Reform in the Examinations at Oxford.—Nothing but Divinity studied there.—Tendency towards the Catholic Faith long continued there.—New Edifices.—The Bodleian.—The Schools.
School and college are not united in the English universities. Students are not admitted till their school education is completed, which is usually between the age of seventeen and nineteen. Four years are then to be passed at college before the student can graduate; and till he has graduated he cannot receive holy orders, nor till he has attained the age of twenty-two years and a half. Formerly they went younger: the statutes forbid them to play at certain games in the streets, which are exclusively the amusement of children; but when the statutes were made, there were few other schools. The examinations preparatory to graduation were, till within these three or four years, so trifling as to be the opprobrium of Oxford. Some score of syllogisms were handed down from one generation to another; the candidate chose which of these he pleased to be examined in, and any two books in the learned languages. Any master of arts who happened to come into the schools might examine him. It was usually contrived to have a friend ready, lest too much might be expected, and not unfrequently nothing was done,—the champion had appeared in the lists, and that was enough. A great change has just taken place, and the examination is now so serious and severe, that the present generation speak with envy of the happy days of their predecessors.
At one of the colleges a needle and thread is given to every member on New Year's Day, with this admonition: "Take this, and be thrifty!" But though thrift may be enjoined by the statutes, it is not by the customs, of Oxford. The expence of living here is prodigious; few have so small a pension as 150l. sterling; and the students of the privileged classes expend four and five fold this sum. It might be thought that in learning, as in religion, there should be no distinction of persons. Distinctions however there are, in the universities, as well as in the churches; and the noble and wealthy students are admitted to academical honours, without passing through the term of years which is required from others.
Lectures are delivered here upon every branch of science: the students may attend them or not, at their own pleasure, except those of the divinity professor; a certificate of their attendance upon these is required before the bishops will ordain any candidate for orders. Degrees are granted in law, medicine, and music; but law must be studied in London, medicine in Edinburgh, and music wherever the musician pleases. It is only for those persons who are designed for the clergy, that a college education is indispensable; others are sent there because it is the custom, and because it is convenient that they should be under some little restraint, and have at least the appearance of having something to do, when they have ceased to be boys, and are not yet men. But, strictly speaking, Oxford is a school for divinity, and for nothing else.
I cannot look upon this beautiful city—for beautiful it is beyond my powers of language to describe—without a deep feeling of sorrow. The ways of Providence are indeed mysterious! Little did the pious founders of these noble institutions think to what a purpose they were one day to be made subservient: little did they think that they were establishing seminaries wherein their posterity were to be trained up in heresy and schism, and disciplined to attack that faith, for the support of which these stately buildings had been so munificently endowed. That this perversion might be complete, Catholics are excluded from these very universities which owe their establishment to Catholic piety. Every person who enters is obliged to subscribe the heterogeneous articles of the Church of England; a law which excludes all Dissenters, and thus shuts out no inconsiderable part of the English youth from the advantages of a regular education. Yet, to do Oxford justice, it must be admitted that the apostacy began in the state, and was forced upon her; that she clung to the faith till the very last, restored it with avidity under the short sunshine of Philip and Mary's reign, and, whenever there has appeared any disposition towards Catholicism in the government, has always inclined towards it as the saving side. More remains of the true faith are to be found here than exist elsewhere in England, as the frequency of church service, the celibacy to which the fellows are restricted, and the prayers which are said in every college for the souls of the founders and benefactors. It is surprising that so much should have been permitted to remain; indeed, that the colleges themselves should have been spared by the barbarous and barbarising spirit of the founders of the English schism, Lutherans, Calvinists, Bucerists or Zwinglians, call them which you will; from whichever head you name it, it is but one beast—with more heads than the hydra, and upon every forehead is written Blasphemy.[2]
A few buildings have been added to the city in later times,—not like the former ones. Protestantism builds no cathedrals, and endows no colleges. These later monuments of liberality have had science in view, instead of religion: the love of fame upon earth has been the founders' motive, not the hope of reward in heaven. The theatre, a library, a printing-office, and an observatory, have all been built since the great rebellion; the last is newly erected with the money which was designed to supply the library with books. The Bodleian was thought sufficient; and as there are college libraries beside, there seems to have been good reason for diverting the fund to a more necessary purpose. The Radcliffe library, therefore, as it is called, though highly ornamental to the city, is of little or no immediate use, the shelves being very thinly furnished. The Bodleian well deserves its celebrity. It is rich in manuscripts, especially in Oriental ones, for which it is chiefly indebted to archbishop Laud, a man who was so nearly a Catholic that he lost his head in this world, yet still so much a heretic, that it is to be feared he has not saved his soul in the next. Yet is this fine collection of more celebrity than real advantage to the university. Students are not allowed access to it till after they have graduated, and the graduates avail themselves so little of their privilege, that it may be doubted whether the books are opened often enough to save them from the worms. In their museums and libraries the English are not liberal; access to them is difficult, and the books, though not chained to the shelf, are confined to the room. Our collections of every kind are at the service of the public; the doors are open, and every person, rich or poor, may enter in. If the restrictions in England are necessary, it must be because honesty is not the characteristic of the nation.
The schools wherein the public examinations are held, are also of later date than the schism. James I. built them in a style as mixed and monstrous as that of his own church: all the orders are here mingled together, with certain improvements after the manner of the age, which are of no order at all. At the university printing-office, which is called the Clarendon press, they are busied upon a superb edition of Strabo, of which great expectations have long been formed by the learned. The museum contains but a poor collection. Oliver Cromwell's skull was shown me here, with less respect than I felt at beholding it. Another of their curiosities is the lanthorn which Guy Vaux held in his hand when he was apprehended, and the gunpowder plot detected. The English still believe that this plot was wholly the work of the Catholics!
