I MAY seem in the foregoing Chapter to have relapsed into the tone of thought which created some surprise when I was speaking of Athens and the Sophists; and my good friend Richard, the Epicurean, may be upon me again, for my worship, as he will consider it, of the intellect, and my advocacy of the Professorial System. This is an additional call on me to go forward with my subject, if I can do so without wearying the reader. I say “without wearying,” for I beg to assure him, if he has not already found it out for himself, that it is very difficult for any one to discuss points of ancient usage or national peculiarity, as I am doing, and to escape the dry, dull tone of an antiquarian. This is so acknowledged an inconvenience, that every now and then you find an author attempting to evade it by turning his book of learned research into a novel or a poem. I will say nothing of Thalaba or Kehama, though the various learning displayed in the notes appended to those pleasing fables, certainly suggests the idea, that the poetry may have grown out of the notes, instead of the notes being the illustration of the poetry. However, I believe it is undoubted, that Morier converted his unsaleable quarto on Persia into his amusing Hadji Baba; while Palgrave has poured out his medieval erudition by the channels of Friar Bacon and Marco Polo, and Bekker has insinuated archeology in the persons of Charicles and Gallus. Were I to attempt to do the same, whether for the grouping of facts or the relief of abstract discussion, I have reason to believe I should not displease men of great authority and judgment; but for success in such an undertaking there would be demanded a very considerable stock of details, and no small ability in bringing them to bear on principles, and working them up into a narrative. On the whole, then, I prefer to avail myself, both as counsel and as comfort, of the proverb, “Si gravis, brevis;” and to make it a point, that, weary as my reader may be, he shall not have time to go to sleep. And today especially, since I mean to be particularly heavy in the line of abstract discussion, I mean also to be particularly short.
I purpose, then, to state here what is the obvious safeguard of a University from the evils to which it is liable if left to itself, or what may be called, to use the philosophical term, its integrity. By the “integrity” of anything is meant a gift superadded to its nature, without which that nature is indeed complete, and can act, and fulfil its end, but does not find itself, if I may use the expression, in easy circumstances. It is in fact very much what easy circumstances are in relation to human happiness. This reminds me of Aristotle’s account of happiness, which is an instance in point. He specifies two conditions, which are required for its integrity; it is indeed a state of mind, and in its nature independent of externals, yet he goes on (inconsistently we might say, till we make the distinction I am pointing out), he goes on, I say, after laying down that “man’s chief good is an energy of the soul according to virtue,” to add, “besides this, throughout the greater part of life,—for, as neither one swallow, nor one day, makes a spring, so neither does one day, nor a short time, make a man blessed and happy.” Here then is one condition, which in some sense may be said to fall under the notion of “integrity;” but, whether this be so or not, a second condition, which he proceeds to mention, seems altogether to answer to it. After repeating that “happiness is the best and most noble and most delightful of energies according to virtue,” he adds: “at the same time it seems to stand in need of external goods, for it is impossible, or at least not easy, to perform praiseworthy actions without external means, for many things are performed, as it were by instruments, by friends, and wealth, and political power. But men deprived of some things, as of noble birth, fine progeny, a fine form, have a flaw in their happiness; for he is not altogether capable of happiness, who is deformed in his body, or of mean birth, or deserted and childless; and still less so, perhaps, if he have vicious children, or if they were dear and dutiful, and have died. Therefore it seems to demand such prosperity as this; whence some arrange good fortune in the same class with happiness; but others virtue.”
This then is how we may settle the dispute which my Epicurean introduced, and which has been carried on at intervals in the British Universities for the last fifty years. It began in the pages of the Edinburgh Review, which at that time might in some sense be called the organ of the University of Edinburgh. Twenty years later, if my memory does not play me false, it was renewed in the same quarter; then it was taken up at Cambridge, and lately it was going on briskly between some of the most able members of the University of Oxford. Now what has been the point of dispute between the combatants? This,—whether a University should be conducted on the system of Professors, or on the system of Colleges and College Tutors. By a College was understood something more than the Museum of Alexandria, or such corporations among ourselves, as are established for Medicine, Surgery, Engineering, or Agriculture. It was taken to mean a place of residence for the University student, who would there find himself under the guidance and instruction of Superiors and Tutors, bound to attend to his personal interests, moral and intellectual. The party of the North and of progress have ever advocated the Professorial system, as it has been called, and have pointed in their own behalf to the practice of the middle ages and of modern Germany and France; the party of the South and of prescription have ever stood up for the Tutorial or collegiate system, and have pointed to Protestant Oxford and Cambridge, where it has almost or altogether superseded the Professorial. Now I have on former occasions said enough to show that I am for both views at once, and think neither of them complete without the other. I admire the Professor, I venerate the College. The Professorial system fulfils the strict idea of a University, and is sufficient for its being, but it is not sufficient for its well-being. Colleges constitute the integrity of a University.