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expel diseased , and to expand healthy function , is not inseparable from the governing and sole initiating authority residing in a small committee of College presidents . " Mr . Melville ( Ev . 57 ) , " The perpetual misunderstanding hetween the Hebdomadal B oard and Convocation has greatly tended to impede useful reforms . There lias beeiUiUnoreover a natural jealousy that those who in general have no share in the instruction of the place , and are a good deal isolated by age and position , should have the sole superintendence of education . " Mr . Jowitt ( Ev . 30 ) , " The constitution of the University as established by Archbishop
Laud , answered a good purpose in its day , by preventing disorder and otherwise , but its practical effect is to reverse the proper relation of the Colleges and the University . " Sir F . Head ( Ev . 160 ) , " The qualifications of a Board of -rrpofiovkoi , would seem chiefly to be , an incapability of forming a clique , or in any way possessing feelings and interests alien from those of the University at large . It is clear that these requirements are not met by the Hebdomadal Board , which forms an oligarchy in very nearly the strictest sense . " Mr . Freeman ( Ev . 135 ) , " The Heads of Houses may perhaps be aware of any change in external manners , but
with the current of thought and opinion they cannot be acquainted . " Mr . Temple ( Ev . 133 ) , " When the Heads are taken from those who have been Fellows , the incumbent of a valuable College living is frequently chosen , as two persons unite their influence for that purpose , the incumbent and the person who is entitled to succeed liim . I am inclined to think that the peculiar qualities which fit a man to preside over a place of education , Lave seldom much influence ; the selection is made from a very narrow circle , and even in that circle the best or even the second best is seldom chosen . " Mr . Senior ( Ev . 17 . )
Enough has been quoted to raise a doubt whether the Board is supported by any independent authority —Dr . Cardwell is himself one of its members—in denying the necessity of reform . The men to whose evidence wo are referred are not likely to lend themselves to a factious clamour . The Board is not the object-butt of a demagogy ; it is not first misrepresented , and then attacked ; it ia not blindly distrusted because unpopular , but unpopular becaxise reasonably distrusted . If the Hebdomadal Board possesses the confidence of any independent section of the intelligent and influential members of the University , why do they
not attempt its vindication against these grnve statements and charges ? Granted that they hold the Commission to he illegal , and that , to give evidence in reply to its questions , would be a violation of doty . Is it nothing to them that these statements are received by the nation as well founded , that the Univeririty is believed to be degraded to a private school for college ends , and that its governing body is held to be elected on grounds no better than those said to determine the nomination of a Gravesend corporation ? If these
statements are not true they are calumnious . No statutory oath enjoin ^ silence under libel . Let the Board proceed against the most rash of its impugners ; nay , let it simply show that such motives as those alleged by Mr . Cox are not thoBe by which the elections are habitually influenced ; and that public opinion , by which they are now so unfavorably judged , will do it full justice , while none the less insititing on its reform . It was perhaps in vindication and corroborat ion of such avulo . tw . i' flint , tlio Commissioners hnvo closed their
volume with a document , to which wo here draw attention . It is a statement supplementary to the evidence from Lincoln College , respecting certain appeals to the Visitor against " discreditable and corrupt practices , " which hutl prevailed at the recent election of the Hector . The appellant ottered to prove that certain of the Follows had resolved to elect no one Rector who . se election should not give promotion to themselves , by vacating a college living ; and that , by letter and in conversation , they had pronounced the gentleman whom they afterwards elected " decidedly incompetent ,
and most unfit for the office . " The Bishop of Lincoln dismissed tho nppcals ; but added , that ho " feels it bin painful duty to observe , that although ho finds no nufllcient ground for pronouncing that corrupt practices prevailed at the election , ho finds much which is calculated to reflect little credit , on the College . " A decision about an satisfactory and logical as that of tho 'Bishop of Rochester , in Mr . Winston ' s case ; and yet we are told that to Vinitor » we must look hh tho only and Hiiflicient source of College reform , assuming it at all nccuHHury !
We uHHurt that the Hebdomadal Board lias forfeited confidence . Under its control tho University liaus abdicated Hh educational functions , and , in all essentials , no longer exintii . This is the chief fact of all— that to which it liunl )»> on perhaps tho main buninesH of the Coninunnion to addren « it , Holf—one unconsciously tulinitted by im able defender of things as they stiil are ,
in a reply of twenty years date to the " calumnies" of the Edinburgh Heview , when he asserted that the University of Oxford was not a national foundation , but a congeries of private foundations . It is acknowledged , with a pleasant simplicity , in the memorable letter addressed " on behalf of the Board of Heads of House ' s and Proctors , " by Dr . Pliimptre , to the late Chancellor . The governing body of the University declare that education at Oxford depends on the goodwill of the Heads and Fellows ; and we are required to
give them the praise of laborious disinterestedness . " It should be observed that the Colleges have not been usually founded , or , in all cases , endowed for the education of youth , but for higher purposes . The education of youth has , in most ; instances , been superadded to their other duties by the Heads and Fellows of Colleges , of their own free will , to the great advantage of the community . " Perhaps so ; and the argument may tell for the Colleges . But where is the University when its Vice-Chancellor argues only for University College ?
The covert insinuation implied in these words is well understood at Oxford by all but the merest freshman . A ' man' enters at a College , or perhaps a Hall , with or without examination , as that particular society may have ruled its terms of admission ; and accompanied by the Dean or Vice-Principal , he appears before the Vice-Chancellor , to matriculate . He cannot , it must be remembered , be admitted a member of the University until previously received into one of the constituent bodies . He pays his fees , listens to an admonition , substituted for the oath , to observe the statutes formerly exacted at Matriculation ; and calls himself
forthwith an University-man . But for four years after the important moment of admisssion , what does he know or think of the University , unless cited in the Vice-Chancellor ' s Court , or except when the " velvet sleeves " cross his path , or when he glances at the modest charge for University dues , entered terminally in his Battell Bill ? He leans from the undergraduate gallery of St . Mary's , as the scarlet-robed members of the Hebdomadal Board enter , preceded by bedells with gold sticks and silver sticks ; but he knows f&ein only as Heads of Houses , and he knows , too , it may be from personal experience , that any gentleman among them
can signify to any undergraduate of his house , that he is admitted only by grace and favour ; nor , were it possible that an act of injustice could be committed , is there any University authority to which he could appeal for redress . Such a contingency is , we admit , very unlikely , still the fact ifl as we state it ; and where the College may judge ( and usually , we admit , with very good reason ) that the removal of an undergraduate member is expedient , lie is fortunate if , by a migrare liceat , or a bene discessit , he may seek entranco into another society . Unless he can do this he ceases , ipso facto , to be a member of the Universisy .
It is the same when he has graduated . Formerly , none but resident regents ( or masters obliged to teach publicly some of the subjects pertaining to their faculty ) and non-regents , formed the Houso of Convocation , and these were not necessarily members of a society . Now , there are no University Boards or Books ; and , by a convenient and lucrative fiction , those are held to be convictores , or resident members , who retain their names upon the books of a College or Hall . Thus , in its government , the subjugation of tho University is complete ; and we can understand how the animus of tho private corporations extinguished the public spirit of the 249 members of Convocation , who , on the 21 st of May , 1851 , sanctioned the petition to tho Queen against the Commission , whoso object
was , and was known to be , no other than the roeBtnblishment of the University . Such a voto was not surprising from a body . in which it ia not too much to say the educated members form but a small minority , and which , the Commissioners inform us , has more than once rejected reforms proposed even by tho Hebdomadal Board . The body , which numbers among its members the gentleman mentioned by Mr . Cox , an taking part in almost ull tho important bu . siness of Convocation , having been five times rejected ( why not plucked ?) at the responsions and degree examinations ( ' little go' and ' great go ') in the worthy representative of the assembly , which , for want of readier reply , hissed the 1 ' roetorn in 1758 , when they proved Mint tho University had no power to alter the Laudian Statutes , to which if , had sworn .
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SUNDAY KKPOUAt 1 'Olt TJIK WORKING OLAHHKS . Wjo direct the special attention of all readers interested in promoting Sunday reform to a letter in our Opon Council of this week from Mr . William Newton . Measures are ' wo believe * , already in progress for carrying out Mr . Wowton ' s NUfjtfONlioiiH , l > y calling together public nioetingH of ( . lie industrious cIuhhch in every lm- ^ n town in Kiifjlaml , for tho cunroMiion of opinion and the Hiijiiinfj of potilionti in
favour of opening the Sydenham Palace on Sunday .- Wo propose very shortly to resume the consideration of this important subject , both in its moral and social bearings . In the meantime we earnestly entreat every one interested in overthrowing present Sabbath restrictions ( and all men who desire innocent recreation on tho Sunday are so interested , whether they live in London or not ) to lose no opportunity of attending the meetings shortly to be convened , and of supporting the petitions which at those meet < ings will be presented for signature . Our adversaries arc
unrelenting ia their opposition to the project that W 6 advocate : we must show the country , and tho Houses o £ Parliament which represent it , that we aro every whit as active , as resolute , and as united on our side , or we slull lose the victory for want of earnest and effectual combination . Let all friends of Sunday reform who have hitherto delayed coming forward to support it , remember in iime the vital importance of tho truth contained in the old Bible maxim— " He luho is not with us is against us . " If we only make this our watch-word , and if we act up to it to the very letter , success is certain .
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NEW UNSTAMPED PAPEBS . Wb lately noticed the Potteries Free Press , an unstamped penny paper , to which we can now add the Political Examiner , a new weekly political journal of the same clasa . In point of sound political information , moderation of demand , and intelligence of advocacy , these papers evince the great progress made since the days of tho unstamped agitation .. No rational Government can have tho slightest pretext for not freeing the press when working class papers of this order are issued . In fact , to fetter such publications by taxes on the mere blank paper , or by fiscal restrictions which prevent such papers from appearing under legal sanction , is no less an offence against knowledge than against sound policy .
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THE LAW AS TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF OATHS . ( To the ISditor of tho Leader . ) Snt , —Mr . Ilolyoake , in a letter to your Open Council , in tho Leader of the 2 i ) th of January , expressed a wish to bo informed , through tho medium of your columns , whether Mr . Commissioner Phillips was not empowered by the statute 1 and 2 Viet ., c . 105 , to receive his oath when he offered himself as bail for an
Insolvent on a recent occasion . As the subject is of considerable importance , and must ho interesting to some of your readers , I venture to offer you a fow remarks upon the above statute , and generally upon tho law as it now stands , with respect to the incompetency of persons who do not believe " in the existence of God , and that Divino punishment will be tho certain consequence of perjury , " to lake an oath and to give evidence in our Courts of Justice . The statute 1 and 2 Vic . f ; ., c . 1 () 5 , is fully net out in Mr . Ilolyoake ' s letter . It enivcts that " in all . cases in which an " oath may lawfully bo administered 1 . 0 any person , &c , such person is bound by the oath administered , provided the mime shall have been iidinini . stercd in such form and with . such cnrcinonicH as such person miry declare to be binding . " Now in my opinion thm clearly does not givo tho power to Mr . Phillips , or any other judge , to administer an oath to Mr . ifolyoako , although ho should declare such oath , as administered , to be binding ; and for this simple reason , that ho id not a person who may lawfully be sworn—bis is not a case " in which an oath nmy lawfully be administered , " because h « has not that religious belief which the law reuuiroH of every man to render him competent
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230 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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[ iIT TniS DEPARTMENT , AS AM OPINION'S , HOWEVER KXTHF . ME AUK ALLOWK 1 ) AN JOX I'REHSION , THE EDITOB NISCISSSAIULY HOLDS HIMSELF KESPONHI 11 LK 1 'OK NONE . ]
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There is no learned man but will confess he hai . h much profited by reading eontroversie . Sj his senses awakened , and ma judgment sharpened . ' It , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write . — Milton .
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Leader (1850-1860), March 5, 1853, page 230, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1976/page/14/
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