MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS.

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have set the letter and the spirit of the Founder's will completely at variance. Of this we shall say more presently.

To these Professors should be added a Teacher of the Mathematical Laws which regulate the phenomena of external Nature, commonly called Mixed or Applied Mathematics. This department might be assigned to the Sedleian Professorship of Natural Philosophy, which is also very insufficiently endowed.

(2.) For the School of Physical Science there are already a large number of Professors; but almost all of them are inadequately endowed, considering the work which will be required of them, if these Studies are (as we expect they will be) extensively pursued. The present Professors are: the Regius Professor of Medicine, who, by the will of the Founders, also holds the two Lectureships of Anatomy; two other Professors of Medicine, the Professors of Experimental Philosophy, Chemistry, Botany, Geology, and Mineralogy. For these Chairs we beg to suggest the following arrangement, which is borrowed, with some modification, from the Evidence of Dr. Acland.

The Regius Professor of Medicine, with its associated Chairs of Anatomy, should receive the title of Regius Professor of Medicine and Anatomy, and should devote himself wholly to the study and teaching of Physiology and Comparative Anatomy, as being the most important of the Fundamental Sciences which Medical Students could be taught at Oxford. This Professor (says Dr. Acland) * "should teach Human Physiology at one period of the year, "and Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at another. He "should be the person responsible for the Anatomical "Museum, and should have power to appoint a Lecturer in "Anatomy, if he should desire to be relieved of the duty "of lecturing on Descriptive Human Anatomy. The Lec"turer might be a resident Physician or Surgeon in practice "in the city, who would, in his younger days, gladly under"take this office for a very moderate salary."

* Evidence, p. 237.

The two minor Professorships of Medicine (Clinical and Aldrichian) should be combined into one Professorship of Medicine and Pathology, and bestowed on a Physician, who should "teach those parts of General Pathology which would prepare the Student for pursuing his clinical studies "in the metropolis or other great cities." He "should be "at liberty to follow the practice of his profession, or be "one who had extensively engaged in it, without which he "would hardly command the confidence of his colleagues or "of his pupils, or possess the practical knowledge which "alone can teach him the real wants of the Students.

"The Professor of Physiology should be required to "confine himself to the duties of his Chair and of his Mu"seum, in order that he might keep pace with the progress "of his science."

The departments of the other Professors in the Natural Sciences are sufficiently indicated by their titles, and call for no remark. Mr. Strickland proposes the creation of a separate Chair of Zoology.* The necessity of this would be obviated if Dr. Acland's suggestion were adopted, and especially if the present Lee's Readership in Anatomy could be made available for University purposes.

As to the apparatus and other matters necessary for the successful discharge of Professorial duties in these departments of Science, we refer to the Evidence of Mr. Maskelyne.†

Appointment of Professors.

One of the most important and at the same time of the most difficult problems in the revival of a sound Professorial system, is to find a guarantee for the appointment of fit men to fill the office.

The present modes of appointment are various. Professors are appointed-1. by the Crown; 2. by Convocation; 3. by limited bodies within the University; 4. by limited bodies external to the University.

* Evidence, p. 100.

† Ibid., pp. 188, 189.

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CROWN APPOINTMENTS.

1. Professors appointed by the Crown.

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1. The Professors appointed by the Crown are:-the Regius Professors of Divinity, of Pastoral Theology, of Ecclesiastical History, of Hebrew, of Civil Law, of Medicine, and of Modern History, and the Readers in Geology and Mineralogy. This mode of appointment has, on the whole, been beneficial to the University. "The Prime "Minister sustains," says Professor Vaughan,*" a weight "of public responsibility, such as must, in general, place "the temptation to do his duty above all others." Mr. Senior observes to the same effect:† "The Executive is, perhaps, not a remarkably good distributor of small patronage. But as important patronage, when exercised by so conspicuous a person as the Prime Minister, cannot "now be given except on public grounds, we are not likely "to have any Administration strong enough to make obviously bad appointments." A striking proof of this may be found in a comparison of the list of those who have occupied the Regius Professorship of Divinity, which at Oxford is in the gift of the Crown, with the names of the Margaret Professors of Divinity, who are appointed by the Graduates of Divinity. Whilst the former catalogue contains some of the most eminent men in English Theology, the latter comprises, Cheynell and Randolph perhaps excepted, not one whose works or whose names have outlived his own generation. It should be remembered, as an apology for the occasional appointment of inferior men by the Crown, that where none are eminent, it is difficult to say who is fittest. But when many study a subject, and there is a demand for able Teachers, we may hope that this difficulty at least will disappear. Still it is not to be denied, that a recommendation to vest all appointments to Professorships in the Crown would be open to such objections as naturally arise from the chance that a Prime Minister may be indifferent to the interests of education, or unwilling to incur odium by an * Evidence, p. 89. + Ibid., p. 18.

unpopular nominatiou, or may be swayed by political or ecclesiastical partisanship.

2. Professors elected by Convocation.

2. The Election by Convocation is, by almost all who have spoken on the subject, condemned as the worst mode of appointment.* The Professorships thus bestowed are those of Sanscrit, of Anglo-Saxon, of Poetry, of Common Law, of Ancient History, of Political Economy, of Chemistry, and two smaller Professorships of Medicine. We do not deny that persons of great eminence have sometimes been appointed. But election by a popular and irresponsible body is altogether improper in the case of offices like those of which we are treating, especially when the electing body is so large, so fluctuating, so liable to heterogeneous influences, local, personal, collegiate, political, and theological, as the Convocation of Oxford.

3. Professors appointed by University Dignitaries.

3. Another mode of appointment is that by small bodies of individuals within the Universities.

The Margaret Professor is elected by the Graduates of Divinity. When the superior Degrees implied real knowledge, this mode of appointment was natural. Bachelors of Divinity were the proper hearers of the Professor; and in early times the hearers were in the habit of selecting their Teacher. At present, as we have seen, these Degrees are mere forms, and are for the most part taken by those only who are compelled to do so by their College Statutes. This body of Electors, therefore, is as little select as Convocation, though more limited in number,—with the additional disadvantage, that consisting wholly of Clergymen, it is stil more liable to be swayed by professional or party feeling;

* Evidence of Prof. Browne, p. 6; Prof. Walker, p. 22; Mr. Jowett, p. 38; Mr. Wilkinson, p. 81; Mr. H. Cox, p. 93; Mr. Temple, p. 129; Mr. Congreve, p. 153; Dr. Twiss, p. 156; Dr. Macbride, p. 221.

UNIVERSITY APPOINTMENTS.

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and inasmuch as the Electors, for the most part, belong to two or three Colleges, the Election is, in fact, confined to those Colleges.

The Ireland Professor of Exegesis is elected by the Heads of Houses. As only one election has taken place (that of the present Provost of Oriel in 1847) to this Chair, and as this is the only nomination to a Professorship in the gift of the Heads of Houses collectively, it would be premature to offer an opinion on the advantages or disadvantages of such a mode of patronage.

The Professor of Natural Philosophy is elected by the Vice-Chancellor, the President of Magdalen, and the Warden of All Souls ;-the Professor of Moral Philosophy by the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors, the Dean of Christchurch, and the Presidents of Magdalen and St. John's ;the Professor of Arabic by the Presidents of Magdalen and St. John's, and the Wardens of New College, All Souls, and Merton; the Reader of Experimental Philosophy by the Vice-Chancellor ;-the Professor of Music by the Proctors;-Lee's Reader in Anatomy (whose Lectures, though properly Collegiate, the University has recently recognised as Academical) by the Dean of Christchurch ;-the Professor of Modern European Languages by the Curators of the Taylor Institution. All these modes of nomination (except the last named) are more or less objectionable, as being in the hands of persons whose offices give them no direct interest in the appointment of the fittest Candidate, and most of whom are exposed to the influence of College feeling, hitherto the bane of Oxford elections. Whatever objections have been raised against the appointment of Examiners by the Proctors, have still more weight against their appointment of Professors. As an instance of the abuse to which such elections are liable, it may be mentioned that the Chair of Moral Philosophy was virtually suppressed from 1673 to 1829, by the custom of giving it to the Senior Proctor, himself being one of the Electors.