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fellows were paid to perform. It was always, indeed, only a subordinate duty, imposed upon a minority and intended for the benefit of the few scholars, and not of the boarders or commoners, who had not yet come into existence. Even apart from these reasons, which are based upon evidence as strong as those which form the main argument of this essay, there are other practical causes, perhaps equally important, which render it idle to wish to restore the ancient proportion between study and teaching. It is not only that vested interests, and even personal expectations, ought to be respected in any endeavour to change the course of the golden streams which flow from Oxford and Cambridge. If that were all, the question would be a mere matter of time, and the coming generations of students might, before the close of the present century, recover their monopoly of the older endowments. But in dealing with national institutions which have such widespread influence as the Universities, there are other considerations to be taken into the account besides the rights of present occupants and the intentions of founders. Neither of these can be passed over, but the general interests of the Universities, as determined by their present circumstances, also call for attention before any final scheme for the redistribution of endowments can be adopted. The Colleges have outgrown the limits within which alone they can be tolerated as a part of the academical constitution. They now overshadow the University proper, and impede the exercise of its legitimate func

tions. As has been already shown, it was no part of the design of the early founders to supplant the regular system of instruction in the University, nor did they ever anticipate that their indigent scholars' would apply their augmented revenues to buying up all the old private seminaries. It is a reform urgently needed to restore the University to its old pre-eminence, and to use the wealth of the Colleges to break their own monopoly. The Bodleian Library, the Botanical Garden, and the departments of physical science collected at the Museum, as well as the new Schools for examination purposes, are all demanding a considerable outlay of capital; and the three former require a larger permanent endowment than has been yet contemplated for them. The needs of the professoriate as a teaching body, which are more generally recognised, will also present a claim on the college revenues. New chairs -not a few-must be founded; and readerships subordinate to the professors, and a staff of demonstrators in the physical sciences, must be endowed. The Colleges, in short, must treat their mother, the University, with the same wise generosity that the German State shows towards its national Universities; and a more liberal endowment is to be expected in England, in proportion to the larger amount of money at our disposal, and the greater cost of obtaining equal results in a commercial country.

Perhaps, also, it may be conceded that the class of persons who now occupy fellowships have established a

sort of prescriptive right, not only for themselves, but also for their representatives in the future. Sinecure fellows and college tutors may be both alike historical abuses and economical blunders, but they may yet have their place in a country which can afford to indulge its taste for anomalies. Higher education in England has been moulded according to the demands of the academical curriculum, and has been stimulated into its present efficiency by the hopes engendered by university premiums. Much yet needs to be done before its condition can be regarded with entire satisfaction. It would be mischievous to withdraw the stimulus at a time when the minor endowed schools are still struggling in the pangs of a second birth, or before the claims of physical science have won adequate recognition. It may be yet further urged, and not without a show of reason, that the superfluous wealth of the Colleges may usefully be applied to counteract the strong and growing tendency on the part of practical English parents to interrupt the education of their sons, and plunge them prematurely in business or in a profession. If the university course is so valuable as its friends maintain, it will continue to be worth while, so long as this tendency exists, to waste a few thousands a year on bribing young men with moderate bounties to pass through that course with credit, and on subsidising with equal moderation those teachers who qualify them for success. But it must never be forgotten that this form of endowment is exceptional, and

altogether subordinate to the main object which fellowships were intended to serve. It has its place chiefly as a concession to popular prejudice, and to motives of action which are not the highest. Its justification is to be found in the example of the later and less wise founders of Colleges; and in the case of the great Colleges it may be defended by the argument that a superfluity of wealth has accrued, which the original benefactors could never have foreseen.

But with regard to the bulk of the college endowments, the right mode of appropriation is perfectly clear. The intentions of the founders, the teaching of history, and the wants of the present day, all point in the same direction. The money should be devoted to study, and to study alone; enforced as a duty, and protected by adequate guarantees, but unencumbered by any obligation to impart common instruction. By this one bold and necessary reform the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge may once again pick up the torch of intellectual progress, which has for a while fallen from their hands; and at the same time England, in fulfilling the designs of her great patrons of learning, may regain her place among the nations as the chosen home of literary erudition and scientific enquiry.

111.

THE ECONOMICAL CHARACTER OF SUBSIDIES TO EDUCATION.1

By CHARLES EDWARD APPLETON, D.C.L., Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford.

ENDOWMENTS may be described from an economical point of view as a mode of arresting the action of the natural laws of supply and demand, by the application of wealth to the artificial sustentation of particular industries or employments. They may be regarded either in their effects upon the general interests of the community at large, or in their influence upon the production and distribution of wealth. From the latter point of view, with which we are alone immediately concerned, endowments may be classified either according to the source from whence they are derived, or according to the object which they are applied to promote.

The sources of endowment may be private funds, moneys already funded in the hands of the nation, or taxation. But from whatever source they may be immediately derived, endowments must ultimately come from that surplus wealth of the community which, if it

1 Reprinted from the Theological Review, Jan. 1, 1875.