_Reform in the Examinations at Oxford.—Nothing but Divinity studied
there.—Tendency towards the Catholic Faith long continued there.—New
Edifices.—The Bodleian.—The Schools._
School and college are not united in the English universities. Students
are not admitted till their school education is completed, which is
usually between the age of seventeen and nineteen. Four years are then
to be passed at college before the student can graduate; and till he has
graduated he cannot receive holy orders, nor till he has attained the
age of twenty-two years and a half. Formerly they went younger: the
statutes forbid them to play at certain games in the streets, which are
exclusively the amusement of children; but when the statutes were made,
there were few other schools. The examinations preparatory to graduation
were, till within these three or four years, so trifling as to be the
opprobrium of Oxford. Some score of syllogisms were handed down from one
generation to another; the candidate chose which of these he pleased to
be examined in, and any two books in the learned languages. Any master
of arts who happened to come into the schools might examine him. It was
usually contrived to have a friend ready, lest too much might be
expected, and not unfrequently nothing was done,—the champion had
appeared in the lists, and that was enough. A great change has just
taken place, and the examination is now so serious and severe, that the
present generation speak with envy of the happy days of their
predecessors.
At one of the colleges a needle and thread is given to every member on
New Year's Day, with this admonition: "Take this, and be thrifty!" But
though thrift may be enjoined by the statutes, it is not by the customs,
of Oxford. The expence of living here is prodigious; few have so small a
pension as 150_l._ sterling; and the students of the privileged classes
expend four and five fold this sum. It might be thought that in
learning, as in religion, there should be no distinction of persons.
Distinctions however there are, in the universities, as well as in the
churches; and the noble and wealthy students are admitted to academical
honours, without passing through the term of years which is required
from others.
Lectures are delivered here upon every branch of science: the students
may attend them or not, at their own pleasure, except those of the
divinity professor; a certificate of their attendance upon these is
required before the bishops will ordain any candidate for orders.
Degrees are granted in law, medicine, and music; but law must be studied
in London, medicine in Edinburgh, and music wherever the musician
pleases. It is only for those persons who are designed for the clergy,
that a college education is indispensable; others are sent there because
it is the custom, and because it is convenient that they should be under
some little restraint, and have at least the appearance of having
something to do, when they have ceased to be boys, and are not yet men.
But, strictly speaking, Oxford is a school for divinity, and for nothing
else.
I cannot look upon this beautiful city—for beautiful it is beyond my
powers of language to describe—without a deep feeling of sorrow. The
ways of Providence are indeed mysterious! Little did the pious founders
of these noble institutions think to what a purpose they were one day to
be made subservient: little did they think that they were establishing
seminaries wherein their posterity were to be trained up in heresy and
schism, and disciplined to attack that faith, for the support of which
these stately buildings had been so munificently endowed. That this
perversion might be complete, Catholics are excluded from these very
universities which owe their establishment to Catholic piety. Every
person who enters is obliged to subscribe the heterogeneous articles of
the Church of England; a law which excludes all Dissenters, and thus
shuts out no inconsiderable part of the English youth from the
advantages of a regular education. Yet, to do Oxford justice, it must be
admitted that the apostacy began in the state, and was forced upon her;
that she clung to the faith till the very last, restored it with avidity
under the short sunshine of Philip and Mary's reign, and, whenever there
has appeared any disposition towards Catholicism in the government, has
always inclined towards it as the saving side. More remains of the true
faith are to be found here than exist elsewhere in England, as the
frequency of church service, the celibacy to which the fellows are
restricted, and the prayers which are said in every college for the
souls of the founders and benefactors. It is surprising that so much
should have been permitted to remain; indeed, that the colleges
themselves should have been spared by the barbarous and barbarising
spirit of the founders of the English schism, Lutherans, Calvinists,
Bucerists or Zwinglians, call them which you will; from whichever head
you name it, it is but one beast—with more heads than the hydra, and
upon every forehead is written Blasphemy.[2]
A few buildings have been added to the city in later times,—not like the
former ones. Protestantism builds no cathedrals, and endows no colleges.
These later monuments of liberality have had science in view, instead of
religion: the love of fame upon earth has been the founders' motive, not
the hope of reward in heaven. The theatre, a library, a printing-office,
and an observatory, have all been built since the great rebellion; the
last is newly erected with the money which was designed to supply the
library with books. The Bodleian was thought sufficient; and as there
are college libraries beside, there seems to have been good reason for
diverting the fund to a more necessary purpose. The Radcliffe library,
therefore, as it is called, though highly ornamental to the city, is of
little or no immediate use, the shelves being very thinly furnished. The
Bodleian well deserves its celebrity. It is rich in manuscripts,
especially in Oriental ones, for which it is chiefly indebted to
archbishop Laud, a man who was so nearly a Catholic that he lost his
head in this world, yet still so much a heretic, that it is to be feared
he has not saved his soul in the next. Yet is this fine collection of
more celebrity than real advantage to the university. Students are not
allowed access to it till after they have graduated, and the graduates
avail themselves so little of their privilege, that it may be doubted
whether the books are opened often enough to save them from the worms.
In their museums and libraries the English are not liberal; access to
them is difficult, and the books, though not chained to the shelf, are
confined to the room. Our collections of every kind are at the service
of the public; the doors are open, and every person, rich or poor, may
enter in. If the restrictions in England are necessary, it must be
because honesty is not the characteristic of the nation.
The schools wherein the public examinations are held, are also of later
date than the schism. James I. built them in a style as mixed and
monstrous as that of his own church: all the orders are here mingled
together, with certain improvements after the manner of the age, which
are of no order at all. At the university printing-office, which is
called the Clarendon press, they are busied upon a superb edition of
Strabo, of which great expectations have long been formed by the
learned. The museum contains but a poor collection. Oliver Cromwell's
skull was shown me here, with less respect than I felt at beholding it.
Another of their curiosities is the lanthorn which Guy Vaux held in his
hand when he was apprehended, and the gunpowder plot detected. The
English still believe that this plot was wholly the work of the
Catholics!
[2] In reply to such instances of the author's bigotry, which occur but
too often, the words of an old English divine may not unaptly be quoted.
"Sufficeth it us to know, that as the _herneshaw_, when unable by main
strength to grapple with the _hawk_, doth _slice_ upon her, bespattering
the hawk's wings with dung or ordure, so to conquer with her tail what
she cannot do with her bill and beak: so Papists, finding themselves
unable to encounter the Protestants by force of argument out of the
Scriptures, cast the dung of foul language and filthy railing upon
them."—TR.