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mass, and the more aged fixed residents: and there appears every reason to believe, that the sympathy of the Undergraduates with the more elevated minds of the Fellows, has contributed largely to the moral progress made in the last fifteen years. Certainly the phenomena which have accompanied the religious movement to which the name of Dr. Pusey has been attached, strongly indicates, that if the University-youths were previously careless to such topics, it was because they had not seen among the seniors any such union of learning and station with generous and enthusiastic piety, as was calculated to attract them; and I am confident that scores of Fellows from both Universities could testify, how susceptible to all such influences are the natures of our aristocratic youth. But that to which they are pertinaciously unimpressible, and which has exasperated tenfold the moral disease of our Universities, is, the system of technical rule which has fixed its roots so deeply there. As strangers cannot by any mere hints understand what is meant, it is necessary to explain this distinctly, more especially since Professor Huber has nowhere noticed it.

After taking the Bachelor's Degree, a Student at Oxford is admissible to dine at the High Table with the Fellow, and to sit in the Fellows' Common Room; and a Bachelor who is likely to continue in residence either in Oxford, or Cambridge, often passes abruptly from the society of Undergraduates, and, in a single year's time, associates almost solely with Graduates. At any rate, by the time that he takes his Master's degree, which is generally about the age of twenty-five, his contemporary Undergraduates have either vanished from the place, or have passed with him into the elder and ruling part of the University. therefore a positive effort be made to form new acquaintances with the younger men, he becomes absorbed completely into the body of the fixed residents. From various causes it sometimes happens, that very young Fellows are called to be Tutors, and, as such, to bear an important place of authority in matters of discipline and the old doctrine used to be, that without much technical formality, men so young could not keep up discipline at all. At

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any rate the young Fellow would be in danger of imbibing airs of

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THE VICE CHAISELLOR CONTHAPING THE LEPEF OF MASTER OF ARTS CYFORD APRIL 1842

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self-importance. The term Don is familiarly used to denote a character, who is actuated by a petty love of form and of power; who, upon attaining his Degree, aims to separate himself as widely as possible from all familiarity with Undergraduates, although he may be but two or three years older than they; puts-on the air of a man of middle age; avoids all use of their common phraseology, and behaves with a rather stiff politeness and condescending kindness. This is the machinery, by which an exterior decency of deportment may perhaps be more uniformly kept up, than would be possible without it: but young men are keenly alive to the true state of things, and resent its absurdity. A sort of enthusiastic perverseness is called out, to resist or outwit one invested with scholastic authority, whenever a love of power is perceived in him, and a sense of personal dignity: much more, if admonitions are given for decency's sake and for form's sake, are they received as meaning nothing. In short, Donnism, wherever it exists, destroys that simple acting of heart on heart and conscience on conscience, which is God's great instrument for regenerating society and for the training up of youth; without which, College-restraints on high-spirited young men certainly cannot be of any moral benefit. It is however by no means true, that the University-youth spurn at all restrictions: on the contrary, a severe Proctor is often more popular than one who is lax. They look to the motives of his severity, and to the manner of the enforcement, far more than to the amount of the restraint. If they find in him a ready and cordial granting of all that can be yielded, an unassuming deportment, an indisposition to meddle in petty matters or to enforce anything for* mere form's sake, they only respect him so much the more for strictness in matters of moral seriousness. The spirit of the Don, which so offends them, may of course exist at every time

By far the worst uproar which took place in Oxford during my personal acquaintance with it, was occasioned by the (then) Dean of Christ Church forbidding his Undergraduates to hunt in red coats. A night or two afterwards, they daubed over with red paint all the doors of the Dean and Canons; and when inquiry into

this was instituted, they the next night wrenched the doors off their hinges and made a fire of them in the Qua. drangle. Had they been forbidden to hunt at all, they would probably have been less exasperated, because this would have seemed to involve a moral end.

of life, though it is most offensive in the young official. In mean and vulgar natures it naturally takes root, in consequence of the formal deference, which, in College or University office, they habitually receive, and that, from many of higher worldly rank than themselves.

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But this is to touch another side of the subject. In the actual working of the system, a singular anomaly is found that while the rising branches of our noblest families enter the Universities to receive instruction, the persons to bear authority over them are nearly always men of but middling rank, and sometimes of almost plebeian origin. In most Colleges, or at least in those which are practically most important, "poverty" is essential to becoming a candidate for a Fellowship; where "poverty" means the absence of landed estate, or of funded property above a very small amount. The Fellowship is in the same cases generally forfeited by succeeding to property, and always by marriage; so that men of aristocratic connexions seldom in any case remain to become Senior Fellows on the other hand, only the older Fellows are likely to be elected Heads of Colleges or even of Halls, and thus to pass into the academic Oligarchy. It is reasonable to believe that these arrangements really do exclude men of high or good family from holding authority in the Colleges and University; for no small proportion of First Classes and Prizes is carried off by men of aristocratic circles. The advantages which wealth commands, such as the best tutors from an early age, and access to the most intellectual society, — with the more generous stimulus given by the love of knowledge for its own sake; to say nothing of the desire of fame; fully make up for the stimulus of famine, supposed to goad poorer students on to great exertion. Indeed it is hardly probable, that at present even the younger branches of our aristocracy would like the thought of becoming College Tutors. The office needs to be purified from its semi-plebeian associations, to say nothing of the drudgery, which is imposed in dealing with ill-prepared students. But that drudgery would almost vanish, if the Universities had (what they will probably at length adopt) an efficient Entrance-Examination conducted by University Officers:

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