Essay Plans Notes

Introduction

• Edinburgh Review (1809 & 1810) - criticised English classical scholarship in comparison to Continent

Oxbridge - 'cease to lead the intellect of the country'

Inutility of classics and maths v. German curriculum with research professors

• Sir William Hamilton - Liberal cause of next 20 years advocated in 1830s

Utilitarian - 'a university is a trust confided by the state to certain hands for the common interests of the nation'

• National efficiency -> universities were corrupt and wasting resources

• Growth of middle classes yet universities were most confined to the elite in Europe

Desire for democratisation - even women

• Demand for professionalisation - middle classes wanted vocational and scientific training for trade and industry

Religion

• Dominated by the Church - moral education for clerical career

First half century - more than half Oxford graduates

• Mark Pattison on Oxford of 1830s - 'close clerical corporation' -> talent has increased by 1880s due to 'the secularisation of the University'

• MP Robert Collier in 1854 - Oxford was in urgent need of reform as she excluded Dissent, modern science and art -> ignored progress

'The close atmosphere of Oxford required ventilation'

• Growth of Nonconformism linked to social change -> industrial class

• Subscription to 39 Articles

• Conflict at Oxford between liberals and High Church Anglicans of Oxford Movement e.g. Newman

Pattison - detracted from academic study

• Jowett to the Royal Commission of 1850 - public want quiet and cheap education and bury ecclesiastical differences

• Numerous petitions to Parliament - religious tests were partly abolished in the 1850s

Still some subscription in higher offices up until 1871

Role of the University

• Link to wider secularisation

• Edward Pusey of Oxford Movement - 'the object of the Universities is...to discipline and train the whole moral and intellectual being'

Pusey, Newman and Keble were some of the most influential opponents of intellectual and institutional liberalising tendencies

• Others thought clergy were incapable of teaching to a high degree

• Arnold and Jowett - liberal attitudes in favour of German forms of scholarship and professorial education and research

Prepare for working in government and benefiting the nation

• Issue of role of university

Newman - 'the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than the advancement'

Henry Vaughan - research

Pressure for reform

• Ideals of utilitarianism, democratisation and liberalism

• Moderate reformers disliked emphasis on exam results

Trend since New Examination Statute of 1800

• Realisation of need for external input

To open to all denominations

Broaden curricula - more 'modern' subjects => away from Classics + Maths

Research

• Recognised within by men like Mark Pattison - did not have time to master all he taught, disliked cramming students and found narrowness of curricula indefensible in the face of scientific development

• Jowett's solution

Unrestricted meritocratic fellowships

Broader curriculum

Specialisation of research

Construction of university teaching career -> professorial position

• MPs such as James Heywood represented external criticism - curriculum, culture and costs

• 1846 - Russell government came to power -> liberals saw possibility of intervention to change statutes

Commissions

• Royal Commissions of Enquiry - Oxford (1850) and Cambridge (1852)

• 1852 Oxford Commission - recommended 'a centralised university run predominantly by professors and faculties, with a much higher emphasis on research, on the Scottish/German model'

• Vaughan and others had written to Russell and Gladstone - wanted learned men to reside in Oxford

Jowett - creates an 'intellectual aristocracy'

• University Reform Acts in 1854 and 1856 (Cambridge)

Gladstone on Oxford Bill - 'an emancipating measure' in releasing government from fetters which have long restrained it

• Reform of statutes conducted by 1854 Oxford Executive Commission and 1856 Cambridge Statutory Commission

• Reform largely imposed by state - to open to all denominations, modernise their curricula, increase utility and encourage research

Goldman - greatest development was opening of fellowships and scholarships to free competition

• Further royal commissions investigated statutes and finances -> further reforms - increased democracy and federal position of universities

Made them into political systems with mainly elected boards of government

External -> internal reform

• 1850s acts were compromises - Gladstone gave them freedom

Hoped for growth of professorial system alongside the tutorial system

Continuing development up to 1914

• Even by 1853 threat of intervention led to examination of college statutes -> many admitted need for legislation

• Heyck - external reform movement was a force without which significant reforms would not have occurred yet 'the internal reform movement did most to shape the character and direction of these reforms'

• Continuing reform was seen as a 'golden age' - 1870s

Mark Pattison - move for further reform in the 1860s aiming to create research institutions and professional specialised careers -> away from cramming

• Students such as James Stuart were able to become reforming dons

• Jowett's plans for university extension did not prevail

Yet successful change in public image

Stuart's lectures to 'the vast masses who desire education'

1873 - development of a joint board for examining secondary education

• Secretary of the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching (1887) - 'I believe the University Extension movement has really saved the Universities'

• Men such as Lord Robert Cecil were concerned at 'the dangerous precedent of Parliamentary authority'

• Political and social threat stimulated change -> increasingly secularised with scholarship and research

• 1900 - enrolment at each university had increased to about 2,5000 each...

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