A plan was once initiated by which parties of teachers and others were accommodated in colleges during the long vacation, and tasted some of the advantages of Oxford life and teaching. The plan worked excellently; it removed the reproach that for six months in the year the greatest educational capital of the nation is allowed to lie idle. But there was little enthusiasm; the energy of the few residents who were responsible was, after a few years, worn out, if not by opposition, by apathy.
The colleges have as yet shown little power of adapting themselves to the education of the new governing class. It may be that they will be roused by this report, and that something adequate may be done.
The point I would urge is that the something be adequate—a few classes scattered about the country, a few men admitted to Oxford, will court a failure, and justify condemnation of the attempt.
The colleges have their opportunity, but beyond the colleges is my friend Bishop Gore, now Bishop of Oxford, with his demand for a Commission, and beyond the Bishop is the rising power of labour, with its tendency, if it be not checked by University influence, to use all national endowments for material rather than spiritual ends.
The Bishop’s case for a commission is broadly based on the impossibility of working the present constitution of the University for its efficient government; on the mischievous waste which spends the resources of fine minds and unique surroundings on boys, many of whom are capable of doing little more than play; on the folly of subsidizing with scholarships and fellowships one set of schools, and one or two types of knowledge; on the expensive habits which the system fostered. The case was not answered, and cannot be answered. The report of the committee is the first response to its call, and, as the Bishop said in a speech at Toynbee Hall, it has given him a hope for which he has long waited.
The next response ought to be an appeal from the University itself for a Commission which will enable it to order the resources of Oxford as a whole, and apply its powers so as to carry out fully the recommendations of the report.
Samuel A. Barnett.
JUSTICE TO YOUNG WORKERS.
By Canon Barnett.