Observations of the Royal Commissioners on the Advantages of Open Fellowships in the Colleges.

We next proceed to state the positive advantages to be expected from throwing open the Foundations generally. Such a measure is absolutely necessary in order to render the revenues of the Colleges available for the services of learning and education. The wealth of Oxford is commonly laid to the account of the University. But this is a serious misapprehension. The University has no large revenues, as we have already shown. It is to the Colleges that large landed estates are confined. They receive, it is said, not much less than 150,000l. per annum between them from endowments, exclusively of what is paid by the Students. This might be rendered a noble provision for learning and science, but if these endowments were multiplied tenfold, and distributed to a tenfold number of Fellows elected without reference to their talents and acquirements, little would result but increased odium to the University. The architectural magnificence of Oxford would be diminished, and many excellent men would suffer, and great opportunities of future good would be lost, if several of its richest Colleges were swept away; but little present loss would be sustained by the University, the church, or the country.

The Colleges have now become national institutions. They have become great because they have absorbed the University, and drawn to themselves its functions, educational and literary. Seven-eighths of its Students must be members of Colleges. Their Heads furnish its Vice-Chancellors, and form the Board of its Governors, which has the sole right of initiating measures; their Fellows are its Teachers, its Examiners, its Proctors, its learned men. The only elements of the University external to the Colleges are the Professors and the five surviving Halls. The Professors, as well as the Heads and Tutors of Halls, commonly are or have been

D

Fellows. "The Fellowships," as Professor Vaughan observes, are the centres of the whole academical system.* "They act upon all parts of the University at once, Under"graduates, Bachelors, Masters and Heads of Houses, on "all who study, on all who teach, and on all who at present govern. They are the rewards to which the Undergraduates "and Bachelors look, and for which they labour; they "support the Resident Masters and Tutors, and therefore "provide the instruction, as, through the Heads of Houses "who are elected from the Fellows, they determine the

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discipline and government." Whatever changes may take place, the Colleges will continue to be dominant in the University. They cannot be great without it, and it cannot be great without them. They have undertaken to educate some of the most important classes in the country, and they cannot relinquish that task. This duty is one far higher than any that their Founders imposed upon them, or than their present constitution enables them to discharge. Their great powers cannot be suffered to run to waste. Their Fellowships and Scholarships must be rendered available for the best purposes.

The Hebdomadal Board, which admits that the opening of the Foundations might be beneficial to the Colleges themselves, has declared its belief that this measure would have little effect on the Studies of the University ;† but the reasons are not stated which have led to a conclusion so remarkably at variance with academical experience. A few instances will suffice by way of illustration, to show the direct connexion which exists between the removal of restrictions and encouragement to study.

Trinity College in Cambridge, and Magdalen College in Oxford, probably possess incomes not widely different in amount. The nineteen Fellows of Oriel College are not richer than the eighteen Fellows of Jesus College.

A very striking contrast exists in this respect between one

Evidence, p. 90.

† Appendix A, p. 4, of the Report.

OPEN AND CLOSE COLLEGES.

35

of the smallest and the most magnificent foundation in Oxford. There are in Balliol College twelve Fellowships and fourteen Scholarships; ten of the Fellowships being virtually open; for, though the Scholars have a cæteris paribus preference, the College takes care to suffer no detriment from that preference. Twelve of the Scholarships are quite open. The whole number of Undergraduates was, in 1851, ninety-two. There are in Christchurch one hundred and one Studentships, of which about seventy may be reckoned as equivalent to the Fellowships of other Colleges, and the remaining thirty-one as equivalent to the Scholarships. These Studentships are in the patronage of the Dean and Canons, with the exception of two or three which are filled up every year from Westminster School. All who have been once nominated retain their Studentships simply on condition of taking a common Degree. The whole number of Undergraduates was in 1851 about two hundred. Without ascribing too much importance to academical distinctions, we may refer to the University Honours which have been obtained in these two Societies as indicating, to a certain extent, their respective influence on the education of the place. The ten open Fellowships of Balliol were held in 1851 by persons who between them had obtained twelve First Classes, five University Prizes, and five Ireland or Hertford Scholarships; and from 1841 to 1850 (inclusively), Balliol had gained, in all, twenty-two First Classes and three University Scholarships. The seventy Student-Fellowships of Christchurch were held in 1851 by persons who, between them, had obtained thirteen First Classes, two Prizes, and three Ireland or Hertford Scholarships; and from 1841 to 1850 (inclusively), Christchurch had gained, in all, thirteen First Classes and no University Scholarship.

If, however, we had taken an earlier period the result would be found very different.

From 1831 to 1840 (inclusively), Balliol gained, in all, twenty-six First Classes, two Prizes, and one University Scholarship; Christchurch, thirty-one First Classes, five

Prizes, and three University Scholarships. From 1821 to 1830 (inclusively), Balliol gained eleven First Classes and two Prizes; Christchurch fifty-one First Classes and four Prizes.

Now it appears that the Scholarships at Balliol were given away without regard to merit up to the year 1829, when they were first thrown open to public competition. At Christchurch, individual members of the Chapter have always paid regard to merit in the distribution of their patronage; and this was the case when all other Colleges. were close. The result in former times was, that the Student-Scholarships of Christchurch were more open to merit than any Scholarships in the University, except those of Corpus Christi College, which was the first to set the example of instituting an Examination to test the claims of Candidates. But of late years, not only Balliol, but also Trinity, Oriel, Merton, Pembroke, Exeter, and University Colleges have thrown open, or founded Scholarships for public competition; while Christchurch has either stood still. or even become at times less liberal, according to the disposition of those who held the patronage. The consequence has been that the best Candidates from Schools have been more and more drawn away to those Colleges where they could present themselves for Examination and claim rewards for merit.

We

We cannot, therefore, coincide in the opinions of the Hebdomadal Board to which we have above referred. are convinced, on the contrary, that immense influence would be exerted on the studies and the reputation of the University, if the Colleges were benefited, as the Board admits would be the case, by being enabled to render their Fellowships and Scholarships generally accessible to merit, and to merit only. It is probable, as we have said, that no College would display such an array of names as is now often found on the list of the Fellows in the few Colleges which are open,

* See supra, p. 34.

REMOVAL OF RESTRICTIONS.

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and that superior men would be more equally distributed. But a much larger number of Students, and therefore a proportionably larger number of such men, would be attracted to the University. Thus the removal of restrictions would produce, not only a more even distribution, which, however, would itself be an advantage,—but a considerable accession of persons, capable of doing honour to their respective Societies and serving the University. It would be scarcely less beneficial that many who are now saved the necessity of exertion, because their fortunes in the University are fixed, should be forced to apply all their powers to the attainment of knowledge. But this is not all. The New Examination Statute, excellent in many respects as it is, will prove a failure, as regards many of its best enactments, especially as regards the studies of recent introduction, unless the Students shall be induced to aim at the distinctions held out in the new Schools by the prospect of advancing their fortunes in the Colleges. The failure will be more complete than it has been in the Mathematical Schools; for Fellowships are even now occasionally obtained by those who have attained to eminence in that department. There is not at the present moment a sufficient number of open Fellowships to render it certain that every young man who attains the highest classical honours will gain one; and unless the number of such Fellowships be greatly increased, there is little hope that the electors who are themselves, for the most part, ignorant of Physical Science, Mathematics, and Law, or indifferent to them, will go out of their way to encourage these studies. And further, if, as we trust, the University shall be extended to a larger and a poorer class of Students, it will become doubly important that the Foundations should be opened to the widest possible extent, so as to embrace not merely the natives of a few favoured localities, but those of the many portions of the country who are now altogether excluded by restrictions from the larger part of the endowments, and therefore from the privileges of the University.