?^-£ 
 
 ai. 
 
 ' 
 
 aiwfc 
 
 
 . SP" W> ■ 
 
 :§?■> 
 
 ^8 
 
 '** -.T.-C 
 
 
 . .*•/«' 
 
 «£& 
 
 

 
 p 
 
 o 
 
 SIX LETTERS 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE EDITOR OF THE OXFORD HERALD, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 SUBJECT OF AN ADDRESS 
 
 PRESENTED BY CERTAIN 
 
 NOBLE AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED INDIVIDUALS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 HEADS OF COLLEGES, 
 
 IN NOVEMBER, 1845, 
 AND NOW PRINTED PRIVATELY, (NOT PUBLISHED,) 
 
 FOR DISTRIBUTION AMONG A 
 
 LIMITED NUMBER OF PERSONS MOST INTERESTED. 
 
 OXFORD: 
 PRINTED BY J. VINCENT. 
 184G.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The first of these letters was printed in the " Oxford Univer- 
 sity Herald," of Saturday, Nov. 29, 1845, and met with such 
 a measure of private approbation, as to induce the Author 
 rapidly to throw off in succession the five following lettters, 
 which he equally intended for the same publication. But 
 the anxious desire of the Editor to avoid a discussion which 
 might, in its progress, give offence to the University Authori- 
 ties, induced the Author to adopt his present course, and send 
 forth the series (for he cannot call it publication,) with no 
 other motive or thought than that of doing, if possible, in pri- 
 vate, some little practical, though secret good to his beloved 
 " Alma Mater." C.
 
 ADDRESS TO THE HEBDOMADAL BOARD. 
 
 Considerable efforts have lately been made in this country for the 
 diffusion of civil and spiritual knowledge, whether at home or abroad. 
 Schools have been instituted for the lower and middle classes, churches 
 built and endowed, missionary societies established, further Schools 
 founded, as at Marlborough and Fleetwood, for the sons of poor Clergy 
 and others; and, again, associations for the provision of additional 
 Ministers. But between these Schools on the one hand, and on the 
 other the ministry which requires to be augmented, there is a chasm 
 which needs to be filled. Our Universities take up education where our 
 Schools leave it ; yet no one can say that they have been strengthened 
 or extended, whether for Clergy or Laity, in proportion to the growing 
 population of the country, its increasing empire, or deepening re- 
 sponsibilities. 
 
 We are anxious to suggest, that the link which we find thus missing 
 in the chain of improvement should be supplied by rendering Aca- 
 demical education accessible to the sons of parents whose incomes are 
 too narrow for. the scale of expenditure at present prevailing among 
 the junior members of the University of Oxford, and that this should be 
 done through the addition of new departments to existing Colleges, or, 
 if necessary, by the foundation of new Collegiate bodies. We have 
 learned, on what we consider unquestionable information, that in such 
 institutions, if the furniture were provided by the College, and public 
 meals alone were permitted, to the entire exclusion of private entertain- 
 ments in the rooms of the Students, the annual College payments for 
 board, lodging, and tuition, might be reduced to 60/. at most ; and that, 
 if frugality were enforced as the condition of membership, the Student's 
 entire expenditure might be brought within the compass of 80/. yearly. 
 
 If such a plan of improvement be entertained by the authorities of 
 Oxford, the details of its execution would remain to be considered. On 
 these we do not venture to enter ; but desire to record our readiness, 
 whenever the matter may proceed further, to aid, by personal exertions 
 or pecuniary contributions, in the promotion of a design which the 
 exigencies of the country so clearly seem to require. 
 
 Sandon, Ashley, R. Grosvenor, W. Gladstone, T. D. Acland, Philip 
 Pusey, T. Sothron, Westminster, Carnarvon, T. Acland, Bart., 
 W. Bramstone, Lincoln, Sidney Herbert, Canning, Mahon, W. B. 
 Baring, J. Nicholl, (Judge Advocate,) W. J. James, S. R. Glynne, 
 J. E. Denison, Wilson Patten, R. Vernon Smith, S. Wilberforce, 
 R. Jelf, W. W. Hale, W. Heathcote, Edward Berens, J. Wooley, 
 Hon. Horace Powys, W. Herbert, (Dean of Manchester,) G. 
 Moberley, A.C. Tai't. — Church and State Gazette. 

 
 SIX LETTERS. 
 
 To the Editor of the Oxford Herald. 
 
 Sir, — Upon reading in your Herald of Saturday last, the 
 8th, the copy of an address to the Hebdomadal Board at 
 Oxford, put forth and signed by many influential and justly 
 esteemed names of all parties and shades of opinion in Church 
 matters, my first impulse was to offer you on the instant 
 some remarks as to the proposed objects, and questionable 
 averments of that address, which might call attention to its 
 general drift and bearing, even if they failed in themselves 
 to make any striking impression on your readers. But upon 
 consideration, I thought it wiser and more respectful to wait 
 for the lapse of a week in case your journal of to-day should 
 contain some authorized reply or notice from the Board to 
 whom the address was presented. On the score of delicacy 
 and ancient respect to that Board, I feel myself now re- 
 leased from the duty of further silence, and enter the lists 
 armed only with the right conferred on me by the private and 
 confidential communication of my name to you, Mr. Editor, to 
 assert that, insignificant as that name is, and utterly unworthy 
 to appear published in the same cause with so many noble and 
 right honourable champions of academical education, I yet 
 bring to the question more perhaps of actual and hard-earned 
 experience in many of its minute and necessary details than 
 all of them put together, not excluding even the two last of 
 the distinguished list, and add to my experience a measure of 
 personal interest hardly to be exceeded by that of the most
 
 anxious and unsatisfied parent in the whole community. I go 
 heartily along with the framers of the address to the middle 
 of their second paragraph, in the avowal of all the deficiencies 
 which our present academical system suffers. I acknowledge 
 the chasm which requires to be filled up. I think, (perhaps 
 it is mere vanity) that I see better than any of them, or at 
 least better than I infer from any part of their address, how 
 that chasm may most simply and easily be supplied, but I 
 differ toto coelo from them as to the advisability of any schemes 
 which are likely to be developed in any mere University mea- 
 sure for the relief of the existing want. 
 
 The mode of relief which they contemplate, and which alone 
 Convocation can grant, would appear derivable from one of 
 two measures, the foundation of new collegiate bodies in Ox- 
 ford on a cheap and economical scale of expenditure, or the 
 addition of new departments to existing Colleges, the return, 
 i. e. in principle at least, to the old system of Servitors, a class 
 of youths who miserably disappoint the only society in which 
 they are still tolerated, and who would, if generally established, 
 represent to us only a caste degraded in education, manners, 
 and habits of social life, an eye sore to the academical arena, 
 and the germ of embittered divisions or foolish aristocratical 
 notions where all ought to be unanimity and equality as far as 
 the state of society renders it practicable. That which I most 
 regret in the address is the very vague and ambiguous state- 
 ment of some pecuniary calculation as to the annual College 
 payments " at most being 601." under certain circumstances, 
 and " the entire expenditure" of a student being brought within 
 80l. yearly. Do the framers of the address mean really that 
 801. shall cover a twelvemonttis board, lodging, tuition, books, 
 clothes, and travelling expenses of a young man I Will they 
 then kindly state the grounds of their unquestionable informa- 
 tion, and add some items, or will they tell us that 801. might 
 be made to include the mere College expenses of dining, room- 
 rent, and tuition ? In this latter case the whole address becomes 
 a mere fallacy, for every body knows at present, that the 
 College bills rarely exceed this latter sum, and that it is not 
 the expensive scale of College bills, but the scantiness of the
 
 provision made for comfort and study within the walls, which 
 drives so many to such dangerous and extravagant schemes 
 abroad for a supply of deficiencies. 
 
 But allowing the justice of the calculations made, when they 
 are explained to us, it will never do, I suspect, to have an in- 
 flux of young men into the Universities of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge who shall be derided and looked down upon by their 
 cotemporaries, or who, tolerated out of compassion, and taken 
 into society, will for ever lie under the strongest temptation 
 to perpetuate habits of the worst species of extravagance, that 
 which is generated from the spirit of vanity and emulation ; 
 verily this last error would I fear, be worse, and spread its 
 branches wider, because lower and deeper, than the first. 
 
 Equally wide of the mark do I deem the principles of a 
 plan which would introduce so dangerous a species of moral 
 discipline for young men varying from the ages of 17 to 22, 
 who should be absolutely interdicted from all society but that 
 of a silent meal taken in common once a day ; for as to society 
 between Englishmen without a glass of wine, or even a cup 
 of tea, the thing is proverbially inconceivable. The system 
 of government which must effect the objects thus proposed 
 must be one of sheer vexatious espionage, under .the veriest des- 
 pot or martinet, such as would deprive the young (if success- 
 ful,) of all liberty, and therefore of all self-control, of all sym- 
 pathy, too, with each other, and experience of human nature, 
 up to the very moment when they are called upon to go forth 
 in the most sacred and important of professions, not only to 
 preach, but also to illustrate by example the very qualities to 
 which they have been hitherto made sedulously strangers. 
 No : in Oxford or in Cambridge the trial would deplorably 
 fail, and the ultimate failure be only the more painful, if pre- 
 ceded by partial success. If I am asked whether nothing can 
 be done towards the object, I say, certainly much ; but not by 
 the Board of Heads, as such, or by Convocation, as a body. 
 That which is practicable, is that which may and must be 
 done by single Heads of Houses, each in his own society, act- 
 ing with firmness, patience, perseverance, and, above all, by 
 kindness of manner, not only on the faulty habits of the young
 
 8 
 
 men themselves, but on the infinitely more lax and dangerous 
 habits of the parents of the present age. The most perfect sys- 
 tem of discipline will not set all right, and teach the young their 
 duty at school and college, until their family duties are better 
 understood — until the parents maintain discipline at home, and 
 lead their children to understand that the authority of Masters 
 and Principals is in fact the parental authority itself delegated 
 to them, instead of holding up to contempt and ridicule, as is 
 now too often the case, the laws of the society to which they 
 send their sons, and the persons and the authority of those 
 who are commissioned to hold rule therein. On the other 
 hand, the worst and most defective system in the world will 
 effect little injury when the seeds of obedience and strict moral 
 discipline have been previously sown. 
 
 There are Heads of Colleges, who by their position in Ox- 
 ford, their profound learning, and their tenderness of heart 
 as parents, might lead all the rest by their example, if they 
 could courteously enter with pleasurable interest into the pur- 
 suits of their young men. To them I would respectfully but 
 earnestly say, — Begin by increasingthe mere internal expenses; 
 raise considerably both battels and tuition ; and, instead of is- 
 suing an interdict against particular trifles, constantly and easily 
 evaded, take care that the food, both for mind and body, within 
 your walls is such, that there be no temptation, or at least no 
 excuse, to seek it out of doors. Next, by an enlargement of your 
 collegiate apparatus, include all such expenses, and as many 
 more as are either reasonable or perfectly venial, under the head 
 of College expenses which must be punctually defrayed each term, 
 and let the two or three items of clothes, books, and travelling 
 expenses, be all which need be left as a fluctuating account 
 between the youth in statu pupillari and his father. Let your 
 only sumptuary law be the prohibition of debt : and let the 
 receipts for his last term's expenditure be as necessary to the 
 continuance in College of an Undergraduate, as the testamur 
 of his examiners at Little-go, after a certain standing in terms. 
 You will greatly reduce the total of University expenses ; or, 
 rather, expenses at the University ; and though you may not 
 introduce a cheap system, you will cut of the greater part of the
 
 present grounds of distrust and dissatisfaction. Let Oxford 
 and Cambridge still continue the natural and fitting resort of 
 the hundreds (I might say thousands) of young men, whose 
 circumstances are sufficiently flourishing to defray honestly all 
 the expenses which shall keep up to the eyes of a perhaps mis- 
 taken world, the undefinable union between the triple charac- 
 ter of Gentleman, Scholar, and Christian, 
 
 But for the chasm, — the demands of the Church for a more 
 humble and frugal order in her ministry, taken more frequently 
 (if not indiscriminately) from those ranks for whom it is her 
 especial boast to make provision — what plan so natural and 
 simple as the foundation of new collegiate establishments in 
 each of the Cathedral cities which circle round Oxford and 
 Cambridge as centres, and from which henceforward, by im- 
 proved travelling, within an hour or two, the pupils could be 
 transferred, with proper certificates of residence and moral 
 conduct, to pass the literary ordeal for their degree of B.A., 
 and then receive, by favour of the University, (the only favour 
 asked) the honour which shall qualify them for ordination at 
 the hands of their respective Bishops. 
 
 Oxford would be proud of scions from her parent stock 
 planted at Lichfield, Worcester, Gloucester, Hereford, Bristol, 
 Wells, Salisbury ; Cambridge, at Ely, Norwich, Peterborough, 
 and Lincoln ; — where Collegiate bodies might flourish under 
 the wing of the venerable structures, which, with their many 
 hallowing associations, should inspire all sober, healthy, and 
 pure Church feelings ; and where the system, both of expense 
 and social habits, might from the beginning, be shaped anew to 
 meet the new wants. Let the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 
 as by Act of Parliament they are empowered to do, favour 
 and facilitate the re-endowment of two suspended canonries, 
 at each of these now-crippled establishments ; and let it be 
 seen what may be done by the active services of such men 
 governing under the supreme presidency of the Dean, in each 
 city, the one a School of 100 boys, the other a College of 60 
 young men, into whom these boys at a proper age and with 
 suitable qualifications have been drafted, and from whom they 
 go forth to serve the curacies of the diocese where they have
 
 10 
 
 been nurtured and maintained from 10 to 22 years of age. 
 Let the decencies, if not the splendour, of the Cathedral 
 service and Choral worship be restored where we are now threat- 
 ened with all the symptoms of early decay. And if the scheme 
 receives encouragement or invites open discussion, I shall be 
 ready to produce incontrovertible calculations in details of ex- 
 pense by which it may appear that an average sum of 90/. or 
 100?. (between the ages of 10 and 22,) would meet all the 
 exigencies of the case.* The north of England is, or may be 
 provided for by Durham ; Wales by St. David's ; let Canter- 
 bury, Rochester,and Chichester, do their duty by our colonies, 
 and the only localities that remain, would be the south and 
 midland counties, for which I think I have shewn how you 
 may provide an annual supply of some 300 candidates for 
 Holy Orders, trained from childhood almost under the very 
 eyes of their Bishops, and a constant supply of education and 
 instruction for about 1800 meritorious youths. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 C. 
 
 The following letter appeared in the " Herald," from a 
 College Tutor, in answer to the foregoing. 
 
 To the Editor of the Oxford Herald. 
 
 Sir, — Your correspondent C. has pointed to many of the 
 disadvantages of our present Collegiate system, and has un- 
 doubtedly indicated the only method by which they can be 
 effectually remedied, namely, by the private efforts of the 
 Heads of different Houses, assisted by their Tutors, and not 
 by legislative measures, whether external or internal. His 
 remarks upon the propriety of giving the Undergraduate 
 every comfort within the walls of his College, and every means 
 of exercising a moderate hospitality, I think are excellent. I 
 wish, however, he would enter a little more into detail as to 
 
 * I may here state at once, for the satisfaction of some, that I put the hoy 
 from 10 to 18 at £60 ; the young man from 18 to 22, at £120.
 
 11 
 
 the manner in which all this must be effected. The change 
 must be considerable ; — new servants, not to say new officers, 
 must be appointed in every College, if we are to undertake to 
 supply all the wants of our younger members. If we could 
 effect this, if all the accounts of necessaries were thus included 
 in the term's Battel-bill, much of the evil might be saved. 
 But there is one great difficulty in the way, and it consists in 
 the unwillingness which I know young men feel to having 
 their expenses looked into by the eyes of the authorities set 
 over them here. They do not look upon us in loco parentis, 
 but they do look upon us as awful, and, I fear, as severe 
 watchers for every act of extravagance and error. I do not 
 apprehend that they bring this from home so much as from 
 school ; but wherever it commences, we know that it is next 
 to impossible to obtain the perfect confidence of our pupils, — 
 that confidence which will bring them to us when the first 
 step of error has been taken, and there is room for perfect re- 
 covery. Till this is overcome all efforts at reform will fail. I 
 believe that the greatest change which we require, is a change 
 in the view taken of the relation between Tutor and Pupil, 
 and both must bear a part in it. We must approximate to 
 each other ; and as we do this, so shall we find all obstacles 
 disappear, which impede the removal of the besetting evils of 
 the plan. They, then, must have a freedom of action, or they 
 cannot learn to act for themselves ; — if they would, or if they 
 could make us their friends, we might be their guides, leaving 
 them still their independency. The College Tutor is in many 
 respects in an anomalous position ; he is neither what a Pro- 
 fessor, nor what a Tutor originally was. He must, to a great 
 extent, endeavour to fulfil the duties of both, and most men's 
 powers fail beneath the task. I suspect that your correspondent 
 is well aware of this, and I am inclined to think that our 
 views of the remedy to be applied are not dissimilar, and I 
 only entreat him to speak out. If he will point out in detail 
 the financial measures which he would propose, I for one shall 
 feel deeply obliged to him. And if he does not meet what I 
 believe to be not only my own peculiar difficulty, but that of
 
 12 
 
 many, I would willingly meet him in your columns, and suggest 
 any thing supplemental. 
 
 I am, &c. &c. 
 
 A COLLEGE TUTOR. 
 
 Letter, No. 2. 
 To the Editor of the Oxford Herald, 
 
 Sir, — I readily accept the invitation of your correspondent, 
 H A College Tutor," to renew the subject of School and Uni- 
 versity Expenses, if I may so term it, (for, in fact, they are as 
 closely united as are the habits of a youth from fifteen to 
 eighteen to those which follow him from eighteen to twenty- 
 one,) though I own to you that the nature as well as the vast- 
 ness of the subject begins to appal me when I consider all its 
 bearings. 
 
 My first observation is, that after all, the question is a moral 
 much more than & financial question ; that at least a grievous 
 moral defect in our institutions has to be corrected before we 
 reach the less momentous one of mere expenses, and that the 
 remedies which we may apply, with the effects which we may 
 anticipate, must begin from very small beginnings, and be ne- 
 cessarily very slow as well as gradual in their progress. 
 
 The moral defect to which I allude is the disordered state 
 of the relations of parental and filial duty, arising out of the 
 growing indulgence and apathy of the times in which we live, 
 and still more perhaps out of the conceit and self-satisfaction 
 with which in these boasted days of improvement we view all 
 the steps we have gained apparently over our forefathers' 
 heads. The last thirty years of peace have tended much to 
 facilitate many of the details of learning and scholarship, 
 owing more, I verily believe, to our intercourse with the Con- 
 tinent, and improved means of access to criticism in the study 
 of languages, and to the analytical system in Mathematics, 
 than to any increased vigour of the mind or kindled warmth 
 of the heart* 
 
 The immediate effect on the parent is a sensation of delight
 
 13 
 
 and surprise at the relative advancement (as compared with 
 himself at the same age) of his offspring in the several branches 
 of education. Delight and surprise ripen into pride and con- 
 ceit, and then leap into a judicial blindness to all errors of 
 conduct terminating in a soreness and resentment which 
 would baffle all the honest and well-intentioned endeavours to 
 induce a return to parental authority, whether exhibited in 
 the advice of inspired Solomon, or the practical maxims of an 
 Aristotle. 
 
 The root of the evil is planted in wayward, indulged, spoiled 
 childhood, and the almost universal resistance of the parental 
 feelings to all coercion and restraint of childish conceits and 
 passions. The old Public School system, however liable to 
 abuse and corruption, was an admirable instrument in practice 
 to the correction of these nascent evils. I do not allude so 
 much to the rod of the pedagogue as to the system of fagging, 
 which levelled down the conceits, while it regulated the temper, 
 but which is now almost every where scouted since parents 
 have found, through the mechanism of Proprietary Schools, the 
 means of getting practically into their own hands, the direction 
 of their children, by insuring a control over their Preceptors, 
 with a right to internal interference, hostile, if not fatal, to 
 all early acquired habits of subordination, discipline, and mu- 
 tual confidence. Trained up under a system such as this, 
 wherein he has been accustomed daily and hourly to hear 
 freely called to account and censure, all the rules and prac- 
 tices of his preceptors, how is it to be wondered that the young 
 man at College begins to ridicule and despise the new authority 
 which has no longer even the semblance of physical power to 
 control him ? 
 
 At this moment steps in a lax practice of the College au- 
 thorities to remove or even shake which, will be doing much 
 for one letter, if I may dare to hope that I shall reach the 
 eyes of any competent or responsible authority. At the very 
 moment when resolutions of strict economy, honesty, and 
 order, ought to be, fresh in the mind of the novitiate, a bill is 
 presented to him for certain expenses of College living, and 
 (worse still) of College tuition, before he has seen even his
 
 14 
 
 College tutor, incurred during the two terms of which the 
 University laws take no notice. The first act of apparent 
 overcharge on the young Tyro, comes armed with all the au- 
 thority of College sanction, and the first money drawn from 
 his pocket goes apparently to the coffers of his future friend 
 and adviser. I am well aware of all that may be said in reply — 
 that it is a mere matter of arrangement, not of extravagant 
 expense, but I answer that you cannot expect honesty and 
 openness on one side, while you entertain disguise and fiction 
 on the other. I answer that you do by a most feeble and un- 
 necessary process at once often disgust the parent and dis- 
 courage the Undergraduate, rather (I had said,) encourage 
 him to look with suspicion and distrust on all your future 
 movements. Let all College bills be as open and honest as the 
 day. Let there be clearly a quid pro quo, no unintelligible 
 expressions, no fictitious terms, and let the way be open to 
 enable the parent to start his son free of all arrears, however 
 trifling, and all obligations however apparent. 
 
 The question of Caution Money, Room Rents, and Thirds 
 of Booms, as they are generally termed, will occupy my next 
 letter, if I shall have gone thus far without giving offence. 
 Other points of detail will follow in order, for in truth each 
 one seems to deserve a separate consideration. 
 
 I have not written thus far, I trust, without writing enough 
 to prove to your readers as well as to yourself, that I am an 
 Oxford man, deeply tinctured with love and gratitude to my 
 Alma Mater, and with an instinctive respect for her organized 
 authorities. "A College Tutor" describes very fairly the 
 practice of tuition as I found it in my own Society, but I trace 
 every evil perhaps a little further bach than he does. I want 
 to set things right in childhood, not at school, or rather in 
 childhood with a view to school ; and I wish the University 
 and the College to enter on their solemn and parental duties 
 with clean hands, on the first day, not at the end of the first 
 or second term of residence. A wide but very necessary 
 reform in regard to College Servants, Oxford Tradesmen, and 
 the too often begrudged liberty of residing in College during 
 the vacations, (so peculiarly valuable to the poor student,) are
 
 15 
 
 facts which are ready to ooze out at my fingers' ends — but I 
 have trespassed already too long on you, 
 
 And am, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 C. 
 
 Letter, No. 3. 
 To the Editor of the Oxford Herald* 
 
 Sir, — The question of Caution Money has always appeared 
 to me fit for a treatment similar to that with which I have 
 assailed the payment enforced for Terms during which the 
 Undergraduate with full licence is non-resident. Caution 
 Money is perfectly defencible in principle — as would be a very 
 considerable augmention of Tuition Fees ; but it is highly ob- 
 jectionable in details — in the mode in which it is imposed — 
 the irregularity of its amount, and, above all, the uncertainty of 
 its final disposition. It is a system for which, moreover, I trust 
 to shew, as in the former case, that an easy, safe, and highly 
 desirable substitute may be found, and one which will tend as 
 much to confirm the whole moral principle of the desired Uni- 
 versity Reform, as the original plan weakens and destroys the 
 present confidence in the existing system. 
 
 Caution Money is demanded as a guarantee against the 
 wanton destruction of College property — a defalcation in the 
 means of the contributor to discharge obligations incurred be- 
 fore the period of terminal payments comes round, and a se- 
 curity in some degree at least of pecuniary solvency for all 
 other lawful debts to be incurred. I have never heard any 
 other grounds stated for this charge, and I am content to 
 allow the perfect sufficiency of these in default of better ones ; 
 but why such inequality, whether real or apparent, between 
 the amount of Caution Money demanded for objects nearly, 
 if not exactly, the same in all Colleges ? In my own the pay- 
 ment was \0l. 10s. I have before me the letter of a Head of 
 a College requiring thirty guineas to be paid down " as Cau- 
 tion" on the matriculation of an Undergraduate. This dispa-
 
 16 
 
 rity is so vast, that I am inclined very much to adopt the 
 word apparent in mentioning the inequality, and to conclude 
 (what I know to he partly the case) that Caution Money 
 sometimes includes certain Entrance Fees for Tuition and 
 College Lectures, which in other Colleges are set down as dis- 
 tinct charges, scarcely to he confounded with the properly so 
 called Caution Money. 
 
 But if this surmise be correct— cm bono ? Why mystify, 
 when all ought to he as clear as the noon- day ? If the 
 charge must continue under the existing name and form, 
 let it either be a clear or an uniform charge, and if pos- 
 sible both ; but by far the worst remains behind. The 
 charge for Caution Money is almost invariably regarded 
 as one which rests on the same principle, and has the same 
 object in view as the charge so industriously made in private 
 Boarding Schools, particularly those for young ladies, of a 
 silver spoon and fork expected of each new inmate — in other 
 words (I regret to use the term) an underhand, but convenient 
 mode of increasing the College plate. The charge is false, not 
 to say monstrous ; but it is a general charge, and must rest in 
 some few cases on grounds too good. In the College to which 
 I myself belonged, the return of the Caution Money, when 
 mentioned, I do not say demanded, was as much a matter of 
 course, and as readily and simply granted as the receipt for 
 the last quarters Battels ; but in many cases we hear it hinted, 
 that either it is not usual to take back the Caution Money, or 
 that the Caution Money, if left, is appropriated to College pur- 
 poses of ornament and display. Be the case as it may, this pay- 
 ment of money has as bad a name as almost any charge under 
 the express sanction of College Authorities, and it is one to the 
 correction of which I fondly hope that the University Autho- 
 rities will at once promptly and cheerfully address themselves. 
 Substitute for it the pre-payment (we thank the penny post 
 and Mr. Rowland Hill for this word) of the full terminal ex- 
 penses for board and tuition — items proclaiming at once as a 
 grand principle the necessity of prompt payment and avoidance 
 of all credit^ and let the regular receipt for such pre-payment 
 carry at once plain and clear conviction that there is nothing
 
 17 
 
 underhand — no sinster views of after peculation — such as the 
 aggrieved parent and the extravagant Undergraduate are at 
 present glad to lay hold of as examples of loose dealing. If the 
 Heads of Colleges, collectively or individually, are to apply 
 themselves at all to the correction of abuses, it must be in 
 some such way as I here respectfully recommend, by lopping 
 off all the grounds of complaint which need a laboured expla- 
 nation. I am quite aware that Caution Money, and the pay- 
 ment of tuition during non-residence, are defensible ; but 
 they are no more — they are rarely defended — still more 
 rarely understood, even when defended ; and it were better 
 to cut them off root and branch, and then we are ready to 
 proceed, one by one, to other grievances and evils of the same 
 nature, till we shall enable our beloved Alma Mater to come 
 into Court with clean hands, and make that just counter- 
 demand on all the Parents and Guardians in the land, which, 
 if it meets the due reply, shall, we sanguinely hope, remove 
 all slur and suspicion from an Academical course. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 C. 
 
 Letter, No. 4. 
 To the Editor of the Oxford Herald, 
 
 Sir, — The danger of all money transactions between the 
 nearest relatives and the most intimate friends, as tending to 
 shake confidence, if no worse, and to beget irregularity of ac- 
 counts, is true and striking, nearly to a proverb. With what 
 care, therefore, should all College authorities, in the exercise 
 of their paternal control over the Undergraduates, desire to 
 throw their shield over any weak part of the financial system 
 which is at present open to such serious objections ! and so, I 
 doubt not, they will gladly do, particularly if they find it can 
 be done without any new legislative measures, or any novelty 
 in the principle of supervision and government. Innumerable 
 cases of hardship and of gross extravagance now take place
 
 18 
 
 under the prevailing folly or mania (it may be called) for the 
 sumptuous decoration of rooms, with all the appliances to 
 luxury and indolence which might well deter the prudent and 
 cautious parent in the views with which he chooses the place 
 of residence for his son during the critical three years between 
 eighteen and twenty-one. 
 
 Let the College Bursar, Manciple, or some other such 
 officer, undertake, in the name and under the authority of the 
 College, all the substantial and decorative repairs of each set 
 of rooms — put the same into the hands, by contract, of 
 some respectable upholsterer, who shall fix for rent a va- 
 luation of the rooms, at so much per annum, payable by 
 each new incomer to the College, without the slightest reference 
 to the taste or outlay of his predecessor. In short, abolish 
 Thirds altogether, in name and reality. I would not prohibit 
 each tenant of his rooms from the addition of such peculiar 
 comforts or ornaments as may tend to give him a feeling of 
 value in his rooms as a home, while he occupies them, but let 
 him take or send away all such additions before his successor 
 is even appointed, so that no feeling of delicacy may intervene. 
 Many a young man not only pays extravagantly for that on 
 which he really sets no value, and which, in fact, tends to his 
 injury rather than to his benefit, but by being called upon at 
 once to contract a large debt which he cannot defray out of 
 his annual allowance, is thereby encouraged to believe that 
 debt in some shape or other is unavoidable, and is part of the 
 College system. I here propose as a remedy, that measure 
 which is within the reach of all, and which each Head of a 
 College may adopt for himself, and I recommend it as a 
 measure not of cheapness and detail, but as one of economy 
 and principle — distinguishing economy from mere cheapness — 
 and asserting as a principle the object of avoiding all money 
 dealings between young men themselves, and particularly such 
 dealings as can be carried on only by credit. I further venture 
 to urge that Private tuition be put like Public tuition, into the 
 class of regular College expenses, which are payable through 
 the regular College officer. Private tuition, as a system of 
 cramming, is odious and injurious ; as an instrument of moral
 
 19 
 
 government in the hands of each Head of a College, employing 
 trusty instruments, and exercising vigilance enough to prevent 
 all tuition, sub rosa, as it is now frequently practised, would be 
 very valuable. To complete this part of reform as a fiscal 
 measure, each Public Tutor should be paid a fee considerably 
 higher than at present, and trusted with fewer pupils. I have 
 known a highly conscientious Tutor with thirty-eight pupils, 
 who paid him each at the rate of about 16/. a-year, one-third 
 of whom, for the want of that individual superintendence 
 which is so much needed in moral government, had recourse 
 to a Private Tutor, in or out of College, to whom they paid 
 50/. a-year more. Let Cocker be called in to prove how 
 ruinous and expensive such a system is, and how easily it 
 might have been avoided by reducing the Tutor to twenty 
 pupils, who paid 30/. a-piece, a sum which few would grudge 
 for all the varied ends which might be gained by such a 
 change. 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your humble servant, 
 
 C. 
 
 Letter, No. 5. 
 To the Editor of the Oxford Herald, 
 
 Sir, — I could never see why any College Buttery, Cellar, 
 and Kitchen, might not with ease be made equal to all the re- 
 quirements of the most efficient and best ordered coffee-house, 
 or rather club-house, in London. The localities are favourable, 
 and the secretary of the University Club, or (better still per- 
 haps) one of the chiefs of the Commissariat department from 
 the Horse-Guards, would settle all your details, and put your 
 whole scheme in wholesome action within a fortnight. Let 
 the Manciple lay in a store for a year's consumption of the 
 best coals to be had, and retail them at wholesale ready money 
 prices — and let the Port and Sherry of the College Cellar enjoy 
 the same reputation as the audit ale of certain Colleges in the 
 Sister University. I should be a great stickler for the quality
 
 20 
 
 of every article provided, whether from larder or cellar — that 
 it be notoriously the best — such as no private dealer or trades- 
 man could (why should he I) rival in excellence of quality or 
 moderateness of cost ; for, remember, we are on a system of 
 pre-paid bills, or at least on an estimate of terminal expenses, 
 roughly made and commuted from caution-money. With 
 such a provision I see no hardship in rigidly shutting all 
 College-gates against all the Pastry-cooks'* Wares which throng 
 those College-gates every Sunday morning — disputing entrance, 
 or exit with the Vice-Chancellor's Bedels on their way to the 
 University Sermon (and the truthfulness of this picture will 
 be recognised by many), the chosen day and hour for a vast 
 majority of these luxurious entertainments. I am afraid to 
 name the sums which I have heard to accumulate on the 
 books of certain confectioners for this mere article of Sunday 
 breakfasts. One Confectioner is known to have boasted of 
 booking upwards of ^50 on a Sunday morning before twelve 
 o'clock ! but be they in each individual case, small or large, 
 they are still bills — unpaid bills, which grow often to their 
 goodly amount during two or three years neglected demand 
 for repayment — to the infinite detriment of the honest trades- 
 man, whom, I should grieve to disallow in the fair town of 
 Oxford — and to the still more serious relaxation of moral 
 principle in the young and heedless creditor. All his engage- 
 ments of this sort should, without any rigid censure or espion- 
 age, simply be thrown into College Bills, which should be 
 presented the last day of Term to the Undergraduate, and the 
 same day's post carry a duplicate to his Parent or Guardian, 
 from whom should return, by a fixed immutable law, the re- 
 ceipt of their payment into the College Bankers, as the only 
 testimonial which should open the Undergraduate 5 rooms 
 again to him on the first day of the following Term. Thus 
 Credit for all the necessary expenses, and even venial indul- 
 gences of the Academical youth should by one simple stroke 
 of the pen be for ever expunged from the catalogue of possible 
 abuses and complaints against an Oxford career. 
 
 I am spared many details of such a system by your con- 
 siderate kindness in forwarding to me the printed scheme of
 
 21 
 
 one at least of your most zealous and judicious Heads of 
 Houses, — to whom I can do no less than tender by anticipa- 
 tion my sincere thanks, and warmest wishes, for success in a 
 scheme which I think will be followed by the blessings of 
 hundreds of Parents, and the rising reputation of his own 
 Society. This scheme is very full of particular viands to 
 gratify the palate, such as to shew that luxury in meals has 
 not diminished since my own Undergraduate days. When 
 our veteran and gallant Chancellor lately addressed the word 
 of admonition to the young officers in military corps, and re- 
 commended them to lay aside the too frequent use of cigars, 
 as adapted only to youths at College, I much wished that his 
 eloquence and parental reasoning had been turned the other 
 way, — that he had doffed the Field Marshal's and donned the 
 Chancellor's Cap, if it were only to urge upon our Reverend 
 Governors — helium internecinum against the noxious weed, 
 which is the fruitful parent of all low, intoxicating, ungentle- 
 manly habits ; and was certainly thirty years ago not known 
 beyond the range of the Angel or the Star booking offices — 
 but let so much be en passant. 
 
 All other precautions on the head of expense that I can 
 suggest, must only proceed from an improved system of mu- 
 tual confidence, on the one hand, between the zealous Head 
 of a College and the Parent, on the other, between the Tutor 
 and the Tyro, — the latter would be easier to establish (crede 
 experto) than the former. So many Parents know so little — 
 are naturally and laudably so anxious, and yet so weak and 
 fussy, that they throw themselves into the hands of any 
 volunteer adviser, and again and again undo all the good they 
 have once essayed to do. Nor can the Head of the College 
 meet him with any other arms than those of complaint and 
 patience with occasional firmness in severing, from his flock, 
 decidedly and irrevocably, the vicious and false. These are 
 the two unmanageable characters who would however rarely 
 find their way into College, or at least, make a brief stay there, 
 if I may yet in one concluding letter be allowed to advert to 
 the Academical system in the details of education. 
 
 I am, yours, 
 
 C.
 
 22 
 
 Letter 6. 
 To the Editor of the Oxford Herald. 
 
 g IR? — I n reviewing the details of domestic reform, as set 
 forth and recommended in my former Letters, I find the only 
 omission relates to the College servants, who should be more 
 strictly such than at present they are. Servants, I say, of the 
 College, receiving pay, owing responsibility, and, if it be pos- 
 sible, bearing the livery of the College ; but in no instances 
 allowed, under a threat of instant expulsion, to receive fees or 
 perquisites from their young masters ; who, on the other 
 hand, in their own protection, would have always a right of 
 complaint to the Tutors. 
 
 How trusty and respectable such servants should be ! — do- 
 mesticated, if possible, under the College roof, and owing all pos- 
 sible submission and duty to the Head of the College, I need not 
 here enlarge. Their duties defined — their hours of duty as- 
 signed — their entire fidelity to the great ends of security, 
 comfort, and discipline, — are all details which will enter more 
 easily the heads of my Academical Readers than they can flow 
 clearly from my pen ; and I only here allude to them as the 
 last link which should connect the chain of Academical order 
 and improvement. 
 
 The Educational Course is as wide a subject as the domestic 
 question ; and yet I must discuss it under a very few brief 
 heads, and, perhaps, rather bold and adventurous propo- 
 sitions. 
 
 The standard of a First Class is too high and precarious 
 from the frequent change of Examiners, with fluctuating 
 tastes, in an eager pursuit after which much of the Candidate's 
 time is taken up, instead of the laborious routine of a certain 
 set of the purest Classical Works, which have to be studied with 
 infinite exactness and labour. Return to books read — to viva 
 examinations, preceding, not following, questions on critical 
 scholarship — and enlarge your First Class to meet the cer- 
 tainly augmented disposition to study, and facilities for study
 
 23 
 
 which under the present system meet only heart-burning and 
 disappointment. 
 
 I see only one clear way to this object, which is that 
 of a more permanent Board of Examiners, who shall be so well 
 repaid for their arduous and important labours, that they 
 neither need nor are qualified to take (at least) private pupils. 
 So acting, you will keep up steadily the flow and spirit of 
 steady diligence during the three or four years of the Aca- 
 demical course. Eminent scholarship will find its ample re- 
 ward in the Chancellor's Prizes, and numerous Scholarships 
 recently established ; while the great mass — the lump — will 
 be learned to the utmost extent of which an University system 
 is capable. 
 
 But while I contend for lowering the standard of the First 
 Class, I as eagerly recommend raising that of admission, or, 
 at least, of rendering it more regular and uniform. I would 
 place Responsions, or something a little more brief and simple, 
 at the portals of the University progress, and not at its centre. 
 Thus acting, you will confer infinite advantages on the great 
 Schools of the country, where Masters will be doubly armed 
 against sending to you unworthy subjects, and in favour of 
 the greatest possible quantity of diligence and discipline in 
 the Scholastic career. 
 
 If I have omitted some points of importance, I am equally 
 sensible of having dwelt on others at such length as may 
 appear to many to have been already anticipated by recent 
 improvements ; but let my original object be borne in mind, 
 which is to supersede the necessity of certain improvements 
 or additions printed in the primary Address of certain dis- 
 tinguished individuals. I am still as favourable as ever to the 
 institution of Collegiate Establishments in our Cathedral cities, 
 which may furnish a guarantee of economy by their capability 
 of being adapted to all new notions and schemes of lowering 
 the price of living, and, at the same time, furnish a guarantee 
 of efficiency and learning, by adhering to the old land-marks 
 of our University system. I would have no M.A. or B.A. of a 
 lower caste in learning, and yet would be glad to spread over 
 the land hard-working Curates of moderate means and equally
 
 24 
 
 moderate views ; but, whether in the ancient Universities, or 
 any such new Collegiate institution, they are ultimately the 
 Fathers and Guardians of youth to whom I make the last 
 Solemn appearand require them to set their own Houses in order 
 before they dare to hope that they shall effectually reform our 
 Schools and Colleges; and that they bear ever before their eyes 
 and at their hearts the example of Him whose public career 
 did not even begin till (a s far as w e know) he had veiled the glories 
 of his eternal Godhead, in thirty long years of silent* and 
 dutiful subjection to his earthly parents ; those years which 
 we so fondly devote to feverish ambition, care, and preparation, 
 not for eternity, but, as it too often appears to superficial view, 
 to three score years of error and infirmity. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 0. 
 
 * And oh ! how significant on such a subject this very silence of Scripture 
 contrasted with all the developments and meditations of silly man.
 
 m
 
 TcEAaa 
 
 
 
 t-^f w , -*~^s*C$- ■ *j 
 
 
 -X 
 
 > 
 
 M 
 
 1 
 
 ;