Rowlandson's Oxford

by A. Hamilton Gibbs

The most mild of all the adverse criticisms was that of Henry Fynes Cliton, who was at the House in 1799. He said that the examiners discouraged Undergraduates from making a wide choice of authors for their schools, and that if any one anxious for first-class honours took an author not included in the abbreviated list as given out by them, they would find a way to stop him from obtaining the coveted class.

This entirely bears out the statement of Amhurst, who said that the examiners were entirely ignorant of the subjects in which they examined, and that the whole system was a farce and a scandal.

“How well the examiners perform their duty,” he wrote with almost apathetic resignation, “I leave to God and their own consciences; tho’ my shallow apprehension cannot reconcile their taking a solemn oath, that they will not be prevail’d upon by entreaties or bribes, or friendship, etc., with their actually receiving bribes, and frequently granting testimoniums to unworthy candidates, out of personal friendship and bottle acquaintance. It is a notorious truth, that most candidates get leave of the proctor, by paying his man a crown (which is called his perquisite) to choose their own examiners, who never fail to be their old cronies and toping companions. The question therefore is, whether it may not be strongly presumed from hence, that the candidates expect more favour from these men, than from strangers; because otherwise it would be throwing away a crown to no purpose; and if they do meet with a favour from them, quaere whether the examiner is not prevail’d upon by intreaties or friendship.”

Another method of procedure then very popular was for the examiner to receive “a piece of gold” or an “handsome entertainment” from each of the candidates, or else to be made drunk by him the night before the examination. The candidate took care to provide sufficient drink to keep his man occupied busily till morning, and then they adjourned, “cheek by joul,” from their drinking room to the school. “Quaere” demanded Terrae Filius again, “whether it would not be very ungrateful of the examiner to refuse any candidate a testimonium, who has treated him so splendidly over night? and whether he is not, in this case, prevail’d upon by bribes?”

Vicesimus Knox of St John’s made very much the same statements about the examiners, and added that during the time when they were closeted with the candidates in the schools they did nothing but discuss the latest drinking bout (which took place the night before), or talk horses, or read newspapers and novels till the clock struck eleven—when they all descended, and the testimonium was signed without a twinge of conscience.

But college Fellowship was, perhaps, one of the most abused offices in existence. Once nominated to a Fellowship, however unfit to occupy the position, a Don was settled for life. He had a fixed income, did no work, and worried about nothing but to retain his own particular corner chair at the King’s Head tavern or elsewhere. He stagnated for the rest of his natural life, and became gross by dint of perpetual drinking. On the sad subject of college Fellows T. J. Hogg, writing of Shelley at Oxford, told us that at the end of the eighteenth century,

“If a few gentlemen were admitted to Fellowships, they were always absent; they were not persons of literary pretensions, or distinguished by scholarship; and they had no more share in the government of the college than the overgrown guardsman....

“A total neglect of all learning, an unseemly turbulence, the most monstrous irregularities, open and habitual drunkenness, vice, and violence, were tolerated or encouraged, with the basest sycophancy, that the prospect of perpetual licentiousness might fill the colleges with young men of fortune; whenever the rarely exercised power of coercion was exerted, it demonstrated the utter incapacity of our unworthy rulers by coarseness, ignorance, and injustice.”

Terrae Filius devoted one chapter, peculiarly conspicuous for its lack of satirical venom, to the dissection of Fellows. His article was occasioned by a report in all the papers of the death of Dr Pudsey, one of the senior Fellows of “Maudlin College (who) died there last week aged near an hundred years.” “This,” said Amhurst, “gives me an opportunity of discoursing upon what I have always thought one great error in the constitution of most colleges; which I will do with only this preface, that I hope no body will think I design, in what I shall say, to reflect on the deceas’d old gentleman before mention’d. The original design of endowing colleges was undoubtedly this, to support such persons as could not bear the charges of a learned education themselves, till they were able to shift in the world, and become serviceable to their country; for this reason all scholars and fellows (of most colleges at least) are obliged to take an oath, that they are not worth so much per annum de proprio, in some colleges more, and in some less; but in all colleges the meaning of the oath is the same, that no person shall benefit of the foundation who can live without it; but this oath, like other oaths, is commented away, and interpreted so loosely, that, at present it does not exclude persons of four or five hundred pounds a year.... When any person is chosen fellow of a college, he immediately becomes a freeholder, and is settled for life in ease and plenty; provided only that he conforms himself to the ceremonies and caprices of the place, which very few will stick at, who delight in such an indolent and recluse state; at first, indeed, he is obliged to perform some insignificant, superficial exercises, and to get a few questions and answers in the sciences by rote, to qualify him for his degrees; but when these are obtain’d, he wastes the rest of his days in luxury and idleness; he enjoys himself, and is dead to the world; for a senior fellow of a college lives and moulders away in a supine and regular course of eating, drinking, sleeping, and cheating the juniors.... In many colleges the fellowships are so considerable, that no preferment can tempt some persons to leave them; they prefer this monastic, and (as they call it) retired life to any employment, in which they would be obliged to take some pains, and do some good.”

Such remarks from the mouth of Terrae Filius are indeed quiet, but however lacking in sparkle, they are filled with the truth. Turn where we may, on every hand, the Fellows of colleges are written down and left without one saving quality.