BOOKS.

MR. PAITISON ON ACADEMICAL ORGANIZATION.* THE public, dimly conscious that Oxford has initiated or accepted during the last twenty years great changes in the distribution of her revenues and in her studies, will probably receive with impatience proposals for a fresh reform which is nothing less than a revolution. This impatience will not be diminished when it finds the reformer declaring his belief that the Oxford training is " the best to be had at this time in Europe." " Why not leave well alone?" will be the common cry. Whether the popular mind can be made to sympathize with, or even to understand, the principles from which Mr. Pattison starts or the object which he proposes to attain, is a point on which that gentleman himself is not sanguine. To make Oxford the seat of a profession of learning in its widest sense, to have in the University an " organization of Science" rather than an instrument, however efficient, of teaching, are aims to which the spirit of the age seems to be increasingly hostile. " Culture for culture's sake " must sound, of course, the most unmeaning of phrases to those who do not even believe in culture as a means ; such fanatics we may, perhaps, disregard ; but it is a sign more ominous of evil that even those who are not tainted with this madness are too ready to regard it as an impossible ideal. The men of science, who have most reason for being faithful to the higher principle, are content to accommodate themselves to vulgar notions, and to rest the claims of the studies for which they plead upon the utilities which they may be shown to subserve. Nevertheless, there is one point of view from which the prospect is more hopeful. Many who have themselves but a feeble faith in the intrinsic value of knowledge, may yet feel that there is one place where such a faith is indispensable, and that this place is a University. Mr. Pattison is saying nothing more than a truth which is demonstrable from a common experience, when he declares that " no teacher who is a teacher only, and not also himself a daily student, who does not speak from the love and faith of habitual intuition, can be competent to teach any of the higher parts of any moral or speculative science." He might, we think, have gone further than this. It is true of every subject that no mechanical skill of teaching can fill the place of that contagious enthusiasm which is inspired only by the disinterested love of knowledge. If, indeed, education is to be exchanged for the acquisition of " useful knowledge," all is lost ; but learning may be saved, if only the world can be convinced that without learning it is impossible to secure even the highest efficiency of teaching.

That learning is perishing, if it has not perished, in Oxford is a fact familiar to all who really know the place. It was foretold long ago by Dean Gaisford, who regarded it as the inevitable

'Suggestions on Academical Organizations, with Especial Reference to Oxford. By Mark Pattison, RD., Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. Edinburgh: Edmonton and Douglas. 1868.

result of the system of examinations. The portentous growth of that system has hastened the fulfilment of the prediction. Pro- fessor Seeley, deploring the overpowering influence exerted by the two great Cambridge Triposes upon the studies of the place, sees something to be imitated in the practice of Oxford. But in one respect at least that practice is most injurious. It makes the examinations incessant. The schools are another Temple of Janus. The effect which one would naturally expect is produced. As the same men are examiners and teachers, the actual work of the colleges is continually interrupted. This might be endured ; but the evil is more serious. The amount of the work is so over- powering that, except to men of extraordinary powers, private study is impossible. And the work is not even of the highest kind. Great abilities are wasted in bringing up the stupid and the idle to the lowest standard of Uni- versity requirements. But those who would gain the higher distinctions almost universally seek for aid elsewhere. It is the exception when " first classes" are in any way credited to the instruction given by the College. Private tutors, often but two or three years older than those whom they instruct, supply them with the ready-made wares which they have themselves success- fully exhibited. The genuine relation of the master and disciple is nowhere to be seen.. The professors, whom we might expect to realize it, who personally are often eager to do so, can do little more than render gratuitously the services which are generally purchased from the " coach." For the higher knowledge there is no encouragement, and even no leisure. Oxford has many men of great intellectual activity, and not a few elegant and even deeply read scholars, but learning is almost a tradition of the past.

To remedy this evil, Mr. Pattison proposes in this volume an elaborate scheme, of which we can but indicate the outlines : the changes which he suggests are sweeping; to many they will seem. inexpedient, to many more impracticable ; but no one will deny the great ability which his proposals display. The principles are- firmly grasped, and lucidly stated; the details are thoroughly well considered. We have no doubt liut that if some despot should establish the new constitution in Oxford to-morrow it would " work."

Mr. Pattison's suggestions provide,—(1), for the redistribution of endowments ; (2), for the rearrangement and extension of studies. The effect of the former, broadly stated, would be to destroy the individual existence of the Colleges. Mr. Pattison, indeed, will not admit this. " They [the suggestions]," he says, " do not require or imply the diversion of funds from the use of one corporation to that of another." It is true that the buildings would remain, as resi- dences for the families of professors, or lodgings for students ; and that the old names would continue to distinguish the head-quarters of the various faculties, All Souls, e.g., becoming the abode of law. But the life in common is to be abolished ; the management of the estates is to be transferred to a central board ; the scholarships and whatever fellowships are spared are to be filled up by Uni- versity examiners.

The scholarships, which are calculated to amount in aggregate annual value to 35,0001., Mr. Pattison considers to be too numer- ous and too valuable. " The scholar's gown," he says, " is too often to be found on youths who have no vocation for science or literature." " The scholar treats his 801. a year as so much pocket- money, to be spent in procuring himself extra luxuries." These remarks are the results of a large experience, and are undoubtedly true of Oxford as it is ; but we have also to think of Oxford as it might be. A pecuniary encouragement, which is excessive when it is applied to one branch of study and distributed among one class, might not be found too large under a wider system. It would be rash permanently to alienate this fund before it is seen of what extension the University is capable. The proposal to transfer the selection of scholars from the Colleges to a Central Board of Examiners is a point of detail which must depend upon the settlement of more important questions. Of the Fellowships, estimated at the annual value of 90,0001., Mr. Pattison would leave a few only to serve as the chief prizes of academical distinction, a purpose to which, as he points out, the whole are now devoted. His argument on this point appears to us unanswerable. This endowment, as it is at present constituted, is wholly dissociated from the pursuit of knowledge or the work of education. There is no obligation to residence that can be practically enforced ; there is no obligation whatever to study or to teach. Knowledge, of course, may be indirectly promoted by splendid prizes which reward its successful acquisition. But even this benefit is reduced within the narrowest limits, Knowledge of all kinds but one is dis- couraged. "A Fellowship examination is a mere repetition of the examination in the public schools, by a less competent Board

of Examiners If he (the young B. A.) engages in

the higher scientific study of any branch of knowledge,' in proportion as his insight deepens, in that proportion he sees his hope of a fellowship vanish ; he will easily be distanced in ' Latin composition' by a junior competitor warm from his feats of boyish rhetoric, or ready with reams of speculative declamation on philosophy." Something, indeed, may be said on the other side of the question. But the fellowships rarely indeed afford the Ire" u2-(;) from which genius moves the world. The theory is that fellowships afford leisure for active thought on literary and social subjects. Practically they are far oftener the opiates by which literary and social energies are soothed into a gentle lethargy.

The funds obtained by the curtailment of the Scholarships and

the suppression of Fellowships, added to the revenues of the existing Professorships, are to be made into an " endowment of science and learning," which is to supply at the same time a com- plete apparatus of teaching. The present system, by which the function of instruction is almost entirely delegated to the desul- tory efforts of the Colleges, involves a monstrous waste of time and power. Twenty men may be lecturing at the same time on the same book. The ablest teacher of them all may be wasting his energies on the scantiest and most irresponsive audience ; the most eager and talented disciples may have to listen to the prosing of the most incompetent teacher. For this system Mr. Pattison would substitute an organization which, though certain studies would be still localized in certain colleges, would essentially belong to the University. There would be four orders of teachers. First, i.e., lowest in the scale, come the " Tutors." Every student, while perfectly at liberty to choose whether or no he will attach himself to a College, must put himself under the charge of a Tutor. This office everyM. A. (the M.A. degree being equivalent to the B.A. of the present) may assume, if he can find pupils. From their payments he is to receive his chief, if not his whole remuneration. From the Tutors are to be selected the " Lecturers." The "Lecturers," again, are to furnish the order next above them in dignify, the "Professor-Fellows," who, however, may be taken, if occasion should demand, from without the University. Finally, the edifice is to be crowned by the order of " Senior Fellows," or Heads of Houses, who are to act as " Masters and Administra- tors" when, to use Mr. Pattison's phrase, " the College is to remain a boarding-house," in other cases, are to be "the presi- dents of learned bodies." Finally, an elaborate scheme is sug- gested for the constitution of a Board of five Curators, in whom is to be vested the patronage of all these offices.

We pass on to consider the studies over which this hierarchy of teachers is to preside. A proposition of the utmost importance encounters us at the outset. Mr. Pattison would abolish the Pass Examinations. He says :— " We must not close our eyes to the fact that the honour students are the only students who are undergoing any educational process which it can be considered as a function of a University either to exact or to impart These cannot be estimated at more than 30 per cent. of the whole number frequenting the University. The remaining 70 per cent. not only furnish from among them all the idleness and extra- vagance, which are become a byword throughout the country, but cannot be considered to be even nominally pursuing any course of university studies at all."

All this is undoubtedly true ; the attainments required for the B.A. degree are ludicrously small ; it seems that they would not secure even admission into the better Universities of Germany. Mr. Pattison is not exaggerating when he says that " the degree denotes no grade of intellectual cultivation, but has a merely social value." And certainly his proposal would cut the knot of more than one difficulty. There would be no need of sumptuary laws, no need of poor men's colleges, if be could banish the crowd of idlers, indolent or strenuous, " foppish exquisites of the drawing-room or barbarized athletes of the arena," whom the custom of their order inflicts upon the University. A reformer who can succeed in " transferring the whole fabric of the Univer- sity from the ground of social prestige and wealth, rank, aristo- cratical connection, on which it now stands, to that of science, learning, and culture," may safely leave all minor questions to solve themselves. Vice, extravagance, and prejudice, social and religious, if they never can be banished altogether, would be reduced to a minimum in an assemblage of genuine students. That some who cannot now be so described might come under another system to deserve the title ; that, relieved from the fear of examinations which harass but do not correct, they might still frequent the libraries and lecture-halls of the University, Mr. Pattison believes ; but he certainly expects and hopes that a large proportion of the well-born youth who now frequent Oxford

will be seen there no longer. Will this be well ? He complains that culture is vanishing from the upper class. Will this restore it ? There is another yet more pressing difficulty which Mr. Pattison perceives, but adroitly escapes. He feels himself ab- solved, he says, from dealing with theological or ecclesiastical ques- tions. But he is dealing with one such question most vigorously when he proposes to abolish the Pass degree. It is not too much to say that the ultimate object of more than half the students at Oxford is the B.A. degree as a practical passport for admission into the clerical profession, and that of this half more than seventy per cent. are contented with a pass. " Contented," indeed, is not the word ; many of them are positively incapable of more. Mr. Pattison says, " It is of the highest consequence to the welfare of society that the clergy should continue to receive their education in common with the rest of the community, and not in clerical seminaries apart." But will they under these circumstances con- Anne to frequent the Universities? These will have ceased to confer the degree which now marks the minimum of general culti- vation which is required of candidates for Orders. The Bishops cannot demand " honours." They cannot, having in view the pressing needs of the Church, raise their requirements ; they can hardly keep them at their present level. They will have to ascer- tain for themselves not only the theological knowledge which they require, but also the general competence of which the University now gives a certificate. It is probable that these examinations will be lax and unsatisfactory ; it is certain that the theological seminaries, assuming the function which the University will have abdicated, and furnishing their students with the precise quantum of knowledge required, will secure an enormous advantage.

The honour students will have to pass at the end of their first year the examination now known as Moderations, of which there would be two schools, the classical and mathematical. " With Moderations the training and the tests of scholarship should end." The effect would be to depress scholarship still more than it is already depressed at Oxford. We doubt whether Mr. Pattison would deplore the result. But a study which is to be treated as an inferior had better be banished or ignored altogether. Scholar- ship requires as much as any other study the devotion of a life in those who would attain its highest results. Where shall we find men to preserve its tradition, if the University is to declare it worthy of only the lowest grade of its honours? But it is "the final examination in the school of Literm Humaniores that is the heart and life of the system." The opinion which a thoroughly competent judge, who is at the same time a radical reformer, has formed upon the actual working of this school is well worth quoting:—

"There seems to be scarcely any of the debatable questions of politics, morals, and metaphysics on which the candidate may not be asked to give his views. The horizon of the examination is as wide as that of philosophical literature The best papers are no mere schoolboy themes, spun out with hackneyed common-places, but full of life and thought, abounding with all the ideas with which modern society and its best current literature are charged I do not believe that there exists at this moment in Europe any public institution for education, where what are called the results of modern thought in all political and speculative subjects (the philosophy of religion, perhaps, alone excepted) are so entirely at home, as they are in our honour examin- tions in the school of Literce Humaniores."

This candid avowal in the advocate of change will pro- bably astonish his readers. But he proceeds to point out to them, in a passage of great weight (p. 293, seq.), to which we would especially direct attention, the radical defect of the system. " It encourages," he says, " speculation not based upon knowledge." The student seizes the results of other men's investigations and appropriates them for the purpose of the time, without making them in any real sense his own. The subjects of history and philosophy Mr. Pattison would remove from the classical examination, which they now overwhelm with anomalous matter. In their proper place, as sub-faculties of law, they would become genuine and scientific studies.

The faculty of Language and Literature would then be left without admixture of foreign matter, consisting of three subdivi- sions :—(1) comparative philosophy ; (2) classics (the scientific as opposed to the verbal study of classical literature) ; (3) the theory and archaeology of art. If the higher scholarship, which is now most insufficiently tested by the Hertford and Ireland exam- inations, and by the competition for the composition prizes, were incorporated with the first or made a subdivision by itself, we should say that the scheme was complete. With Theology Mr. Pattison does not deal. He points out that with regard to Law the University cannot carry out a complete scheme without the co-operation of other bodies, though there are subjects, as the science of jurisprudence and the Roman law, which she might teach independently. Then we have Medicine ; Mathematics, and Physics, the latter being subdivided into chemical and biological science, and natural philosophy ; and finally, Civil Engineering, Architecture, &c. We can but enumerate these subjects with the remark that only one or two of them are strange to Oxford, and that to put them on a footing of independence and equality, is but to complete a movement which the University has already begun.

We are bound to say that Mr. Pattison's figures are not always very correct. What can he mean by saying that "the whole cost of preparation for the medical profession averages 150/. ? " The fees amount to 1001., and the course for the ordinary qualification of a general practitioner requires three years.

We cannot help regretting that we are unable to bestow on Mr. Pattison's book the literary criticism which it deserves. It has seldom been our good fortune to meet with English so nervous and so exact. But a writer who absorbs the attention of his critics with his matter must be content if they are neglectful of his style.