THE OXFORD CHANCELLORSHIP.
AMONG the many and various offices of dignity and power with which the respect and gratitude of the country invested the late Duke of Wellington, perhaps the one least apparently suitable to his character and exploits was the Chancellorship of the Univer- sity of Oxford. Yet there was something in the homage paid by the pen to the sword, by the men of thought and speech to the man of action, which betokened on the part of those who paid it a largeness of view, and a sympathy extending beyond their own special pursuits, which have generally characterized the English Universities, and have prevented them from sinking into mere schools of pedantry, buried in the contemplation of the past, or
alive only to the literary and scientific and religious activity of the present. And if to this feeling of reverence for a greatness not in their own line was added, as a further motive to their homage, the consideration that the Duke was the head of the Con- servative party in this country, we can conceive no motive that would do less discredit to such a body. For the Duke was in no sense the representative of a bygone and effete political system—in no sense the votary of a simply non-progressive creed. He had already repealed the Test Act; he had already carried Catholic Emancipation; had given in his frank submission to the popularized constitution of Parliament ; and had commenced that career in which, allied with Sir Robert Peel, he became instrumental in passing a series of legislative reforms of wide scope, and based upon the great principle that the interests of the people were the proper aim of the Government. Thus, in confer- ring upon the Duke of Wellington the highest dignity which was in its power to bestow, the University of Oxford not only showed its sense of great national services,—services for which men of peace and addicted to science and literature ought to be especially thankful,—but it also accepted the political changes which he had accomplished, and gave its sanction to the new system under which the constitutional powers of the country were distributed, instead of marking its continued opposition and its sullen dissent, as it might have done, by electing to the vacant dignity a representative of the old unyielding Toryism, or one who had taken no prominent part in the politics of his age.
This grand titular office is again vacant, and Oxford has to give the country a proof of what she herself is in choosing the man whom she delighteth to honour. It is not to be expected, it is not perhaps to be desired, that rank, and social standing, and political eminence, should not be allowed their weight in this decision. By selecting a man of purely scientific or literary distinction, Oxford traditions would be broken and something of comprehensiveness would be forfeited. Our Universities have sympathies and inte- rests that are national, practical, and political ; and sorry should we be for any step which should seem to disclaim or to dispar- age them : sure we are that literature and science themselves would only become dwarfed and withered, when a connexion ceased to be acknowledged between their interests and the political life and institutions of the country,—a connexion fitly enough symbolized by investing with honorary rank- in our Uni- versities eminent statesmen, lawyers, and generals. There is cer- tainly no reason why in this case Oxford should desert her ancient traditions.'
It would be sheer impertinence in a London newspaper to urge upon the University of Oxford the claims or fancied claims of any favourite of its own. But attention may without offence be directed to certain general considerations to which Oxford will do well to give heed in her choice of a Chancellor, for the sake of her own reputation and interest. For her own reputation, then, she ought not to let the Hebdomadal Board select the chief officer, as the man after the heart of the Hebdomadal Board will certainly not be the man to do, credit to Oxford taste or discernment in the eyes of the world. Nor, apart from the wisdom those gentlemen have always displayed in University affairs, and the enlightened spirit of progress of which they have ever been the organs, is it right or expedient that a knot of ancients accidentally resident at Oxford should be allowed to anticipate the public opinion of the Univer- sity, and rush with indecent haste to make offer of a prize which is not theirs to give, in a quarter which is just now suspiciously attractive to aspirants for the higher clerical preferments. In the educational affairs of the University, those who have to carry plans into execution may perhaps expect to be allowed a vox pre- rogative; but no such claim is allowable in the disposal of an office which is simply honorary, and whose occupant should be a man in harmony not with the views and party opinions of this or that clique or order, but with the aims of the great institution he will have to represent—with the permanent opinions of its members as influenced by their education and social position, rather than with any momentary preference occasioned by the rapid shifting of parties in a free state. Plainly, no chief of a faction should be Chancellor of Oxford merely because he is chief of a faction. Moreover, the Hebdomadal Board has exhibited such marked opposition ?to University reform in any shape, that for this reason alone its dictation should be spurned, and the man of its choice suspected. It can do Oxford nothing but harm to allow this board of obstructives to give the English public fresh cause for arguing that the University is opposed to all internal progress ; and this must be the result of suffering them to nominate a Chan- cellor who will embody their own stupid refusal to move on or to be moved on. It might be hinted, too, that the surest way to draw down upon the University mere political animosity, would be to select as its champion and favourite one whose sole distinc- tion is that he is, by accident of not being able to see before him, the leader of an extreme political faction, and the sole ground of whose choice by the University would thus seem to be their dislike to his political opponents. Such homage is felt as a challenge and defiance ; and there are men who will not be slow so to construe it. For in this case it can be no attachment to a principle that can be the actuating motive. Whatever principle may have animated Lord. Derby for the last six years minus six months, he has now abandoned; and if at this moment he is conscious of any principle upon which to carry on the Government, it must be faith in Dis- raeli; and the man to whom the compliment is really due, as the working head of the party. to which Lord Derby lends the orna- ment of his title, is Benjamin himself. Let Benjamin, then, be Chancellor, if the office is to be bestowed on such grounds. Those who are fond of contrast, will at least find that taste pleasantly stimulated by the change from the hero of Water- loo to the author of Coningsby. And if Lord Derby has no claim to the Chancellorship on the ground of public ser- vices, or as the representative of a great principle, but, on the other hand, is decidedly objectionable because he represents no principle and has done the state little or no service, and neither in his character, pursuits, nor public career, has shown any peculiar qualities of mind or sympathies that mark him out as a natural favourite of a learned and religious corporation, what possibly can be the motive that has led the Oxford Heads to adopt him ? Nothing, apparently, but the accidental fact that he is, under an extraordinary transition state of parties, provisional Prime Minis- ter, and perhaps the additional fact that he is looked upon as less likely than any other statesman to take measures for readapting the Universities to the wants of the age as recognized by Conser- vatives. Surely Oxford will not allow her highest dignity to be made either an appendage to Parliamentary power gained by arts at which virtue blushes, and wielded without dignity or patriot- ism, or a badge of senseless opposition to one of the plainest and most pressing demands of the time and of the country. The loaves and fishes can attract but few, and the mere presence of such a bait should arouse the activity of those who would not see the dig- nities of their University sold and bought. We remember that Lord Grenville beat Lord Eldon, with all his patronage and official influence, in times when these were used more unblushingly and succumbed to more shamelessly than now ; and we cannot forget that, not three months since, Oxford triumphantly returned Mr. Gladstone, in spite of Cabinet exertions, and because he was not the symbol of a blind reaction or a stupid inaction. Nor let Oxford men forget that, notwithstanding the indecorous haste of the resident bureaucrats, Lord Derby's is not the only name offered to their notice. The Duke of Newcastle may typify for them the real working statesmanship of the modern sera,— cautious, enlightened, high-principled, and progressive ; one who has suffered for conscience, and has so given pledge that public principles and national interests are his impelling motives. Lord wby is a nobleman whom all parties respect for his integ- rity, his superiority to mere party, and his talents. The Earl of Ellesmere's praises are in every one's fnouth, as a man of princely liberality in higher senses than that 6f giving alms ; a public man by the very splendour of his private virtues ; one whose patron- age of and sympathies with science, literature, and art, would seem to mark him out as a fitting representative of a university. There can be no doubt that, but for Lord Derby's tenure of office, any one of the three would be considered a more eligible candidate; and it will be no credit to Oxford if this is seen to • be her one thing needful, the cynosure of reverend expeotants and "political partisans. Oxford has hosts of sons who are neither the one nor the other.
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