The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1882-06-03
English Universities.

Speaking generally, the university is
under the control of its alumni; so is
each one of the colleges. There is no
self-perpetuating Board of Trustees, as
with us, who hold the property, elect
the President and faculty, control the
institution and administer the finances.
There are various bodies, made up of
the graduates, who divide the admin.
istration and control between them.
Certain questions are decided by all
graduates present in a sort of mass
meeting held usually once year;
others are determined by smaller
body of resident graduates; still others
by resident fellows-that is, honor men
who have been elected by previous
fellows. 1t is needless to follow out
these regulations in detail; it is enough
to note the fact that English UNIVERSE
ties assume, as a fundamental princi-
pie, that no body of men will be more
interested in the welfare of the institu-
ton or more competent to control its
affairs than its own graduates, princi-
pie which American colleges might,
with some notifications, advantageous
ly adopt. .l.gil
The executive functions of the college
are allotted to two heads-a teaching
and business head. The business
head is called at Cambridge tutor; he
is usually appointed by the head mas
ter; he is supposed to have the guar
dianship of the undergraduates; he re-
ceives all their college fees, hires the
professors and lecturers, and pockets
! the difference as his compensation for
his services. In a word, he runs the
college as a purely private enterprise.
AS rule, he makes no report of either
his receipts or his expenditures. just
at this time parliamentary inquisition
into the universities, with view to
some sweeping reforms, is going on; one
of the great tutors is reported to have
said, apropos of this inquisition, that for
himself he should tell no committee
either what he received or paid out,
the college fees were his private in.
come, and it was nobody's business
what they were or what he did with
them.
Under this system the efficiency of o
college depends almost wholly upon
two persons-the head master and the
tutor-and varies with their efficiency.
Men are ranked, not as graduates OF
Oxford or Cambridge, but as graduates
of Balliol, or Christ's Church, or st.
Johns or Trinity. The difference be-
tween the twenty-one colleges of Ok.
ford or the seventeen colleges of Cam
bridge are as great as between Harvard
or Yale and-it would be venturesome
to name the other extreme. Balliol
College, Oxford, will take no students
who are not studying for honors; St.
- College, Cambridge, is generally
known as the Hospital for Incurables,"
and takes whatever is cast out of other
colleges, accepts their fees, and gives
them no more education than they care
to take. OF course there is no truly
homogeneous system of university
study. Even the final examinations
fail to insure this.
A young man may get at Oxford OF
Cambridge as good an education as this
world can give him; or he may, go
: through the three and a half years,
cram for his final t'exam.,'l get his B.
A. degree, and be as great q Ounce at
the end as at the beginning. 1t is only
necessary that he eat a required num-
Der of dinners, attend a required num-
Der of chapels, respond to his name, at
J required number of ''lectures,p and,
by aid of skillful "coach," answer at
the end of his course a required number
of not very difficult questions. Not
onlya young man may dortfiis, but
considerable number do actually doliti
SO considerable a number that only
"honor men" are Of much account in
university life, S''Ai degree. of b. A.,
then, said to my informant 1'does
not mean anything. " "Oh, yes" he
replied; it means that the young man
has lived for three and a half years in
the society of cultured gentlemen, and
has, not behaved so badly as to be
turned out. - Christian Union. ar.hi