and that the learned leisure and rich resources of our universities will be effectually employed in the illustration of one of the greatest names of our native literature.

ART. III.-1. Oxford University Commission. Report of her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to inquire into the State, Discipline, Studies, and Revenues of the University and Colleges of Oxford, together with the Evidence and an Appendix. 1852.

2. The Oxford Reform Bill. 1854.

PER

ERHAPS there is no department of the Anglican Communion concerning which the majority of the Catholics of this great empire are more in the dark than the University of Oxford. Nor is this strange; for, while the sister University of Cambridge, in proportion to the greater distance at which she revolves round the orb of Catholic truth, has imbibed-or rather, we should say, has traditionally preserved in her theory and her practice-scarcely any traces or shadows of the ancient faith which gave birth to the noble foundation of King's College, and the glorious pile of its chapel, which make the name of Henry VI. famous to the present hour;-still the more liberal and less exclusive system which she has pursued during the last three centuries has served to open her gates in some degree, though, it must be confessed, not always with the best results, to the Catholics of England and Ireland. But Oxford has always been so closely allied with the ecclesiastical system of a hostile establishment, and her policy has been so intimately mixed up with the cause of a party whose antipathy has ever been most deadly against

*The Protestant Communions, I need hardly say, are respectively at a greater and a less distance from the Catholic Church, with more or less of Catholic dortrine and Catholic principle in them." Rev. Dr. Newman's Lectures on University Education,

Introd. p. 11.

us, we mean the Church and State tories of the old school, whose hatred of Popery was only equalled by their hatred of Protestant dissenters-that to the great mass of people she has been, and still is, a terra incognita. Thus it is that the "Papist," who is tolerated, and even respected at Cambridge, comes to be an object of suspicion and aversion in those more orthodox regions upon the banks of the Isis. A great wit of the present age is reported to have explained the intense dislike which the High Church party evince towards us, by the familiar illustration of two men crying along the Strand, "Come buy my native oysters," the one at 8d., the other at 7d. a dozen,-a case in which he thought that the nearness of the prices of the article in question must enhance the mutual ill-will of their respective vendors. We imagine that the case is something similar between ourselves and Oxford. That University has bound up her lot from time to time with the cause of Charles I. and the Protestant episcopate, with the Stuarts on the throne as long as they were Protestant, and afterwards, when they were Catholics in exile; she has maintained the Tudor teaching of the divine right of kings, and stamped the doctrine of passive resistance with her fullest approbation; and nearly down to the times in which we live, while the master spirits of Cambridge were advocating the cause of civil freedom and of Catholic emancipation, the Oxford dons showed forth the true spirit which they had imbibed from the good old days" when George the Third was king," by withdrawing their confidence from the late Sir R. Peel, expressly because he reluctantly conceded the emancipation of one-third of her Majesty's subjects from the galling and insulting yoke of penal laws of three centuries' duration.

But for our part we do not allude to the past in a harsh and unforgiving spirit. We are willing to "let by-gones be by-gones," and to hope that, with more enlightened legislation, a brighter era has at length begun to dawn on Oxford. We only refer to past events in order to account for the singular ignorance of all the concerns of Oxford which prevails among us, and our consequent indifference to its present fortunes.

And yet we think that it should hardly be so. The traditions and associations of Oxford are peculiarly Catholic. The colleges were not merely founded by Catholics, but were especially ecclesiastical and monastic in their character.

The Reformation, which worked such havoc over this fair island of the saints, and levelled the parish churches, and altars, and chapels, and monasteries, and chantries in the dust, left Oxford comparatively untouched. Though from that time Catholic devotions were doubtless omitted, and ecclesiastical processions were dropped in practice, yet in theory they still remained at Oxford; and now it is known to the world through the pages of her Majesty's Blue Books, what previously was a secret known only to the members of the respective colleges and the literati of the University, that not only minute directions respecting these and similar devotions still remain written in the statute books of several colleges, but that for three hundred years a succession of educated men and clergymen has been accustomed to take a solemn oath, under heavy anathemas and in the name of God, that they will religiously observe these ceremonies. Add to this the fact that together with the rise of a new school of theology in Oxford during the last twenty years, has been developed a Christian reaction, such as England has not witnessed since the days of the Reformation; and that many who ten years since were the ornament and pride of that university, and the recognised leaders of religious opinion within it, are now earnest members and zealous priests of that Church, on the spoils of which they were reared as Protestants; and we have just grounds for considering that our Catholic body would not fail to take an interest in a somewhat detailed account of its internal economy.

But thus much by way of apology. In the present pages we purpose to give our readers a slight, though necessarily imperfect, sketch of the first origin of the University system; to show them what was its condition and its mode of action in the middle ages; and having traced the progress of the University from the Reformation downwards, to give as faithful and correct an account of the present condition of Oxford as it is possible to glean from the Report of Her. Majesty's Commissioners and our present knowledge of those who have been educated in that seat of learning.

The term "University" in the technical sense in which we are accustomed to use it now-a-days is by no means of equal antiquity with the system itself; the earliest document in which that designation is applied to the University of Paris being a Decretal of Pope Innocent III. in the early part of the thirteenth century. The origin of all

those seats and schools of learning which afterwards became so famous in the history of mediæval literature, is to be sought for, not in some one authoritative act of the founder calling them severally into being, and creating an University where there was none before; but in the voluntary aggregation of a certain number of youths as hearers and disciples of some one or two learned men, who had fixed themselves down in a favourable spot (generally in one of the larger cities), and had so attracted around them a crowd of willing and eager disciples. Thus the earliest documents which bear upon the history of the University of Bologna show that in its beginning it was a mere corporation of students, who had repaired together from distant lands, and had associated themselves together, in order to avail themselves of the instruction of a few celebrated teachers of civil law. The most ancient papers belonging to it are compacts entered into by the students themselves for mutual support and assistance; and the privileges and immunities granted to them by popes and emperors are of a subsequent date. The University of Paris, on the other hand, in its first days, was a corporation rather of graduates than of scholars; and it grew up, so to speak, under the very shadow of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. It is well known that to almost every cathedral and larger monastery there was always attached a school, where all youths who looked forward to the priesthood as their solemn vocation, and also such laymen as could afford the cost of a learned education, and who desired to improve themselves, were instructed in the Trivium and Quadrivium. The poorer and smaller establishments, as we learn from the letters of Abelard, were in the habit of entrusting this work to one of their number, who bore the title of "Scholasticus;" while the wealthier employed a paid preceptor under the same title to instruct the junior pupils in grammar and philosophy.

In the middle of the twelfth century the concourse of students at Paris was so great, that they were obliged to divide themselves into two sections, one of which followed theology, and the other secular learning. The chief preceptor was called the rector; and all who had studied under him for a definite period were entitled to be raised to the grade of assistant teachers, first under the title of magister and baccalaureus (master and bachelor), and finally, to the rank of an independent" doctor." As soon as these three

VOL. XXXVI.-NO. LXXII.

4

grades were fairly developed, those who bore the above titles combined together under a rector chosen by themselves. Thus did the University system gradually expand itself at Paris. The Collegiate element was distinct, and of a somewhat later date. In consequence of the celebrity of the University, and the ability of its preceptors, the advantages of a residence there became more palpable to the Community at large. Hence at an early period of the University's existence, colleges were founded within the limits of the University by private families or religious orders. Originally they were intended exclusively for poor scholars, who were to live in them subject to certain rules of discipline; and by degrees, as more able teachers were employed to superintend the youths who resided in the various colleges, those students who did not reside within their walls came to be regarded as exceptions; so that in the fifteenth century the colleges had absorbed the existence of the University in their own.

To those who are acquainted with its early history, it is almost superfluous to observe that the University of Paris is the type upon which that of Oxford was founded and moulded. In Oxford we have the same spontaneous flocking of students to famous professors, the same voluntary combination of professors into a learned corporation. We have also the same grades or degrees, though following in a slightly different order; the same aftergrowth of the collegiate element upon the ancient system, and finally the same absorption of the latter in the former.

We extract the following statement from the Report itself, pp. 7, 8.

"The University (of Oxford), like all the older Universities of Western Europe, appears to have been at first an association of teachers, united only by mutual interest. Every association requires a legislative body and executive officers; but in all voluntary associations these essential elements exist, originally at least, in their simplest form. The houses in which the students lived, under a master in arts, or doctor in one of the faculties, who was their tutor, were called Aulæ or Halls. Their code of discipline and their system of study was that of the University. It is said, and it seems probable, that the legislature of the University in early times consisted of one house only, in which all the masters or teachers had a seat, called the Congregation. Being engaged in the daily busi. ness of the schools, the masters were always at hand, and could be convened at any moment except in the holidays.......In the course