Page images
PDF
EPUB

our hands, and become what I may call a Mechanics' Institute movement, instead of a real extension of such an education as the University would wish to see given. There are two practical proposals which I would make about it, and which I believe come within the powers of the Commissioners; one, that there should be an office for University extension and a secretary paid by the University; and the other, that the tenure of nonresident Fellowships, which I suppose to be in general limited, should be capable of extension in the case of persons lecturing or holding Professorships in the large towns. If these two suggestions are carried out, the University may take a useful part in a great work which is going on in the country.'

(4) In regard to the endowment of research Jowett was not inclined to go very far. No one can set a higher value on real research than I do,' he observed; but then it has to be considered that there are very few persons qualified for carrying it on; and therefore not much money would be required for it.' 'I should not include mere unproductive study under the title of research. I should define it as any kind of study that has definite results in adding to knowledge.' There should be no vague attempt to endow research as an abstract thing, no life payments which might degenerate into sinecures, but for any particular piece of work an adequate payment should be made.

(5) Passing to the proposed increase of the Professoriate, Jowett pointed out the difficulties which arise from the double system of teaching at Oxford, where there are two sets of teachers, the College Tutors and the Professors. With the proposal to take the teaching of Honour students out of the hands of the Colleges and place it in the care of the University he had no sympathy. It would be impracticable and undesirable. But he wished to see the two systems harmonized in such a manner that one would supplement the other, and with

[blocks in formation]

this view he would have more Readers and Professors, and connect them as closely as possible with the College Yet a Professor is to be something more than

Tutors.
a teacher :-

'We must look for higher duties from him, such as study and writing; and in Oxford we must expect the chief use of the Professors to be found in that. It is of great importance to collect men of ability who have leisure for writing, and here our Professorships afford us the means of doing so. Lastly, there is one thing which I would wish strongly to urge upon the Commission, in connexion with the Professoriate, and that is the necessity of providing a career for young men here. Formerly, a College Tutor was a clergyman; if he was able and ambitious he looked to preferment in the Church, and if he was not, he went off upon a College living. That has so far passed away that it is absolutely necessary to find some kind of career to which a College Tutor can look forward. Young men of ability cannot be expected to be satisfied with a prospect inferior to that which they would have had in the Civil Service. Even if they are inclined to teach, the best of them will leave the University if nothing is done for them. Thus the whole teaching of the place will degenerate. In order to retain them, I would urge the appointment of several Readers and Professors; and instead of opposing these to the College teaching I would, as much as possible, identify them with it; in my view it is an essential point that the Readerships should be tenable with College Tutorships, so that there should be a reward for a distinguished College Tutor.'

(6) On non-resident Fellowships Jowett expressed himself very strongly: he thought it most important to preserve them ::

"They form a link between the University and the professions which it is desirable for us to maintain and to strengthen as much as we can. At the same time I think that their tenure should be diminished, and perhaps their value reduced to £200 a year.' 'I should wish to see at least the

same amount of money assigned to them which is given at present.' 'Many more poor men come to the University now than formerly; it is a bad thing to bring them up here unless you provide them with the means of finding their way into a profession, for you compel them all to become schoolmasters, whether they are fitted for the occupation or not. The numbers and influence of the University greatly depend on the non-resident Fellows. I think them not a bad but a good element in the government of a College, because they prevent the residents from degenerating into a clique. They bring the experience of the outside world and the knowledge of a younger generation to bear upon the College. About many of the proposals which are made by University reformers I feel doubtful; they are in the future and they depend upon the selection of the right persons, upon the ability that we can draw towards the University, and upon other doubtful particulars. But I feel no doubt of the great advantage of giving distinguished young men the means of getting into a profession; it is one of the surest services that the Commission can do to the country, and I would increase rather than diminish that expenditure.'

Another subject on which Jowett gave evidence before the Commissioners was the Bodleian Library, of which as Professor of Greek he had for many years been one of the Curators. Most of his suggestions are of a special nature, concerning the amount of money required, the number of the officers necessary to carry on the work of the Library, and the provision of a larger space for the ever-growing mass of books. A few are of more general interest. (1) He was strongly in favour of Mr. Robarts' scheme for connecting the Bodleian with All Souls College', though he wished to devote a far

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

smaller proportion of the College funds to this object than Mr. Robarts had suggested. (2) He wished to see. a museum of classical art and archaeology established in connexion with the Bodleian and placed under the same administrator, for such a museum was needed in a University which is devoted to the study of the classics more than to any other branch of knowledge.' But (3) above all he wished to have a classified catalogue and a re-arrangement of the Library. If you run your eye

cursorily along the shelves of the gallery you see the most heterogeneous books placed together on the same shelf, and the Library is in a state of disorder unlike any other library.' This disorder he wished to remove by bringing together in the same cases the books on any one subject:

'I should like to see the Library so arranged,' he said, 'that Professor Stubbs could go into a room filled with books on his own subject and examine them as he pleased without the formality of sending for each volume separately. Such a plan would make the Library most useful to those who could make most use of it. It would also make it easier for the librarians to find books; and deficiencies would be detected more quickly.'

·

We have seen what

Jowett's attitude towards books and libraries was somewhat singular. He loved reading and delighted in looking over collections of books. You can hardly look at any library without finding in it some good book which is new to you,' he would say. pleasure he had in arranging the new Library at Balliol, and making it accessible to the undergraduates; and to the last he took a warm interest in the Bodleian. Yet there was nothing of which he spoke with so much bitterness as useless learning. How I hate learning!' he exclaimed. How sad it is to see a man who is learned

[ocr errors]

and nothing else, incapable of making any use of his knowledge!' 'Is learning of any use?' he asks himself in one of his note-books; and the answer is: 'Men are often or always unable to use it. It keeps men quiet, it clogs their efforts, it is creditable, it gratifies curiosity, but, for progress or mental improvement, learning without thought or imagination is worse than useless.' To him knowledge was a means and not an end. He read at odd moments, 'picking the brains' of a book just as he picked the brains of any one who had special knowledge of a subject. He was sensible too of the burden which the accumulated knowledge of the past imposes on the present, and would point out how scholars, in their dread of ignorance, become so weighted with learning that they lose their elasticity and freedom of thought, their sense of the proportion and value of facts. But he would not have approved of Lord Westbury's sarcastic proposal to 'remove the Bodleian'—a scheme much discussed at one time-by wheeling the books into the Parks and burning them. If a bad master, learning was a good servant. A man should know accurately and fully what it is his business to know. In his own department of Greek literature he read widely and systematically, so far as Greek authors were concerned. Of pamphlets, periodicals, and programmes he knew little, and became very impatient when any one brought him work based on such knowledge. 'In the present state of the question,' a pupil once began, but was at once taken up with 'Don't say that; there is no present state of the question. The question is where it was twenty years ago.'

The appointment of the University Commission rendered necessary a revision of the College Statutes, for

« PreviousContinue »