hereafter, being of at least seven years' standing, shall have taken the degree of Master or Doctor, or other of the higher degrees, in the University, may be admitted members of the Senate, on such conditions as the Senate itself shall fix.' All the authorities of the University are subject to the control of the Episcopal Board, consisting of the Roman Catholic Prelates of Ireland. The Rector, Vice-Rector, and Bursar are appointed by this Board, with power of revocation, 'pro nutu et arbitrio.' The definitive appointment of the Professors also rests with the Bishops; but 'whenever a Professorship is to be filled up, it is the duty of the Rector, having consulted the Faculty in which the vacancy occurs, to present to the Bishops the names of (at least) three candidates.' All the officials of the University, though subject to removal by the same power that appointed them, are secure of the permanence of their appointments till they forfeit them by some offense against religion or morals, by insubordinate conduct, contentiousness, incapacity, or other obvious disqualification, according to the judgment of the Coetus Episcoporum, or the Episcopal Board of the University.'

ORGANIZATION OF FACULTIES.

The original plan contains five Faculties: Theology, Law, Medicine, Philosophy, Letters and Science. The Faculty of Theology, although provided with professors, and granting theological degrees, is not in operation as a teaching Faculty. The Faculty of Law has also been constituted, and Professors have been appointed: but we do not learn from the evidence that any system of instruction has as yet been commenced in this Faculty. The Faculty of Medicine, however, has had a fair measure of success, and in the academical year 1873-4 had 86 students. The number of resident students in Science and Arts was, in the same year, 30.

The Professorships in the Faculty of Science projected are: (1.) Mathematics, (2.) Physics, or Natural Philosophy, (3.) Chemistry, (4.) Geology and Mineralogy, (5.) Botany, (6.) Zoology, (7.) Physiology, to which (8.) a Professorship of Astronomy was to have been added. The Chairs that have been actually established are those of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and Physiology. There are, besides, Lecturers on Botany aud Zoölogy, and on Geology.

STUDENTS.

The Students are divided into two classes, the Resident and the Non-Resident, or Affiliated Students, the latter being those who receive their education not in immediate connection with the University itself, but in colleges in the country, which are affiliated to it, and which are visited and inspected by it. The Resident Students are either Interns or Externs. The Intern Students are those who reside in the Colleges, or Collegiate Houses, in Dublin, (three such houses are mentioned in the Calendar); the Extern Students are those who either live with their friends in Dublin or its neighborhood, or who reside in lodging houses licensed by the Rector for the reception of students. Both these classes of students are, by the Statutes, and by the regulations published in the Calendar of the University, placed under very strict religious discipline, even the Externs being required to attend Mass and General Communion on certain days in the year, and being required on Sundays and other days of obligation to assemble in cap and gown before Mass, to answer to their names, and

then proceed in a body to the church. But it is provided in the Statutes that, 'with the permission of the Rector, and on payment of the proper fees, any person may attend the schools of the University on any particular course of lectures. Such persons are called Auditors. Except in the lecture-room, they have no connection with the University, which is in no wise responsible for their conduct or their success in studies. . . . . In order to become formally Students, and consequently members of the University, entitled to all its privileges, the candidates for admission must pass the matriculation examination, and place themselves under the guidance and discipline of the University.' And it appears from the evidence that non-Catholic auditors have been constantly admitted to the lectures; and even to compete for and to hold exhibitions, although the last privilege is not secured to them by the Statutes. But, whatever may be the privilege of non-Catholic pupils, it must be taken as certain that no dissident from the Roman Catholic religion could be admitted as a professor or teacher in the University. The Statutes require that each Professor shall make the Profession of Faith, acccording to the form prescribed by Pope Pius IV., in the presence of the Rector. The Rector, who must always be in Priest's orders, has to make the same profession, in addition to the following promise: Ego N., nominatus Rector Universitatis Catholicæ, fidelis et obediens ero cœtui Episcoporum Hiberniæ et pro viribus juxta illorum mentem curabo honorem et prosperitatem dictæ Universitatis.' The principle of the restrictions imposed by the Statutes is stated with great clearness by the present Rector, the Very Rev. Canon Woodlock, who says, in his address at the Inauguration of the Session of 1867-8, 'Our Faculty of Medicine does not exclude Protestant students from its lectures, but neither does our other Faculties. We recommend or prescribe, as the case may be, religious observances to the Catholic Medical students under our care, as well as to our students in Letters or in Science; but our rules on this subject do not comprise those who decline to accept the teaching of the Church. But there is one point on which we stand firm, and which equally regards our Faculty of Medicine and the other departments of this University; we will have Catholic students taught by no Professors save those whose principles we know to be in accordance with the teaching of the Catholic Church in faith and morals.'

Mr. Gladstone, in his plan of University Reform for Ireland, included the Irish Catholic University among the colleges which were affiliated to his reconstituted University of Dublin. But his proposition did not receive the approval of the highest Ecclesiastical authorities, and the friends of the Catholic University withheld their support to the proposed measure, insisting on certain chartered privileges, and especially on the independent right of bestowing degrees in its own name in the different academical faculties.

The Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science in their Fifth Report (for 1874), submit evidence of the service rendered to science and literature in Ireland by this University—and which service might be increased by enlarged resources and more completely organized Faculties, but conclude, from the religious restrictions imposed on the selection of its professors and lecturers, and the uncertainty of any large increase of resources, not to recommend a grant from public funds in aid. The number of resident students in science and arts for 1873-4, was 30, and in medicine 86, exclusive of 40 who came up from various schools for examination.

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

INTRODUCTION.

We begin our account of the University of Oxford with a few paragraphs in which Sir William Hamilton, in an article in the Edinburgh Review (1830) republished with additions, in a separate form, and now issued in his collected Essays and Discussions, has sharply defined the distinction between the University proper and the Colleges, and opened a controversy which is not yet ended, and which has already modified, by parliamentary statute, and the action of the University Commissioners, and the Heads of Houses, the relations of the University and the Colleges. To the historical discussion of the relation of the Colleges to the University by Sir William Hamilton, we shall add portions of a chapter from Dr. Newman's Rise of Universities, which exhibits the advantages of the College system in respect to the domestic life of the student.

THE UNIVERSITY AND THE COLLEGES.

Oxford and Cambridge, as establishments for education, consist of two parts of the University proper, and of the Colleges. The former, original and essential, is founded, controlled, and privileged by public authority, for the advantage of the nation. The latter, accessory and contingent, are created, regulated, and endowed by private munificence, for the interest of certain favored individuals. Time was, when the Colleges did not exist, and the University was there; and were the Colleges again abolished, the University would remain entire. The former, founded solely for education, exists only as it accomplishes the end of its institution; the latter, founded principally for aliment and habitation, would still exist, were all education abandoned within their walls. The University, as a national establishment, is necessarily open to the lieges in general; the Colleges, as private institutions, might universally do, as some have actually done-close their gates upon all, except their foundation members.

The Universities and Colleges are thus neither identical, nor vicarious of each other. If the University ceases to perform its functions, it ceases to exist; and the privileges accorded by the nation to the system of public education legally organized in the University, can not, without the consent of the nation-far less without the consent of the academical legislature-be lawfully transferred to the system of private education precariously organized in the Colleges, and over which neither the State nor the University have any control. They have, however, been unlawfully usurped.

Through the suspension of the University, and the usurpation of its functions and privileges by the Collegial bodies, there has arisen the second of two systems, diametrically opposite to each other.-The one, in which the University was paramount, is ancient and statutory; the other, in which the Colleges have the ascendant, is recent and illegal.-In the former, all was subservient to public utility, and the interests of science; in the latter, all is sacrificed to private monopoly, and to the convenience of the teacher.-The former amplified the means of education in accommodation to the mighty end which a University proposes; the latter limits the end which the University attempts to the capacity of the (801)

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petty instruments which the intrusive system employs.-The one afforded educa tion in all the Faculties; the other professes to furnish only elementary tuition in the lowest.-In the authorized system, the cycle of instruction was distributed among a body of teachers, all professedly chosen from merit, and each concentrating his ability on a single object; in the unauthorized, every branch, necessary to be learned, is monopolized by an individual, privileged to teach all, though probably ill qualified to teach any.-The old system daily collected into large classes, under the same professor, the whole youth of the University of equal standing, and thus rendered possible a keen and constant and unremitted competition; the new, which elevates the colleges and halls into so many little universities, and in these houses distributes the students, without regard to ability or standing, among some fifty tutors, frustrates all emulation among the members of its small and ill-assorted classes. In the superseded system, the Degrees in all the Faculties were solemn testimonials that the graduate had accomplished a regular course of study in the public schools of the University, and approved his competence by exercise and examination; and on these degrees, only as such testimonials, and solely for the public good, were there bestowed by the civil legislature, great and exclusive privileges in the church, in the courts of law, and in the practice of medicine. In the superseding system, Degrees in all the Faculties, except the lowest department of the lowest, certify neither a course of academical study, nor any ascertained proficiency in the graduate; and these now nominal distinctions retain their privileges to the public detriment, and for the benefit only of those by whom they have been deprived of their significance. Such is the general contrast of the two systems, which we now exhibit in detail. Though Colleges be unessential accessories to a University, yet common circumstances occasioned, throughout all the older Universities, the foundation of conventual establishments for the habitation, support, and subsidiary discipline of the student; and the date of the earliest Colleges is not long posterior to the date of the most ancient Universities. Establishments of this nature are thus not peculiar to England; and like the greater number of her institutions, they were borrowed by Oxford from the mother University of Paris-but with peculiar and important modifications. A sketch of the Collegial system as variously organized, and as variously affecting the academical constitution in foreign Universities, will afford a clearer conception of the distinctive character of that system in those of England, and of the paramount and unexampled influence it has exerted in determining their corruption.

ORIGIN OF COLLEGES WITHIN THE UNIVERSITIES.

The causes which originally promoted the establishment of Colleges, were very different from those which subsequently occasioned their increase, and are to be found in the circumstances under which the earliest Universities sprang up. The great concourse of the studious, counted by tens of thousands, and from every country of Europe, to the illustrious teachers of Law, Medicine, and Philosophy, who in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries delivered their prelections in Bologna, Salerno, and Paris, necessarily occasioned, in these cities, a scarcity of lodgings, and an exorbitant demand for rent. Various means were adopted to alleviate this inconvenience, but with inadequate effect; and the hardships to which the poorer students were frequently exposed, moved compassionate individuals to provide houses, in which a certain number of indigent scholars might be accommodated with free lodging during the progress of their studies. The manners, also, of the cities in which the early Universities arose, were, for obvious reasons more than usually corrupt; and even attendance on the public teachers forced the student into dangerous and degrading associations, Piety thus concurred with benevolence, in supplying houses in which poor scholars might be harbored without cost, and youth, removed from perilous temptation, be placed under the control of an overseer; and an example was afforded for imitation in the Hospitia which the religious orders established in the University towns for those of their members who were now attracted, as teachers and learners, to these places of literary resort. Free board was soon added to free lodging; and *" Tunc autem," says the Cardinal de Vitry, who wrote in the first half of the thirteenth century, in speaking of the state of Paris-" tunc autem amplius in Clero quam in alio populo dissoluta (Lutetia sc.), tamquam capra scabiosa et ovis morbida, pernicioso exemplo multos hospites suos undique ad eam affluentes corrumpebat, habitatores suos devorans et in profun

a small bursary or stipend generally completed the endowment. With moral superintendence was conjoined literary discipline, but still in subservience to the public exercises and lectures; opportunity was thus obtained of constant dispu tation to which the greatest importance was wisely attributed, through all the scholastic ages; while books, which only affluent individuals could then afford to purchase, were supplied for the general use of the indigent community.

THE COLLEGE IN PARIS.

But as Paris was the University in which collegial establishments were first founded, so Paris was the University in which they soonest obtained the last and most important extension of their purposes. Regents were occasionally taken from the public schools, and placed as regular lecturers within the Colleges. Sometimes nominated, always controlled, and only degraded by their Faculty, these lecturers were recognized as among its regular teachers; and the same privileges accorded to the attendance on their College courses, as to those delivered by other graduates in the common schools of the University. Different Colleges thus afforded the means of academical education in certain departments of a faculty-in a whole faculty—or in several faculties; and so far they constituted particular incorporations of teachers and learners, apart from, and, in some degree, independent of, the general body of the University. They formed, in fact, so many petty Universities, or so many fragments of a University. Into the Colleges, thus furnished with professors, there were soon admitted to board and education pensioners, or scholars, not on the foundation; and nothing more was wanting to supersede the lecturer in the public schools, than to throw open these domestic classes to the members of the other Colleges, and to the martinets or scholars of the University not belonging to Colleges at all. In the course of the fifteenth century this was done; and the University and Colleges were thus intimately united. The College Regents, selected for talent, and recommended to favor by their nomination, soon diverted the students from the unguaranteed courses of the lecturers in the University schools. The prime faculties of Theology and Arts became at last exclusively collegial. With the exception of two courses in the great College of Navarre, the lectures, disputations, and acts of the Theological Faculty were confined to the college of the Sorbonne, and the Sorbonne thus became convertible with the Theological Faculty of Paris. During the latter half of the fifteenth century, the "famous Colleges," or those "of complete exercise" (cc. magna, celebria, famosa, famata, de plein exercise), in the Faculty of Arts, amounted to eighteen-a number which, before the middle of the seventeenth, had been reduced to ten. About eighty others (cc. parva, non celebria), of which above a half still subsisted in the eighteenth century, taught either only the subordinate branches of the faculty (grammar and rhetoric), and this only to those on the foundation, or merely afforded habitation and stipend to their bursars, now admitted to education in all the larger colleges, with the illustrious exception of Navarre. The Rue de la Fouarre (vicus stramineus), which contained the schools belonging to the different Nations of the Faculty, and to which the lectures in philosophy had been once exclusively confined, became less and less frequented; until at last the public chair of Ethics, long perpetuated by an endowment, alone remained; and "The Street" would have been wholly abandoned by the university, had not the acts of Determination, the forms of Inceptorship, and the Examinations of some of the Nations, still connected the Faculty of Arts with this venerable site. The colleges of full exercise in this faculty, continued to combine the objects of a classical school and university; for, besides the art of grammar taught in six or seven consecutive classes of hu manity or ancient literature, they supplied courses of rhetoric, logic, metaphysics physics, mathematics, and morals: the several subjects, taught by different profes' A free competition was thus maintained between the Colleges; the princidum demergens, simplicem fornicationem nullum peccatum reputabat. Meretrices publicae, ubique per vicos et plateas civitatis, passim ad lupanaria sua clericos transeuntes quasi per violentiam pertrahebant. Quod si forte ingredi recusarent, confestim eos Sodomitas,' post ipsos conclamentes, dicebant. In una autem ut eadem domo, scholæ erant superius, prostibula inferius. In parte superiori magistri legebant, in inferiori meretrices officia turpitudinis exerceEx una parte, meretrices inter se et cum Cenonibus [lenonibus] litigabant; ex alia parte, disputantes et contentiose agentes clerici proclamabant.”—Jacobi de Vitriaco Hist. Occident. cap. vii.)-It thus appears, that the Schools of the Faculty of Arts were not as yet established in the Rue de la Fouarre. At this date in Paris, as originally also in Oxford, the lectures and disputations were conducted by the masters in their private habitations.

sors.

bant.