THE DON
Tutors--Their slackness--The real and the ideal tutor--Dr Newton on
tutor’s fees--Dr Johnson’s recommendation of Bateman--Public
lecturers--Terrae Filius and a Wadham man’s letter.
Just as the schoolmaster is considered the natural enemy of boys, so is
the Don popularly credited with being the natural enemy of the
Undergraduates. The originator of this wonderful theory is presumably the
lady novelist who, with no deeper knowledge of Oxford than that obtained
from a minute study of the coloured photographs in railway trains, has
pictured the Don in her vivid imagination to be a crusty, inhuman, and
gouty septuagenarian who, in the intervals of delivering abstruse
lectures, passes his days in sending men down and otherwise suppressing
all vitality and humanity.
Anything more completely ridiculous it would be impossible to imagine.
Conceive a body of charming and delightful men, very kindly and
sympathetic, always ready to go out of their way to help a man in
financial or moral difficulties, cultured, intellectual, hard working,
thorough sportsmen in the best sense of that much abused word, full of
loyalty to their college and to the university, delighted by the athletic
or scholastic triumphs of the men with whom they are in close contact--and
then you do not obtain anything more than a true description of those men
who do so much to uphold the honour of the university, and who are
remembered with respect and even affection by the generations of
Undergraduates who pass through their hands.
The eighteenth-century Don, on the contrary, was a person altogether
different. In the desire to bring out the light and shade of his
personality I am frustrated by the superabundance of the latter and the
minute quantity of the former. In dealing with the Georgian Don I have
taken each species separately: the Tutor, the Lecturer, the Examiner, the
Head of a college, and so forth.
It appears that the old-time fresher, having been admitted to a college,
was at once recommended to a tutor whom he interviewed in his rooms. The
Hoxton man, who came up with his mother and his dad, found himself called
upon by his prospective tutor to sit down and make small work of several
quarts of liquid refreshment to the healths of various “traitors.” Being
somewhat flurried at this boisterous reception, the lad was assured that
he did not come to the university to pray, and that in any case, he, the
tutor, would look after him like a father. Of being called upon to do any
work with him there was no whisper. Gibbon, on the other hand, on being
placed under the tutorship of Dr Waldegrave, was desired to attend that
gentleman’s rooms each morning from ten to eleven and read the _Comedies
of Terence_. This he accordingly did, but with so little advantage to
himself that, after a few weeks, he quietly dropped away and saw his tutor
no more. To counterbalance the accusation of slackness against Dr
Waldegrave, Gibbon described him as having been a “learned and pious man
of a mild disposition, strict morals and abstemious life, who seldom
mingled in the politics or jollity of the college.” This worthy man
departed from the precincts of Magdalen, and Gibbon had nothing good to
say for his successor. “The second tutor,” wrote Gibbon, “whose literary
character did not command the respect of the college, well remembered that
he had a salary to receive, and only forgot that he had a duty to
perform.... Excepting one voluntary visit to his rooms during the titular
months of his office, the tutor and pupil lived in the same college as
strangers to each other.”
The vindicator of Magdalen leaped into the breach on behalf of the tutors
against Gibbon, and gave a hundred reasons why Gibbon was in the wrong.
But there are numberless other instances of utter laziness among that
section of the Don world. Malmesbury, for instance, related in his usual
cheery and optimistic manner, that his tutor, “an excellent and worthy
man, according to the practice of all tutors at that moment, gave himself
no concern about his pupils. I never saw him but during a fortnight, when
I took it into my head to do trigonometry.” This witness matriculated at
Merton thirteen years after Gibbon’s time.
Another example of bad tutorship may be quoted from William Fitzmaurice,
second Earl of Shelburne, who went up in 1753. “At sixteen, I went to
Christ Church, where I had again the misfortune to fall under a
narrow-minded tutor.... He was not without learning, and certainly laid
himself out to be serviceable to me in point of reading.... I came full of
prejudices. My tutor added to those prejudices by connecting me with the
anti-Westminsters, who were far from the most fashionable part of the
college, and a small minority.”[24]
In the light of these adverse criticisms it is interesting to note the
statutorial view as to the ideal tutor. According to Amhurst, who quoted
statute (_d_), it was ordained that “no person shall be a tutor who has
not taken a degree in some faculty, and is not (in the judgment in the
head of the college or hall to which he belongs) a man of approv’d
learning, probity and sincere religion.” But can these requirements be
called sufficient if the hundreds of tutors against whom their pupils
flung accusations of slackness, drunkenness, and other hobbies, all
satisfied them?
_The Loiterer_, evidently with this insufficent statute in mind, made some
very intelligent remarks _à propos_ of this question. “Scarce any office,”
he wrote, “demands so many different requisites in those who would fill it
properly, as that of a college Tutor, and in none perhaps is propriety of
Choice so little attended to. The Tutor of a College goes off to a Living,
dies of an Apoplexy, or is otherwise provided for; a Successor must be
found; and as few who have better prospects chuse to undertake so
disagreeable an office, the Society is sometimes under the necessity of
appointing a person, who is no further qualified for it than by the
possession of a little classical, or mathematical information. With this
slender stock of knowledge, and without any acquaintance with the World or
any insight into Characters, He enters on his office with more Zeal than
Discretion, asserts his own opinions with arrogance and maintains them
with obstinacy, calls Contradiction, Contumacy, and Reply, Pertness, and
deals out his Jobations, Impositions, and Confinements, to every ill-fated
Junior who is daring enough to oppose his sentiments, or doubt his
opinions. The consequence of this is perfectly natural. He treats his
pupils as Boys and they think him a Brute. From that moment all his power
of doing good ceases; for we learn nothing from him, who has forfeited our
confidence. Such is the Portrait of what Tutors too often are, might I be
indulged in pointing out what they _should_ be, very different would be
the Character I should sketch. I would draw him modest in his disposition,
mild in his temper, gentle and insinuating in his address; scarce less a
man of the world than a man of letters. His Classic Knowledge (though far
above mediocrity) should be the least of his acquirements; General
Knowledge should be his forte, and the application of it to general
purposes his aim. He should not only improve those under his care in his
publick lectures, but should endeavour at least to direct them in their
private studies; he should encourage them to read, and should teach them
to read with taste.”
At this point _The Loiterer’s_ friend interrupted and insisted that no man
was ever born to be a tutor if tutors must possess all the attributes
contained in that description. Upon this _The Loiterer_ said that he knew
only one man in the entire university who came up to the standard, and
that man was his own tutor.
Gibbon made a scornful allusion to the salary of tutors. On this subject
Dr Newton penned a multitude of indignant sheets because a certain
Undergraduate, named Joseph Somaster, demanded permission to leave Hart
Hall and transfer himself to Balliol for the reason that he had an offer
of obtaining a tutor there who required no fees. With regard therefore to
tutors’ fees, “it may be observed,” wrote the reverend Doctor, “that the
University doth allow Tutors to Receive a consideration for their care of
the Youth entrusted to them; that, as this is very Reasonable in itself,
so hath it ever been the Practice of Tutors to Receive a Consideration for
such their care; that the consideration they have received, not being
limited by any Statute, hath varied, and is, at this day, different in
different Houses of Education within the University; that the tutor’s
demand being known, and not objected to before a Scholar is enter’d under
his care, the same, upon entrance, becomes the consideration that is
agreed to be paid for his care. That the Labourer is worthy of his Hire;
that some Hire is both a better Encouragement to a Tutor, and a greater
obligation upon him to take a due care, than no Hire; that the greatest
Hire, of which any tutor in the University is, at this day thought worthy,
compar’d with the Expence he hath been at, and the Pains he hath taken,
and the Years he hath spent in order to Qualifie himself for this trust,
and also, with the further Labour and Time he must employ in discharging
it faithfully, is very small. That unless Learning be the very lowest of
all attainments, and the Education of Youth the very lowest of all
Professions, Thirty Shillings a Quarter, for near three times as many
Lectures, is not so extravagant a demand, as that he who pays it, should
do it with an unwilling hand. Much less that any one, who hath Himself
been a Tutor, and who hath experienc’d a faithful Tutor’s trouble and
anxiety, should think it too much for any of his Fellow-Labourers in the
same Vocation, although their circumstances should be so affluent that
they need not any reward, or their Friendship so particular that they do
not desire it.”[25]
In the time of Dr Johnson the college tutors lectured in Hall as well as
in their own rooms, and, in addition, they set weekly themes for
composition--for the non-performance of which the fine was half a crown.
The day for giving in these themes was Saturday. George Whitefield, though
only a poor starveling servitor with scarce a penny to bless himself with,
was twice fined by his tutor because he failed to compose his theme.
Christopher Wordsworth in his book on the universities in the eighteenth
centuries made it clear that when Dr Johnson was at Pembroke in 1728,
“Undergraduates generally depended entirely upon the Tutor to guide all
their reading. His first tutor Jordon was like a father to his pupils, but
he was intellectually incompetent for his important position. For this
reason Johnson recommended his old schoolfellow Taylor to go to Christ
Church on account of the excellent lectures of Bateman then tutor there.”
In Johnson’s own words in reference to Mr Jordon, “He was a very worthy
man, but a heavy man, and I did not profit much by his instructions.
Indeed, I did not attend him much. The first day after I came to college,
I waited upon him, and then staid away four. On the sixth, Mr Jordon
asked me why I had not attended. I answered, I had been sliding in
Christchurch meadow. And this I said with as much non-chalance as I am now
talking to you. I had no notion that I was wrong or irreverent to my
tutor.” To this self accusation Boswell replied, “That, Sir, was great
fortitude of mind!” “No, Sir,” snapped Johnson, “stark insensibility.”[26]
It is unnecessary to arraign further damning evidence against the Georgian
tutor. He stands convicted on the cases which I have related. Were I
called upon indeed to summon other witnesses for the prosecution, I have
but to turn to any eighteenth-century authority. No one has a word to say
in his favour. By every one he is pronounced to be an idle,
self-indulgent, dishonest, utterly unintellectual creature, conspicuously
lacking in “learning, probity, and sincere religion.”
The next division of the genus Don is the public lecturer, in regard to
whom there are, so Amhurst informed us, a number of statutes concerning
the public lecturers in all faculties: appointing, with the utmost
exactness, where they shall read, when they shall read, what they shall
read, how they shall read, and to whom they shall read. “All these (as I
have frequently observed) are almost totally neglected; out of twenty
public lectures, not above three or four being observed at all, and they
not statutably observed: for the auditors, who belong to the same college
with the lecturer in any faculty, do not wait upon him to the school,
where he reads, and back again, as they ought to do; so far from it, that
not one in ten goes to hear these lectures, nor do they (who do attend)
take down what they hear in writing; neither do they (I believe)
diligently read over the same author at home, which the public professor
undertook to explain; nor are persons punished (as the statutes require)
for any of these omissions.” Even if it be admitted that three or four is
an exaggeratedly low estimate of the number of these lectures, and that
the “auditors” are just as lazy as the men who deliver them, yet it is not
to be wondered at that the Undergraduates did not read over the authors,
or write down what they heard. All the lectures were delivered by Dons who
knew next to nothing about their subject, and they were in consequence
very tedious and worthless affairs.
The lectureships were bestowed “upon such as are utterly and notoriously
ignorant of them, and never made them their study in their lives. They are
given away, as pensions and sinecures, to any body that can make a good
interest for them, without any respect to his abilities or character in
general, or to what faculty in particular he has apply’d his mind. I have
known a profligate _debauchee_ chosen professor of moral philosophy; and a
fellow, who never look’d upon the stars soberly in his life, professor of
astronomy; we have had history professors, who never read anything to
qualify them for it, but Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant-killer, Don Belicanis
of Greece, and such like valuable records; we have had likewise numberless
professors of Greek, Hebrew and Arabick, who scarce understood their
mother tongue; and, not long ago, a famous gamester and stock-jobber was
elected to M--g--t, professor of divinity; so great it seems is the
analogy between dusting of cushions, and shaking of elbows, or between
squand’ring away of estates, and saving of souls!”
[Illustration: A SOUTH VIEW OF THE OBSERVATORY AT OXFORD.]
Terrae Filius was moved to the above denunciations and reminiscences of
lecturers, who, he said, were elected perhaps on the principle that “he
can do no mischief; ergo, he shall be our man,” by the receipt of a
letter from a Wadham man who recounted his own personal experiences of
lecturers and their ways. It runs thus:--
“WADHAM COLLEGE, _Jan. 22, 1720_.
“_To the Author of Terrae Filius._
“SIR,--I hope you intend to acquaint the world, amongst other abuses
in what manner the pious designs of those good men, who left us all
our publick lectures, are answered. Yesterday morning at nine a clock
the bell went as usually for a lecture; whether a rhetorical or
logical one, I cannot tell; but I went to the schools, big with hopes
of being instructed in one or the other, and having saunter’d a pretty
while along the quadrangle, impatient of the lecturer’s delay, I ask’d
the major (who is an officer belonging to the schools) whether it was
usual now and then to slip a lecture or so: his answer was that he had
not seen the face of any lecturer in any faculty, except in poetry and
musick, for three years past; that all lectures besides were entirely
neglected.... Every morning in term time there ought to be a divinity
lecture in the divinity school; two gentlemen of our house went one
day to hear what the learned professor had to say upon that subject:
these two were join’d by another master of arts, who without arrogance
might think that they understood divinity enough to be his auditors;
and that consequently his lecture would not have been lost upon them:
but the doctor thought otherwise, who came at last, and was very much
surprized to find that there was an audience. He took two or three
turns about the school, and then said, ‘Magistri vos non estis idonei
auditores; praeterea, juxta legis doctorem Boucher, tres non faciunt
collegium--valete;’ and so went away. Now it is monstrous, that
notwithstanding these publick lectures are so much neglected, we are,
all of us, when we take our degrees, charg’d with and punish’d for
non-appearance at the reading of many of them; a formal dispensation
is read by our respective deans, at the time our grace is proposed,
for our non-appearance at these lectures, and it is with difficulty
that some grave ones of the congregation are induced to grant it.
Strange order! that each lecturer should have his fifty, his hundred,
or two hundred pounds a year for doing nothing, and that we (the young
fry) should be obliged to pay money for not hearing such lectures as
were never read, nor ever composed....”
In the face of personal experience of this kind how is it possible to
believe that to obtain a degree was anything but a question of independent
work or the judicious administration of “pourboires”? To attend at the
right hour for a lecture which was never read, to be fined for
non-attendance, and finally to have great difficulty in persuading the
authorities to sign the necessary dispensation is a Gilbertian absurdity.
No other instance more striking than this letter can be found in all the
eighteenth-century chronicles of the attitude of Dons towards the
Undergraduates in their charge. Once certain of their annual stipend their
duties went by the board; and the Dons, whether lecturers or Heads of
colleges, whether they knew each other personally or not, banded together
to ensure their own safety, and signed to a lie in regard to the
delivering of lectures with the utmost unconcern.