J. J. Thomson, M. A., F. R. S., Trinity. Professor of Experimental Physics.
The characteristic peculiar to Cambridge and Oxford, and which distinguishes them not only from American but also from all other universities in England and elsewhere, is the college system. Thus Cambridge is a collection of eighteen colleges which, though nominally united to form one institution, are really distinct, inasmuch as each is a separate community with its own buildings and grounds, its own resident students, its own lecturers, and Fellows—a community which is supported by its own moneys without aid from the university exchequer, and which in most matters legislates for itself. The system is not unlike the American Union on a small scale, with its cluster of governments and their relation to a supreme center. The advantages of this scheme might theoretically be very great. With each college handsomely endowed and, though managing its own affairs, entering freely, in addition, into those relations of reciprocity which make for the good of the whole, one can readily imagine an ideal academic commonwealth. And while the present condition of the university can scarcely be said to approximate very closely to such an academic Utopia, it yet derives from its constitution numerous obvious advantages which universities otherwise constituted would and do undoubtedly lack. The chief evils besetting the university are perhaps more adventitious than inherent; they are largely financial, and arise from carrying the system of college individualism too far. A description of the college and university organization may make this apparent. By its endowment a college must support a certain number of Fellows and scholars. The latter form a temporary body, while the former are more or less permanent, and therefore upon them devolves the management of the college. Business is usually done by a council chosen from the Fellows, and the election of new Fellows to fill vacancies is made by this select body. The head of a college is known as the master; he is elected by the Fellows save in one or two cases, where his appointment rests with the crown or with certain wealthy individuals. He lives in the college lodge especially built for him, draws a salary large in proportion to the wealth of his college, and exerts an influence corresponding to his intelligence.
G. H. Darwin, M. A., F. R. S., Trinity. Plumian Professor of Astronomy.
The Fellows are in most cases chosen from those men who have achieved the greatest success in an honor course. At Cambridge College individualism has progressed so far that the Fellows of, say, Magdalen must be Magdalen men, the students of Queens', St Catherine's, or any other being ineligible save for their own fellowships. Oxford obtains perhaps better men on the whole by throwing open the fellowships of each particular college to the graduates of all, thus producing a wider competition. A fellowship until recently was tenable for life, but it has been reduced to about six years, the Fellows as a whole, however, retaining the power to extend the period of possession. And, further, the holding of a college office for fifteen years in general qualifies for the holding of a fellowship for life, and for a pension as lecturer or tutor. Thus a man is able to devote himself to research with little fear that at the latter end of his career he will lack the means of support. It is perhaps not too much to say that the offices of college dean, tutor, and lecturer are more perquisites than anything else. They are meant to keep and attract men of ability and parts. However, their existence reacts upon the student body by augmenting the expenses of the latter out of proportion to the benefits to be obtained. For instance, instead of utilizing one set of lecturers for one class of subjects, which all students could attend for a small fee, each of the larger colleges, at any rate, pays special lecturers, drawn from its own Fellows, to speak upon the same subjects each to a mere handful of men from their own college only. The tutor is another luxury inherited from the middle ages and therefore retained, and one for which the students have to pay dearly. The chief business of the tutor is not to teach, but to "look after" a certain number of students who are theoretically relegated to his charge. He looks up their lodgings for them, pays their bills at the end of the term, gets them out of scrapes, and draws a large salary. The tutorships seem to the writer to be a good illustration of how an office necessary to one period persists after that for which it was instituted has ceased to exist. When the students of Oxford and Cambridge were many of them thirteen and fourteen years of age, as in the fourteenth century, nurses were doubtless necessary, but they are still retained when the greater maturity of the students renders them not only unnecessary but at times even an impertinence.
The dean is not, as with us, the head of a department; his functions are not so many, his tasks far less onerous. It is before a college dean that students are "hauled" for such offenses as irregularity at chapel, returning to the college after 12 P. M., smoking in college precincts, bringing dogs into the college grounds, and other villainous offenses against regulations. A dean must also attend chapel. Some colleges require two deans to struggle through these complicated and laborious duties, though some possessing only a few dozen students succeed in getting along with one.
R. C. Jebb, Litt. D., M. P., Trinity. Regius Professor of Greek.
The line of demarcation between the university and the colleges is very distinct. The legislative influence of the former extends over a comparatively restricted field. All professorial chairs and certain lectureships belong to and are paid by the university; the latter has the arranging of the curricula, the care of the laboratories, the disposition of certain noncollegiate scholarships; but, broadly speaking, its two functions are the examination of all students and the conferring of degrees. The supreme legislative body is the senate, and it is composed of all masters of arts, doctors, and bachelors of divinity whose names still remain on the university books—that is, who continue to pay certain fees into the university treasury. In addition to the legislative body there is an executive head or council of nineteen, including the chancellor—at present the Duke of Devonshire—and the vice-chancellor. Both these bodies must govern according to the statutes, no alteration in which can be effected without recourse being had to Parliament. The senate is a peculiar body, and on occasions becomes somewhat unwieldy. It consists at present of some 6,800 members, of whom only 452 are in residence at Cambridge. Upon ordinary occasions only these 452 vote upon questions proposed by the council; but on occasions of great moment, as when the question of granting university degrees to women came up, some thousands or more of the nonresident members, who in many cases have lost touch with the modern university and modern systems of education, swarm to their alma mater, annihilate the champions of reform, and are hailed by their brethren as the saviors of their university.