OXFORD
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OXFORD
til the end of Henry II's reign, that is about 1180, that
we know, chiefly on the authority of Giraldus Cani-
brensis, that a large body of scholars was in residence
at Oxford, though not probably yet living under any
organized constitution.
Half a century later Oxford was famous throughout Europe as a home of science and learning; popes and kings were among its patrons and benefactors; the stmlents are said to have been numbered by thou- sands; and the climax of its reputation was reached when, during the fifty years between 1220 and 1270, the newly-founded orders of friars — Dominican, Fran- ciscan, Carmelite, and Austin — successively sot tied at Oxford, and threw all their enthusiasm into the work of teaching. Kindled by their zeal, the older monas- tic orders, encouraged by a decree of the Lateran Council of 1215, began to found conventual schools at Oxford for their ow-n members. The colleges of Worcester, Trinity, Christ Church, and St. John's are all the immediate successors of these Benedictine or Cistercian houses of study. Up to this time the secu- lar students had lived as best they might in scattered lodgings hired from the townsmen; of discipline there W!is absolutely none, and riots and disorders between "town and gown " were of continual occurrence. The stimulus of the presence of so many scholars living un- der conventual discipline incited Walter de Merton, in 1264, to found a residential college, properly or- ganized and supervised, for secular students. Merton College (to the model of which two institutions of some- what earlier date. University and Balliol, soon con- formed themselves) was thus the prototype of the self- contained and autonomous colleges which, grouped together, make up the University of Oxford as it exists to-day. The succeeding half-century saw the found- ation of ten additional colleges: two more were founded during the Catholic revival under Queen Mary; and three in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Between 1625 and 1911 — that is, for nearly three centuries, there have been only three more added to the list, namely Worcester (1714), Keble (1870), and Hertford (1874), the first and last being, however, revivals rather than new foundations.
The institution of "non-collegiate" students (i. e. those unattached to any college or hall) dates from 1868; one "pubUc hall" (St. Edmund's) survives, of several founded in very early times ; and there are several "private halls", under Ucensed masters who are allowed to take a Umited number of students. As a corporate body, the university dates only from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when, under the influence of the chancellor, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, an Act of Parliament wiis passed in 1571, incorporating the "chancellor, masters and scholars" of Oxford. In the same reign were imposed upon the university the Royal Supremacy and the Thirty-nine Articles, sub- scription to which was required from every student above the age of sixteen ; and from that date, for a period of three centuries, the university, formerly opened to all Christendom, was narrowed into an exclusively Anglican institution and became, as it has ever since remained, in spite of subsequent legislation abolishing religious tests, the chosen home and favourite arena of Anglican controversy, theology, and polemics. Keble, however, is now the only college whose mem- bers must be Anglicans by creed, although a certain number of scholarships in other colleges are restricted to lulherents of the English Church. Attendance at the college chapels is no longer compulsory; and there is no kind of reUgious test required for admission to any college (except Keble) or for graduating in Arts, Science, or Civil Law. Only the faculty of Divinity (including the degrees of bachelor and doctor) re- mains closed by statute to all except professing Angli- cans; and the examiners in the theological school, which is open to students of any creed or none, are all required to be clergymen of the Church of England.
n. Constitution and Government. — Taken as a
whole, the university consists of about 14,500 mem-
bers, graduate and undergraduate, having their
names on the registers of the university as well as of
the twenty-six separate societies (colleges, luills, pub-
lic and private, and the noii-collcgiate liody) which
together form the corporation of the university. Of
the above number about 3800 are undergraduates,
of whom the great majority are reading for the degree
of B.A., and about a thousand are grachiates, either
tutors, fellows of colleges, ofhcials of the uiii\ersity, or
M.A.'s unofficially resident within its precincts.
About 4800 members of the university are thus ac-
tually living in Oxford, the remainder being those who,
while keeping their names "on the books", reside in
other parts of the kingdom. All masters of arts re-
maining on the registers are ipso facto members of
"Convocation", the legislative and administrative
body through which the university acts; and tiiosc
actually residing in Oxford for a fixed period in each
year form the smaller body called "Congregation",
by which all measures must be passed previous to their
coming before "Convocation". Legislation in every
case, however, must be initiated by the "Hebdomadal
Council", consisting of the vice-chancellor, proctors,
and eighteen members elected by " Congregation".
The executive officers of the university comprise the chancellor, a nobleman of high rank, as a rule non- resident, who delegates his authority to the vice- chancellor, the head of one of th(> colleges, and the two proctors, who are ele(t<'d hy tlie several colleges in turn, and assist the vicc-rhancellor in the enforcement of (lisri])line, as well as in the general supervision of all uni\crsit}' affairs, including the administration of its jiropcrty and the control of its finances. The pecu- liar feature of the constitution of O.xford (as of Cam- bridge), when compared with that of every other university in the world, is that the authority of the vice-chancellor and proctors, that is of the central uni- versity body, while nonii/uilly extending to every resi- dent member of the univ<'rsity, is not as a matter of fact exercised within the collige walls, each college being, while u i-on.stituent part of t lie university, autonomous and .self-governing, and claiming entire responsibility for the order and well-being of its own members.
HI. The Collegiate System. — According to the combined university and college system which pre- vails at Oxford, each college is an organized corpora- tion under its own head, and enjoying the fullest pow- ers of managing its own property and governing its own members. Each college is regulated not only by the general statutes of the university, but by its own separate code of statutes, drawn up at its founda- tion (as a rule centuries ago) and added to or amended since as found expedient. Every college is absolutely its own judge as to the requirements for admission to its membership, the result 'being that in no two colleges is the standard of necessary knowledge, or the mental equipment with which a youth enters on his university career, identical or even necessarily similar. The mere fact of a man having matriculated at certain colleges stamps him as possessed of more than average attainments, while at others the required standard may be so low as to afford no guarantee whatever that their members are in any real sense educated at all.
The twenty-one colleges and four halls, and the del- egacy of non-collegiate students — that is of students not affiliated to any college or hall — have all the same privileges as to receiving undergraduate members; and no one can be matriculated, i. e. admitted to mem- bership of the university by the central authority, un- til he has been accepted by one of the above-mentioned societies. The colleges provide a certain number of sets of rooms within their own walls for students, the remainder living in licensed lodgings in the city. Meals are served either in the college halls or in the students' rooms; and attached to every college is a
