“Magnis centurionibus orti.”
“Magnis centurionibus orti.”
“Magnis centurionibus orti.”
“Magnis centurionibus orti.”
The sons of parents who can afford to spend one or two hundred per annum upon their education,—who have had advantages of every kind, which the poor curate’s or the country tradesman’s son can never hope for,—who should need no such incentives to study, as they need no such help in its pursuit. Are these the classes for which founders bequeathed their wealth? Hear the good William of Wykeham, one of the most magnificent of Oxford benefactors—whose too princely foundations are, as it would appear, never to be allowed to do the noble and pious work for which he intended them—“I will have,” says he, “not those already learned, skilled in letters, wealthy, accomplished in arts.” His gifts were wisdom to those who sought after wisdom, and help to those who needed help to seek it.
It is curious to mark the poverty of argument amongst the champions—of all parties—who advocate this nefarious spoliation. “Fellowships and scholarships,” says the Edinburgh Reviewer, “have now become situations of influence and honour; it would be wrong to appoint men to these simply because they are poor.”[16]Let the words go down to posterity as the expression of the sentiments of our self-styled friends of the people: because the poor man’s heritage has increased, it may be his no longer—what has he to do in situations of “honour and influence?” “Because he is poor?” No; but because, being poor, with the many disadvantages which poverty entails, he has proved himself“ad studendum habilis et idoneus”—“proficere volens”—these must be his claims besides poverty; and they may involve at least as high an order of “merit” as any mere examination-test of acquirements. Hear again, in the same strain, Professor Garbett. University emoluments, according to him, are “the intellectual property of the nation.”[17]Now, if this be a mere flower of diction—avox artis—if, being Professor of Poetry, he thought he was nothing if not poetical, we have nothing more to say—it may pass for what it is worth. But if it be put forth as a serious prosaic assertion—if he means to say that the wealth of Oxford is the property of mere intellect, then is Professor Garbett the strongest of all living arguments against professorial teaching. We are then to deify intellect; to this idol we are to sacrifice the rights of the poor, the claims of kindred and of neighbourhood. Does he know who is the impersonation of intellect unsanctified?
And, as the claim of poverty is to be extinguished within Oxford itself, so are those institutions which were to supply claimants to be robbed in their turn. Here is the sentence of disfranchisement for a multitude of provincial grammar-schools throughout England. No preference to any scholarship shall be accorded to any school except such school shall contain one hundred scholars. Is this wisdom and justice? Will the towns of Appleby, Abingdon, Ashburton, Bromsgrove, Coventry, Hereford, Marlborough, Reading, Tiverton, Worcester, call this a liberal scheme? Will you withdraw from these places the fruits of the munificence, often, of some grateful townsman, and deprive them of the only hope of a good classical education for their sons? For be it remembered, it is not merely the two or three boys here and there, who are the fortunate holders of these helps to study, who are benefited thereby—it is the many that, thus encouraged to exertion, and the still greater number who have the advantage of first-rate masters, whom these very scholarships have attracted to these schools. And is there no injustice to such men themselves?—who have given up perhaps fair prospects at Oxford, resigned fellowships, married wives, and carried their talents into remote districts of England to take charge of country schools, which two lines of this bill are to empty for ever? Then the absurd estimate of the efficiency of a school by its actual numbers—giving it a scholarship, we suppose, when it had the even hundred, and next year destroying it for lack of five. A school may be in a high state of efficiency, and yet never reach near a hundred boys. Bridgnorth, Oakham, Uppingham, when in the last generation they ranked almost as public schools, did not; Bromsgrove has not ninety, Repton just sixty, at the present time. Are these inefficient places of education?
We are estranging the middle classes from us day by day. With all our large professions, we are a narrow-minded age. It has been well remarked, how, in olden times, many of our great divines were sons of tradesmen.[18]This enactment would close in great measure the avenues by which the Church was meant to draw into its ranks those who now, partly in ignorance, shrink from her teaching.
Here then, or never, the Universities must take their stand. This is no struggle for privileges. It cannot be said that colleges have any interest in keeping up a preference for the poor. Rather, most unhappily, their tendency has been to pass over these claims, not being fonder of poor connections than the world in general is—preferring the scholar and the gentleman, and merging the preference into a poor “cæteris paribus.” Perhaps—not unnaturally—corporations, like individuals, require to be often recalled to homely duties. In this, as in other points, Oxford has not been immaculate. Let her make amends. Let us hear no more of “poor halls,” when almost every one of her proudest buildings should be an “Hospitium Pauperum Scholarium.” Much of what she holds to be her legal rights may be given up for the sake of peace—obedience to lawful, though arbitrary authority; some things indifferent may even be sacrificed as popular concessions; but in this there must be no compromise—in this she is a steward forGod.