The Press.
London, England, 1857-11-28 00:00:00

MIDDLE-CLASS EXILMINATIONS.

IT will doubtless be iu the recolleztion of our
readers that when this question was first
agitated, we drew a comparison between the
Universities of Oxford and London, comment-
ing on the singular fact that the former was
seeking to become more liberal, and the latter
to become more exclusive. Now, doubtless
at first sight it might appear that this was the
very thing wanted. And many persons might
wonder what objection could possibly he
raised to so desirable a proceeding. What we
said then, however, we repeat now—that the
excellence of an institution, as of an individual;
must be sought in accordance with its own
nature, and not by running counter to it.
Oxford had a course plainly marked out before
her, and so had the London University—
widely divergent from each other, but both
honourable. And we cannot help fearing that
if the one abandons her true functions to exer-
cise those of the other, the results will be dis-
astrous to both.

If of the half-dozen branches of knowledge
which constitute a liberal education there is
one which can be taught better at Oxford and
Cambridge than at any other University, and
five which can be taught as well at any other
University as at Oxford and Cambridge, the
conclusion to us seems obvious—i.e., that
Oxford and Cambridge should not sacrifice a
tittle of the one subject for the sake of the
other five. The worst of it is, too, that a
change in this respect involves not only the
amount taught, but the method of teaching it
likewise. Owing to the recent reforms at
Oxford, not only is less classical knowledge
imparted, but it is imparted with less sound-
ness than heretofore. College and University
scholarships and prizes are awarded to less
proficient candidates, and the ordinary student
knows lees of the ordinary grammar. Their
reading spreads over a wider area, but do its
roots lay hold of the soil? We fear, in many
cases, not. Can the young scholar who talks
so glibly about BUNSEN and DONALDSON always
conjugate the verb vivvw.,? Can the college
fellow who will prate of aesthetics by the hour
turn out a piece of Latin prose or a copy of
Latin hexameters in the old style? If all
accounts which reach us from the University
are true, such is very far from being the case.
Yet, after all, wherein consists the value of
this so-called " classical education," if not in
those habits of laborious study and in-
cessant repetition of which such per
formances are the test? Even were our
study of modern languages pushed to the same
extreme, they would not yield the same fruit.
But it is not. A man learns just as much
French as is requisite for a particular purpose.
He acquires by formal study as much as will
enable him to enjoy the literature of the
country, or to make himself understood by the
inhabitants if he travels there. The rest he
leaves to time and chance ; he will pick it up
as he goes along. Latin and Greek are the
only two languages studied for themselves,
and which, on account of their fixedness,
admit of complete mastery. They are, in con-
sequence, the only two which can bring home
to a man's mind what completeness of learning

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means. In them the student sees a definite
something to be grasped, devoured, and
digested. He can register each step of his
progress, and has certain fixed, unmistakeable
standards by which to test its consummation.
The value of this process is inestimable. The
scholar so formed has thereby habituated his
mind to the highest ideal of knowledge. All
subsequent pursuits he endeavours to assimi-
late to this. And if it cannot save him—as, of
course, it cannot—from alarge amount of igno-
rance, it saves him from all that makes
ignorance formidable—unconsciousness of
it. Let a man once learn how to distinguish
between the bottom of a subject and the top—
between knowing it, and knowing about it—
and education has done half her work.

Now, it is obvious that the system inaugu-
rated by the University of Oxford will dimi-
nish the number of this sort of men in the
country. In the first place, parents who would
not rest satisfied with the old-fashioned mid-
dle-class school, made an effort to put a pro-
mising boy to Rugby or Charterhouse ; and
many a young genius was in this way rescued
from the counting-house, sometimes to adorn
a profession and sometimes to save an empire.
The better style of instruction henceforth to
be obtained at middle-class seminaries, with
the dignity of A.A. looming in the future, will
be a temptation to parents to relax their
efforts at procuring the highest education for
their children ; and the proposed boon, instead
of an incentive to excellence, will thus turn
out to be a premium on mediocrity. In the
second place, young men themselves will cease
to prize university honours as formerly, when
their exclusiveness has been diluted by an
infusion of " Associates in Arts"; and not
prizing them, will not labour to attain them.
Whether such feelings be magnanimous or
not is nothing to the present question They
are natural, and they are inevitable ; and we
require that the public do not give their final
and general approbation to so important a
movement without having all its consequences
before them, and one of them undoubtedly is
that " the crowd of thoroughbred Grecians"
will be considerably thinned.
The retort to which we lay ourselves open
is of course obvious. Would you, it may be
asked, perpetuate a system which sacrificed the
many to the few ? Would you deprive five
men out of six of their legitimate mental cul-
ture that the sixth may turn out a Johnson,
an Eldon, or a Blomfield ? And even if you
would, is the system any longer possible?
Venienti occurrite morbo. Is not Oxford merely
anticipating the results of an aggression that
would sooner or later have taken place, and
submitting to inoculation to avoid a worse
danger?

Now, we would not for a moment deny that
these considerations possess great weight, and
we should wish to express ourselves with all
due diffidence in opposition to them. But,
after all, how far is it correct to say that uuder
the old system the many were sacrificed to
the few? If a man's career began, continued,
and ended with himself, no doubt such was
the case. But we know that it does not. And
this very question is pre-eminently a question
of influence. To solve it we must ascertain
the comparative advantages of a dozen scholars
and a hundred " well-informed " men to the
community at large. We must find out
whether a few first-class examples of excel-
lence, with a knowledge of the process that
produced them, be more or less beneficial to
the national character than a greater number
of fourth-class ones. For unless the latter
alternative be proved, the modern system is
but the sacrifice of the many to the few on a
larger scale, and a more insidious method.
The question of course may be answered
either way. But it does not admit of that off-
hand arithmetical solution which some people
seem to imagine.
Again, on the hypothesis that Oxford has
adopted middle-class examinations from purely
prudential motives, it may fairly be doubted
whether any measure tending to weaken her
sti ong points can prove eventually conser-
vative. Is she not rather acting the same
foolish part towards her own independence
which a great political party was once charged