London, 3d Tune 1852.
Bra—I am one of those Oxford men who believe that a great reformation is needed in the University.; who desire light as to the way in which it may be most effectually accomplished ; and who receive with thankfulness the in- formation which the Commission has collected, as well as the suggestions which are the result of its wisdom and experience. I have also been wont to entertain a great respect for those members of different Colleges who main- tain even with some vehemence and pertinacity that no reform can be good or practical which does not originate with Parliament and receive its sanc- tion. Though I may dissent from some of their conclusions and many of their premises, I have always supposed that they were more friendly than most other men in Oxford to free discussion ; that they had more serious views of the duties which a learned body owes to science, to literature, to the country, and to humanity ; that they were leas likely than the devoted servants of the present system to identify the University with the Universe. I have been, therefore, surprised and pained in no ordinary degree by the letter signed M. A. in the Spectator of last Saturday. As the sentiments of it have been echoed in the Globe newspaper, I suppose it must be understood to speak the views of the Commission party. I am parry to bestow upon able men a name which I consider odious, but your correspondent compels me to do so. He writes as a man who acknowledges the obligations of a party, who subscribes ex ammo to the moral creed of a party. He main- tains that it is "suicidal" for University Reformers to vote for Mr. Glad- stone, not because another person whom Oxford would send is likely to sup- port the views of the Commission, but simply because it is desirable that they should be opposed by a weak man rather than by an able one. A more miserable party vulgarism I cannot oonceive. If I !mow myself, I would rather that the dearest and strongest conviction I have should be encoun- tered by a wise antagonist than by a fool. One will be as little able to shake my truth as the other ; but he will probably knock to pieces some silly ar- guments by which I had defended it; he will teach me something which I did not know before; he will very likely be a better instrument than I am in bringing others and at last himself to my cause though not perhaps to my side. Every supporter of a sound principle has ascertained this fact by ex- perience • it ought by this time to be a commonplace with us ; but it is one that party men cannot and will not recognize : they must hold it profound policy to get blockheads for their opponents, and suicidal to allow the elec- tion of a "comprehensive statesman" who has not arrived at their conclu- sions.
Your correspondent seems half conscious that he is wrong in the &eneml principle ; but then Oxford is a peculiar case. Where lies its peculiarity ? It is a learned body : therefore those who are zealous for its reputation should do what in them lies that it may be less creditably represented than an ordi- nary borough. It is a body in which mazy are narrowminded and dislike reform altogether : therefore those who are in favour of reform should en- courage them to think that their narrowness will be successful, and should imitate it by taking the most tortuous methods to advance their own views. It is a body in which those who are inclined to reform require that the different methods of it should be freely examined and debated : therefore the advocates of a particular kind of reform determine to disgust them, as they
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have disgusted me—who have no special reasons for liking Mr. Gladstone, and who dislike many of his opinions heartily—by showing that they cannot trust their opinions to a fair sifting. Every one has admirable reasons why a general law should not apply to him ; but I never saw a clever man BO hampered as your correspondent is in making out a plea of exemption for himself and his friends from the ordinary obligations of an elector. But M. A. would not object to see Mr. Gladstone an "Ambassador at Na- ples." Sir, I am sure he must repent by this time of having been betrayed into that heartless sneer. Does he know what would be the erect in Italy of Mr. Gladstone's rejection by Oxford ? Will it not be triumphantly announced that the University has violated a long-established custom that it may ex- press its horror of a man who dared to visit men confined for political offences and to publish his opinion of those who put them there ? Does your corre- spondent know that he will be cooperating so far as in him lies with Mr. Croker and the Quarterly Review to testify the sympathy of England with the Continental despots ? I do not expect the so-called Protestant party to see that they are playing into the hands of the Pope and his devoted son by their zealous indignation against a man who has struck a more telling blow against a hypocritical system than any Exeter Hall orator ever did ; but I do ask those who call themselves Liberals and Reformers, not to make them- selves and their pretensions ridiculous by taking pains to reject a man who has again and again risked his seat, his party, his reputation, that he might maintain his convictions ; who has never, sofar as I can disoeni, abandoned an opinion for the sake of place and interest, but who has abandoned a hun- dred most dear and cherished opinions when he had ascertained them to be
untenable. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, X.
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