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and the industrious student fail to attain that im-ed mortality which is reserved for those who win a place in a 'Punishment Book'-for the junior Fellow who is 18 whipt by the Dean, or the Magdalen man who is accused of baptising a cat.

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One should not, then, infer too rashly from silence on the subject of education. Yet it is undeniable that Colleges were exposed to great dangers, and sometimes succumbed to them. They must adapt themselves to the age; it is not always easy to accommodate statutes made for one period to the uses of another; abuses may grow in the process. With the progress of the centuries Colleges changed their character. Commoners' were admitted in large numbers; the old type of 'unattached' students, already diminishing, disappeared altogether in the 15th century, when a statute compelled all undergraduates to be members of a Hall or College. Thus the Colleges, enlarged beyond the limits of their constitutions, ceased to be small bodies of students theoretically vowed to plain living and high thinking; Fellows and Scholars were only a nucleus, surrounded by others who were only sometimes animated by high educational ideals, for whose government, as they were not contemplated by the pious founder, new regulations had to be made, and whose presence in the College, desirable though it might be as bringing a learned foundation into closer touch with the whole of English life, could not be expected to be always an aid to serious study. Even apart from this, the collegiate system was obviously liable to abuse. Founders had meant their endowed cloisters to protect learning from a troublesome world; protection had the defects of its qualities, and might atrophy the energy of an intellectual age into the idleness of a period when there was less spiritual activity. Long before the much-abused 18th century we hear of 'drone bees living on the fat of Colleges.' Politics played their disturbing part. Endowments imperilled that which they had been meant to protect. The atmosphere of Oxford during the Civil Wars and the PostRestoration period was hardly calculated to associate Fellowships with learning and education; when Fellows had for so long been extruded or intruded for purely political reasons, their posts were very naturally re

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thatgarded as desirable sinecures; the way was made easy for the inactivity which characterised a great part of the 18th century, and from which Colleges, with notable

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exceptions, had not wholly awakened in the first half of the 19th.

It was, therefore, to be expected that when the le echoes of the Oxford Movement began to die away the ne public mind should be exercised about the state of its sto Colleges. If Oxford was to be a place of education and not only an ecclesiastical battlefield, these corporations could not go unreformed. Fellows then received their stipends for life on the sole condition that they remained unmarried (in respect of which condition, irresponsible scandal would occasionally allude to the Horatian axiom, the Est et fideli tuta silentio merces), and were held to be under no obligation to teach. Some, no doubt, did I teach; a bad system is not inconsistent with individual CO merit, and Colleges sometimes had good tutors; but, speaking generally, the comparative absence of good college tuition was proved by the popularity and the rewards of extra-mural tuition. Many of the resident Fellows of the middle 19th century might be admired for their social qualities. Some were very capable administrators of College property. A few were even men of learning. But none of them need teach; and comparatively few of them did. If University education was to be regarded seriously, the existing system was totally impossible.

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It was the legislation following the second University Commission-that of 1877-which finally succeeded in placing College teaching on a less precarious basis. There were to be no more life Fellowships. Men elected by (or, in the prudent phrase, 'after') examination enjoyed a small stipend for seven years; at the end of which, if they did not wish, or were not qualified, to undertake some definite work in their Colleges, they were not reelected, but passed into the world outside. There were Tutorial Fellows, paid for teaching, and enjoying membership of the Governing Body on that sole condition; and they, too, must from time to time come up for re-election. All might marry. This was naturally held by many to be a dangerous and desperate innovation: there were dark presages of High Tables depleted, or worse; there

were visions of possible perambulators in quadrangles. But the creation of the Tutorial Profession—a phrase which is understood to have continuously horrified the unexpected conservatism of Prof. Freeman-has not, apparently, produced the results anticipated by pessimism; and the same may be said of another very important product of the second Commission. Some Professorships were already associated with Colleges; part of the Commission's work was to extend this association, which was desirable, partly because the Professor's position was bettered financially, and partly because College tutors would be more in touch with learned specialists. There was criticism, then and since, of a movement which (it was alleged) tended to break up College life by the introduction of aliens of mature age, who could not be expected to show single-minded loyalty to a new connexion. But whatever fears there were have proved unfounded. No doubt the sober friendship between a middle-aged Professor and the College of his adoption is not quite the same thing as the devotion of one whose home it has been since early manhood-perhaps since boyhood. But in the event no one has accused professors of disregarding the best interests of their respective foundations; Common Room society has gained enormously; and the savants themselves have no doubt recognised that College esprit de corps is a pleasant and perhaps even useful adjunct to the pursuit of learning. Taking the results of the second Commission's legislation as a whole, one may say without fear of question that Colleges are infinitely the better for it. They are probably more learned, and unquestionably much more active. Their social atmosphere has inevitably changed; and it may have lost something of the strangeness and quaintness which used to give Oxford and Cambridge a peculiar and unique character of their own -the 'difference' which John Bright conceded to their alleged 'provincialism.' The provincialism-if it was ever there is gone, and so is the difference. Some one said—regretting the change—that there are no eccentrics now in Oxford. That statement may, perhaps, require some qualification; but it is probably true that there are rather fewer obvious and noticeable oddities, such as those celebrated in ancient fable. Colleges do not breed

them with the old facility,-eccentricities develop less readily in a world of active interests. There are none left now of the 'Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters'-the generally quite harmless and often extremely agreeable old gentlemen whom one used to meet in their Common Rooms, haunting those peaceful spots and really, as far as could be discerned, doing nothing else in particular. Do?' said the guide to the visitor (who was probably an American), 'do? What should they do? Why, them's Fellows!' (Legends like this, it may be said incidentally, die very hard.) There are very few left of the non-resident Fellows who knew something of the world and nothing of the University; there are hardly any of the residents who knew very little about either. Their place is taken by the modern member of the Governing Body of his College, who is a totally different kind of person. Under his rule, there is no reason why the interests of his College should not be fully served and its traditions respected. He is in fact not a worse but a better guardian of them because as a practical worker he is bound to know something of the world in which he lives, and realises the rôle which his College should play as a place of education and a constituent part of a learned University.

Now it appears that the Colleges are once more under review. According to the Report issued by the present University Commission, it would seem that the principal objects of the Commissioners are to make Oxford more national and more learned. No one can quarrel with the piety of either wish; but certainly, so far as academic opinion is concerned, reform is knocking at a door which is open already. Colleges cast their nets wide; they are willing and anxious to attract poor and promising students; and even the not easily satisfied intelligence of the Labour Party must recognise that the educational ladder does in fact, and not only in theory, lead to the University-private beneficence also playing a part. But whether any possible sumptuary regulation can really attract a considerable number of actual manual workers is extremely doubtful. There are obvious difficulties. These might probably be somehow overcome, did 'Labour' speak with a certain voice. But its voice in this matter is by no means certain; nay, one hears more

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commonly of a certain reluctance to expose tender minds to dubious influences; fears are sometimes expressed lest the severe purity of Trades Unionism might be contaminated by the corrupting atmosphere of Oxford lecture-room. This is something of an obstacle to 'nationality.' Clearly no University worthy of the name could consent to be 'national' at the expense of its freedom of teaching.

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As to the second aim of the Commissioners, their desire to bring University and College teaching into a closer accord and more effective co-operation can only be praised; but it may be questioned whether the desired mutual understanding does not exist already. It is possible to represent these problems as formidable than they really are. Divisions between different kinds of teachers are not always hard and fast. There are University Professors who are concerned with College tuition; on the other hand, much nominally collegiate teaching is addressed to the University, and there are College tutors who in virtue of the audiences which they instruct and the teaching which they impart are really, except in title and stipend, University Professors. There is also the patent fact that the resident personnel of the University is for the most part the personnel of its Colleges. According to his avocations at different hours of the day, a tutor may be a member of his College in the morning and a member of the University in the afternoon. This may confuse the issue, but it should simplify the problem; at least, it would seem to suggest that the two parties (if there are two) could very easily arrive at a modus vivendi without external assistance; and in fact they do. Very obvious considerations dictate the main lines for a division of educational labour between Colleges and University.' For good or evil, Oxford appears to have accepted the principle that it is the business of a University to open its doors as widely as possible, and to offer to all and sundry teaching in every imaginable subject. Clearly a College, even the largest and the richest, cannot teach everything, from Theology to Forestry; and even if it could, the multiplication of instructors would obviously be wasteful in the extreme. It is perfectly well understood that there are some subjects which are best

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