merely does a liberal education serve as a bond between the learned professions, it also teaches us the ground of that which enables the clergyman to understand his parishioners, the countrygentleman to act with his neighbours, and the statesman to respond to the feelings of a great and free people. The time is plainly come for seeking more reciprocity in this matter, and for encouraging the middle classes to share these feelings with many who are in one sense above them, and it may be added, as a consequence, with many more who are below them.

If by the means of healthy literature the Universities can liberalise commercial education, there will be a response to many an appeal of reason or of charity, which now falls dead on minds filled only with images of the market or of sensual enjoyment. Happily the English middle classes are not wanting in domestic charities, and it is through these charities, through the opening minds and hearts of the young, that a door for more genial influences is opening; but if that door be closed, and if these young men are allowed to grow up as hard as their fathers, with less common sense and more conceit, the upper classes in the next generation will have a more difficult task than they have yet had.

But it will be said that the plans adopted at Oxford are especially deficient in this, that they make no direct provision for the social discipline and moral training of the youths. Granted. Can it be helped at present? It has been proposed, in the course of a recent debate at Cambridge, that the University should endeavour to associate schools, not scholars. This is a very important suggestion; but it must not be supposed that it is made now for the first time. I pass by the signal failure of terms of union for middle schools about 1839. The best mode of dealing with independent schools was very carefully considered at Exeter last year, and the difficulties were thought to preponderate. In another publication* I have suggested some of the elements to be taken into account with reference to the social habits of the class to be dealt with, and entered into *Education of the Farmer considered in connexion with that of the Middle Classes in general:' London, Ridgway; price 1s.

4

calculations on the financial questions involved in any attempt to provide education as well as to test its results. I will not here go over the same ground again. But before an University undertakes to define the principle on which one school is to be taken into union and another rejected, it would be well that those who guide its deliberations should weigh carefully the experience gained by the Committee of Council in reference to the suitableness of buildings, the propriety of domestic arrangements, the competency of the teaching staff. If difficulties not easily disposed of arise between a powerful department of the Government, providing a large amount of the prime cost and annual maintenance of schools, and managing committees of voluntary subscribers, will the difficulties encountered by the University be fewer in dealing with bodies of shareholders or private individuals having a pecuniary interest at stake in establishments maintained at their own risk? The troubles which have arisen between the London University and its affiliated Colleges may offer some useful topics of inquiry on this part of the subject.

The more the relation between the Universities and the Middle Classes is considered, the more clearly it will appear that the first point to be gained is the confidence of these classes in the intellectual teaching of the Universities. That confidence (I must be allowed to say, for I have had strong evidence of the fact lately) is not yet established as regards the teaching received and habits acquired by residence in the Universities. While the training of men who read for honours is thoroughly appreciated, grave doubts are entertained as to the effects of the present line of study on the more commonplace minds, and many a father thinks that an apprenticeship served under one of his own class is a far better training for acquiring knowledge than the best social arrangements gentlemen are capable of making or guiding.

I believe, therefore, that Oxford has begun at the right end. Adopting without equivocation the principle (laid down in some remarks quoted by the public orator at Cambridge, though not applying the principle in the same way) "that almost any study thoroughly prosecuted, and with real excellence for its result, is dis

ciplinal and in the true sense educational," it proposes to accept, to honour, and to associate any young men who come up to a certain standard of mental culture. It throws the whole responsibility for their moral discipline on their parents and on those to whom their parents intrust them.

If these lads turn out well their friends will be more disposed than heretofore to trust University men as Teachers, and to value the Institutions which made the men.

Fresh Schools and Colleges will rise up, they will shape themselves according to the natural wants of those for whom they are intended; and, confidence once established in the Teachers and in the genial hearty mode of dealing with boys taught by public school life, there will be no backwardness in supplying all that is required in the department of boarding and lodging.

I may refer in conclusion to the new programme of the Society of Arts as one encouraging result of the step taken at Oxforda result which is the more gratifying, because the first announcement of Mr. Temple's plan called forth some indications that it was regarded as an interference with the province of that Society by some of its officers, to whose great personal exertions much of its success was undoubtedly owing. That such a feeling is not shared by the Council may be gathered from the following extract from their Programme for the ensuing year, adopted, after full inquiry and discussion, at a special general meeting of the Society :-

"The Council have read with the greatest satisfaction the Statute, recently published by the University of Oxford, for examining and granting the title of Associate in Arts of Oxford' to young persons not of the University. Cambridge is happily following this excellent example.

"The examinations are to be annual, independent of any denominational test, and open to all youths under 18 years of age.

"With the view of assisting to bring the proposed titles of 'Associate of Arts of Oxford,' and 'Associate of Arts of Cambridge,' within the reach of the Members of Institutes in union with this Society, the Council will grant to each youth, not less than 16 or more than 18 years of age, who shall obtain, in 1858, three of the Society's Certificates of the First Class in the subjects contained in

the Oxford and Cambridge Programmes, the sum of 57. towards his expenses, if he attends at the University and undergoes the Examination there.

"By order of the Council of the Society of Arts.

Nov. 23, 1857.

"P. LE NEVE FOSTER,

66

Secretary."

It should be stated, with although no such title as yet been decided on, the Syndicate, to which the subject of MiddleClass Examination had been referred at Cambridge, has been reappointed, with a view to the further consideration of the subject preparatory to a report to be presented next Term. The consideration of the Middle Class Examinations happened to come before the members of the Senate at a very inconvenient time, when they were occupied with internal questions of great importance which did not admit of postponement, but which had been previously disposed of at Oxford. In the mean time it is a great satisfaction to Oxford men to know that they will have the advantage of cooperation with Cambridge men of high distinction at Birmingham, at Leeds,* at Liverpool, and at Cheltenham; and that, if any or all of those places should be appointed as local centres of examination for the year 1858, information of the greatest value will be collected for the guidance of both Universities in their future plans.

reference to the foregoing extract, that, Associate of Arts of Cambridge' has

*The following Resolutions of the Leeds Law Society, passed 11th December, are here printed as the first result of a public meeting at Leeds on the 9th December, for the consideration of the Oxford Regulations:

"That the Society hails with great satisfaction the measures taken by the University of Oxford for the examination of those who are not members of the University, not only as a valuable encouragement to the education of all classes, but as especially calculated to promote the highly important object of raising the general education of youths intended for the profession of attorneys and solicitors. That Mr. Shaw, Mr. Bulmer, and Mr. Teale be a committee to prepare such memorial for signature, and take such other steps from time to time as may appear calculated to assist the University authorities in their application of the system to youths intended for the profession."

It is understood that the subject of the foregoing resolutions is about to be brought under the consideration of the Incorporated Law Society and the Metropolitan and Provincial Law Association-two societies which, taken together, may be considered as fairly representing the great body of the profession of attorneys and solicitors in town and country. (See the Memorial subsequently sent, p. 95.)

ORIGIN AND OBJECTS

OF

THE NEW OXFORD EXAMINATIONS

FOR THE

TITLE OF ASSOCIATE IN ARTS, &c.

THE plan of Examinations sketched out by Mr. Temple in his letters to Dr. Jeune in April last has been fully considered by the Delegates appointed by Statute at Oxford on the 18th of June, and embodied as to all its essential features in a programme for the year 1858.

The time seems therefore to have arrived for laying before the public some information as to the steps taken in the interval, and more particularly for pointing out the lessons to be learnt from that first experiment in Devonshire, of which Mr. Temple spoke in his second letter, as nearly representing what he wished to be taken up by the University, and extended to the whole country.

Since Mr. Temple's proposal was laid before the Council, numerous memorials have been presented to the University, and much information has been collected from persons engaged in education. The examination in the West of England has actually taken place, furnishing useful data for judgment as to the future operation and scope of the regulations adopted by the University of Oxford.

The present volume contains the principal documents and correspondence relating to the Oxford Statute, and some account of the Exeter examination.

Before commenting on these papers it may be well to glance at the steps heretofore taken with a view to the improvement of education, as they bear more or less directly on the present

*See below, p. 75.

B