0001

A little movement has reached us, which in the interest of education, economy, reform, all the virtues, and all the utilities, it is impossible to pass without lending a hand. The Undergraduates of Christ Church, Oxford, have been looking into their Battels Bills, and comparing with the figures therein the little sections of bread and butter laid on their breakfast tables, as well as the dinners they must eat and the beer they must drink, if any, in Hall. In order to find whether these bore the proper relation to one another they have gone to work in a very businesslike manner, ascertaining retail prices, deducting the profits of retail trade, arriving thereby at the wholesale figures, and so calculating the profits of a functionary called the Butler, who must have a very good place of it. If the dinners were quite satisfactory, which it appears they are not, and if the beer were uniformly drinkable, we could fancy that the young gentlemen would say nothing about the other articles. But it is easier to bring an official to book upon bread and butter than upon the quality of beer or meat, which appeals more to the higher powers of the palate and the still more recondite machinery of digestion. It may be fairly assumed that if justice is not done in the buttery, the cellar and the kitchen will take a wider licence, with more profit and less chance of detection. The commons are the weak point of the system, and we really should have thought that a judicious College purveyor would have kept up appearances in the matter of bread and butter in order to create a presumption in favour of his dinners and beer; just as grocers are said to sell sugar actually below the wholesale price that they may cheat and poison their customers in tea and coffee. At Christ Church, however, they have no need of such paltry artifices. They are backed by the system.

0002

In a College governed by a Dean and Chapter, with noblemen and gentlemen commoners, it could hardly be expected that anybody would be found so shabby as to complain of being charged only twice as much for his bread and butter as he ought to be.

The document, which is an address to the Dean of Christ Church, signed by 108 Undergraduates of the College, we give in another column, and leave its figures to speak for themselves. We may say however, that 8d. a day, or 4s. 8d. a week, for bread and butter alone will startle most householders, especially those who have large families to find in simple fare. The address makes out that the Butler gets a profit of 160 per cent. on the above articles, and seems to reduce it to a certainty that in the case of “aërated” bread he gets 152 per cent. It is quite evident that the system itself is vicious. It is like that of the “Clothing Colonels” and a good many other obsolete usages. The Butler, it would appear, is a contractor on a schedule of prices fixed unaccountably high. There is nobody to check him, except the consumer, who is a raw Undergraduate, not much accustomed to prices and small arithmetic, and disliking above all things the imputation of shabbiness. The right system is for the articles to be supplied by contract, upon open tender, and for the College functionary himself to be in a position to check the performance of the contract. It should be his business to see that the articles are all of the proper quality, and, for that purpose, to attend readily to the complaints of the Undergraduates. There ought not to be a soul within the College gates whose interest it is to feed the College ill, or make it pay more than it ought. Nay, more, the College ought to be itself an example of that method, that soundness of system, that carefulness, and that prudence which are indispensable in education; nowhere so much as at our Universities.

That is the point upon which this little interference with College routine is likely to be tried by some respectable, but, as we think, mistaken, persons. We must give it as our opinion that it is by no means inexpedient or unbecoming, but very much the contrary, that our young country gentlemen, our young candidates for orders, our intended officials and expectant statesmen should give their attention to pecuniary matters, and try their hands at administration. There is nothing like actual practice. It is worth all the books, all the imaginary problems, all the platitudes of professors, and it is just the one thing wanting in a young Englishman's education. Nobody knows what an advantage the humbler classes have over their betters in this respect. These are accustomed from their earliest years to face the pecuniary question as a matter of necessity, to perform economical achievements, and actually to struggle for existence, at a time when the student is so much engrossed in learning words and grasping ideas that he has not time to check a tradesman's bill, or confront any other of life's realities. It is often said of this or that remarkable man that he was entirely self-taught, and had no advantages, all the time that he was bred in the best of all schools—that of necessity; and had years of varied practice, while young gentlemen were still attending lectures, and scribbling over files of foolscap. Well, here is an actual question. Have the Undergraduates of Christ Church hit a blot, and can they make a real economical reform? If they can, we do not hesitate to say it will be worth more than a good many of those recommended by the Royal Commission—not that we have the least wish to underrate the latter. We may say that what a man does himself is worth more than all that the best-intentioned friends can do for him. In the former case it is an active progress; in the latter it is a merely passive condition. Perhaps there never was a time when the training of realities was more necessary than now, when the attention is more than ever distracted, and when everybody is expected to have something to say about everything, whether he has had the chance of seeing, handling, or doing things or not.

0003

Let it be considered, too, that this is an age of millionaires; when, in many quarters, there is really so much money that it is difficult for little people—and even great people for that matter—to value moderate sums. When there are half-a-dozen people in one neighbourhood who can spend thousands on one entertainment, employ any number of labourers, pay them half as much again as they can get from the farmers, keep any number of horses and carriages, purchase the votes of a county, subscribe to everything, and die worth millions, the position of younger sons, small country gentlemen, and of those who have absolutely nothing but their wits, such as they may be, becomes more and more difficult. Their problem is how to deal with small and vanishing incomes—that is, incomes far below the wants they were educated to feel, and continually falling in the comparison with their actual exigencies. There must be a good many such at College, and it is very desirable they should learn how to maintain a respectable position and keep character intact on very small incomes. With this view, they ought to be encouraged to examine tradesmen's bills, to scrutinize charges, to learn how far those charges are affected by the relations between the tradesman and his customer, and, above all, to get into the right way of dealing with servants. Many, indeed, are the households that are ruined by servants, and tradesmen in league with them. Nor is it just one particular class of servants. It is a common saying that a servant if he remains twenty years in one place is servant the first ten, master the next. College servants, of course, are always in the position of old servants, and are often the oldest inmates of the College. No one thinks of disturbing them, and their best friends are just those who are not at all affected by their encroachments—viz., the oldest members of the College. There are stories without end of College cooks and butlers who have made fortunes out of Colleges. Nay, Colleges sometimes seem to think it a respectable thing to have an incubus or two of this sort. In private life the difference between the households where the servants have it all their own way and others where they are kept in their place and made to do their duty is well appreciated, for it is seen in too many instances. Nothing, indeed, has so much enabled, the old gentry to hold their ground—often with small incomes, and with the continual drain of mortgages, settlements, portions, jointures, and outfittings—as their way of dealing with their servants, which is a special tradition in their case. They give low wages, they repay with hopes rather than ready money, they jealously guard against confidential relations between the servant and the tradesmen. To be a good master and to manage servants and tradesmen ought to be considered a part of an English gentleman's education. The Undergraduates of Christ Church appear to have taken this on themselves without the assistance of a professor, or the stimulus of prizes and scholarships. As far as we can see, they have a very good case to begin with. We hope that it will teach them to look after their shillings, when, as the proverb says, the pounds will take care of themselves. We hope, too, that the movement will end with sending a few sensible economists into our public departments, in some of which there is great need of better servants, an effectual check system, a safer footing with contractors and others, and any plan which will secure our money's worth. We are not informed of the result of the application to the College authorities, but can hardly suppose that it has not been favourably and kindly received.