Of British universities, Cambridge has the most illustrious names on its
list. At the present day, too, it has the advantage of Oxford, counting
in its _alumni_ a greater number of distinguished scholars. I regret
that I had but a single day wherein to see King's College Chapel, the
beautiful lawns and gardens of the colleges, and a few of its gownsmen.
But I availed myself of some repeated invitations to Oxford, where I had
introductions to Dr. Daubeny, Professor of Botany, and to the Regius
Professor of Divinity, as well as to a valued friend, a Fellow of Oriel,
and went thither on the last day of March, 1848. I was the guest of my
friend in Oriel, was housed close upon that college, and I lived on
college hospitalities.
My new friends showed me their cloisters, the Bodleian Library, the
Randolph Gallery, Merton Hall, and the rest. I saw several faithful,
high-minded young men, some of them in the mood of making sacrifices for
peace of mind,--a topic, of course, on which I had no counsel to offer.
Their affectionate and gregarious ways reminded me at once of the habits
of _our_ Cambridge men, though I imputed to these English an advantage
in their secure and polished manners. The halls are rich with oaken
wainscoting and ceiling. The pictures of the founders hang from the
walls; the tables glitter with plate. A youth came forward to the upper
table, and pronounced the ancient form of grace before meals, which, I
suppose, has been in use here for ages, _Benedictus benedicat;
benedicitur, benedicatur_.
It is a curious proof of the English use and wont, or of their
good-nature, that these young men are locked up every night at nine
o'clock, and the porter at each hall is required to give the name of any
belated student who is admitted after that hour. Still more descriptive
is the fact, that out of twelve hundred young men, comprising the most
spirited of the aristocracy, a duel has never occurred.
Oxford is old, even in England, and conservative. Its foundations date
from Alfred, and even from Arthur, if, as is alleged, the Pheryllt of
the Druids had a seminary here. In the reign of Edward I., it is
pretended, here were thirty thousand students; and nineteen most noble
foundations were then established. Chaucer found it as firm as if it
had always stood; and it is in British story, rich with great names, the
school of the island, and the link of England to the learned of Europe.
Hither came Erasmus, with delight, in 1497. Albericus Gentilis, in
1580, was relieved and maintained by the university. Albert Alaskie, a
noble Polonian, Prince of Sirad, who visited England to admire the
wisdom of Queen Elizabeth, was entertained with stage-plays in the
Refectory of Christ-church, in 1583. Isaac Casaubon, coming from Henri
Quatre of France, by invitation of James I., was admitted to Christ's
College, in July, 1613. I saw the Ashmolean Museum, whither Elias
Ashmole, in 1682, sent twelve cart-loads of rarities. Here indeed was
the Olympia of all Antony Wood's and Aubrey's games and heroes, and
every inch of ground has its lustre. For Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_,
or calendar of the writers of Oxford for two hundred years, is a lively
record of English manners and merits, and as much a national monument as
Purchas's Pilgrims or Hansard's Register. On every side, Oxford is
redolent of age and authority. Its gates shut of themselves against
modern innovation. It is still governed by the statutes of Archbishop
Laud. The books in Merton Library are still chained to the wall. Here,
on August 27, 1660, John Milton's _Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio_ and
_Iconoclastes_ were committed to the flames. I saw the school-court or
quadrangle, where, in 1683, the Convocation caused the Leviathan of
Thomas Hobbes to be publicly burnt. I do not know whether this learned
body have yet heard of the Declaration of American Independence, or
whether the Ptolemaic astronomy does not still hold its ground against
the novelties of Copernicus.
As many sons, almost so many benefactors. It is usual for a nobleman,
or indeed for almost every wealthy student, on quitting college, to
leave behind him some article of plate; and gifts of all values, from a
hall, or a fellowship, or a library, down to a picture or a spoon, are
continually accruing, in the course of a century. My friend Doctor J.
gave me the following anecdote. In Sir Thomas Lawrence's collection at
London were the cartoons of Raphael and Michel Angelo. This inestimable
prize was offered to Oxford University for seven thousand pounds. The
offer was accepted, and the committee charged with the affair had
collected three thousand pounds, when among other friends they called on
Lord Eldon. Instead of a hundred pounds, he surprised them by putting
down his name for three thousand pounds. They told him, they should now
very easily raise the remainder. "No," he said, "your men have probably
already contributed all they can spare; I can as well give the rest":
and he withdrew his check for three thousand, and wrote four thousand
pounds. I saw the whole collection in April, 1848.
In the Bodleian Library, Dr. Bandinel showed me the manuscript Plato, of
the date of A.D. 896, brought by Dr. Clarke from Egypt; a manuscript
Virgil, of the same century; the first Bible printed at Mentz (I believe
in 1450); and a duplicate of the same, which had been deficient in about
twenty leaves at the end. But, one day, being in Venice, he bought a
room full of books and manuscripts--every scrap and fragment--for four
thousand louis d'ors, and had the doors locked and sealed by the consul.
On proceeding, afterwards, to examine his purchase, he found the twenty
deficient pages of his Mentz Bible, in perfect order; brought them to
Oxford, with the rest of his purchase, and placed them in the volume;
but has too much awe for the Providence that appears in bibliography
also, to suffer the reunited parts to be rebound. The oldest building
here is two hundred years younger than the frail manuscript brought by
Dr. Clarke from Egypt. No candle or fire is ever lighted in the
Bodleian. Its catalogue is the standard catalogue on the desk of every
library in Oxford. In each several college, they underscore in red ink
on this catalogue the titles of books contained in the library of that
college,--the theory being that the Bodleian has all books. This rich
library spent during the last year (1847) for the purchase of books
L1,668.
The logical English train a scholar as they train an engineer. Oxford
is a Greek factory, as Wilton mills weave carpet, and Sheffield grinds
steel. They know the use of a tutor, as they know the use of a horse;
and they draw the greatest amount of benefit out of both. The
reading-men are kept by hard walking, hard riding, and measured eating
and drinking, at the top of their condition, and two days before the
examination, do no work, but lounge, ride, or run, to be fresh on the
college doomsday. Seven years' residence is the theoretic period for a
master's degree. In point of fact, it has long been three years'
residence, and four years more of standing. This "three years" is about
twenty-one months in all.[17]
[17] Huber, II. p. 304.
"The whole expense," says Professor Sewel, "of ordinary college tuition
at Oxford, is about sixteen guineas a year." But this plausible
statement may deceive a reader unacquainted with the fact, that the
principal teaching relied on is private tuition. And the expenses of
private tuition are reckoned at from L50 to L70 a year, or $1,000 for
the whole course of three years and a half. At Cambridge $750 a year is
economical, and $1,500 not extravagant.[18]
[18] Bristed, Five Years at an English University.
The number of students and of residents, the dignity of the authorities,
the value of the foundations, the history and the architecture, the
known sympathy of entire Britain in what is done there, justify a
dedication to study in the undergraduate, such as cannot easily be in
America, where his college is half suspected by the Freshman to be
insignificant in the scale beside trade and politics. Oxford is a
little aristocracy in itself, numerous and dignified enough to rank with
other estates in the realm; and where fame and secular promotion are to
be had for study, and in a direction which has the unanimous respect of
all cultivated nations.
This aristocracy, of course, repairs its own losses; fills places, as
they fall vacant, from the body of students. The number of fellowships
at Oxford is 540, averaging L200 a year, with lodging and diet at the
college. If a young American, loving learning, and hindered by poverty,
were offered a home, a table, the walks, and the library, in one of
these academical palaces, and a thousand dollars a year as long as he
chose to remain a bachelor, he would dance for joy. Yet these young men
thus happily placed, and paid to read, are impatient of their few
checks, and many of them preparing to resign their fellowships. They
shuddered at the prospect of dying a Fellow, and they pointed out to me
a paralytic old man, who was assisted into the hall. As the number of
undergraduates at Oxford is only about 1,200 or 1,300, and many of these
are never competitors, the chance of a fellowship is very great. The
income of the nineteen colleges is conjectured at L150,000 a year.
The effect of this drill is the radical knowledge of Greek and Latin,
and of mathematics, and the solidity and taste of English criticism.
Whatever luck there may be in this or that award, an Eton captain can
write Latin longs and shorts, can turn the Court-Guide into hexameters,
and it is certain that a Senior Classic can quote correctly from the
_Corpus Poetarum_, and is critically learned in all the humanities.
Greek erudition exists on the Isis and Cam, whether the Maud man or the
Brazen Nose man be properly ranked or not; the atmosphere is loaded with
Greek learning; the whole river has reached a certain height, and kills
all that growth of weeds, which this Castalian water kills. The English
nature takes culture kindly. So Milton thought. It refines the
Norseman. Access to the Greek mind lifts his standard of taste. He has
enough to think of, and, unless of an impulsive nature, is indisposed
from writing or speaking, by the fulness of his mind, and the new
severity of his taste. The great silent crowd of thorough-bred Grecians
always known to be around him, the English writer cannot ignore. They
prune his orations, and point his pen. Hence, the style and tone of
English journalism. The men have learned accuracy and comprehension,
logic, and pace, or speed of working. They have bottom, endurance,
wind. When born with good constitutions, they make those eupeptic
studying-mills, the cast-iron men, the _dura ilia_, whose powers of
performance compare with ours, as the steam-hammer with the
music-box;--Cokes, Mansfields, Seldens, and Bentleys, and when it
happens that a superior brain puts a rider on this admirable horse, we
obtain those masters of the world who combine the highest energy in
affairs, with a supreme culture.
It is contended by those who have been bred at Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and
Westminster, that the public sentiment within each of those schools is
high-toned and manly; that, in their playgrounds, courage is universally
admired, meanness despised, manly feelings and generous conduct are
encouraged; that an unwritten code of honor deals to the spoiled child
of rank and to the child of upstart wealth an even-handed justice,
purges their nonsense out of both, and does all that can be done to make
them gentlemen.
Again, at the universities, it is urged, that all goes to form what
England values as the flower of its national life,--a well-educated
gentleman. The German Huber, in describing to his countrymen the
attributes of an English gentleman, frankly admits, that "in Germany, we
have nothing of the kind. A gentleman must possess a political
character, an independent and public position, or, at least, the right
of assuming it. He must have average opulence, either of his own, or in
his family. He should also have bodily activity and strength,
unattainable by our sedentary life in public offices. The race of
English gentlemen presents an appearance of manly vigor and form, not
elsewhere to be found among an equal number of persons. No other nation
produces the stock. And in England, it has deteriorated. The university
is a decided presumption in any man's favor. And so eminent are the
members that a glance at the calendars will show that in all the world
one cannot be in better company than on the books of one of the larger
Oxford or Cambridge colleges."[19]
[19] Huber, History of the English Universities. Newman's Translation.
These seminaries are finishing schools for the upper classes, and not
for the poor. The useful is exploded. The definition of a public school
is "a school which excludes all that could fit a man for standing behind
a counter."[20]
[20] See Bristed, Five Years in an English University. New York, 1852.
No doubt, the foundations have been perverted. Oxford, which equals in
wealth several of the smaller European states, shuts up the lectureships
which were made "public for all men thereunto to have concourse";
misspends the revenues bestowed for such youths "as should be most meet
for towardness, poverty, and painfulness"; there is gross favoritism;
many chairs and many fellowships are made beds of ease; and 'tis likely
that the university will know how to resist and make inoperative the
terrors of parliamentary inquiry; no doubt, their learning is grown
obsolete; but Oxford also has its merits, and I found here also proof of
the national fidelity and thoroughness. Such knowledge as they prize
they possess and impart. Whether in course or by indirection, whether
by a cramming tutor or by examiners with prizes and foundation
scholarships, education according to the English notion of it is
acquired. I looked over the Examination Papers of the year 1848, for
the various scholarships and fellowships, the Lusby, the Hertford, the
Dean-Ireland, and the University (copies of which were kindly given me
by a Greek professor), containing the tasks which many competitors had
victoriously performed, and I believed they would prove too severe tests
for the candidates for a Bachelor's degree in Yale or Harvard. And, in
general, here was proof of a more searching study in the appointed
directions, and the knowledge pretended to be conveyed was conveyed.
Oxford sends out yearly twenty or thirty very able men, and three or
four hundred well-educated men.
The diet and rough exercise secure a certain amount of old Norse power.
A fop will fight, and, in exigent circumstances, will play the manly
part. In seeing these youths, I believed I saw already an advantage in
vigor and color and general habit, over their contemporaries in the
American colleges. No doubt much of the power and brilliancy of the
reading-men is merely constitutional or hygienic. With a hardier habit
and resolute gymnastics, with five miles more walking, or five ounces
less eating, or with a saddle and gallop of twenty miles a day, with
skating and rowing matches, the American would arrive at as robust
exegesis, and cheery and hilarious tone. I should readily concede these
advantages, which it would be easy to acquire, if I did not find also
that they read better than we, and write better.
English wealth falling on their school and university training, makes a
systematic reading of the best authors, and to the end of a knowledge
how the things whereof they treat really stand: whilst pamphleteer or
journalist reading for an argument for a party, or reading to write, or,
at all events, for some by end imposed on them, must read meanly and
fragmentarily. Charles I. said, that he understood English law as well
as a gentleman ought to understand it.
Then they have access to books; the rich libraries collected at every
one of many thousands of houses, give an advantage not to be attained by
a youth in this country, when one thinks how much more and better may be
learned by a scholar, who, immediately on hearing of a book, can consult
it, than by one who is on the quest for years, and reads inferior books,
because he cannot find the best.
Again, the great number of cultivated men keep each other up to a high
standard. The habit of meeting well-read and knowing men teaches the
art of omission and selection.
Universities are, of course, hostile to geniuses, which seeing and using
ways of their own, discredit the routine: as churches and monasteries
persecute youthful saints. Yet we all send our sons to college, and,
though he be a genius, he must take his chance. The university must be
retrospective. The gale that gives direction to the vanes on all its
towers blows out of antiquity. Oxford is a library, and the professors
must be librarians. And I should as soon think of quarrelling with the
janitor for not magnifying his office by hostile sallies into the
street, like the Governor of Kertch or Kinburn, as of quarrelling with
the professors for not admiring the young neologists who pluck the
beards of Euclid and Aristotle, or for not attempting themselves to fill
their vacant shelves as original writers.
It is easy to carp at colleges, and the college, if we will wait for it,
will have its own turn. Genius exists there also, but will not answer a
call of a committee of the House of Commons. It is rare, precarious,
eccentric, and darkling. England is the land of mixture and surprise,
and when you have settled it that the universities are moribund, out
comes a poetic influence from the heart of Oxford, to mould the opinions
of cities, to build their houses as simply as birds their nests, to give
veracity to art, and charm mankind, as an appeal to moral order always
must. But besides this restorative genius, the best poetry of England
of this age, in the old forms, comes from two graduates of Cambridge.