trivial difficulty arose to settle my determination. I had brought about
fifty guineas to Oxford; but the expenses of an Oxford inn, with almost
daily entertainments to young friends, had made such inroads upon this
sum, that, after allowing for the contingencies incident to a college
initiation, enough would not remain to meet the usual demand for what is
called "caution money." This is a small sum, properly enough demanded of
every student, when matriculated, as a pledge for meeting any loss from
unsettled arrears, such as his sudden death or his unannounced departure
might else continually be inflicting upon his college. By releasing
the college, therefore, from all necessity for degrading vigilance or
persecution, this demand does, in effect, operate beneficially to the
feelings of all parties. In most colleges it amounts to twenty-five
pounds: in one only it was considerably less. And this trifling
consideration it was, concurring with a reputation _at that time_ for
relaxed discipline, which finally determined me in preferring W---
College to all others. This college had the capital disadvantage, in my
eyes, that its chapel possessed no organ, and no musical service.
But any other choice would have driven me to an instant call for more
money--a measure which, as too flagrantly in contradiction to the whole
terms on which I had volunteered to undertake an Oxford life, I could
not find nerves to face.
At W---- College, therefore, I entered: and here arises the proper
occasion for stating the true costs of an Oxford education. First comes
the question of _lodging_. This item varies, as may be supposed; but my
own case will place on record the two extremes of cost in one particular
college, nowadays differing, I believe, from the general standard. The
first rooms assigned me, being small and ill-lighted, as part of an
old Gothic building, were charged at four guineas a year. These I soon
exchanged for others a little better, and for them I paid six guineas.
Finally, by privilege of seniority, I obtained a handsome set of
well-proportioned rooms, in a modern section of the college, charged
at ten guineas a year. This set was composed of three rooms; namely, an
airy bedroom, a study, and a spacious room for receiving visitors. This
range of accommodation is pretty general in Oxford, and, upon the whole,
may be taken perhaps as representing the average amount of luxury in
this respect, and at the average amount of cost. The furniture and the
fittings up of these rooms cost me about twenty-five guineas; for
the Oxford rule is, that if you take the rooms (which is at your
own option), in that case, you _third_ the furniture and the
embellishments--that is, you succeed to the total cost diminished by
one third. You pay, therefore, two guineas out of each three to your
_immediate_ predecessor. But, as he also may have succeeded to the
furniture upon the same terms, whenever there happens to have been a
rapid succession of occupants, the original cost to a remote predecessor
is sometimes brought down, by this process of diminution, to a mere
fraction of the true value; and yet no individual occupant can complain
of any heavy loss. Whilst upon this subject, I may observe that, in the
seventeenth century, in Milton's time, for example (about 1624), and
for more than sixty years after that era, the practice of _chumship_
prevailed: every set of chambers was possessed by two cooccupants;
they had generally the same bed-room, and a common study; and they were
called _chums_. This practice, once all but universal, is now entirely
extinct; and the extinction serves to mark the advance of the country,
not so much in luxury as in refinement.
The next item which I shall notice is that which in college bills is
expressed by the word _Tutorage_. This is the same in all colleges,
I believe, namely, ten guineas per annum. And this head suggests an
explanation which is most important to the reputation of Oxford, and
fitted to clear up a very extensive delusion. Some years ago, a most
elaborate statement was circulated of the number and costly endowment
of the Oxford professorships. Some thirty or more there were, it was
alleged, and five or six only which were not held as absolute sinecures.
Now, this is a charge which I am not here meaning to discuss.
Whether defensible or not, I do not now inquire. It is the practical
interpretation and construction of this charge which I here wish to
rectify. In most universities, except those of England, the professors
are the body on whom devolves the whole duty and burthen of teaching;
they compose the sole fountains of instruction; and if these fountains
fail, the fair inference is, that the one great purpose of the
institution is defeated. But this inference, valid for all other places,
is not so for Oxford and Cambridge. And here, again, the difference
arises out of the peculiar distribution of these bodies into separate
and independent colleges. Each college takes upon itself the regular
instruction of its separate inmates--of these and of no others; and for
this office it appoints, after careful selection, trial, and probation,
the best qualified amongst those of its senior members who choose to
undertake a trust of such heavy responsibility. These officers are
called Tutors; and they are connected by duties and by accountability,
not with the university at all, but with their own private colleges. The
professors, on the other hand, are _public_ functionaries, not
connected (as respects the exercise of their duties) with any college
whatsoever--not even with their own--but altogether and exclusively
with the whole university. Besides the public tutors appointed in each
college, on the scale of one to each dozen or score of students, there
are also tutors strictly private, who attend any students in search of
special and extraordinary aid, on terms settled privately by themselves.
Of these persons, or their existence, the college takes no cognizance;
but between the two classes of tutors, the most studious young
men--those who would be most likely to avail themselves of the lectures
read by the professors--have their whole time pretty severely occupied:
and the inference from all this is, not only that the course of Oxford
education would suffer little if no professors at all existed, but also
that, if the existing professors were _ex abundanti_ to volunteer
the most exemplary spirit of exertion, however much this spectacle of
conscientious dealing might edify the university, it would contribute
but little to the promotion of academic purposes. The establishment of
professors is, in fact, a thing of ornament and pomp. Elsewhere, they
are the working servants; but, in Oxford, the ministers corresponding to
them bear another name,--they are called _Tutors_. These are the working
agents in the Oxford system; and the professors, with salaries in many
cases merely nominal, are persons sequestered, and properly sequestered,
to the solitary cultivation and advancement of knowledge, which a
different order of men is appointed to communicate.
Here let us pause for one moment, to notice another peculiarity in the
Oxford system, upon the tendency of which I shall confidently make my
appeal to the good sense of all unprejudiced readers. I have said
that the _tutors_ of Oxford correspond to the _professors_ of
other universities. But this correspondence, which is absolute and
unquestionable as regards the point then at issue,--namely, where we
are to look for that limb of the establishment on which rests the main
teaching agency,--is liable to considerable qualification, when we
examine the mode of their teaching. In both cases, this is conveyed by
what is termed "lecturing;"--but what is the meaning of a lecture in
Oxford and elsewhere? Elsewhere, it means a solemn dissertation, read,
or sometimes histrionically declaimed, by the professor. In Oxford,
it means an exercise performed orally by the students, occasionally
assisted by the tutor, and subject, in its whole course, to his
corrections, and what may be called his _scholia_, or collateral
suggestions and improvements. Now, differ as men may as to other
features of the Oxford, compared with the hostile system, here I
conceive that there is no room for doubt or demur. An Oxford lecture
imposes a real, _bona fide_ task upon the student; it will not
suffer him to fall asleep, either literally or in the energies of his
understanding; it is a real drill, under the excitement, perhaps, of
personal competition, and under the review of a superior scholar. But,
in Germany, under the declamations of the professor, the young men are
often literally sleeping; nor is it easy to see how the attention can be
kept from wandering, on this plan, which subjects the auditor to no
risk of sudden question or personal appeal. As to the prizes given for
essays, etc., by the professors, these have the effect of drawing forth
latent talent, but they can yield no criterion of the attention paid
to the professor; not to say that the competition for these prizes is a
matter of choice. Sometimes it is true that examinations take place;
but the Oxford lecture is a daily examination; and, waiving _that_,
what chance is there (I would ask) for searching examinations, for
examinations conducted with the requisite _auctoritas_ (or weight
of influence derived from personal qualities), if--which may Heaven
prevent!--the German tenure of professorships were substituted for
our British one: that is, if for independent and liberal teachers were
substituted poor mercenary haberdashers of knowledge--cap in hand to
opulent students--servile to their caprices--and, at one blow, degrading
the science they profess, the teacher, and the pupil? Yet I hear that
such advice _was_ given to a Royal Commission, sent to investigate one
or more of the Scottish universities. In the German universities, every
professor holds his situation, not in his good behavior, but on the
capricious pleasure of the young men who resort to his market. He opens
a shop, in fact: others, without limit, generally men of no credit or
known respectability, are allowed to open rival shops; and the result
is, sometimes, that the whole kennel of scoundrel professors ruin one
another; each standing with his mouth open, to leap at any bone thrown
amongst them, from the table of the "Burschen;" all hating,
fighting, calumniating each other, until the land is sick of its base
knowledge-mongers, and would vomit the loathsome crew, were any natural
channel open to their instincts of abhorrence. The most important of the
Scottish professorships--those which are fundamentally morticed to
the moral institutions of the land--are upon the footing of Oxford
tutorships, as regards emoluments; that is, they are not suffered to
keep up a precarious mendicant existence, upon the alms of the students,
or upon their fickle admirations. It is made imperative upon a candidate
for admission into the ministry of the Scottish Kirk, that he shall show
a certificate of attendance through a given number of seasons at given
lectures.
The next item in the quarterly (or, technically, the _term_) bills of
Oxford is for servants. This, in my college, and, I believe, in all
others, amounted, nominally, to two guineas a year. That sum, however,
was paid to a principal servant, whom, perhaps, you seldom or never
saw; the actual attendance upon yourself being performed by one of his
deputies; and to this deputy--who is, in effect, a _factotum_, combining
in his single person all the functions of chambermaid, valet, waiter at
meals, and porter or errand-boy--by the custom of the place and your own
sense of propriety, you cannot but give something or other in the shape
of perquisites. I was told, on entering, that half a guinea a quarter
was the customary allowance,--the same sum, in fact, as was levied
by the college for his principal; but I gave mine a guinea a quarter,
thinking that little enough for the many services he performed; and
others, who were richer than myself, I dare say, often gave much
more. Yet, sometimes, it struck me, from the gratitude which his looks
testified, on my punctual payment of this guinea,--for it was the only
bill with regard to which I troubled myself to practise any severe
punctuality,--that perhaps some thoughtless young man might give him
less, or might even forget to give anything; and, at all events, I have
reason to believe that half that sum would have contented him. These
minutiae I record purposely; my immediate object being to give
a rigorous statement of the real expenses incident to an English
university education, partly as a guide to the calculations of parents,
and partly as an answer to the somewhat libellous exaggerations which
are current on this subject, in times like these, when even the truth
itself, and received in a spirit of candor the most indulgent, may be
all too little to defend these venerable seats of learning from the ruin
which seems brooding over them. Yet, no! Abominable is the language of
despair even in a desperate situation. And, therefore, Oxford, ancient
mother! and thou, Cambridge, twin-light of England! be vigilant and
erect, for the enemy stands at all your gates! Two centuries almost
have passed since the boar was within your vineyards, laying waste and
desolating your heritage. Yet that storm was not final, nor that eclipse
total. May this also prove but a trial and a shadow of affliction! which
affliction, may it prove to you, mighty incorporations, what, sometimes,
it is to us, poor, frail _homunculi_--a process of purification, a
solemn and oracular warning! And, when that cloud is overpast, then,
rise, ancient powers, wiser and better--ready, like the _lampudæphoroi_
of old, to enter upon a second _stadium_, and to transmit the sacred
torch through a second period of twice [Footnote: Oxford may confessedly
claim a duration of that extent; and the pretensions of Cambridge,
in that respect, if less aspiring, are, however, as I believe, less
accurately determined.] five hundred years. So prays a loyal _alumnus_,
whose presumption, if any be, in taking upon himself a monitory tone, is
privileged by zeal and filial anxiety.
To return, however, into the track from which I have digressed. The
reader will understand that any student is at liberty to have private
servants of his own, as many and of what denomination he pleases. This
point, as many others of a merely personal bearing, when they happen to
stand in no relation to public discipline, neither the university nor
the particular college of the student feels summoned or even authorized
to deal with. Neither, in fact, does any other university in Europe; and
why, then, notice the case? Simply thus: if the Oxford discipline, in
this particular chapter, has nothing special or peculiar about it, yet
the case to which it applies _has_, and is almost exclusively found in
our universities. On the continent it happens most rarely that a student
has any funds disposable for luxuries so eminently such as grooms or
footmen; but at Oxford and Cambridge the case occurs often enough to
attract notice from the least vigilant eye. And thus we find set down to
the credit account of other universities the non-existence of luxury
in this or other modes, whilst, meantime, it is well known to the fair
inquirer that each or all are indulgences, not at all or so much as
in idea proscribed by the sumptuary edicts of those universities; but,
simply, by the lower scale of their general revenues. And this lower
scale, it will be said--how do you account for that? I answer, not so
much by the general inferiority of continental Europe to Great Britain
in _diffusive_ wealth (though that argument goes for something, it being
notorious that, whilst immoderate wealth, concentrated in a small number
of hands, exists in various continental states upon a larger scale than
with us, moderately large estates, on the other hand, are, with them,
as one to two hundred, or even two hundred and fifty, in comparison of
ours), but chiefly upon this fact, which is too much overlooked, that
the foreign universities are not peopled from the wealthiest classes,
which are the class either already noble, or wishing to become such.
And why is that? Purely from the vicious constitution of society on
the continent, where all the fountains of honor lie in the military
profession or in the diplomatic. We English, haters and revilers
of ourselves beyond all precedent, disparagers of our own eminent
advantages beyond all sufferance of honor or good sense, and daily
playing into the hands of foreign enemies, who hate us out of mere
envy or shame, have amongst us some hundreds of writers who will die or
suffer martyrdom upon this proposition--that aristocracy, and the spirit
and prejudices of aristocracy, are more operative (more effectually and
more extensively operative) amongst ourselves, than in any other known
society of men. Now, I, who believe all errors to arise in some narrow,
partial, or angular view of truth, am seldom disposed to meet any
sincere affirmation by a blank, unmodified denial. Knowing, therefore,
that some acute observers do really believe this doctrine as to the
aristocratic forces, and the way in which they mould English society,
I cannot but suppose that some symptoms do really exist of such a
phenomenon; and the only remark I shall here make on the case is
this, that, very often, where any force or influence reposes upon deep
realities, and upon undisturbed foundations, _there_ will be the
least heard of loquacious and noisy expressions of its power; which
expressions arise most, not where the current is most violent, but where
(being possibly the weakest) it is most fretted with resistance.
In England, the very reason why the aristocratic feeling makes itself
so sensibly felt and so distinctly an object of notice to the censorious
observer is, because it maintains a troubled existence amongst counter
and adverse influences, so many and so potent. This might be illustrated
abundantly. But, as respects the particular question before me, it
will be sufficient to say this: With us the profession and exercise of
knowledge, as a means of livelihood, is honorable; on the continent it
is not so. The knowledge, for instance, which is embodied in the three
learned professions, does, with us, lead to distinction and civil
importance; no man can pretend to deny this; nor, by consequence, that
the professors personally take rank with the highest order of gentlemen.
Are they not, I demand, everywhere with us on the same footing, in point
of rank and consideration, as those who bear the king's commission
in the army and navy? Can this be affirmed of the continent, either
generally, or, indeed, partially? I say, _no_. Let us take Germany, as
an illustration. Many towns (for anything I know, all) present us with
a regular bisection of the resident _notables_, or wealthier class, into
two distinct (often hostile) coteries: one being composed of those
who are "_noble_;" the other, of families equally well educated and
accomplished, but _not_, in the continental sense, "noble." The meaning
and value of the word is so entirely misapprehended by the best English
writers, being, in fact, derived from our own way of applying it, that
it becomes important to ascertain its true value. A "nobility," which is
numerous enough to fill a separate ball-room in every sixth-rate town,
it needs no argument to show, cannot be a nobility in any English sense.
In fact, an _edelmann_ or nobleman, in the German sense, is strictly
what we mean by a _born gentleman_; with this one only difference, that,
whereas, with us, the rank which denominates a man such passes off by
shades so insensible, and almost infinite, into the ranks below, that
it becomes impossible to assign it any strict demarkation or lines of
separation; on the contrary, the continental noble points to certain
fixed barriers, in the shape of privileges, which divide him, _per
saltum_, from those who are below his own order. But were it not for
this one legal benefit of accurate circumscription and slight favor, the
continental noble, whether Baron of Germany, Count of France, or Prince
of Sicily and of Russia, is simply on a level with the common landed
_esquire_ of Britain, and _not_ on a level in very numerous cases.
Such being the case, how paramount must be the spirit of aristocracy in
continental society! Our _haute noblesse_--our genuine nobility, who are
such in the general feeling of their compatriots--will do _that_ which
the phantom of nobility of the continent will not: the spurious
nobles of Germany will not mix, on equal terms, with their untitled
fellow-citizens, living in the same city and in the same style as
themselves; they will not meet them in the same ball or concert-room.
Our great territorial nobility, though sometimes forming exclusive
circles (but not, however, upon any principle of high birth), do so
daily. They mix as equal partakers in the same amusements of races,
balls, musical assemblies, with the baronets (or _elite_ of the gentry);
with the landed esquires (or middle gentry); with the superior order of
tradesmen (who, in Germany, are absolute ciphers, for political weight,
or social consideration, but, with us, constitute the lower and broader
stratum of the nobilitas, [Footnote: It may be necessary to inform some
readers that the word _noble_, by which so large a system of imposition
and fraud, as to the composition of foreign society, has long been
practised upon the credulity of the British, corresponds to our word
_gentlemanly_ (or, rather, to the vulgar word _genteel_, if that word
were ever used legally, or _extra gradum_), not merely upon the argument
of its _virtual_ and operative value in the general estimate of men
(that is, upon the argument that a count, baron, &c., does not, _qua_
such, command any deeper feeling of respect or homage than a British
esquire), but also upon the fact, that, originally, in all English
registers, as, for instance, in the Oxford matriculation registers, all
the upper gentry (knights, esquires, &c.) are technically designated by
the word _nobiles_.--_See Chambeilayuc_, &c.] or gentry). The obscure
baronage of Germany, it is undeniable, insist upon having "an atmosphere
of their own;" whilst the Howards, the Stanleys, the Talbots, of
England; the Hamiltons, the Douglases, the Gordons, of Scotland,
are content to acknowledge a sympathy with the liberal part of their
untitled countrymen, in that point which most searchingly tries the
principle of aristocratic pride, namely, in their pleasures. To have the
same pursuits of business with another, may be a result of accident or
position; to have the same pleasures, being a matter of choice, argues
a community of nature in the _moral_ sensibilities, in that part of our
constitution which differences one man from another in the capacities of
greatness and elevation. As with their amusements, so with their graver
employments; the same mutual repulsion continues to divide the two
orders through life.
The nobles either live in gloomy seclusion upon their private funds,
wherever the privilege of primogeniture has enabled them to do so; or,
having no funds at all (the case of ninety-nine in one hundred), they go
into the army; that profession, the profession of arms, being regarded
as the only one compatible with an _edelmann's_ pretensions. Such was
once the feeling in England; such is still the feeling on the continent.
It is a prejudice naturally clinging to a semi-barbarous (because
growing out of a barbarous) state, and, in its degree, clinging to every
stage of imperfect civilization; and, were there no other argument, this
would be a sufficient one, that England, under free institutions, has
outrun the continent, in real civilization, by a century; a fact which
is concealed by the forms of luxurious refinement in a few exclusive
classes, too often usurping the name and honors of radical civilization.