Oxford and Her Colleges: A View from the Radcliffe Library

by Goldwin Smith

On the North of the city, where fifty years ago stretched green fields, is now seen a suburb of villas, all of them bespeaking comfort and elegance, few of them overweening wealth. These are largely the monuments of another great change, the removal of the rule of celibacy from the Fellowships, and the introduction of a large body of married teachers devoted to their profession, as well as of the revival of the Professorships, which were always tenable by married men. Fifty years ago the wives of Heads of Houses, who generally married late in life if they married at all, constituted, with one or two officers of the University, the whole female society of Oxford. The change was inevitable, if education was to be made a profession, instead of being, as it had been in the hands of celibate Fellows of Colleges, merely the transitory occupation of a man whose final destination was the parish. Those who remember the old Common Room life, which is now departing, cannot help looking back with a wistful eye to its bachelor ease, its pleasant companionship, its interesting talk and free interchange of thought, its potations neither "deep" nor "dull." Nor were its symposia without important fruits when such men as Newman and Ward, on one side, encountered such men as Whately, Arnold, and Tait, on the other side, in Common Room talk over great questions of the day. But the life became dreary when a man had passed forty, and it is well exchanged for the community that fills those villas, and which, with its culture, its moderate and tolerably equal incomes, permitting hospitality but forbidding luxury, and its unity of interests with its diversity of acquirements and accomplishments, seems to present the ideal conditions of a pleasant social life. The only question is, how the College system will be maintained when the Fellows are no longer resident within the walls of the College to temper and control the younger members, for a barrack of undergraduates is not a good thing. The personal bond and intercourse between Tutor and pupil under the College system was valuable as well as pleasant; it cannot be resigned without regret. But its loss will be compensated by far superior teaching. Half a century ago conservatism strove to turn the railway away from Oxford. But the railway came, and it brings, on summer Sundays, to the city of study and thought not a few leaders of the active world. Oxford is now, indeed, rather too attractive; her academical society is in danger of being swamped by the influx of non-academical residents.

The buildings stand, to mark by their varying architecture the succession of the changeful centuries through which the University has passed. In the Libraries are the monuments of the successive generations of learning. But the tide of youthful life that from age to age has flowed through college, quadrangle, hall, and chamber, through University examination-rooms and Convocation Houses, has left no memorials of itself except the entries in the University and College books; dates of matriculation, which tell of the bashful boy standing before the august Vice-Chancellor at entrance; dates of degrees, which tell of the youth putting forth, from his last haven of tutelage, on the waves of the wide world. Hither they thronged, century after century, in the costume and with the equipments of their times, from mediæval abbey, grange, and hall, from Tudor manor-house and homestead, from mansion, rectory, and commercial city of a later day, bearing with them the hopes and affections of numberless homes. Year after year they departed, lingering for a moment at the gate to say farewell to College friends, the bond with whom they vowed to preserve, but whom they were never to see again, then stepped forth into the chances and perils of life, while the shadow on the College dial moved on its unceasing round. If they had only left their names in the rooms which they had occupied, there would be more of history than we have in those dry entries in the books. But, at all events, let not fancy frame a history of student life at Oxford out of "Verdant Green." There are realities corresponding to "Verdant Green," and the moral is, that many youths come to the University who had better stay away, since none get any good and few fail to get some harm, saving those who have an aptitude for study. But the dissipation, the noisy suppers, the tandem-driving, the fox-hunting, the running away from Proctors, or, what is almost as bad, the childish devotion to games and sports as if they were the end of existence, though they are too common a part of undergraduate life in the University of the rich, are far from being the whole of it. Less than ever are they the whole of it since University reform and a more liberal curriculum have increased, as certainly they have, industry and frugality at the same time. Of the two or three thousand lamps which to-night will gleam from those windows, few will light the supper-table or the gambling-table; most will light the book. Youthful effort, ambition, aspiration, hope, College character and friendship have no artist to paint them,—at least as yet they have had none. But whatever of poetry belongs to them is present in full measure here.

THE RIVER—BOATS RACING.

INDEX.

Addison, Joseph, [136].
Aldrich, Henry, [128].
Alfred (King), [24], [51].
All Souls' College, [67] et sq.
Amusements, mediæval, [43].
Antiquity, apparent, of the buildings, [3].
Architectural revival at Oxford, [147], [148].
Aristotle, [31].
Ashmolean Museum, [24].
Augustinians, [35].
Aulæ, [39].
Bacon, Roger, [32], [33], [37].
Bacon, Sir Nicholas, [91].
Balliol College, [50];
intellectual revival in, [141].
Baring, T. C., [138].
Benedictines, [35].
Bentham, Jeremy, [137].
Bentley, Richard, [129].
Black Prince, the, [100].
Bocardo, [88].
Bodleian Library, [19], [20], [21], [97].
Bodley, Sir Thomas, [20], [93].
Bologna, University of, [29].
Botanic Garden, [97].
Boyle, Charles, [119].
Bradwardine, Thomas, [31].
Brasenose College, [67] et sq., [74], [75].
Broadwalk, the, [140].
Brome, Adam de, [52].
Buildings, dates of, [3] et sq.
Butler, Bishop, [137].
Cardinal College, [83].
Carmellites, [35].
Celibacy enjoined on Heads of Colleges, [96];
effects of its withdrawal, [132], [133].
Chamberdekyns, [39], [99].

Charles I. at Oxford, [113], [114].
Charles II. at Oxford, [123].
Chicheley, Archbishop, [70], [71].
Christ Church Cathedral, [35].
Christ Church College, [80] et sq.;
intellectual revival in, [128], [129], [140], [141].
Cistercians, [35].
Civil War, Oxford in the time of the, [112] et sq.
Clarendon, Earl of, [18], [107].
Clarendon Building, [18], [19].
Clarendon Press, [19].
Class Lists, [142].
Clayton, Thos., wife of, [132].
Clerical profession, dominance of, [104].
Colet, John, [76].
College life, [9] et sq.
Colleges, administration and government of, [9] et sq.;
growing importance of, [99] et sq.;
the present intellectual revival in the, [152] et sq.
Commemoration, [15].
Common Room life, [157].
Commons, [49].
Commonwealth, Oxford in the time of the, [114] et sq.
Conant, John, [116].
Congregation, [8].
Convocation, [8].
Convocation House, [13], [14], [97].
Corpus Christi College, [75].
Cranmer, Archbishop, [88], [89].
Cromwell, Oliver, Chancellor of Oxford, [118].
Degrees, manner of conferring, [13].
Disputation, stress laid upon, [30].
Divinity School, [14].
Dominicans, [36].
Duns Scotus, [31].
Durham College, [91].
Egglesfield, Robert, [52].
Eldon, Lord, [135], [137].
Elizabeth (Queen), [98].
Elmsley, Peter, [136].
Erasmus, D., [76].
"Essays and Reviews," authors of, [24].
Eton, [59].
Eveleigh, John, [141].
Evelyn, John, [116], [119].
Examinations, [21], [22].
Examination system, the, [153], [154].

Examination-rooms. See Schools.
Exeter College, [50], [53] et sq.
Faculties, [28].
Falkland, Viscount, [107].
Fawkes's (Guy) lantern, [21].
Fell, John, [124].
Fellows, [46].
Fellowships, [102].
Fleming, Bishop, [68].
Founders, portraits of, [21].
Foxe, Bishop, [77].
Franciscans, [36].
Frydeswide, St., [87].
Gibbon, Edward, [137].
Gladstone, W. E., [22].
Graduation. See Degrees.
Great Hall of the University, the, [51].
Great Tew, [107].
Grocyn, William, [76].
Grosseteste, Robert, [38], [44].
Halls, [39], [98], [99].
Hart Hall, [137].
Hebdomadal Council, [106].
Hertford College, [138].
High Church Traditions at Oxford, [144] et sq.
Hooker, Richard, [108].
Houses, monastic, [50].
Humanists, the, [77].
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, [20], [76].
Inception, [31].
Jacobitism at Oxford, [127], [128].
James I., [22], [98].
James II., statue of, [125].
Jesus College, [94].
Jews at Oxford in the Middle Ages, [42].
Johnson, Samuel, at Oxford, [138].
Keble, John, [147].
Keble College, [147].
Laud, Archbishop, [109] et sq.
Leicester, Earl of, [108].
Lime Walk at Trinity College, the, [140].
Linacre, Thomas, [76].
Lincoln College, [67] et sq.
Livery, [49].
Locke, John, [124].
Lowth, Robert, [136].

Magdalen College, [67] et sq., [72] et sq., [130].
Magdalen College Case, [126].
Manchester College, [155].
Manning, H. E., [24].
Mansfield College, [155].
Marisco, Adam de, [44].
Martyr, Catherine, [87].
Maynard, Joseph, [121].
Mendicant Orders, [36].
Merton, Walter de, [44], [45].
Merton College, [45] et sq.
Mob Quad, [45].
Monastic Orders, [35].
Monastic Oxford, [35].
Monasteries, [35], [37], [50], [53].
Montfort, Simon de, [37], [38].
More, Sir Thomas, [76].
Museum, the Ashmolean. See Ashmolean.
Museum, the University, [153], [154].
Neo-Catholicism. See Tractarianism.
Neville, George, [101].
Newman, J. H., [14], [24], [145], [148].
New College, [55] et sq.
Newton, Isaac, [105].
Newton, Richard, [137].
Non-conformists excluded, [123].
Ockham, [31].
Oldham, Hugh, [78].
Oriel College, [50], [52].
Osney Abbey, [35].
Owen, John, [116].
Oxford (the name), derivation of, [2].
Oxford Architectural Society, [147].
Oxford (the city), situation of, [1];
environs of, [1], [2];
of the 13th century, [27] et sq.
Oxford (the University), administration and government of, [7] et sq., [106] et sq.;
origin and growth of, [25] et sq.;
political proclivities of, [28], [37], [105];
in the 18th century, [130] et sq.;
in the 19th century, [140] et sq.;
intellectual revival of, in the present day, [152].
Oxford Movement, the. See Tractarianism.
Oxford University Commissions (1850 and 1876), [149], [151].

Papacy, the, and the Universities, [34], [37].
Paris, University of, [27], [34].
Pattison, Mark, [70].
Pembroke College, [97].
Peel, Robert, [142].
Petre, Sir William, [93].
Philippa, Queen, [52].
Philosophy, Scholastic, early addiction to, [30].
Pope, Cardinal, [92].
Pope, Sir Thomas, [91].
Portraits of Founders, [21].
Press, the University (see also Clarendon Press), [19].
Proctors, [10], [13], [14].
Professors, [10].
Protectorate, the. See Commonwealth.
Puritanism and Oxford, [115] et sq.
Pusey, E. B., [24], [145].
Queen's College, [50], [52].
Radcliffe, Dr. John, [23].
Radcliffe Library, [23].
Reformation, influence of, on Oxford, [108], [110].
Religious tests, [90].
Renaissance, the Mediæval, [23].
Restoration, the, and Oxford, [120] et sq.
Revolution, the (1688), and Oxford, [125], [127].
Richard III. at Oxford, [73], [74].
Rotheram, Bishop, [69].
Routh, Martin, [136].
Royal Commissions. See Oxford University Commissions.
Royal Society, The, [119] et sq.
St. Frydeswide's Church, [35].
St. John's College, [92].
St. Mary of Winton, College of, [56].
St. Mary's Church, [15], [24].
St. Michael's Church, [25].
Salerno, University of, [27].
Scholars, [46] et sq.
Schools, the, [21].
Schools, the new examination, [153].
Sermons, University, [24].
Sheldon, Archbishop, [14].
Sheldonian Theatre, [14], [15], [124], [125].
Smith, Adam, [137].
Socii, [46].
Sports, [162].

Statutes, fettering influence of, [101], [102];
disregarded, [130].
Stowell, Lord, [137].
Student life, mediæval, [39] et sq., [63] et sq.
Students, mediæval, [39], [41] et sq.;
their affrays with the townspeople, [41], [42];
their amusements, [43].
Suburbs of Oxford, [156] et sq.
Teachers, the first, at Oxford, [28].
Tests. See Religious tests.
Theology, [32].
Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, [73].
Tom Tower, [81].
Tractarianism, [145] et sq.
Trinity College, [91].
"Trojans, The," [77].
Turner's picture of Oxford, [2].
Tutors, [9].
Undergraduate life, modern, [162], [163].
Universities, rise of, in Europe, [27].
University College, [51].
University Gallery, [21].
"Verdant Green," [162].
Vice-Chancellorship, the, [106].
Vives, Juan Luis, [81].
Wadham, Dorothy, [96].
Wadham, Sir Nicholas, [95].
Wadham College, [94].
Walker, Obadiah, [126].
Ward, Seth, [116].
Ward, W. G., [145].
Warton, Thomas, [136].
Waynflete, Bishop, [72], [73].
Wellington, Duke of, his inauguration as Chancellor, [17].
Wesley, John, [70].
White, Sir Thomas, [92], [93].
Wilkins, John, [116], [119], [122].
William of Durham, [50].
William of Wykeham, [55] et sq.
Winchester School, [58].
Windebank, Thos., [114].
Wolsey, Cardinal, [59], [81], [82] et sq.
Wood, Anthony (quoted), [120], [121].
Worcester College, [35].
Wren, Christopher, [3], [82].
Wycliffe, John, [54].
Wykeham. See William of Wykeham.