Academic reform and university representation

Preface

Various Examinations for public employment and academic reward are described in the following Work, so as to exhibit important requirements of the public service, as well as the subjects of examination for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and for some other degrees.

Memorials relating to academic improvement are presented to the reader, as registers of the progress of amelioration, and, in several cases, as records of unsettled subjects still demanding public attention. Among the latter class of Memorials may be noticed the Petition against the continuance of compulsory celibacy for College Fellows at Cambridge, drawn up in the courteous form of requesting the University Commissioners to consider the restrictions upon marriage to which the tenure of Pellowships is subject. This Memorial received the signatures of 371 Graduates of the University of Cambridge, 107 of whom were either past or present Fellows of Colleges * in that University.

Living languages obtain, at present, a large share of public favour. The ancient English Universities, in their

* See infra, p. 76.

a 2

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local Examinations of junior Candidates, allow a liberty of choice with respect to languages, which has resulted in a decided preference, on the part of the junior Candidates, for Latin and French subjects, with comparatively slight concern for Greek.* English now frequently forms a subject of Examination by national Educational Bodies,! as well as by the authorities of the Civil and Engineering Services.

Equal numbers of marks are assigned to proficiency in Greek, Latin, French, and German, by the Examiners of the Woolwich Royal Military Academy,; whilst the rules of the Indian Civil Service Competitive Examinations award double the number of marks to proficiency in Greek or Latin, § which they permit to excellence in either Erencb or German.

So large a proportion of the successful Candidates in the Indian Civil Service Examinations are monopolized by the three ancient Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, that the principal shai-e of Indian Civil Service patronage seems to have been practically transfei'red to members of these academic Corporations. ||

Of twenty successful Candidates at the Indian CivU Service Examination in 1858, six came from Trinity College, Dublin, five of whom were holders of classical Scholarships ; nine Candidates were elected at the same time from classical Oxford, and three from Cambridge.

* See infra, p. 313.

t See the Examinations of the University of London, p. 22, and of the Committee of Council, p. 34. See also pp. 11, 262, 264.

X See infra, p. 264. § See p. 11.

(I See infra, pp. 10 and 260, the places of education of successful candidates for the Indian Civil Service, in 1858 and 1859.

PREFACE. V

At the Indian Civil Service Examination of July, 1859, of forty successful Candidates, twelve came from Oxford, nine from Cambridge, and seven from Trinity College, Dublin.

Preparation for a severe public Competitive Examination somewhat resembles the training of a race-horse for Newmarket or Doncaster. A series of preliminary trials of speed and strength are requisite to fit the Candidate for the more serious course which lies before him, and the arrangements of good private tutors are admirably adapted, in the case of ambitious Students, to supply methodical and constant exercises in different branches of learning.

Considerable exertions were made by the Oxford University Commissioners to improve the elections to College Fellowships at Oxford, so that these rewards of learning may be determined, speaking generally, by the personal merits and fitness of the successful Candidate, and not by accidental social considerations, or by the Candidate having been born in some particular district or educated at a particular school.

Obstacles have, however, been interposed to some of the good intentions of the Oxford University Commissioners. St. John's College, Oxford, prefers to retain a majority of its Fellows elected exclusively from five ancient schools ; and All Souls College finds means to elect Candidates to Fellowships in accordance with the somewhat aristocratic social considerations of the College.

Cambridge University Commissioners have obtained the consent of the Trinity College authorities to the omission of a declaration by newly-elected Fellows, that

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they would make Theology the end of their studies, and students of law, who obtain Fellowships, will, consequently, be no longer subject to such an exclusive test.

The scheme of College government arranged between the Cambridge Commissioners and the authorities of Trinity College and St. John's College, has not been well adapted to the modern state of these Colleges, which contain, in each case, resident Students of different religious denominations. Compulsory Ordination is insisted upon for the Master, and compulsory ceUbacy is directed for the eight senior Fellows of each institution, nearly all of whom are usually clergymen of the Church of England.

On the 14th February, 1860, these College arrangements were discussed in the House of Commons, when Mr. Walpole mentioned a recent instance of consideration on the part of the governing Board of Trinity College for the conscientious scruples of a Jewish Undergraduate, in whose favour attendance at the College Chapel has been dispensed with. During the same debate. Lord Stanley, one of the Cambridge University Commissioners, observed that the Cambridge University Act of 1856 had clearly stated, that no person should be required, on taking a Degree, or obtaining a Scholarship, Exhibition, or other College emolument, to make or subscribe any declaration of religious belief, and that, in his opinion, the enforcement of attendance at College Chapel, in cases where conscientious objections to the chapel service are felt, would be contrary to the spirit and intention, if not to the letter of the Cambridge Act.

PREFACE. Vll

At Haileybury College, short forms of prayer were usual, and at the principal Church of England Normal School, in the north of London, a short service, varying on different days of the week, is read to the assembled students.

Scholarships cannot be fully opened to the nation, in Cambridge Colleges, without some modification of the daily reading of Church of England services at the College Chapel.

Prayers for the Parliament are published in this Work, p. 99, as an example of a short general liturgical form adapted to a mixed assembly, including Members in the House of Commons belonging to different religious denominations.

Suitable forms of ordinary chapel service, for College Students at Oxford and Cambridge, may be prepared on a similar principle with the Prayers for the Parliament, so as not to weary the audience, and to be read to a congregation comprising individuals of various theological opinions.

In both the ancient English Universities, the majority of the registered Electors are in Holy Orders, nor can any plan of academical reform be complete which does not embrace the improvement of the Examinations of Clerical Candidates and the revision of the religious tests still required for Ordination. The Appendix to the present Work contains some Divinity Examination Papers, which have been prepared in a freer spirit than would be encouraged by the academical authorities on the Cam and the Isis, and were intended for Theological Students who do not subscribe either to Articles or Confessions

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of faith, and who therefore prepare themselves in Theology as an independent science.

Several questions set at recent Examinations for Holy Orders of Priests and Deacons are given in this volume, p. 225, relating to Old Testament History and Original Sin ; questions on Original Sin are also quoted from the Cambridge University Theological Examination of October, 1858, and May, 1859.*

Preparation in the dogmatic views of the sixteenth century must be made by Candidates for the Church of England ministry, in order to answer these questions, and some revision appears desirable of the Thirty-nine Articles and the Liturgy, for an improved Theological training of the Church of England clergy.

In the University of Oxford, optional religious tests are still offered to the Student, on graduating as a Bachelor of Arts. Por the degree of Master of Arts, which confers the elective suffrage, the Candidate is obliged, at Oxford, to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles, together with the Three Articles of the Thirty-sixth Canon of the Church of England.

Cambridge University confers the degree of Bachelor of Arts without any religious test, and the degree of Master of Arts may be obtained without either attendance or test in that University ; but the established privilege belonging to a Master of Arts, of becoming an Elector of the University, is only allowed, under the Cambridge University Act of 1856, in cases where the Master of Arts has subscribed himself a bond fide member of the Church of England.

PREFACE. IX

In both the ancient English Universities, the right of voting for representatives in Parliament is restricted to members of the Church of England, whilst the burgesses returned to Parliament for these academical Corporations possess the power of legislating for all denominations of the British people.

An extension of the University suffrage to Bachelors of Arts, of three years' standing, would diminish the expense of registration for individual voters in each of the ancient seats of academical learning, retaining at the same time all the examinations of intellectual proficiency which are now required for the elective franchise and opening the suffrage without religious tests.

The claims of the University of London, with its 1,200 Graduates, to be recognized by Parhament, as a constituency, are contained in the present Work (pp. 204-21 3) ; and as the suffrage of Bachelors of Arts of three years' standing has been already adopted for its academical convocation, the same franchise will form the basis of the electoral rights which may probably be conferred upon that University under a new Reform Bill.

Sir George Lewis, Bart., the Home Secretary, has recently introduced a bill into the House of Commons, for the consideration of the disputed case of St. John's College, Oxford, by a Committee of five Privy Councillors, to be named by order of the Queen in Council. This Committee will probably have before them the Report of the Oxford University Commission, which is referred to, pp. 126-132 in the present Work, and may either adopt or modify the ordinance suggested by the Commissioners. The Report of the Committee, when

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approved by her Majesty in Council, is proposed to become a statute of the College.

When, on future occasions, Academical reforms are again referred to any Committee or Commission, a national sanction can hardly be expected to their measures, unless some representation be allowed, in that body, of the large portion of the community who do not belong to the Church of England, and who are deeply interested in enlarging the great system of English pubUc instruction.

Very recently, the claims of moral and natural sciences have been recognized at Cambridge, by the proposed admission of Candidates to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, who show that they have attained sufficient proficiency to deserve honours in the University Examinations connected with either the moral sciences or the natural sciences.

The extension of the privileges of the Cambridge Academical Senate to Bachelors of Arts of three years' standing, would form a valuable portion of a new measure of academic reform, and would confer dignity on successful Graduates in moral and natural sciences, as well as in classics, mathematics, mixed classical and mathematical subjects, law, medicine, and music.

Contents

PAGB

Examinations 1

Clerkships under Committee of Council on Education : Attactes to Embassies 1