at once called a College; but a charter, or an endowment, some legal status, or some ecclesiastical privilege, is necessary to erect it into the Collegiate form. However, it does, I suppose, imply a community or convitto too; and, if so, it must be of a certain definite size: for, as soon as it exceeds in point of numbers, non-resi dence may be expected to follow. It is then a household, and offers an abode to its members, and requires or involves the same virtuous and paternal discipline which is proper to a family and home. Moreover, as no family can subsist without a maintenance, and as children are dependent on their homes, so it is not unnatural that an endowment, which is, as I have said, suggested by the very idea of a college, should ordinarily be necessary for its actual carrying out. Still more necessary are buildings, and buildings of a prominent character; for, whereas every family must have its dwelling, a family which has a recognized and official existence, must live in a sort of public building, which satisfies the eye, and is the enduring habitation of an enduring body.

This view of a College, which I have not been attempting to prove but to delineate, suggests to us the objects which a college is adapted to fulfill in a University. It is all, and does all which is implied in the name of home. Youths, who have left the paternal roof, and traveled some hundred miles for the acquisition of knowledge, find an "Altera Troja" and "simulata Pergama" at the end of their journey and in their place of temporary sojourn. Home is for the young, who know nothing of the world, and who would be forlorn and sad, if thrown upon it. It is the refuge of helpless boyhood, which ́ would be famished and pine away, if it were not maintained by others. It is the providential shelter of the weak and inexperienced, who have still to learn how to cope with the temptations which lie outside of it. It is the place of training for those who are not only ignorant, but have not yet learned how to learn, and who have to be taught, by careful individual trial, how to set about profiting by the lessons of a teacher. And it is the school of elementary stu dies, not of advanced; for such studies alone can boys at best apprehend and Moreover, it is the shrine of our best affections, the bosom of our fondest recollections, a spell upon our after life, a stay for world-weary mind and soul, wherever we are cast, till the end comes. Such are the attributes or offices of home, and like to these, in one or other sense and measure, are the attributes and offices of a College in a University.

master.

We may consider, historically speaking, that Colleges were but continuations, mutatis mutandis, of the schools which preceded the rise of Universities. These schools indeed were monastic or at least clerical, and observed a religious or an ecclesiastical rule; so far they were not simple Colleges, still they were devoted to study, and, at least sometimes, admitted laymen. They had two

* Newman's Rise and Progress of Universities.

courses of instruction going on at once, attended by the inner classes and the outer; of which the latter were filled by what would now be called externs. Thus even in that early day the school of Rheims educated a certain number of noble youths; and the same arrangement is reported of Bec also.

And in matter of fact these monastic schools remained within the limits of the University, when it was set up, as they had been before, only of course more exclusively religious; for, as soon as the reception of laymen was found to be a part of the academical idea, the monasteries seemed to be relieved of the necessity of receiving lay students within their walls. At first, those Orders only would have a place in the University which were already there; but in process of time nearly every religious fraternity found it its interest to provide a College for its own subjects, and to have representatives in the Academical body. Thus in Paris, as soon as the Dominicans and Franciscans had thrown themselves into the new system, and had determined that their vocation did not hinder them from taking degrees, the Cistersians, under the headship of an Englishman, founded a College near St. Victor's; and the Premonstrants followed their example. The Carmelites, being at first at a distance from St. Geneviève, were planted by a king of France close under her hill. The Benedictines were stationed in the famous Abbey of St. German, near the University Pratum; the monks of Cluni and of Marmoutier had their respective houses also, and the former provided lecturers within their walls for the students. And in Oxford, in like manner, the Benedictines founded Durham Hall for their monks of the North of England, and Gloucester Hall for their monks of the South, on the respective sites of the present Trinity and Worcester Colleges. The Carmelites (to speak without book) were at Beaumont, the site of Henry the First's palace; and St. John's and Wadham Colleges are also on the sites of monastic establishments. Besides these, there were in Oxford, houses of Dominicans, Franciscans, Cistercians, and Augustinians.

These several foundations, indeed, are of very different eras; but, looking at the course of the history as a whole, we shall find that such houses as were monastic preceded the rest. And if the new changes had stopped there, lay education would have suffered, not gained, by the rise of Universities; for it had the effect of multiplying, indeed, monastic halls, but of shutting their doors against all but monks more rigidly than before. The solitary strangers, who came up to Paris or Oxford from a far country, must have been stimulated by a most uncommon thirst for knowledge, to persevere in spite of the discouragements by which they were surrounded. Some attempt indeed was made by the Professors to meet so obvious and so oppressive an evil. The former scholastic type had recognized one master, and one only, in a school, who professed in consequence the whole course of instruction without any assistant Tutors. The tradition of this system continued; and led in many instances to the formation of halls, inns, courts, or hostels, as they were variously called. That is, the Professor of the school kept house, and boarded his pupils. Thus we read of Torald schools in Oxford in the reign of Henry the Third, which had belonged previously to one Master Richard Bacum, who had fitted up a large tenement, partly for lodging house, partly for lecture rooms. In like manner, early in the twelfth century, Theobald had as many as from sixty to a hundred scholars under his tuition, for whom he would necessarily be more or less answerable. A similar custom was exerted in Athens, where

it was the occasion of a great deal of rivalry and canvassing between the Professorial housekeepers, each being set upon obtaining as many lodgers as possible. And apparently a similar inconvenience had to be checked at Paris in the thirteenth century, though, whatever might be that incidental inconvenience, the custom itself, under the circumstances of the day, was as advantageous to the cause of study, as it was natural and obvious.

But still lodging keepers, though Professors, must be paid, and how could poor scholars find the means of fulfilling so hard a condition? And the length of time then required for a University course hindered an evasion of its difficulties by such shifts and expedients, as serve for passing a mere trying crisis, or weathering a threatening season. The whole course, from the termination of the grammatical studies to the licentiate, extended originally through twenty years; though afterwards it was reduced to ten. If we are to consider the six years of the course in Arts to have been in addition to this long space, the residence at the University is no longer a sojourn at the seat of learning, but becomes a sort of naturalization, yet without offering a home.

The University itself has little or no funds, to meet the difficulty witbal. At Oxford, it had no buildings of its own, but rented such as were indispensa ble for academical purposes, and these were of a miserable description. It had little or no ground belonging to it, and no endowments. It had not the means of being an Alma Mater to the young men who came thither for education.

Accordingly, one of the earliest movements in the University, almost as early as the entrance into it of the monastic bodies, was that of providing maintenance for poor scholars. The authors of such charity hardly aimed at giving more than the bare necessaries of life,-food, lodging, and clothing,-so as to make a life of study possible. Comfort or animal satisfaction can hardly be said to have entered into the scope of their benefactions; and we shall gain a lively impression of the sufferings of the student, before the era of endowments, by considering his rude and hardy life even when a member of a College. From an account which has been preserved in one of the colleges of Cambridge, we are able to extract the following horarium of a student's day. He got up between four and five; from five to six he assisted at Mass, and heard an exhortation. He then studied or attended the schools till ten, which was the dinner hour. The meal, which seems also to have been a breakfast, was not sumptuous; it consisted of beef, in small messes for four persons, and a pottage made of its gravy and oatmeal. From dinner to five p. m., he either studied, or gave instruction to others, when he went to supper, which was the principal meal of the day, though scarcely more plentiful than dinner. Afterwards, problems were discussed and other studies pursued, till nine or ten; and then half an hour was devoted to walking or running about, that they might not go to bed with cold feet;-the expedient of hearth or stove for the purpose was out of the question.

However, poor as was the fare, the collegiate life was a blessing in many other ways far more important than meat and drink; and it was the object of pious benefactions for centuries. Hence the munificence of Robert Capet, as early as 1050, even before the canons of St. Geneviève and the monks of St. Victor had commenced the University of Paris. His foundation was sufficient for as many as one hundred poor clerks. Another was St. Catherine in the

Valley, founded by St. Louis, in consequence of a vow, which his grandfather, Philip Augustus, had died before executing. Another and later was the Collegium Bonorum Puerorum, which is assigned to the year 1245. Such too, in its original intention, was the Harcurianum, or Harcourt College, the famous College of Navarre, the more famous Sorbonne, and the Montague College.

These Colleges, as was natural, were often provincial or diocesan, being founded by benefactors of a particular district for their own people. Sometimes they too were connected with one or other of the Nations of the University; I think the Harcurianum, just mentioned, was founded for the Normans; such too was the Dacian, founded for the Danes; and the Swedish; to which may be added the Burses provided for the Italians, the Lombards, the Germans, and the Scotch. In Bologna there was the greater College of St. Clement for the Spaniards, and the Collegio Sondi for the Hungarians. As to Diocesan or Provincial Colleges, such was Laon College, for poor scholars of the diocese of Laon; the College of Bayeux for scholars of the dioceses of Mons and Angers; the Colleges of Narbonne, of Arras, of Lisieux, and various others. Such too in Oxford at present are Queen's College, founded in favor of north countrymen, and Jesus College for the Welsh. Such are the fellowships, founded in various Colleges, for natives of particular counties; and such the fellowships or scholarships for founder's kin. In Paris, in like manner, Cardinal de Dormans founded a College for more than twenty students, with a preference in favor of his own family. A Society of a peculiar kind was founded in the very begin. ning of the thirteenth century. Baldwin, Count of Flanders, at that time Emperor of Constantinople, is said to have established a Greek College with a view to train up the youth of Constantinople in devotion to the Holy See.

When I said that there were graver reasons than the need of maintenance, for establishing Colleges and Burses for poor scholars, it may be easily understood that I alluded to the moral evils, of which a University, without homes and guardians for the young, would infallibly be the occasion and the scene. These are so intelligible, and so much a matter of history, and so often illustrated, whether from the medieval or the modern continental Universities, that they need not occupy our attention here. Whatever licentiousness of conduct there is at Oxford and Cambridge now, where the Collegiate system is in force, does but suggest to us how fatal must be the strength of those impulses to disorder and riot when unrestrained, which are so imperfectly controlled even when submitted to an anxious discipline.

At first Universities were almost democracies: Colleges tended to break their anarchical spirit, introduced ranks and gave the example of laws, and trained up a set of students, who, as being morally and intellectually superior to other members of the academical body, became the depositaries of academical power and influence. Moreover, learning was no longer thought unworthy of a gen tleman; and, while the nobles of an earlier period had not disdained to send their sons to Lanfranc or Vacarius, now it even became a matter of custom, that young men of rank should have a University education. Thus, in the charter of the 29th of Edward the Third, we even read that "to the University a multitude of nobles, gentry, strangers, and others continually flock;" and towards the end of the century, we find Henry of Monmouth, afterwards the Fifth, as a young man, a sojourner at Queen's College, Oxford. But it was in the next century, of which Henry has made the first years glorious, that Col

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