0001

UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENTS.

Nov. 16, 1872

In connexion with the question of the best application of the endowments of Oxford and Cambridge, a public meeting was held at the Freemasons' Tavern, on Saturday, November 16, by members of the Universities and others interested in the promotion of mature study and scientific research in England. There were present the Rev. Mark Pattison, Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford; Sir Benjamin Brodie; Mr. C. T. Newton, keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum, Professors Rolleston, Huxley, Seeley, 0002 Sidgwick, Mr. C. Appleton, Mr. Sidney Colvin, and other gentlemen, by whom a preliminary resolution had been signed to the effect that “the chief end to be kept in view in any redistribution of the revenues of Oxford and Cambridge is the adequate maintenance of mature study and scientific research, as well for their own sakes as with the view of bringing the highest education within reach of all who are desirous to profit by it.”

The Rev. Mark Pattison occupied the chair. He explained that the gentlemen present were not the representatives of any political party or political movement, but were there simply for an academical purpose. Neither were they to be considered as having met to take an initiative; the initiative had already been taken by Mr. Gladstone in appointing a Commission to inquire into the revenues of the Colleges and Universities. They were only there to discuss the direction which, in their opinion, ought to be taken by any reform, initiated, not by themselves, but by other people.

Professor Rolleston said,—Until the end of the last century it will be admitted that the Universities were neither seats of learning nor seats of teaching. The first thing that was done was to make them seats of examination, and, as far as that is concerned, they work tolerably well at this moment. The great danger is that they should be made simply into that utilitarian sort of machine, a machine for examining and a machine for teaching. I am very far from wishing that their capabilities in the way of examining and that kind of work, in which I believe they are exceedingly capable, should be curtailed. Still, I think it is of very vital consequence, in this somewhat utilitarian age, 0003 that the Universities should be made into places where original research, and where the production of fresh facts and means of knowledge, instead of the mere communication and reproduction of it, should be recognized. That, I think, is a matter upon which sufficient weight can scarcely be laid at the present moment. One result of our present examination system is that men who, as grown men and during the whole of their University career, are subjected to the ordeal of examination in futuro, having that sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, do not look at what they have under study as so much truth, but look upon it as something to be reproduced on paper and to further their designs on Fellowships and Scholarships, and other pecuniary rewards. Now when a man is kept for something like twenty-three or twenty-four years of his life under that sort of training, he gets apt to look at all work whatever of the intellectual kind from the point of view of the examination, merely. Men get demoralized by the process. They do not look at the truth for itself. They have no notion of pushing forward the elements of knowledge into some area into which nothing has been before. That is entirely a new vein to them; and I think one of the first things requisite is that examinations should be considered rather more the work of boys and people just emerging out of boyhood, than that they should be prolonged into a sort of struggle for men who have got to man's estate. Now the examination system certainly secures against jobbery and favouritism, and that is a very great thing. It also secures that all men are made more or less to work, and idleness, of course, is a very great evil.

0004

These advantages I have my mind very much open to. But, on the other hand, the questions we have to address ourselves are these:—How is it possible for us to encourage that which we feel is an advantage of a greater kind, although it is one which can only be shared by a larger number? How is it possible to encourage original research without sacrificing soundness of learning in the many? How can we encourage the few to research without at the same time sacrificing the great advantages which we do get for the whole public, by passing a great number of mediocre men through the mill which does make them useful machines for doing work in this country of ours? People will say, “How do you propose to encourage original research? Original research is a work of genius; you cannot fetter genius by law; you cannot tie a man who has this gift of original research, by rules and laws; you cannot give him definite duties to perform, within a definite time. And then you are in this dilemma. A man has nothing given him to do—will he not then do nothing?” Now I believe by using the system of examination judiciously, by rewarding people for what they do and show under that particular ordeal, and then by giving them something or another which does keep them, so to speak, from beggary for the time being, it is possible to keep their minds open to original research. But we know that funds must be found for it. A man cannot prosecute research unless he has got something to find him bread for the passing moment. Although I think we should be entirely wanting in our duties if we laid aside the examination system, which has rescued the Universities from the slough of idleness in which they they were 80 or 90 years ago, yet I think we neglect our duty even more by neglecting the encouragement of men who have the capacity for original investigation and research. Again, a man who has not some notion of what original research means is not fit to be a teacher at all. I feel that as strongly as I can feel almost anything. If I use a metaphor from my own subject, I would say that it was not the backbone of good teaching, but the spinal cord of it, and that it gives vitality to all the organs of teaching. That is the way in which the vivifying principle of original research does stand to first-class teaching, whether it be in the realm of literature or whether it be in the realm of pure science. I would go even further, and say, if a man has the gift of original research, even if he entirely lack the power of communicating, and, what is another thing, the taste for communicating knowledge, he ought to have a place found for him. I say that a man of that kind is like a light shining all around, setting by his example and his work a higher tone to society; a man who has the power of going into some new sphere, so that he may say to those whom he is teaching, “We are the first who ever burst into that silent sea.”

0005

Dr. Carpenter said,—I think, Sir, that no one can watch the progress of science at the present time without observing that we are certainly falling behind in the race. It is remarkable that whereas Great Britain has certainly in former times supplied some of the most important and greatest ideas in science, which have fructified and led to further progress — I speak more especially of my own science, physiology—we are now left quite behind by the wonderful industry and power of work which characterize the investigations of other countries, especially of Germany. Now, I have asked myself a great deal during the last few years—in the first place, how this evil arises; and, in the second place how it is to be remedied? Our national credit is at stake, to say nothing of the mere utilitarian view. We can, of course apply the science that we gain from abroad, but I think we should all feel that our nation was losing its credit if we were simply to take what belongs to others and turn it to our own selfish account; and that if we do not furnish our quota to the general fund, we are really not doing our duty as honest, well-informed, and well-instructed men, which we claim to be. After some remarks on the relation of physical to other branches of study, Dr. Carpenter went on to say,—Now, how is new knowledge to be obtained? It can only be obtained by those who are fortunate enough to be in a position which enables them to seek for it. That which, from my own experience, now extending over a course of nearly 40 years, I have had occasion to notice is that in my own profession—the medical—young men who distinguish themselves, and who show a considerable amount of scientific ability, may, as young men, make very considerable researches. But these men, having no field before them, and no means of making a livelihood by the study of science, are obliged to turn their attention to medical practice, and so the medical profession draws into it a great number of men who, by their education and habits of thought, have a remarkable power of advancing knowledge by the pursuit of pure scientific inquiry; who have shown that power in early life, and who, if there were adequate means of subsistence presented to them—not rewards and high prizes, but simple means of subsistence—would greatly prefer to devote themselves to scientific research, on a bare competence, to devoting themselves to more profitable occupations which would draw them from science. Dr. Carpenter illustrated this point by a reference to his own career, and continued—It is only by the appropriation of such funds as the Universities possess to the maintenance of men who have their hearts in research that such men can obtain the means of carrying out research. I do not myself believe in the fact of men having great power of research and no power of teaching. I 0006 believe every man may train himself to teach if he only chooses and desires to do so, and if it is made an essential that he should do so. I say, then, it is only by the devotion of the funds of great corporations like Universities and Colleges to the maintenance of such men that they are to obtain the means. Now, in Germany, so large is the number of professors devoted to research, and so great is the subdivision of labour at the Universities, that almost every man who really shows a capacity for scientific work is sure of getting a position—I will not say a very lucrative one, but of getting a position in the course of a few years. I have myself seen the rise of a great number of young men, whose progress I have had the pleasure of watching, in my own department of science, from the position of Privat Docent, then to the position of Ordinarius, and then to that of Professor Extraordinarius and that, I feel sure, must be generally the case. It is a great credit that Germany should give, I will not say a very handsome maintenance, but a maintenance, to me who have shown that power, and who are desirous to devote their lives to the study science and to original research; for we all agree that it is not the mere study of science, but it is the progress of original research that is needed. If a man publishes a good book upon any department of science in Germany, I believe that man is at once marked as a man who is to be advanced, and who is to get his fair chance of the first position that may offer.

Dr. Burdon Sanderson continued on the advantage of fostering at the Universities a class of what in Germany is called the Gelehrter—that is, sand Dr. Sanderson, a man who not only possesses as adequate a knowledge as other men of subjects in general, but has made a perfect study of some particular subject. The speaker then dwelt on the study of physical science, and of physiology in particular, as it should be conceived at an University.

Mr. H. Sidgwick pointed out that it was equally important to the nation, although perhaps not of so much obvious importance, that mature study should be fostered in other branches of knowledge besides physical science. In fact, he thought we might regard knowledge as a whole, no part of which ought to be allowed to languish; that the neglect of any department of study is almost sure to tell indirectly upon the prosecution of research, and on the advance knowledge in other departments. Sciences bearing on practice and subject to the random methods of half-instructed opinion, such as political economy, ought to thrive on an equal footing with the physical, and these again with the mathematical and other exact sciences.

The Chairman then put the resolution,—“That to have a class of men whose lives are devoted to research is a national object.”

Carried nem. con.

0007

Sir Benjamin Brodie said,—I have the strongest opinion that when the report of Mr. Gladstone's Commission is published, and the true revenues of the Colleges of Oxford are made known to the House of Commons and the world, the greatest surprise, and I may also say the greatest indignation, will prevail. I admit fully that a great amount of good educational work is done by the Universities, but I certainly think that the work is totally disproportionate in every way to the machinery which exists for its performance, and it is idle and useless to say that we want an expensive collegiate system—a system of Colleges manipulating actual revenues of thousands of pounds a year for the purpose of educating, however admirably, 2,000 students who we may also say, absolutely pay for their education besides. When these statements are made, as they will be made, as to the property of Universities and the Colleges, there will be the greatest danger that we may have a reform which perhaps none of us wish for—a reform which may be no improvement at all, but which may simply consist in the alienation from the purposes of knowledge of these great funds. Now, with regard to the promotion of knowledge in various branches, which I, in common with out chairman, hold to be a most essential duty of a University, this great object was entirely lost sight of by the Executive Commission of 1854. I believe that most persons in Oxford who are interested in real education are not very well satisfied with the fruits of this Commission. The few things that they did in regard to the promotion of knowledge were done partly with that view, and partly under the pretext of reviving old foundations, such as the Linacre Professorship at Merton College, four professorships at Magdalen College, and two or three other small institutions which the University had long ago buried under ground. The Commission dug these up, and therefore, so far, did something for the promotion of science. And indeed it is impossible, unless you absolutely destroy Oxford and Cambridge, to get rid of every record of the idea that those Universities are founded for the promotion, and not solely for the diffusion, of knowledge; for that idea really runs through the whole University system. The great libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, and also the great collegiate foundations, bear witness to it; for, although we may not think it now, I fully believe that these collegiate foundations had a very valuable object, 0008 and when I read the statutes made for Magdalen College by that truly great man, William Waynflete, I confess I am struck with the real superiority of mind which this man displayed in regard to many modern reforms. Now, we wish, I believe, to take up this thread where our predecessors dropt it—namely, this idea that the Universities are institutions, not only for difusing knowledge and education, but for absolutely promoting knowledge and investigation. With regard to scientific research, men are really hindered from the investigation on all sides from the want of means of subsistence and means of work. Certain aids are afforded to the investigators of science by existing institutions, by the learned societies of England and the Continent; and we have also two or three national institutions which certainly on such an occasion as the present ought by no means to be forgotten, because I know we shall be told that this is not an object for the nation to care for. One of these institutions is the British Museum, which really exists solely for the purpose of preserving knowledge. Another institution is the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. We have, again, private foundations—the Meteorological Observatory at Kew; the Radcliffe Observatory at Oxford, and the like. All those institutions are founded not in the least with regard to education alone, but for the purpose of promoting the growth of knowledge. I may, perhaps, say in a few words, in what way I conceive that the Universities might aid this great cause of investigation. I think it is really very little use for us to be too indefinite, and that if we wish to produce any result we must have some definite plan and programme. My own idea is, that it would be very desirable to found in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge certain specific institutions for the promulgation of scientific research; I use the term scientific research in its widest sense, and include in it all knowledge which is capable of being made the subject of research; but I say certainly specific institutions should be founded for this object. I do not think it will do to trust these great institutions to the growth of mere ordinary professorships, and I should certainly like to see certain specific institutions devoted to this object, which should represent the various great departments of human knowledge. Those institutions should be connected with 0009 professors specially selected for the objects which they have to fulfil, and where the professors would be provided with assistance and apparatus, and every means and appliance which could really be valuable and useful to them for the purposes of research; and I do not think that much less, or anything less, than this will fulfil the object which we desire. I should say that my idea is by no means absolutely to disconnect such institutions from the work of teach. But, on the other hand, I would have them fulfil the very highest educational work—namely, the training up for the service of the country of a body of teachers in the respective sciences.

Mr. Sidney Colvin spoke of somewhat mechanical and material spirit pervading the University system as it pervades so many other conceptions in England. The majority of the resident staff at the Universities under the present system was too much engrossed in pressing occupations and teaching of the tutorial kind to have opportunities for independent research. Undergraduates were too apt to work for the sake of prizes of learning, rather than for the sake of the learning itself. A better spirit would prevail if the student came in contact with more instances of the highest studies carried out in the pure interest of knowledge, and independently of the routine of education and examination.

The Chairman moved as the next resolution, “That it is desirable, in the interest of national progress and education that professorships and special institutions shall be founded in the Universities for the promotion of scientific research.”

Professor Seeley spoke on the question of prize fellowships. The preceding speakers, he said, have introduced to the Englishman to-night a character for whom we have found it difficult to find a name, because I believe there is no name for him in the English language, and we have been obliged to call him in the German Gelehrter, and in French we call him a savant, but there is no English name for him. He is a person who is engaged in mature study, and who lives by his study; and we have made it plain, I fancy, that our object in University Reform is one definite thing, and that is at the same time as find this person a name, to find him a career. But we shall be met by an assertion that this person already has a career in England, and he has also a name—that he is, in fact, the Fellow of a College.

0010

I fancy if you were to ask most English people about the English Universities, they would say that the most glorious feature about them is just this—that a young man may go up from any part of the country, without a penny in his pocket, and may get 300l. a year given him for life; and to take away that is simply to take away the scholastic glory of England, and whatever makes it Universities to the beggarly Universities of the Continent. To give a young man 300l. a year they think is a thing which explains itself; but it you come to examine their meaning, I think you will hardly question that they are looking at the matter as a question of charity; that they want the young man to receive so much to do him good, and to give him a start in life. Well, I am not going to enter much into the question whether it is desirable to give young men starts in life; that is a question which belongs to the large subject of charity; I would merely remark that I think the objects of charity should be those who stand in need of it, and are not likely to be able to help themselves. But we carefully select young men in the vigour of life; and not only that, but young men who have shown themselves to be possessed of more than ordinary abilities—that is to say, just the very young men who can get on in life without any such help. I should recommend, if these institutions are retained, simply on the ground of charity, that these Fellowships should be given to men carefully selected, whose abilities are less than those of others. Again, it is said, how excellent a thing it is that a young man going to the Bar, in his first years of brieflessness, should have his Fellowship to fall back upon. That is partly the same argument of charity which I have been speaking of; but mixed up with it is another notion, that it is a good thing for the Bar that in this way men of high education are brought into it. That is a very important question indeed, but I cannot say that it is a question which we of the Universities are called upon to discuss. There are other institutions which have charge of the interests of the Bar—let them consider it. We have in London several great Inns of Court; and I have often heard it said that they have funds. If it be so, and if it be desirable, by means of Fellowships, to procure men of high education to enter the profession of the law, let them establish Fellowships themselves for that purpose. This is a very simple course. But now I come to the question which this resolution deals with. Is this Fellow of a College, of whom we have been speaking, a person of mature study, a person who devotes his life to advancing the bounds of knowledge? Of course it is quite possible to mention the names of distinguished men who have risen to distinction in the particular branches of knowledge while Fellows. But the question for us is, are Fellows of a College, as a rule, men who are preparing themselves for that career—is their life devoted to study and to knowledge, are they persons who are either enlarging the bounds of knowledge or are on the way to enlarging them? I answer, confidently, they are not that class of men. I do not charge them with being a class of men with whom any fault whatever can be found. They are not what we are told they used to be many years ago. It would not be possible perhaps to find instances of the torpid, vacant lives which used to be led under the protection of a Fellowship. They occupy themselves now in some way. They supply the scholastic world, they supply the clerical world, sometimes they supply the Bar; they conduct a great many examinations in the country, and they do a great deal of work which is very valuable; but I say that mature study is a work which they do not, as a rule, engage in, only with some exceptions here and there. The Professor went on to say that Fellows were neither chosen by the right kind of electing body, nor according to the right method for the end of further mature research. He criticized the existing terms of the tenure of Fellowships, as well as the existing system of examination at the Universities.

Mr. Simcox spoke to the same effect.

The Chairman put the resolution in the following amended form:—“That the present mode of awarding Fellowships as prizes has been found unsuccessful as a means of promoting mature study and original research, and that it is, therefore, desirable that it should be discontinued.”

0011

Carried nem. con.

The Chairman then said,—The subject of the professoriate is of course a very wide subject, and it is impossible to more than just indicate the position which that question holds in our scheme. I think it is desirable that we should make it clearly understood that we are not aiming a blow at what is called the educational efficiency of the place. As I have no local knowledge of the working of the Cambridge institutions, it must be understood that in any remarks I make upon the present working of the Universities, I entirely speak of my own University. The question of the professoriate is one which was first mooted 20 years ago as the question of the Professoriate versus the Tutoriate, and it was regarded as a revolution in the educational institutes of the University. The question when we are now raising of converting the University into a centre of mature study was not then raised. The question of University reform turned entirely upon the educational question of Professors versus Tutors. What the Executive Commission of 1854 did was not to substitute professors for tutors in any great measure 3, in the educational system of the University. The storm that had been raised by the mere sound of the word “professor” was so great that they were daunted, and did not dare to propose any large development of the professiorate. I think that things are entirely changed now, and even if we confine ourselves to educational requirements, we have not that battle to fight. But we have the situation which the Commissioners of 1854 created for us, and that situation is this. They raised a certain number of the then existing professorships, and added to them a few others, and so called into existence a body of professors, many of whom have been extremely valuable and influential members of the University. But the situation of a professor in the University at present, or any rate of the philosophical professors, is that of the persons who are entirely outside the working of the system. For instance, a very eminent professor once advertised a course of lectures on accents simply. This course of lectures he had prepared not only with great pains, but he had for years investigated the subject of the origin and growth of the accentuation of language, in a way in which it had never been done before. His work was an original work. He had collected all the special programmes that bore on the subject, and he had constructed a history of language accentuation. He advertised this course, and proceeded to give it. At the first lecture the room was full; but when they found that this was an original philological investigation, and not a lecture as to the rules for accenting the perfect participle of the Green verb, in order that they might use it in Moderations, they immediately fell off and left it. The consequence is that the professors are not at all working now as a portion of the system. Now, if we say that we want to set up more of these professors, University men will say “Professorships are doing no good as they are at present. We are doing the work. It is we, the tutors, who are doing the work of the place, and you professors are simply ornamental.” This is the result of the way in which the Commission of 1854 set about its work. They were told that the great evil of the University at that time was that the Colleges had absorbed the University, and the first thing that a reform of the University should aim at was the reconstituting the University as against the Colleges. Now I think it is very important for us to let our attitude be understood to be quite different. We do not want, as the phrase is, to rob the colleges to make the University rich. The antithesis between colleges and University is nil, for our purpose. We do not intend to perpetuate the mistake which the Commissioners of 1854 did, and to take away a few thousand pounds from the colleges, make it over to the Universities, and leave the colleges as they are. The speaker then went on to specify the diversions of college revenue effected by the Commissioners of 1854 through the endowment of Professorships; and said that was not the kind of precedent which the present meeting was anxious to see followed. We are agreed, he continued, in desiring the creation of a body of resident students and teachers—real students and real teachers—and I think the attitude we shall take will be to say, “We will leave the colleges exactly where they are. We do not intend to rob the Colleges and give 0012 the proceeds over to the University, but we will gradually convert them into what we wish to see them.” The supposed antithesis between professor and tutor should be sunk entirely, in our point of view, and the whole body of resident graduates should be brought into one homogeneous association of teachers all working together—these teachers naturally being of different ages, and consequently of different attainments. We would begin as they do in Germany, with the privat docent. It has been very well said that the privat docent is the order upon which the principle of German Universities principally rests. The eminent professors of whom we bear are not the actual working men of the place. The privat docent class are the working men of the place. Now, instead of putting the tutors into an attitude of hostility to the professors, which it is at present, I would reconcile them to the professors by making them also professors, but making them of a lower grade in the teaching system. Of course, there are various steps through which a successful tutor should have opportunities of working himself up until he may hope to attain the highest eminence that the University can afford him. Again, remarked the speaker, we must not endeavour directly to oppose the present examination system, however much we may be convinced of its effect, as actually carried out, in sacrificing literary and scientific ability. We must endeavour, as far as we can, to enfilter our system into the examination system, and for this reason we must not talk about professors who can be planted there to pursue original research only, and make that our single object. We must take up the whole institution of teaching in the Universities and we must endeavour to impress upon the teaching the fact which has already been dwelt upon—namely, that there can be no healthy intellectual training unless the man who conducts it is a person who is himself capable of, and has the opportunity of engaging in, original research. That is the strong point, but we must not set ourselves to go and pull down the present system of examination directly. Another notion of University reform which we shall have to meet is that notion of transplanting a certain portion of the University revenue into the manufacturing and commercial centres of the population. That is an idea which, to those who attend to what one sees in the papers on the progress of opinion on the subject of the Universities, has evidently taken deep root, and it more or less runs counter to our object—not altogether, but more or less. But that idea has taken such deep root, that I doubt whether, if we were to try, we could prevent something of that sort being done. But I confess I am not myself altogether opposed to something of that kind being attempted, and if we find in the Bill, when it is drawn, that there is some such proposal as the sending down a number of young men into the country, and paying them by means of University funds, and locating them in these manufacturing centres—although I do not care much about its being done, and I should not propose it—although I think it might be compatible with our views. All would depend, I think, upon our retaining—and by “us” I mean the University, but those who are assembled in this room, and the persons they represent—a general influence upon what was done locally. If these persons who are sent over to Manchester and Liverpool are entirely under our direction, and are made not mere persons who go and deliver and evening lecture for the amusement of ladies and gentlemen in Manchester, then I think it would be very desirable if something like a connexion between the Universities and the centre of population could be opened. One great complaint is that the manufacturing and commercial interests have outgrown us; that they no longer regard us; that they do not think we have got anything worth having, and of course it would be very desirable to reconquer that class of society, and bring them back; and I think this tendency which I see in the public mind, to dispose of a portion of the University money, in sending it down to these places, might be directed in such a way as to regain the possessors of wealth for us.

0013

The Chairman put the resolution—“That a sufficient and properly organized body of resident teachers of various grades should be provided from the Fellowship fund.”

Carried nem. con.

Mr. Newton spoke on the need of organization and management for the study of archæology in this country. The British Government and private enterprise had done much for the collection of achæological materials in this country; but the Universities had done nothing, or next to nothing, for the scientific study of archæology. The study of archæology requires, first, museums, where practical acquaintance can be made with the monuments, and curators for the charge of those museums; and next, professors to bring before students the last results of archæology throughout Europe. Such professors, and a career for them, the Universities ought to supply and did not.

At this point the programme of the meeting was interrupted. It was resolved to hold another meeting in January to continue the discussion. The persons present agreed to form themselves, together with others signing the resolution, into a Society for the Organization of Academical Study. A provisional committee was elected, and the meeting adjourned.