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of disasters , their first , provoke injurious doubts about the financial preparations promised to be completed early after Easter ; and it is desirable that on the question of the Budget , at least , the departments should meet together for some sort of corporate conclusions . Evidently , Mr . Gladstone is not cautious enough without a clerk or two to check him . His Pegasus is not quite trained to the jog-trot yet . This week ' s division list will show that tf'
Christianity" was again an " open question : " Lord John , in his department—viz ., to look after civil and religious liberty—acting , like the rest , with perfect independence , if not of those of the Ministers who are in the Commons , certainly of more than one of them in the Lords , and assuredly undertaking to strike off the last fetter , &c . &c , without being very sure of the aid of the file—not to mention the rank of " ordinary
supporters . " This division is the test of our " progress ; and yet , after all , it appears , in this new Parliament which is starting the latter half of the nineteenth century , the head of the department of civil and religious liberty could only get a majority of 51 , which is discreditably small to the Commons , and not large enough to effect the desired intimidation of the Lords . The episodical signs of progress , however , are more gratifying than the main indications furnished by Mr . Hayter ( who whipped his best last night , and he is
the greatest whipper-in that ever lived ) . It was very grand to hear Lord John , with his head and coat-tails thrown back in that dignified attitude which is inseparably associated with representative institutions , asking Sir Frederick Thesiger and the Tories whether they were justified in feeling indignant with the persecutors of the Madiai , while they themselves were proscribing the Jews ? This is a point which suggests great mental progress in Lord John ; and it is fair to say the hint told tremendously on a well-dined House . If men and Ministers would take to that sort
of argument oftener , we should have less cant stopping the way . For instance , how easily that weary debate in the Lords on Monday , upon Lord Clancarty's argument against the Irish national system of education , could have heen stopped , if Lord Aberdeen had had the courage to put the point— "Why , my lords , for heaven ' s sake don't intercept our denunciations of the McHales , who denounce the Godless colleges . " But your grave statesmen can't often venture on the tu quoque with its full effect ; and there are the dull dogs who can venture , but who cannot appreciate—as
Vincent Scully , who closed the debate last night m a lpud Carh accent , and who , for the Irish Brigade , spoke in favour of the Bill , and who yet missed the perception , that when the Roman-catholic members are ranged in a body in favour of the admission of the Jews to Parliament against the par excellence Protestant party ranged against that special phase of religious liberty , it cannot be quite true , as enthusisistic abhorrers of the Pope too systematically assume , that a Papist is necessarily less tolerant than a Protestant . As Lionel llothschild would say—our Madiai arc in " Sequin Court . "
Perhaps the pleasantest fact about last night s debate is that it was so fearfully dull . The ihtolerants were so conscious of the sham they were getting through , that they mumbled their bigotry in the humblest of keys ; and the debaters on the other side felt so sensibly their zeal was a formality , that no efforts enabled them to be interesting . The world had mudo up its mind about the whole matter—the division was foreknown to a name—and the simulation of eagerness , of intolerance on one side and virtuous indignation on the other , could not be got up . Sir F . Thesiger ( for one reason , because about the most JcwihU looking gentleman
within the bar ) was hardly the man to lead a supremely Christian question , for there is a popular prejudice fatal to the New Testament pretensions of Barristers in good practice ; and somo such thought may have been hu « y in Mr . Disraeli ' s head . It was curious to notice that the moment Sir Frederick rose to move his amendment , Mr . Disraeli took Inn hat from under his gout , pulled down liin vest , and—walked homo . The vindicator of Cuiaphas need not have spoken—need , oven , not huvo voted , for lias ho not written enough P But should ho not have listened , at leant to his own Attorney-Geueml , proving that the presence of a
Hebrew in tho Commons would bo an impertinence to Providence r Far bolder was Mr . Osborne , who is not only of Jewish blood but who i « proud of his race ( the creed lie is as scrupulous about im other people ) , and who took this opportunity of emerging from the taciturnity which office has imposed on him , to inuko a speech , the leant merit of which in , that it demonstrated Sir Frederick ' s history to be » s biul u , h Mr . I'iiiiKM-k's . It wan a very good speech cmuulwintf wH | , i ) u . , waK nothing to lie waul , and fchul . thu orator upoko inmjiy in order thai ; it should ¦ no t be mnurki'd of hhn next day , as of Mr .
Disraeli , that he had been silent . But even under these circumstances it would have been better if it had been spoken on some other bench than that directly behind the leader of the House . When a good debater gets into office , and that a subordinate one , he at once becomes accountable to his chiefs in the Cabinet ; and ease under " responsibility" does not come all at once —though , really , Sir Wm . Molesworth must be excepted , who last week , on the Canada Clergy Reserves , made a better speech—it was dashing , personal , vivid—than he ever made out of the grata arva he has at last been caught in . People said of Mr . Osborne
last night , however , that it was " Osborne with the chill on , "~^ -an Indian in continuations for the first time , using his tomahawk selon les convenancesdecidedly afraid to " strike , " and carefully avoiding that friendly and familiar " a laugh" ( a reporter ' s definition of universal merriment ) which was waiting on him—which came to attend him from-the libraryeven from the most westerly club—and which he yet did not dare to evoke . However , it is an age of business , and we must consent to have our wits bought up and failing Osborne last night , the humour took
refuge in Henry Drummond ; and he rewarded them by giving his incidental opinion—observe that he was taking the solemn Christian ground against the billthat Cain was the first Dissenter . The mot , like most of Mr . Drummond ' s , was about the lobbies and the clubs in an hour : and people said " How good : " and the same people went in to vote reverently against Lionel Bothschild making the acquaintance of Mr . Speaker . " Damme , Sir , what would become of the lower orders , Sir , without religion ?" Saturday Morning , March 12 . " A StBANGEE . "
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BEPOBT OF THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY COMMISSION . III . Thus far , however , we stand on statutable ground ; and the Hebdomadal Board can quote its founder" Populus me sibilat , at mihi plaudo . " But it is forbidden to it to fall with dignity before the approaching stroke . The main functions of an University are those of education ; and these the Hebdomadal Board has not merely tampered wiih for its own advantage , and to ensure its supremacy—it has abrogated the Laudian Statutes respecting education without consent of Crown or Convocation , although its own office is purely ministerial and initiative ; and the professoriate , to whose duties " are assigned three long divisions of the Laudian Code , rangingthrough twenty-seven chapters , " has ceased virtually to exist . It shows Laud ' s weakness as a legislator , that he excluded from the governing body the Doctors and Professors , ( as the salaried graduates were at length peculiarly termed ) and committed to a Board of Heads of Houses the supervision of a system of education to be administered solely by their ejected rivals . These were bound by statute and penalty to deliver regular courses of lectures in their respective faculties .
' A like obligation to attend the public classes was imposed on the students ; and , but by statute only , tho Hebdomadal Board was bound to see that both obligations were duly discharged . The present Heads admit in their letter to the Duke of Wellington a " temporary interruption" to professorial instruction : the interruption , however , it is observed in tho Report ( p . 93 ) , "lias been the rule , and not the exception , for at least a century and a half , " and for that period the justice of Gibbon ' s remark id unquestionable , that " in the University of Oxford tho greater part of the public
profpssors have , for them * many years , given up even the pretence of instruction . ' * Some strange instances were quoted from Terras Films ( published in 1721 ) in the Edinburgh Review , of June , 1831 , which manifest tho degradation to which the professoriate was at that time reduced by collegiate influence ; ami , the f Jnivoraty chairs thus lowered in general estimation , and the qualifications of their occupants reduced below tho luvol of the collego tutors , the virtual extinction of all tho
professorships , and the actual suppression of somo , wrm rendered easy of accomplishment . Public instruction was more ospeeinlly obnoxious to tho collegiate interest in the faculty of arts ; and four ' chairs established by tho University in that faculty , were abolished by tho Hebdomadal Board , at its own responsibility and risk . * The result wns exactly what must have been expected , and assuredly was desired . No lnxly of able and ollieient professors mortified tho mediocrity of the College authorities : no concourse of students crowded the schools ;
no independent halls rose for their accommodation The Heads established their interests on the ruin of their obligations , " nee viget quidqoatn . simile aut « e » cundum ; ' * the student-life of Oxford decayed , unfed by the active element supplied by an energetic body of instructors , each occupied with the subject best adapted to his powers ; the mere show of instruction and study now in . vogue usurped its place , and dullness and donnism reigned supreme . If we notice further the violation of the statutes , involved in the abrogation of the studies and examinations for the higher degrees in the faculty of arts , it is from no care to vindicate the Laudian system or method of instruction . The chancellor , that " first-rate
college tutor , " retained the " narrow learning of a former age , * ' and , say the Commissioners , " the students of Oxford were made to study of Natural Philosophy in an age subsequent to that of Copernicus and Bacon from ' the physics of Aristotle , or his books concerning the Heavens and theWorld , or concerning Meteoric Phenomena , or his Parva Naturalia , or the books concerning the Soul , and also concerning Generation and Corruption . '" But the machinery was important , and whatever the changes in the studies and examinations should have beenheld inviolable . ThetechnicaltermSjdescriptive of the course of study pursued at the time , would be
out of place here ; it is enough to say , that the examinations for the bachelors and higher degrees were to be conducted by all the Regent Masters , whose function having been destroyed by the Hebdomadal Board , the very name is now obsolete , and not understood by numbers of Oxford men . Their control over the examinations was , perhaps , more important than their conduct of them ; though we are surprised and amused to find the system over which they presided , commended by the present rulers of the University , as " a system of study admirably arranged , at a time when not only the nature and faculties of the human mind were exactly what they are still , and must of course remain , but the principles also of sound and enlarged culture were far from imperfectly understood . " These
Regent Masters , once no mean and unessential part of the University , are , as such , a nonentity now . " Their joints are marrowless . " They are mere members of colleges , and of a college-convocation , and their degree means nothing . And yet in that House of Congregation which , as the Commissioners sarcastically remark , " meets only for the purpose of bearing measures proposed which it cannot discuss , of conferring degrees to which candidates are already entitled , and of granting dispensations which are never refused , " the graduates in arts , divinity , law , medicine , and music , nominally receive from the Vice-Chancellor the power of entering the now barred schools , and publicly lecturing each in his faculty , in the following solemn form . " To the honour of our Lord Jesus Christ , and to the benefit of
our holy mother the Church , by my authority and the authority of the whole University , I grant to thee the power of incepting in the faculty of ( arts , &c . ) , lecturing , disputing , and doing all besides which pertains to the state of doctor and master in the said faculty , when thou shalt have completed all that relates to such solemnity . In the name of the Father , and of the Son , and of the Holy Ghost . " Were the founder of Queen's to wake and hear this , and see what comes of it , he
would have qualms as to tho observance of his oath by his own foundation , " according to the grammatical sense and exposition , without any gloss . " We say it seriously , wo never felt more strongly tho wickedness , to say nothing of the folly , of exacting oaths , than when wo read tho above , and reflected upon the subscription to tho Thirty-nine Articles , which so often follows it . Truly , the proctors had reason in staying the proceedings in Convocation , in the matter of Tract 90 . All are tarred with tho sumo stick .
It is weakness , or worse , not charity , to doubt if the motives and objects of the Hebdomadal Board in those violations of the statutes , wero a conscious and dclibcdorato usurpation . The professorial system was overthrown to raise tho tutorial from its relative suWdination . The tutor could not extend his discipline over the bachelor , as every bachelor wjih entitled to commence tutor hiuiHolf . By tho extinction or absorption of the public teachers into their own body , the colleges secured the primary instruction of the University . It remained only to crowd tho collego books ( tho moro
under the new policy tho better ) with tho names of Masters , Regent , and resident no longor , but tho majority absentees , and in the main incompetent to instruct . The Regent Musters , competent to tho tutorial office , would have continued in Oxford a dangerous because an independent body , and tho usurpation of their functions by the Fellows would have been impossible The wished-for result was attained by a stroke of policy more ingenious than honest . Tho Heads of Houses permitted ompty Htunding to take tho place of statutory study in the higher degree * , and saved alike their
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256 1 * H E LEAD ER . [ SirifflfcfrMr ,
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• Tho fortunes of tho chair of Moral PhiloHopliy , endowed in 1021 by Dr . Whil . o , jiro instructive . To tho ond that profoHHora , " every way competent , " should bo appointed , tho founder ontrimtod tho olootion to four . 1 fends of IIouhoh and tho I ' roHors . Tho chair was mndo a ninoeuro , anil ouo or otlior of tho proctors installod proibimor on eyory < j . umqiu ) nrii » l vacancy . Thin continued till 1 ^ 20 , when this abuuo wan discontinued .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 12, 1853, page 256, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1977/page/16/
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