Catholics and the Oxford Examinations.

[We have received from a Fellow and Tutor of one of the Colleges at Oxford the following interesting letter with reference to our late articles on Higher Catholic Education.]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "MONTH."

SIR,-In your recent articles respecting the higher education of Catholics, there are one or two statements which appear to misapprehend the present regulations of the University of Oxford. Perhaps you will allow me to draw your attention to them. 1. It is assumed on page 14 of your last number that residence within the precincts of the University is still required of all those who desire to pass our various examinations. This is not the case; residence is indispensable in order to take the different degrees, but not in order to pass the examinations and gain the honours of Oxford. When a candidate puts down his name for an Examination, all that is required of him is that he should show that the requisite number of terms have elapsed since his matriculation; no other kind of evidence is demanded. For instance, Dr. Gillow might send up one of his pupils from Ushaw, first to matriculate, and then to compete in the honour schools of Oxford. His pupil might reside during the whole time at Ushaw, enjoying the severe training and mental discipline of the Poetry, Rhetoric, and Philosophy classes, and might come and measure himself from time to time against the "foppish exquisites" and "barbarised athletes," into whom his imagination, or that of his authority, the Dublin Review, has led him to transform so large a portion as seventy per cent. of our young men. I can promise him that his candidate will be treated with absolute impartiality, that the examiners will make every allowance for the difference between his first principles and their own, that his chance of high honours will be quite as good as if he were a Protestant, and if after all his examinations are passed, he is able to stand for a fellowship, I can assure Dr. Gillow that his pupil will be elected, if in ability and attainment he is superior to the Protestant candidates who are in the field against him. After the statement given by you respecting the conditions of our examinations, I need hardly add the assurance that the idea of a Catholic candidate being placed here, unless he so choose it, in any position that presents the remotest resemblance to that of "Catholics examined in theology by Calvinist examiners," is a bright imagination of people who have not aken the trouble to furnish themselves even with the ordinary infor

mation that can be found in the Calendar. I should imagine that the falsehood of this idea must now be evident, even to its author.

2. The writer in your last number seems to think that "divinity”— i.e., a knowledge of the Bible and of Anglican formularies-is required of all candidates for a degree. This is not so-any student who is extra ecclesiam Anglicanam can substitute for divinity an equivalent from some profane author, and thereby suffers no disadvantage whatever. This is a course which is not unfrequently adopted both by Catholics and Protestant Nonconformists.

3. I am surprised to find Dr. Gillow classing together Catholics and Anglicans of Dr. Pusey's school as exposed to a similar danger at Oxford. Surely there is a very wide difference between the two cases. It is true that both are exposed to the possibility of having their opinions gradually and unconsciously undermined by the adoption of general principles which are at variance with those opinions, but to the Catholic the danger ends here; to the Puseyite there is the further danger-nay, the certainty-of discovering that his opinions contain in themselves what is self-contradictory, and cannot hold their own against reason and against light. In this case it is a necessity that all minds of any promise which pass through Oxford should sooner or later be lost to what he calls his faith; and experience shows that almost without an exception, men of ability who come up to Oxford devoted adherents of the Puseyite school, drift off in the direction of Liberalism about the time that they take their degree.

It is therefore scarcely fair to argue that because Oxford training is fatal to Anglican dogmatism, it therefore would necessarily be fatal to that faith which every Catholic knows is strengthened and not weakened by increased knowledge and scientific research.

4. One point more. It is important that Catholics should know that they can now reside at Oxford without being exposed to the dangerous atmosphere of a Protestant College. Any Catholic teacher might come and reside at Oxford, and keep his pupils entirely around him and under his own guidance. Recent changes have entirely destroyed the College monopoly, and have thereby abolished one of the drawbacks to the presence of Catholics at the University. It is true that those Catholics now at Oxford do as a matter of fact belong to some College or other, but I imagine that their parents must be conscious of the disadvantages and dangers they hereby incur, and would rejoice to see them under a Catholic teacher, if any such were authorised to gather round him the students of his own faith.

I venture to put this forward only in order that the facts may be known. I do not profess myself competent to give any opinion as to the general question whether Oxford is still a school unfit for Catholics, whether the general atmosphere of doubt which pervades the University still exposes them to the terrible risk of doubting as to their own faith. Perhaps I incline to think that this is so; but I imagine that all Catholics are looking forward to a time when they will again take their place in those Universities which they still

regard in some sense as their proper home, and as the proper school for their sons; and it is for this reason that the various changes which are gradually paving the way for their return thither must be of some interest to them, even though they are still unable to avail themselves of the concessions which, little by little, are being made for their advantage.-I remain, sir, yours very truly,

July 20.

AN OXFORD RESIDENT.

The letter of our correspondent raises many questions, which, writing at a time when our last sheets are passing through the press, we must forbear from entering on at any length.

1. As to the facts of the case, with respect to the Oxford Examinations, the Calendar gives residence as necessary for degrees, and makes no mention of it—it seems to be assumed—as necessary for examination. In the hypothesis that all other difficulties were removed-for we must remind our readers that we have never spoken of this subject as one the practical details of which could be considered as settled, having only, up to our last number, thrown out the idea of Catholics being examined at Oxford in the most general possible manner, in a sentence here and there in the course of articles devoted to an entirely different branch of the question of education, in which we purposely abstained from developing any scheme of conditions-Catholics, we must suppose, would not in any numbers seek the examinations without the degrees. But the fact now mentioned about the examinations seems to make it less likely that there will be much difficulty on the other point.

2. As to the third head of the above letter, the distinction pointed out therein is certainly a true one. The present state of thought at Oxford may be traced up logically to the attitude assumed by the Puseyite party after the secession of Dr. Newman. Up to that time the intellect as well as the piety of Oxford was enlisted on the Tractarian side. We do not of course mean that Anglicanism, even under Dr. Newman's influence, could have long held an unshaken intellectual position in the face of the advancing tide of “Liberalism,” but we mean that after his time the party, which then became distinctively "Puseyite," abandoned the intellectual field altogether for a sort of mystic pietism. We consider the history of Oxford thought since the time of which we speak as one of many instances which might be given of the suicidal effects of that undue depreciation of intellectual activity and of the sound use of reason in religious matters which the Church has before now had to condemn, and which she may again have to put down. The one proper and sufficient counterpoise to the wild rationalism into which so many of the best minds who have remained at Oxford since that time have fallen, would be the plain, manly, clear, and consistent teaching of the majestic philosophy of the Church. To persons armed with this, the sophistical creations of German philosophy would be no more dangerous than so many cobwebs to a man in armour. It is a "sight to make angels weep"

to see generation after generation of the noblest and most gifted minds of the nation collected at our great Universities, without being allowed access to the intellectual influence of Catholicism. We cannot imagine any one thing more truly for the glory of God in this country than some measure which would unlock the "lips which might half heav'n reveal" in the presence of an audience so intelligent, so earnest in the desire for truth, and at present so entirely debarred from it. The question is very little less than that of the conversion of England and the English speaking races. Nor can we doubt that our Catholic students, armed as they are with a true philosophy, and that intelligent knowledge of the matters of faith in which no cultivated Catholic ought to be deficient, would derive comparatively little harm even from the current teaching at the Universities. So far, then, we can agree with our correspondent. But we have all along been arguing against the evils of a sort of double teaching of philosophy, and though these evils would be greatly less in the case of Oxford than in the case of London examinations, on account of the length of the time allowed for the course and of the more liberal arrangement of the examination papers, we should still be nearly as inconsistent if we were to allow any but Catholic teachers or examinations in philosophy for our students, as we have been so strangely charged with being by those to whom our correspondent has alluded, who wrote in ignorance of the fundamental difference between the conditions for degrees at London and at Oxford, for which no one is responsible but themselves.

3. Lastly, as to the point of residence, we can of course make no distinction between collegiate and extra-collegiate residence at Oxford or Cambridge. We are content with having done our part in showing that, if Oxford and Cambridge put themselves on the same footing with London as to receiving non-resident candidates to their examinations and their degrees, there are, even at present, very excellent grounds for supposing that Catholics would be much more likely to find what they want in this respect at the elder Universities than at the younger.

The Primary Education of the Poor.

IT has been formally intimated to Parliament that some measure dealing with the Education of the poor will be brought forward during the next session. Mr. Forster indeed in his statement on the 19th of July speaks with hesitation. Having mentioned the difficulties in the way of a general system of education, he says that these are matters which "the Government would have to deal with next year, if the state of public business allowed them to grapple with the system." But notwithstanding this cautious language, there can be little doubt that this important question will be, at all events, fully discussed during the next session of Parliament. And it is no

secret that the advanced section of the Liberal party are firmly persuaded, that an adequate provision cannot be made for National Education, except on principles which shall remove it altogether from any kind of religious control, establish it upon a purely secular foundation, leave it entirely in the hands of the State, and compel parents to keep their children for a certain number of years at school.

It must be admitted that there are not wanting strong and plausible reasons which, from a certain point of view, render such a course not only advisable but necessary. It is a fact beyond dispute, that the poor of this country fall far behind the same class in Saxony and Prussia in intelligence and knowledge. Our reformatories and prisons are filled with young criminals, most of whom are as ignorant as savages. Our industrial schools are unable to accommodate the numbers of young vagrants, whose idle, lazy life on the streets is a sure and certain preparation for a future course of crime. Either the cupidity or the necessities of parents induce them, in various parts of VOL XI. SEPTEMBER, 1869.

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