Old Friends at Cambridge and Elsewhere

by John Willis Clark

Palmer returned to England in the autumn of 1870, and soon afterwards became a candidate for the Professorship of Arabic in the University of Cambridge. He was unsuccessful, and we should have contented ourselves with recording the fact without comment, had not Mr Besant stated the whole question in a way reflecting so unfavourably on the electors, and through them on the University, that we feel compelled to investigate the circumstances in detail. This is what he says:

‘In the same year Palmer experienced what one is fully justified in calling the most cruel blow ever dealt to him, and one which he never forgot or forgave.

‘The vacancy of the Professorship of Arabic in 1871 seemed to give him at last the chance which he had been expecting.... He became a candidate for the vacant post; the place in fact belonged to him; it was his already by a right which it is truly wonderful could have been contested by any—the right of Conquest. The electors were the Heads of the colleges.

‘Consider the position: Palmer by this time was a man known all over the world of Oriental scholarship; he was not a single untried student and man of books; he had proved his powers in the most practical of all ways, viz. by relying on his knowledge of the language for safety on a dangerous expedition; he had written, and written wonderfully well, a great quantity of things in Persian, Urdú, and Arabic; he was known to everybody who knew anything at all about the subject; he had been greatly talked about by those who did not; he was a graduate of the University and Fellow of S. John’s, an honour which, as was well known, he received solely for his attainments in Oriental languages; he had a great many friends who were ready to testify, and had already testified, in the strongest terms, to his extraordinary knowledge; he was, in fact, the only Cambridge man who could, with any show of fairness justice at all, be elected. He was also young, and full of strength and enthusiasm; if Persian and Arabic lectures and Oriental studies could be made useful or attractive at the University, he would make them so. What follows seems incredible.

‘On the other hand, the electing body consisted, as stated above, of the Heads of colleges. It is in the nature of things that the Heads, who are mostly men advanced in years, who have spent all their lives at the University, should retain whatever old prejudices, traditions, and ancient manner of regarding things, may be still surviving. There were—it seems childish to advance this statement seriously, and yet I have no doubt it is true and correct—two prejudices against which Palmer had then to contend. The first was the more serious. It was at that time, even more than it is now, the custom at Cambridge to judge the abilities of every man entirely with regard to his place in one of the two old Triposes; and this without the least respect or consideration for any other attainments, or accomplishments, or learning. Darwin, for instance, whose name does not occur in the Honour list at all, never received from his college the slightest mark of respect until his death. Long after he had become the greatest scientific man in Europe the question would have been asked—I have no doubt it was often asked—what degree he took. Palmer’s name did occur in the Classical Tripos—but alas! in the third class. Was it possible, was it probable, that a third-class man could be a person worthy of consideration at all? Third-class men are good enough for assistant-masters in small schools, for curacies, or for any other branch of labour which can be performed without much intellect. But a third-class man must never, under any circumstances, consider that he has a right to learn anything or to claim distinction as a scholar. I put the case strongly; but there is no Cambridge man who will deny the fact that, in whatever branch of learning distinction be subsequently attained, the memory of a second or third class is always prejudicial. Palmer, therefore, went before the grave and reverend Heads with this undeniable third class against a whole sheaf of proofs, testimonials, letters, opinions, statements, and assertions of attainments extraordinary, and, in some respects, unrivalled. To be sure they were only letters from Orientals and Oriental scholars. What could they avail against the opinion of the Classical Examiners of 1867 that Palmer was only worth a third class?

‘As I said above, it seems childish. But it is true. And this was the first prejudice.

‘The second prejudice was perhaps his youth. He was, it is true, past thirty, but he had only taken his degree three or four years, and therefore he only ought to have been five-and-twenty. He looked no more than five-and-twenty; he still possessed—he always possessed—the enthusiasm of youth; his manners, which could be, when he chose, full of dignity even among his intimates, were those of a man still in early manhood; he had been talked about in connection with his adventures in the East; and stories were told, some true and some false, which may have alarmed the gravity of the Heads. There must be no tincture of Bohemianism about a Professor of the University. Perhaps rumours may have been whispered about the gipsies and the tinkers, or the mesmerizing, or the conjuring; but I think the conjuring had hardly yet begun.

‘In speaking of this election, I beg most emphatically to disclaim any comparison between the most eminent and illustrious scholar who was elected and the man who was rejected. I say that it is always the bounden duty of the University to give her prizes to her own children if they have proved themselves worthy of them. Not to do so is to discourage learning and to drive away students. Now, the Professorship of Arabic was vacant; the most brilliant Oriental scholar whom the University has produced in this century—perhaps in any century—became a candidate for it; he was the only Cambridge man who could possibly be a candidate; the Heads of Houses passed him by and elected a scholar of wide reputation indeed, but not a member of the University.

‘There were other circumstances which made the election more disappointing. It was known, before the election, that Dr Wright had been spoken to on the subject; it was also known that he would not stand because the stipend of the post, only 300l. a year, was not sufficient to induce him to give up the British Museum. It seemed, therefore, that the result of Palmer’s candidature would be a walk over. But the day before the election the Master of Queens’—then Dr Phillips, who was himself a Syriac scholar—went round to all the electors, and informed them that Dr Wright would be put up on the following day. He was put up; he was elected; and very shortly afterwards was made a Fellow of Queens’ probably in consequence of an understanding with Dr Phillips that, in the event of his election to the Professorship, an election to a Queens’ Fellowship should follow. Of course, one has nothing to say against the Fellowship. Probably a Queens’ Fellowship was never more honourably and usefully bestowed; but yet the man who ought to have obtained the Professorship, the man to whom it belonged, was kept out of it. Palmer was the kindest-hearted and most forgiving of men, and the last to think or speak evil; but this was a deliberate and uncalled-for injustice, an insult to his reputation which could never be forgotten. It embittered the whole of his future connexion with the University: it never was forgotten or forgiven[^[96]].’

We notice two errors of fact in the above narrative. The election did not take place in 1871, but in 1870; and secondly, the Professorship was then worth only £70 a year. The stipend was not raised to £300 until the following November. The second of these errors is not of much importance; but the first is very material, as we shall show presently.