on the average, the tenure is longest, and that we must look forward at least twenty years before any considerable number of them will be moneys in hand.
It is to be observed also, that some of the holders of these "idle fellowships" are prosecuting educational work (even University work, some of them) elsewhere, and if cheapening University education here is to be the be-all and end-all of college endowments, cheapening school and University education elsewhere cannot be a very flagrant abuse of a small portion. The £55,000 represented as in hand from this source will be further diminished, if it is true, as the Chancellor said in his reply, that the Government would never approve tying down the Commissioners to be appointed to allowing of the existence of no fellowships but such as were associated with University work.
The Chancellor then proceeded to enquire what are the objects to which it is desirable the £55,000 a-year should be applied. There is no luxury equal to that of appropriating in the indefinite future hypothetical revenues to desirable purposes; nor is there any objection to the objects to which the Chancellor thinks it desirable such money as arises from the suppression of idle fellowships should be appropriated.
A New Library, (or a large grant to the Bodleian,) New Schools, New Museums, New Lecture Rooms, Increased Remuneration to Professors, (so that they may devote themselves without distraction to the business of their Chairs), Fair Pensions for those who have become superannuated, are all objects which have been before the eyes of all Oxford for years past. The colleges will have no difficulty in finding suitable objects for their superfluities, as soon as they
