From the accession of Charles II. till the end of the century the usual recipients were members of one or other of the universities, and when this was not the case incorporation in Cambridge university was granted with the proviso that no precedent was thereby created. Between 1539, when Cranmer created a D.D., and the accession of Charles II., only seven instances of archi-episcopal degrees are recorded.[313] Over 450 were conferred between 1660 and 1848, and some 334 have been conferred since.[314] A Cantabrigian primate confers the Cambridge hood, an Oxonian the Oxford. There have been many instances of the incorporation of men who were recipients of the ‘Lambeth degree’ in one or other of the colleges. The Lambeth M.A. does not include membership of the Senate or of Convocation.[315]
During Stuart times there were several examples of the conferring of degrees by royal mandate; a custom commuted to the now traditional compliment, when a sovereign or prince receives a degree, of conferring degrees on any persons he may wish associated with him in the honour. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, whose studies at Cambridge were interrupted by diplomatic missions, was created M.A. by royal mandate.
Ad eundem.
Ad eundem degrees, admitting a graduate to the same degree which he already enjoys elsewhere, are granted by all universities; but such degrees are no longer granted at Cambridge as a simple right.[316]
Honorary degrees, and the idea of a university.
The university confers other “complete” or “titular” degrees on certain persons who have not qualified for them by residence and examination at Cambridge. A list of those on whom this honour has been bestowed since 1859 is printed in the Cambridge Calendar. The complete degrees are conferrable upon members of the royal family, privy councillors, bishops and bishops designate, peers,[317] the judges of the High Court, the deans of Westminster, of the chapel royal Windsor, and of Cathedral churches; and also upon heads of colleges in the university, and other distinguished persons who already have a Cambridge degree and are either conspicuous for merit or holders of university office. Titular degrees may be conferred on Englishmen or foreigners of conspicuous merit.
A propos of a recent list of ‘birthday honours’ a weekly literary newspaper reminded us “that commerce, politics, and retired generals are not the only vitalizing forces in this country”; it blamed a public which it described as “increasingly illiterate and sheepish,” and adjured the universities to make no “concessions to popular prejudice” but “to confine the honours they are able to give to those who deserve them.” It is in fact ludicrous and absurd that the universities should be expected to come in with their blessing in cases of non-academic success, and that degrees should be mere acclamations of popular verdicts. The public should have every reason to regard these as the blue riband of academic attainment in contrast with the attainments of successful ignorance or successful vulgarity, or indeed with all those kinds of success which are sufficiently rewarded by the vox populi, and in other ways. It is expected that a university should set a limit to the assumption that every good and perfect thing is at the beck and call of the mere plutocrat, and should confer its honours and seat in its rectorial chairs only those persons who present academic qualifications. When one sees with what punctilious assiduity every mark and brand of tradesman and tradesmen’s interests receives recognition nowadays, one turns with anxiety to the Cambridge list of honorary degree men. The university’s awards have not yet however been assigned to people who have grown rich on “Trusts,” business ‘slimness,’ or industries like the canned meat industry; whose title to recognition is that they have been successful speculators. How very nice it would be if instead of installing gasometers in the leper colonies or sending the latest pattern of trichord overstrung grand piano to the deaf and dumb schools of Europe and America, some rich man, with a less pretty taste for publicity, should endow the university with a million pounds
