INTRODUCTION.
It may seem strange, and to modern ideas it is strange, that the nomination and election of officers of such importance as the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors should have been committed to the general body of the University, consisting of all Gra- duates, and even of matriculated Undergraduates. But this is quite consistent with the ancient notion of an University,[1] and is an evident proof that all matriculated students, as well as the Graduates, were regarded as members of the University, in the
sense that has been explained.[2]
- ↑ In the University of Paris the Rector, who was supreme governor and chief president of all the facul- ties, was chosen by the lowest of them all, the faculty of Arts, which in- cluded undergraduates. This at least was the case from the year 1 249, when the faculty of Arts had been divided into four provinces or nations Hal- magrand, Orig. de V Universife, p. 67.
- ↑ "In the beginning of the year
1885 soon after the new Charter
(21 Vict.) had incorporated the Uni-
versity Senate, a case was laid before
the eminent lawyer, F. A. Fitzgerald,
now second Baron of the Exchequer.
It is a great gratification to me to
find that in his opinion on this case
so high an authority has taken
nearly the same view that I have
been quite independently led to
adopt. I shall venture to quote a
portion of this valuable opinion,
which was privately printed, at the
time. Baron Fitzgerald says:—
"The English Universities were lay corporations, having a distinct corpo- rate existence from the several eleemo- synary corpor.ations in them, called Colleges. But the members of these University Corporations were not merely the proper members of the several College Corporations, but in- cluded the Chancellor, the Professors, and every Graduate, and every ma- triculated Undergraduate student in each and every one of these Colleges. 1 Kydd. 328, and Statute 13 Eliz. c. 29. Every student in any College be- came on matriculation, though not a member of the College Corporation, a member of the University Corporation,just as the freeman of a corporate
personas pro hujusmodi rebus melius promoiendis, eligere, creare, nomi- nare, et ordinare posstnt, sive sit Pro- Cancellarius, Procurator, aut Procu- ratores, (nam Cancellarii dignitatem .... Guilielmo Cecillio Domino Ba- ronide Burghley .... delegatamap- probamus), et ut pos'tliac idoneam hu- jusmodi personam, cum defuerit, pro hujus Collegii Cancellario Prajpositus et major pars Sociorum eligant, or- dinamus." The words given in Ita- lics (if read by themselves) show the construction of the passage, which is obscure, not in itself, but because it is complicated by parentheses. The Studiosi are evidently those to whom the election of Vice-Chancellor and Proctors, &c., is committed.
