Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-02-08

Features Of \ CoIIego-Lifs IN EnsIand-
UppIenFant FxDosure OF the EducationaI
InstiIution1.
The London Star thus ventures TO expose
soma features Of the collegiate institutions
Of Epglsnd:
The writer who should throw doubt upon
the value of public or private endowments
for the advancement and learning of science.
would expose himself to a violent risk OF
being sigmatised as Of illiberal mind, and
incapable Of apprecisting those human arts
which soften the manners and prevent men
from becoming brutal. Upon this subject
there is q cant, as upon most others, aud
prevailing feeling rarely ltops 10 dfscrimi-
nate, so he who questions the efficacy of an
accepted means must be prepared to find
himself denounced as foe to the end pro-
posed. Yet what does the history of the
English universities teach These were
foundations, protected by the law, for the
sustainment of learning and religion. They
possessed, and still possess, immense wealth.
What have been their fruits Until within
few years past have not these institutions
been the very seat and hot-bed of all that
was tory and tyrannical in government and
politics, narrow. minded and bigoted in re-
ligion, and Anticipated and barren in learning
and science2
The slowly-rising tide of living knowledge
and political life among the body of the
people at length reached those exclusive
seats Of q So called learning; and Parliament,
after weary debating, undertook to reform
the universities and bring them more iuto
harmony with the requirements of the time.
The tenacious opponents of the step were
the universities themselves-a fact suffi-
ciently indicative of the mode in which they
bad sustained learning and religion and
although the will Of the Legislature has been
declared, and the instrument of its purpose
has been at work, it is still found that in
one college of Oxford the spirit of the ira
ditional system is strong, and refuses to obey.
THIS is the College of All-Souls, the question
connected with the election of fellowships in
which, argued last week with voluminous
eloquenceet Lambeth Palace, now awaits
decision from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The facts are very clear and simple. ALL
Souls College is richly endowed, but up to
within three years it did not pretend in the
least to cultivate either knowledge or re-
ligion. 1t took no students aud taught
nothing. The fellows, forty in number, who
elected each other, were elected upon quite
other considerations than those of their
learning or religion. They constituted, in
fact an exclusive club of well-born, sociab'y-
refined, agreeable gentlemen, who did moth
ing but enjoy each others society. at is
place" said late historian of the University,
mot so much of elementary instruction as
of cultivated society," What the rules were
upon which fellows were elected may be
seen from the fact that, ont of lis fellows
elected duIiog a period of forty years,
twenty nine were Doblemen's sons, and no
more than sixteen had distinguished them
selves as scholars.
OF the forty fellows in the college in 1856,
only SIX were frst-class men, and fourteen
were sons of noblemen. In fact, the con-
else description of this snug coterie, sup
ported in indolent ease and refinement out of
funds intended for the support of learning
and religion, was, that its members were
well born, well-dressed, and indifferently-
learned. In all these respects it greatly
exae gerated the vices common to all the col
leges; and it has earned the dishouorable
distinction of being the only one among tho
whole which has substantially resisted the
lberalizipg reforms of the Commissioners
uLCer the act to the point of driving the
question 10 an open legal argument and
decision.