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What has happened to Christ Church, Oxford? It is not burnt down, the Corporation is not abolished, “Tom” has not gone into the meltingpot, Peckwater looks dull and sedate as ever; but why, as a school of learning, is it dwindling down to a vanishing point? It is a sort of instinct with old Oxford men to look down the class list as they twice a-year make their appearance in the newspapers. In every parish of England there are men who have, perchance, long since disappeared from the Oxford books, but who recollect with what hope and terror they used to look for those class lists a long time ago; and how, when the ordeal was passed for themselves, they counted College against College. They noted then, and continue the habit of noting, which College was holding its own, which was rising, and which was going down. They remember, also, the little University scandals which were always based upon these trial lists; how Dr. Brown was supposed to be lazy, Dr. Jones to be ignorant, and Dr. Robinson absent hunting for tufts and lawn sleeves. Christ Church, of course, with her 200 undergraduates, sending up her five-and-twenty men to each examination, and having all the advantage of great prizes and the pick of Westminster School, would always take the lead. From Dean Jackson downwards, and for aught we know upwards, it was always a point of honour with a long line of energetic Deans that she should hold her own in the schools. It was their habit, whenever they got a good bit of marble, to grind it and polish it well: so that it might happen that if a statesman like Peel drew upon him the notice of the world in his rising career people might guess at once that he was one of the Christ Church Double Firsts, and feel comfortable that his advance was quite natural and all right when they had ascertained that this was so. So with a distinguished Judge—in those days when it was thought expedient that Judges should be men of education; so also with distinguished Churchmen; and in all ranks of intellectual excellence it was the ambition of the Deans of Christ Church that the old Christ Church proof-mark should be found upon as many as possible of the great guns of the age. In those bygone times we might feel a curiosity as to how other Colleges competed among themselves, but Christ Church was always, as a matter of course, at the head of the river, and at the head of the class list.

It was on Thursday last that we published the classical list for the Michaelmas Term Moderations examination, and it was with no small sentiment of surprise that we glanced down the unusually long list of honours, and, at first, missed the familiar name of Christ Church altogether. There are 13 first-class men, to whom Magdalen can contribute three and Corpus three, but Christ Church not one. There are 28 second-class men, and, among these, minute search discovers one Christ Church man; while even New College can show two and Lincoln three. 0002 There are 15 third-class men, and in this number there is not one from Christ Church. A solitary second-class man is the only sign which this greatest in numbers, in endowments, and in facilities of previous training of all the Colleges of Oxford makes to show that she is not dead. We may be told, perhaps, to wait till the degree class lists come out—that Christ Church may be very strong in mathematics, in physics, or in juris prudence and modern history, and that the attention of the Christ Church undergraduates has been recently much turned to this last course of study. There is nothing in such an answer. Christ Church has been accustomed to turn out well-informed English gentlemen, and not mere pedants. Of the 80 students it is provided that 34 shall receive their appointments for their proficiency in mathematics and physics, and that the remainder shall be chosen for their proficiency in those multifarious branches of learning which are dealt with in Oxford in the classical schools. The public ask for some result from these great prizes for the encouragement of classical learning. From the year 1850, when the new system came into play, to the year 1855, Christ Church always gave to the world first-class classical scholars, as well as her fair proportion of first-class men in the other lists. Since that year, however, this College has in the degree examinations only produced one first-class man in classics, and in Easter Term 1857 there was no first-class man from Christ Church in any one of the four classes. There is something so very remarkable in this falling off that people at a distance are seeking reasons for it.

It so happens that the appointment of the present Dean, which was in the year 1856, is contemporaneous with the most remarkable phase of the decline and fall of this illustrious seminary of learning. It is also unfortunately true that the Dean's health is so bad that he is often compelled to repair to Madeira and Malta, and other mild atmospheres, and that his duties as Chaplain to his Royal Highness the Prince Consort require him to be in frequent attendance upon the Court. Dean Liddell, therefore, is to a certain extent a non-resident head of the College. These reasons for his non-residence are unanswerable; and, even with a duty before us so imperative as that of protesting against the neglect of the principal College in our first University, it would have been an odious thing to point attention to a non-residence which is occasioned by bodily debility. But it is not to the non-residence of any individual that the evils now active in this College can be ascribed. Dean Liddell might not be able to do the work himself, and yet might readily find some other man to do it for him. Christ Church is a very jealous wife; she has always had uncourtly, home-staying husbands. Her Deans have always been proud of their position—often preferring it to rich bishoprics; and we cannot think it would now be difficult to find some man who would throw his zeal and ambition into the work, and be satisfied without envying the Dean's preferment, to recover and sustain the reputation of the College. If we may credit even a tithe of the common talk, there have been scandals within the walls, and even the Dean's appointments have not been always such as to give the desired weight to College authority. It is greatly to be regretted that the Dean's weak state of health should be such as to render it impossible for him to do what his office requires to be done; but, if he would choose some man who has a will and a strong purpose, and invest him with the authority which he himself cannot exercise, we should probably see Christ Church rising again to her old place in the class lists, and in no further danger of becoming the drone of the University hive. The example is very unfortunate. The absence which is a necessity to Dr. Liddell may become a precedent for other heads of houses who have no such real excuse, but who may neglect their Colleges to dance about upon the skirts of fashion or to follow the trail of preferment.