by Cartwright, Walter Travers and others. Whitaker, the eminent master of St John's, although he sympathized to some Puritanism at Cambridge. extent with these views, strove to keep their expression within limits compatible with conformity to the Church of England. But the movement continued to gather strength; and Emmanuel College, founded in 1584, owed much of its early prosperity to the fact that it was a known school of Puritan doctrine. Most of the Puritans objected to the discipline enforced by the university and ordinary college statutes—especially the wearing of the cap and the surplice and the conferring of degrees in divinity. The Anglican Elizabethan statutes of 1570. party, headed by such men as Whitgift and Bancroft, resorted in defence to a repressive policy, of which subscription to the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, and the Elizabethan statutes of 1570 (investing the “caput” with larger powers, and thereby creating a more oligarchical form of government), were the most notable results. Oxford, although the Puritans were there headed by Leicester, the chancellor, devised at the same time a similar scheme, the rigid discipline of which was further developed in the Laudian or Caroline statutes of 1636. It was under these Laudian statues of 1636. respective codes—the Elizabethan statutes of 1570 and the Laudian statutes of 1636—that the two universities were governed until the introduction of the new codes of 1858. The fidelity with which both universities adhered to the royal cause in the Civil War caused them to be regarded with suspicion by the Puritan party, and under the Commonwealth both Oxford and Cambridge were for a brief period in great danger owing to the distrust, which culminated among the members of the “Nominated Parliament” (July-December 1653), of university education generally, as tending to foster contentiousness with respect to religious belief. It was even proposed by William Dell—himself the master of Caius College—to abolish the two universities altogether, as hopelessly pledged to antiquated and obsolete methods, and to establish in their place schools for the higher instruction throughout the country. They were saved, however, by the firmness of Cromwell, at that time chancellor of Oxford, and, although Aristotle and the scholastic philosophy no longer held their ground, a marked improvement was observable both in discipline and morality among the students, and the prescribed studies were assiduously pursued. At Oxford, under the influence and teaching of Dr Wilkins, Seth Ward and John Wallis, a flourishing school of mathematics was formed at a time when the study had died out at Cambridge.
After the Restoration Cambridge became the centre of a
remarkable movement (a reflex of the influence of the Cartesian
The Cambridge Platonist movement., which attracted for a time considerable
attention. Its leaders, known as the Cambridge
Platonists, among whom Henry More, Cudworth and
Whichcote were especially conspicuous, were men of
high character and great learning, although too much
under the influence of an ill-restrained enthusiasm and purely
The Newtonian philosophy.
speculative doctrines. The spread of the Baconian
philosophy, and the example of a succession of eminent
scientific thinkers, among whom were Isaac Barrow,
master of Trinity (1673-77), the two Lucasian professors,
Isaac Newton (prof. 1669-1702) and his successor
William Whiston (prof. 1702-11), and Roger Cotes (Plumian prof.
1707-16), began to render the exact sciences more and more an
object of study, and the institution of the tripos examinations
in the course of the first half of the 18th century established the
reputation of Cambridge as a school of mathematical science.
At Oxford, where the study had in turn declined, and where
the statutable requirements with respect to lectures and exercises
were suffered to fall into neglect, the degeneracy of the whole
community as a school of academic culture is attested by evidence
too emphatic to be gainsaid. The moral tone at both universities
Methodism.
was at this time singularly low; and the rise of Methodism
as associated with the names of the two Wesleys and
Whitefield at Oxford and that of Berridge at Cambridge,
operated with greater effect upon the nation at large than
on either of the two centres where it had its origin. With the
advance of the next century, however, a perceptible change
Simeonism.
Tractarianism.
took place. The labours of Charles Simeon at Cambridge,
in connexion with the Evangelical party, and
the far more celebrated movement known as Tractarianism, at Oxford, exercised considerable influence
in developing a more thoughtful spirit at either
university. At both centres, also, the range of studies was
extended: written examinations took the place of the often
merely formal viva voce ceremonies; at Cambridge the
study of the classics was raised in 1824 to the dignity of a new
tripos. The number of the students at both universities increased,
the matriculations at each rising to over four hundred.
Further schemes of improvement were put forward and discussed.
And in 1850 it was decided by the government to appoint commissioners
to inquire what additional reforms might advantageously
Reforms of 1858.
be introduced. Their recommendations were
not all carried into effect, but the main results were as
follows: “The professoriate was considerably increased,
reorganized and re-endowed, by means of contributions from
colleges. The colleges were emancipated from their medieval
statutes, were invested with new constitutions, and acquired
new legislative powers. The fellowships were almost universally
thrown open to merit, and the effect of this was not merely to
provide ample rewards for the highest academical attainments,
but to place the governing power within colleges in the hands
of able men, likely to promote further improvements. The
number and value of scholarships were largely augmented, and
many, though not all, of the restrictions upon them were abolished.
The great mass of vexatious and obsolete oaths was swept away;
and, though candidates for the M.A. degree and persons elected
to fellowships were still required to make the old subscriptions
and declarations, it was enacted that no religious test should be
imposed at matriculation or on taking a bachelor's degree.”[1]
In 1869 a statute was enacted at Cambridge admitting Admission of non-collegiate students. students as members of the university without making it imperative that they should be entered at any hall or college, but simply be resident either with their parents or in duly licensed lodgings.
The entire abolition of tests followed next. After Abolition of tests. being rejected on several occasions in parliament it was eventually carried as a government measure, and passed the House of Lords in 1871.
In 1877 the reports of two new commissions were followed by further changes, the chief features of which were the Reforms of 1877. diversion of a certain proportion of the revenues of the colleges to the uses of the university, especially with a view to the encouragement of studies in natural science; the enforcement of general and uniform regulations with respect to the salaries, selection and duties of professors, lecturers and examiners; the abolition (with a few exceptions) of all clerical restrictions on headships or fellowships; and the limitation of fellowships to a uniform amount.
That these successive and fundamental changes were on the whole in unison with the national wishes and requirements may fairly be inferred from the remarkable increase in numbers at both universities, especially at Cambridge, where the number of undergraduates, which in 1862 was 1526, rose in 1887 to 2979. In the academic year 1862-63 the number of matriculations was 448, and in 1906-7 1083. The following universities Affiliated universities and colleges. and colleges, twenty-two in number, have since, in the order of their enumeration, sought and received the privilege of affiliation: University College, Nottingham; university of Sheffield; university of Adelaide; St David's College, Lampeter; university of Calcutta; university college of Wales, Aberystwyth; university of New Zealand; university of the Cape of Good Hope; university of Allahabad; Punjab University; university of Bombay; university of Toronto; St Edmund's College, Ware; university of Madras; university of Sydney; M‘Gill University, Montreal; university of Tasmania; university of New Brunswick; Hartley University
- ↑ Brodrick, University of Oxford, pp. 136, 137.
