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SPEECH
ON THE
COMMISSION OF INQUIRY
INTO THE
STATE OF THE UNIVERSITIES
OP
OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE,
DELIVEUED BY THE
RiailT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE,
M.P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
On THURSDAY, July 18, 1050.
OXFORD :
J. a. r A R Iv R R
1850.
SPEECH, &c.
SIR,
In one point, at least, I have the satis-
faction of agreeing with the honourable gentleman
who has just sat down (Mr. Bunbury). I concur in
the construction which he has put upon the motives
that have prompted the noble Lord (J. Russell) to
form the intention of issuing a Commission of In-
quiry into the State of the Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge, under the authority of the Crown.
I believe that those motives are conformable to the
verbal professions of the noble Lord, and that he is
not prompted by feelings unfriendly to these Uni-
versities.
I am the more anxious at once to make this ad-
mission, and to make it freely and ^vithout [reserve,
because, with respect to the hasty and ill-advised
project itself, it will be my absolute duty to express,
in the strongest language, the most hostile opi-
nions. Indeed, even thus late in the day I earnestly
hope, and I cannot bring myself entirely to aban-
don the expectation, that the noble Lord may yet
be brought to reconsider an intention, conceived
with so mnch precipitancy, and in an evil hour. I
am convinced that he has heard much during this
discussion — particularly in the able speech of the
honourable and learned member for Newark (Mr.
Stuart) — touching questions of which he little
dreamed when, to the surprise of the House, he
made his ill-omened announcement ; and, unless I
am greatly mistaken, before this discussion closes,
and the subject is finally dropped, the noble Lord
will hear much more with respect to the constitu-
tional, nay I may almost say as to the legal, charac-
ter of the Commission which he proposes to appoint,
upon grounds which he himself seems not to have
subjected to scrutiny, and which will ill bear the
scrutiny of others.
There is one reason. Sir, and one only, for which
I cordially regret the necessity that my duty im-
poses on me of objecting to the issue of such a Com-
mission : it is this, I will not say because such oppo-
sition may be construed to imply fear of the results
of inquiry, but because I am certain that any report,
which any Commission, however constituted, may
make, must redound so greatly to the honour of those,
who are engaged in carrying on the actual work of
the Universities. It would be presumption in me
to bear witness respecting the University of Cam-
bridge, well as I can believe that of these two bodies
alike what I state is strictly true: but, confining
myself to the case of Oxford, upon which I may
venture to speak from personal knowledge, I should
certainly be glad of such a testimony, as I am con-
vinced the report of the Commission could not fail
to bear, to the exemplary discharge of arduous du-
ties by those, to whom are there committed the care
and instruction of the flower of English youth.
Go there when it will, the Commission will find
them so engaged, not under the coercion or influence
of law, not under the expectation of Royal Commis-
sioners, scarcely hearing and not at all dreading the
echo of Parliamentary debate ; and nowhere through-
out the country will be found any body of men,
who, as a body, are more competent for their
duties — more devoted to the great work of true
and genuine education — more indefatigable in their
industry — more adorned, I will venture to say,
with the virtues and accomplishments that belong
to Christians, to scholars, and to gentlemen. So far
as their personal interests and feelings are concerned,
I cannot regret that any inquiry should be insti-
tuted, which would be conducted, as this will no
doubt be conducted, if it be made at all, by honour-
able men: for the evidence it will obtain, be its
amount and general character what it may, will as-
suredly, with respect to the men engaged in the work
of education at Oxford, carry conviction to the minds
of those, few in number I am sure they even now
are, who may be inclined to view them with suspi-
cion and mistrust. But, in a question of this nature
— not only a great academical, but, as I believe and
holdit to be, a great constitutional question — I must
cast aside all consideration of what w^ould be most
favourable to their interests or agreeable to their
feelings, and must fasten my attention upon the pub-
lic and constitutional principles which are involved
in the issue before us.
Now, Sir, any Commission of Inquiry into the
Universities, be it what it may, is at best a great evil.
And no such Commission therefore should be ap-
pointed, except when the appointment of it — with
all the mischiefs, all the inconveniences it may
entail — is calculated to prevent, and is the only way
of preventing, other and greater evils. I do not
doubt your power, I do not deny under given cir-
cumstances your right and your duty, either to
inquire into the state of the Universities, or to
modify and alter that state, provided the grounds
be sufficient and the means unexceptionable. But
the kind of interference proposed is one that nothing
could justify, and in this case, at this time, there is
no justification for your interfering at all.
Any Commission, I say, any intervention of the
State in the concerns of the Universities against
their will, is of itself a great evil, and this in many
ways. In the first place, whatever verbal construc-
tion you may put upon the measure, it is a pre-
sumptive censure by the State upon the Academical
bodies ; and it gives occasion and encouragement
to every hasty observer to fix his eye upon obvious,
and perhaps superficial, but certainly partial, blots
in this College or in that, upon this or that flaw
which may be found in some minute part of a com-
prehensive system, and to overlook the less salient
but fundamental points that determine the prevail-
ing character of these institutions, and the pervading
principles that have made them fountains of ines-
timable blessings to the country^
Again, in the case of a body devoted to education,
and divided into senior and junior members, it is
essential to peace, and to real progress, that an un-
broken confidence and respect should be felt by the
younger members for the authority of their acade-
mical superiors ; but to such sentiments you give a
powerful shock, by introducing into the University
an apparently rival and even hostile authority, such
as a tribunal of inquiry into the conduct of those
superiors ; and a shock of this kind, as an interrup-
tion to the proper work of the place, is in itself
another very serious evil.
Indeed, in less restricted terms, I must assert
that by the contemplated measure you will intro-
duce into the University an element of discord and
of disorganisation, because a body with such aims
and so constituted cannot prosper, it is the dictate
alike of reason and of history, amidst contention :
peace and repose are the first conditions of the suc-
cessful prosecution of the work of instruction, of
the acquisition of solid learning, of training character
and controuling passion, of the formation of fixed
habits of thought. For these purposes the move-
ment of the mind must be tranquil, and must also
be fi:ee. And here I am brought into view of ano-
ther principal evil attending the appointment of this
Commission. It interferes with a principle most
dear to Englishmen, most characteristic of England
— the principle of local self-government, and of the
freedom of institutions necessary for the national
welfare, but not directly belonging to political pur-
poses, from the ordinary controul of the State. To
this principle it is admitted on all hands that our
country owes much of its prosperity, for it is by its
means that her inhabitants receive an universal
8
training for the discharge of public duties. It is in
this respect that other nations have found it most
difficult to imitate that which we happily possess.
It has been by their familiarity with it from their
British origin, that, as De Tocqueville has so well
shown, the United States of America were enabled
to organise their remarkable constitution, and to
achieve their present greatness. And to this day,
as I am not ashamed to remind you, the United
States are distinguished from every other country,
by the liberal facility with which their State Go-
vernments are accustomed to confer corporate pri-
vileges upon local bodies, and the respect they pay
and the security they furnish to the subaltern
freedom which they have thus created.
These, Sir, are considerations, general indeed in
their nature, but most weighty and substantial,
which tend to show what serious evils must always
attend upon the interference of the State with the
Universities, and which should therefore induce
the House to pause before lending a favourable ear
to any such proposal ; and to require, in the first
place, full and clear proof of the evils to be remov-
ed, and of the impracticability or hopelessness of
their removal by the free assent and deliberate
agency of these bodies themselves.
Passing on from these general considerations, I
will now come to close quarters with the plan of
the noble Lord (J. llussell). I say that no mere
general statements, no prospect of simply specula-
tive improvement, will justify the interposition of
the State. You must be able to show the preva-
lence of serious evils, and the neglect of duty on
9
the part of those who should redress them. This
you cannot show, and therefore there is no shadow
of a justification for your interference. Nay, more :
as to the Universities, considered apart from the
Colleges, you admit that there is no such case. The
nohle Lord tells us his purpose and desire is, that
the Colleges should now do their part, as the Uni*
versities, both in Oxford and in Cambridge, has set
them the example. No man in this House has
charged the Universities with sluggishness or in-
difference to reform ; but, on the contrary, loud and
just eulogies have been pronounced upon them for
the introduction of wise, great, and comprehensive
improvements into their system. As if to give
greater force to this part of the case, it was on the
very day, the 23d of last April, when the Univer-
sity of Oxford had given its full and final sanction
to the new Statute of Examinations, that the noble
Lord aimed the blow I now seek to avert. The
honourable Member indeed, who spoke last, alleges
that the academical constitution is bad, and requires
reform. But the noble Lord made no such allega-
tion, and gave us no reason whatever to believe
that a reformation of the constitution of either
University was to be considered by the Commis-
sioners. He founded himself altogether upon the
state of the Colleges, as making good his case for
interference: He allowed that the Universities
were doing their duty, and therefore that he need
not do it for them. And yet, strange to say, it is
into the case of the Colleges that he has no prenten-
sion whatever to inquire : The Universities are in-
corporated by Parliament : the Colleges are pri-
10
vate incorporations, in no way, by no form of in-
ference however indirect, subject to the power of the
Crown : where he has a right to examine, he admits
there is no occasion ; where he has occasion to exa-
mine, he has not even himself alleged a right.
Well, Sir, let us examine the question as to the
Colleges. However I may think it my duty to pro-
test against every unconstitutional exercise of power
by the Crown, I do not claim for the Colleges of Ox-
ford and Cambridge, or for any other foundation
whatever, an exemption, under all circumstances,
from Legislative controul. It is not necessary for
me, here and now, to discuss the question, what your
duties or your rights, in conjunction with the Queen
and the House of Lords, would be, if the advance of
improvement in the Universities and in the Colleges
were to be stayed. It is far from being my opinion
that the work is yet complete. The great changes
which have been made in the statutes of Oxford,
with respect to the course of instruction, ought there
to entail, and with all my heart I hope they will en-
tail, careful and well-considered, but extensive, and,
I will add, early, changes in the Colleges. Yet for
these changes you must surely allow a reasonable
time. 'No body has more urgent and constant ne-
cessity to plead for such allowance than the House
of Commons ; none ought to be more ready to make
it on behalf of others. The Colleges, it will justly be
said, ought to follow in the wake of the University,
and to second the changes it has made. Well and
good : but these changes they could not know by
divination. It has cost the University no small time
and pains to bring them to maturity, and to deter-
11
mine upon them in detail. Further, the changes,
that may follow in the Colleges what the University
has done, will not only require time, because you
cannot expect that nineteen independent corpora-
tions will act with the uniformity and speed of a
single organ, but because in their own nature they
must be such as demand from prudent men great
consideration. Many new branches of study, instead
of being left to be taken up collaterally and at will,
have now received their formal place in the course of
academical instruction. Of all these there must be
provided competent teachers in the Colleges : there
must be a large addition to the staff of tutors. But
the House is bound to give a reasonable time for
this new oro-anisation and distribution of duties. It
is not as if the University or the Colleges were cri-
minally charged for not having done all this before.
The demands made upon the University are demands
that have emerged with the necessities of the times.
And to them she has given, or is engaged in giving,
a full answer. Nay, in many things she has, both
now and on former occasions, anticipated the desire
of the general public. If the Colleges should fail to
act in the spirit of the University — if they should
not make it their aim to render their endowments
available in the highest degree for the encourage-
ment of learning, the reward of merit, and the
enlarofcment of the circle within which their benefits
are diffused, I grant that the time may come when
the interference of the State may be required ; but
at this time you have no justification for it.
Now, Sir, as this Commission cannot exercise an
ordinary jurisdiction, as it purports to be wholly
12
remedial, let us examine the allegations that are
made concerning any evils which are supposed to
require such a remedy.
One of the most popular and plausible of these.
In regard to Oxford, is that, under the present sys-
tem, you have no security for the appointment of
the most competent persons to fill the office of
tutor ; and Ingenious arguments are used, to show
how this failure may possibly occur. But I ask this
House to turn from speculation to facts. I will try
the character of the Oxford Tutors by the best test
of which the case admits, and one which, though I
do not assert It to be perfect, will nevertheless be
admitted to be adequate : I mean the honours
which they have gained from the University.
There are at present, In the different Colleges
and Halls of Oxford, seventy-eight Tutors, and these
seventy-eight Tutors have taken, among them, no
less than eighty-five first and second classes ; of
which, I think, fifty-four are first classes : and, that
the House may be able to judge what these facts are
really worth, I must add that among the whole body
of persons — commonly, I believe, above three hund-
red — who pass through their examination in each
year, not more perhaps than from ten to fifteen ob-
tain a first class. But besides these classes, there
are among these seventy-eight Tutors, twenty-nine
other University honours of the highest order : and
again, among the whole number there are only six,
who have not obtained distinctions of a very high
order in the University. After this, Sir, 1 think that,
however isolated cases may stand, we shall not have
the appointment of the Commission defended in this
13
House upon the ground that the present system at
Oxford has failed to secure the appointment of effi-
cient and distinguished men to the office of tutor.
Sir, the next among these allegations, and one on
which the noble Lord (J. Russell) has particularly
dwelt, is this, that the old College statutes, for-
sooth, prevent the cultivation of the new studies
which it is the especial aim of the recent statute of
the University to foster. This allegation has not
been sustained by proof: and can only be met, as I
meet it, by flat denial. In the spirit of those an-
cient statutes there is nothing that is hostile, every-
thing that is favourable, to the extension of learning :
and I have yet to be informed in what singular par-
ticular even their letter supports this chimerical as-
sertion.
But then, again, it is said, that these statutes are
unalterable, according to a clause contained in them,
and that they require adaptation to the times : and
this is a point requiring more full consideration.
Sir, I believe it is a matter which some conceive
to be subject to doubt in point of law, whether there
exist any unalterable statutes — unalterable under
the existing ordinary jurisdictions ; whether in every
case the joint powers and concurrence of the Visitor
of the College — of the representative of the Founder
— and of the actual incumbents, would not be suffi-
cient in law to warrant the alteration of any statute.
But I will not place any stress upon a doubtful
argument : and I will assume it to be the fact that
there exists no lawful ordinary power to change
these statutes.
I hold it to be perfectly plain that Founders have
14
no right to bar, throughout all time, every alteration
of their statutes, and that if any injunctions they may
have left to that effect cannot be relaxed without
legislation, then they should be relaxed by legisla-
tion : but surely it is as plain that we are bound to
see, in the first instance, that all the powers of the
ordinary jurisdiction have been tried and exhausted,
before we resort to a measure which, though right in
itself, may be placed hereafter as a precedent and
authority for wrong. But there has been no such
exhaustion, no such trial ; nor can the aid of Parlia-
ment be invoked with propriety so long as, for all we
learn, it may turn out to have been wholly unnecessary.
And even if that aid be required, how do we know
that the Colleges themselves will not seek for it, and
why, now that a crisis in their history has come, why
do we not allow them time to show that they are
alive to its importance, and prepared to act as it re-
quires ?
But, Sir, it is likewise right that the House should
be aware, that, as I am informed by persons who
ought to be the very best acquainted with the sub-
ject, this allegation of unalterable statutes does not
extend to more than five or six of the Colleges in
Oxford. A provision of this kind appears to have
been first introduced in the case of '^ew College by
William of Wykeham, and his example was followed
by succeeding Founders. To me, I confess, it is ex-
tremely curious and instructive, to mark the epoch
of its introduction. It seems most probable that
this measure was dictated by the fear, on the part of
those who founded and endowed the Colleges, of in-
novation. It was the era of Wicliffe : the sect of
15
the Lollards soon became widely prevalent, broached
some extravagant or dangerous opinions, and excited
much alarm, among the friends of things as they
were, for the security of the established religion.
Hence the Founders of Colleges appear to have be-
come more jealous of change, and to have sought
security in this restrictive regulation. Sir, I hope
the noble Lord will deign to learn a lesson from
these facts, and consider with himself whether he is
really pursuing the course most likely to insure judi-
cious reforms in the Universities ; for they appear to
teach us this truth, that when ill-considered schemes
of improvement are abroad, people put up their
backs, as it is termed, and become fearful even of
such changes as, under other circumstances, they
would have been ready to allow.
The next allegation on the side of the noble Lord
is this : that the local restraints upon the choice of
the electors in filling up vacant fellowships are mis-
chievous, and ought to be done away with. I^ow,
Sir, on this I shall observe, first, that we have no
proof that the Colleges themselves, in considering
the means of seconding the intentions of the Univer-
sity, may not propose and effect, or ask us to aid
them in effecting, everything that is necessary on
this head. Secondly, that even if all which has been
urged against these local restrictions were true, still
not even the Legislature, and much less the Crown,
could take upon itself the responsibility of their total
abolition. No one, I think, will contend that, in
dealing with the bequests of a Founder, we can with
justice begin by putting his desires wholly out of
view, and proceed to reform his institution at our
w
own pleasure, and according to our pattern of spe-
culative excellence. But, thirdly, it is a gross error
to suppose that these local restraints are productive
of unmixed injury. There are cases, in which they
may and ought to be relaxed : there are cases, in
which they have been so relaxed, and no proof is
offered us that what yet remains to be done, requires
the appointment of a Commission in order to its
being effected. It is most desirable that these re-
straints should not confine the electors to very nar-
row districts : but neither do they ; the general limi-
tation is to one or more counties, or a diocese. It is
most desirable that the attainments of candidates
should have very great and often the chief weight in
elections : but, on the other hand, it would be a
great misfortune, if these qualifications only were to
be regarded, and if in all cases, without exception, the
man that could pass the best examination were to
be chosen. Competition is most useful as an ele-
ment in the process : but do not let the House sup-
pose that competition is everything. We do not
employ it much among ourselves : and we should
think it no less strange, if it were proposed to choose
the Prime Minister by an examination, than if there
was an obligation to take him from a particular
county, diocese, or family. So it is, not wholly but
in a degree, with fellowships. Rely upon it there
is as much room for trickery in passing through an
examination, as in most of the other transactions of
life. Besides the broadest features of religious and
moral character, the social tendencies of a man —
his gifts of teaching — his assiduity — his disposition
to take and to observe his place in the almost do-
17
mestic body he is to enter — these are qualifications
as material as any branch of knowledge, but an ex-
amination does not ascertain them ; and I have
found, among my constituents, gentlemen the least
chargeable with a blind conservatism, who neverthe-
less feel that, on its own merits, as well as from re-
gard to founders, this principle of local prefer-
ences, while its extravagant rigours should be got
rid of, deserves to be treated with some indul-
gence.
Sir, there is nothing in the particular allegations
I now have enumerated — and I think that they are
all the allegations which have been heard in this
debate — to show the need or the justice of the pro-
ject of the noble Lord: but then there is also the gene-
ral reason which has been urged, that the varying cir-
cumstances of successive periods render changes in
these institutions necessary. But how can this
ground avail you, when you yourselves admit that
the Universities have deserved the utmost praise for
the disposition they have shown to appreciate and
to meet the exigencies of the times, and when, in
regard to the Colleges, you neither prove that they