SCHOLAE ACADEMICAE: SOME ACCOUNT OF THE STUDIES AT THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES IN THE Eighteenth Century. BY CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, M.A. RECTOR OF GLASTON, RUTLAND SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE FELLOW OF PETERHOUSE AUTHOR OF "SOCIAL LIFE AT THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES IN THE BRA OF THE Antiquam exquirite Matrem."- VERG. NIVERSITY CALIFORNIA CAMBRIDGE: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. LONDON: CAMBRIDGE WAREHOUSE, 17, PATERNOSTER ROW. CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. [All Rights reserved.] PREFACE. LA636 .5 W7 No one who has any experience of the working and life of Cambridge can be ignorant how completely we have been removed from Cambridge of half a century ago, or that we have lost almost the last glimpse of what our University, even forty years since, was like. Not only has she changed, as all that lives must change, but one after another the men of advanced years or of clear memory (such as Dr Gilbert Ainslie, Francis Martin, Sedgwick, Shilleto and Dr Cookson) have passed away, leaving no such memoranda as Gunning or Pryme left, at least none which are at present generally accessible, to tell us what were the methods and processes of University Study through which were educated the minds which have done much to make our University and our Country what they are. In this quick transition of our academical methods, customs, and institutions, the difficulty becomes intense when we set ourselves to attempt to picture either of our Universities (for the like holds good of Oxford') at a period removed still further from us by two or three generations. 1 It is as well here (as elsewhere) to apprise the Reader that in the names of persons or colleges mentioned in this volume the italic type has been reserved (except where no confusion was anticipated, e. g. on pp. 140-142, or in a reprint) for those which belong to Oxford or some foreign seminary. W. b Though I am conscious how unworthy my work is of the Universities, to the knowledge of whose history I desire even remotely to contribute, I have endeavoured to collect in this volume some of the materials which are requisite for a faithful account of Cambridge and Orford in the Eighteenth Century. These lay scattered and isolated, partly in memoirs and miscellaneous publications, and I have taken some pains to bring to light some of the secrets of University history and of literary lore which have lain dormant in manuscripts, known perhaps to a few, and read, it may be, by fewer. The Table of Contents and the Index will enable the curious to use the volume as a book of reference. The following method of arrangement has been adopted: Six chapters (II-VII) are devoted to the history and method of the old Cambridge test and examination for the first degree in Arts, and of mathematics, the study predominant; after which a place is given (ch. VIII) to the 'trivials' (grammar, logic and rhetoric), which under the more ancient régime led the undergraduate on his four years' march. Classics and Moral Philosophy, the subsidiary studies of the old Tripos (X, XI), close this portion of the work. The elements of professional education are next considered, viz. Law (ch. XI), with which Oxford has taught us to associate modern history, thereby encouraging us to give a place to the complete equipment of a man of the world (XII). Oriental Studies (XIII) supply so much of the special education of a Divine as can be well divorced from the topic of Religious Life, which is not here under our consideration. The elementary methods of the Physician's education are described in five chapters (XIV-XVIII) on physics, anatomy, chemistry, mineralogy and botany. |
