The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-07 00:00:00

ENGLISH AND SCOTCH UNIVERSITIES

The Scotch Universities, as compared with the
English, do not come off amiss in the simple com-
parison of names. They can boast great names.
Their line of greatness is not the same, indeed, with
that of the sister institutions ; they have few
great scholars to boast of, few great divines, but
they have Moral and Natural Philosophers on
their lists of whom they may well be proud.
But, though they can show a fair list of great
names, and have produced their schools of science,
they have hitherto been very defective socially.
The English Universities are not only great
schools, but vast corporations ; they gather up in-
dividuals over the whole surface of the country, and
make a body of them, giving them common ties
and associations as University men, common recol-
lections, common sympathies, imparting the esprit
de corps, and giving a mould and form to a great
deal of the mind of the country. These fabrics
of corporate feeling and association answer an
important social purpose, and often a higher than
mere social purpose. They give a sort of anchor-
age to thought, supply a basis of fellow-feeling as
well as of individual reason, and provide a check
and balance which is wanted. Our Universities
have produced not only individual names, but
general types. The University man enters life and
commences his line of work with a certain ethical
and social standard in his head. It is here that the
Scotch Universities have failed. They have pr.)-
duced great solitary stars, but they have not
created a corporate feeling ; they have supplied no
bond and no common associations to their abimni.
The " University man" does not exist in Scotland.
There are many reasons for this distinction.
One is undoubtedly that the Scotch University has
not the endowments and the Colleges of its sisters.
A poor man has not so many friends as a rich one.
The English University is a fortunate specimen of
the institution ; most of the rough work is done for
it, and education has, though not an idle, a refined
and ornamental office there. She is a good deal
associated with the rank and wealth of the nation,
and holds her head up high. This kind of Uni-
versity engenders a pride of membership, and puts
its stamp upon a man with the comfortable confi-
dence that he will n ever feel wholly indifferent to
the mark. And, besides the advantage of rich en-
dowments, the Colleges are so many additional
homes and centres of corporate feeling which feed
the general reservoir. A University of itself is,
perhaps, too large an area to create feelings of
attachment, unless it is assisted by lesser centres
of attraction within, which, on account of their
more domestic character, lay hold more na-
turally upon the mind. The English Uni-
versities, then, are doubly fortunate, and,
besides these advantages, they are self-go-
verning academical corporations, in which every
Master of Arts is one of the governing body. it
is true this is a privilege which creates a good deal
of grumbling, and the patron—i. c., one of three
thousand patrons of a professorship—does not mucn
relish the honour of a two hundred miles' journey
to Oxford or Cambridge to vote for Jones, of Cor-
pus. Even the choice of a Parliamentary repre-
sentative raises fretful murmurs in many a rustic
parsonage, and the earnest wish that that may be
the very last contest. Still, on the whole, the
feeling of belonging to a large corporate body, of
having a vote at its elections, a share in its ap-
pointments, and a voice in its internal legislation,
is a pleasant one, not for the specific powers which
it implies, which are small enough, but on account
of the general idea which it maintains of belonging
to an ancient, large, and important corporation.
But, while the English Universities have been so
well off, the Scotch have had hard fortune. They
have been deprived hitherto of every one of those
means of influence and attachment which their
sisters have enjoyed; they have not had endow-
ments, they have not had Colleges, and they have
not been self-governing corporations. They have
been fighting a hard up-hill battle, struggling with
the difficulties of almost elementary education,
instead of reposing in the ornamental seats of
literature, and fulfilling the task of simply large
schools, educating crowds of raw youths, and doing
that ill, because they did it as Universities, and not
as schools, by lecturers and professors, instead of
masters. They have had no privileges to bestow,
and have dismissed all these young men year after
year without the formation of any tie.
Now, unhappily, some of these deficiencies can-
not he remedied in the present day ; this is not the
age for providing endowments, or founding Colleges,
and 'we fear those wants will always seriously in-
terfere with any imitation of the peculiar power and
influence of our English Universities on the part of
the Scotch. But one of these defects can be reme-
died in the present day, and just has been, and Sir
David Brewster has jast presided, as Principal of
the University of Edinburgh, at the inauguration of
the new career of that University as in alimited de-
gree a self-governing corporation. The University
of Edinburgh has at last thrown off the yoke of the
Town-council; it has now its Convocation, which
elects the Chancellor and the Rector. The Rector
having with his own vote and that of his assessors,
in the appointment of whom he has a share, a con-
siderable voice in the administration of the Univer-
sity, this is an election of real importance and with
bona fide University results. The Edinburgh Con-
vocation, therefore, is not a merely nominal body,
but a body possessed of important powers and rights.
This
will be a rise to the Scotch University, invest-
ing it with a tie of fellowship, and giving it some
ground of hold upon its members, who will now, at
any rate, feel themselves members of a great edu-
cating corporation, and will have the ideas which
the consc'.ousness of a common privilege raises.
This is the first time in the history of the Scotch
Universities that a Scotchman can call himself a
" University man," and the Principal celebrates
the occasion with a speech of considerable rhetor!cal
pomp and magnificence, describing the responsibili-
ties of the new member of Convocation, and his ob-
ligations to the cause of education and science. The
author of " More Worlds than One" summons to
his aid the whole imagery of the heavens, the
orbits of the planets, the lately-discovered Nep-
tune, and a solar system embracing three billions
of miles of space. " The stars in their courses'
are invoked to " fight" for the renovated and
reconstructed University of Edinburgh. New
suns and new systems, the whole range of the
telescope and infinite worlds, " sustaining doubtless