登陆注册
5589700000015

第15章 POLITICAL CONDITIONS(10)

VI.THE UNIVERSITIES

The effect of these conditions is perhaps best marked in the state of the universities.Universities have at different periods been great centres of intellectual life.The English universities of the eighteenth century are generally noted only as embodiments of sloth and prejudice.The judgments of Wesley and Gibbon and Adam Smith and Bentham coincide in regard to Oxford;and Johnson's love of his university is an equivocal testimony to its intellectual merits.We generally think of it as of a sleepy hollow,in which portly fellows of colleges,like the convivial Warton,imbibed port wine and sneered at Methodists,though few indeed rivalled Warton's services to literature.The universities in fact had become,as they long continued to be,high schools chiefly for the use of the clergy,and if they still aimed at some wider intellectual training,were sinking to be institutions where the pupils of the public schools might,if they pleased,put a little extra polish upon their classical and mathematical knowledge.The colleges preserved their mediaeval constitution;and no serious changes of their statutes were made until the middle of the present century.The clergy had an almost exclusive part in the management,and dissenters were excluded even from entering Oxford as students.(21)But the clergyman did not as a rule devote himself to a life of study.He could not marry as a fellow,but he made no vows of celibacy.

The college,therefore,was merely a stepping-stone on the way to the usual course of preferment.A fellow looked forwards to settling in a college living,or if he had the luck to act as tutor to a nobleman,he might soar to a deanery or a bishopric.The fellows who stayed in their colleges were probably those who had least ambition,or who had a taste for an easy bachelor's life.The universities,therefore,did not form bodies of learned men interested in intellectual pursuits;but at most,helped such men in their start upon a more prosperous career.The studies flagged in sympathy.Gray's letters sufficiently reveal the dulness which was felt by a man of cultivation confined within the narrow society of college dons of the day.The scholastic philosophy which had once found enthusiastic cultivators in the great universities had more or less held its own through the seventeenth century,though repudiated by all the rising thinkers.Since the days of Locke and Berkeley,it had fallen utterly out of credit.The bright common sense of the polished society of the day looked upon the old doctrine with a contempt,which,if not justified by familiarity,was an implicit judgment of the tree by its fruits.Nobody could suppose the divines of the day to be the depositaries of an esoteric wisdom which the vulgar were not worthy to criticise.They were themselves chiefly anxious to prove that their sacred mysteries were really not at all mysterious,but merely one way of expressing plain common sense.At Oxford,indeed,the lads were still crammed with Aldrich,and learned the technical terms of a philosophy which had ceased to have any real life in it.At Cambridge,ardent young radicals spoke with contempt of this 'horrid jargon --fit only to be chattered by monkies in a wilderness.'(22)Even at Cambridge,they still had disputations On the old form,but they argued theses from Locke's essay,and thought that their mathematical studies were a check upon metaphysical 'jargon.'It is indeed characteristic of the respect for tradition that at Cambridge even mathematics long suffered from a mistaken patriotism which resented any improvement upon the methods of Newton.There were some signs of reviving activity.The fellowships were being distributed with less regard to private interest.The mathematical tripos founded at Cambridge in the middle of the century became the prototype of all competitive examinations;and half a century later Oxford followed the precedent by the Examination Statute of 1800.A certain number of professorships of such modern studies as anatomy,history,botany,and geology were founded during the eighteenth century,and show a certain sense of a need of broader views.The lectures upon which Blackstone founded his commentaries were the product of the foundation of the Vinerian professorship in 1751;and the most recent of the Cambridge colleges,Downing College,shows by its constitution that a professoriate was now considered to be desirable.Cambridge in the last years of the century might have had a body of very eminent professors.Watson,second wrangler of 1759,had delivered lectures upon chemistry,of which it was said by Davy that hardly any conceivable change in the science could make them obsolete.(23)Paley,senior wrangler in 1763,was an almost unrivalled master of lucid exposition,and one of his works is still a textbook at Cambridge.Isaac Milner,senior wrangler in 1774,afterwards held the professorships of mathematics and natural philosophy,and was famous as a sort of ecclesiastical Dr Johnson.

同类推荐
  • 书夏秀才幽居壁

    书夏秀才幽居壁

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • TYPHOON

    TYPHOON

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 信佛功德经

    信佛功德经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 孙威敏征南录

    孙威敏征南录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 过贾谊旧居

    过贾谊旧居

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 天圣广灯录

    天圣广灯录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 请求支援

    请求支援

    《请求支援》是百年百部微型小说经典系列丛书之一,作者周海亮是国内最受青年读者喜爱的作家”之一。微型小说,又名小小说、袖珍小说、一分钟小说、一滴泉小说、超短篇小说或百字小说等。具有立意新颖、情节严谨、结局新奇三要素。微型小说是一种敏感,从一个点、一个画面、一个对比、一声赞叹、一瞬间之中,捕捉住了小说——一种智慧、一种美、一个耐人寻味的场景,一种新鲜的思想。这本收录的就是微型小说,共收小说67篇,包括:《穿过正午的马车》、《一条鱼的狂奔》、《请她来吃顿饭吧》等。
  • 续武林西湖高僧事略

    续武林西湖高僧事略

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 邪王娇妻之在劫难逃

    邪王娇妻之在劫难逃

    一朝穿越竟成了残暴不仁的成王床侍,女主费尽心思想要过那闲云野鹤的生活,但世事怎能如意某王“本王倒要看看,你怎么逃”
  • 每天一定要读的人生感悟

    每天一定要读的人生感悟

    有人认为,人生来就是为了吃苦,他们把生活比作漫长的劳役。又有人说,人们哭着喊着来到这个世界,然后痛苦地生活着,最后失望地死去。生活并非如此,人是生活的主人,而不是生活的俘虏。我们应该积极去主宰自己的生活,让生活变得快乐起来。《每天一定要读的人生感悟》通过一个个感动心灵的小故事,从生活的各个方面去反映、探索快乐的真谛。它能够帮助读者消除生活中的各种羁绊,走出心灵的误区,让心灵在快乐的空气中自由飞翔。
  • 傲娇魔妃

    傲娇魔妃

    他被迫成婚,她率领百万雄师围攻敌国都城前去抢亲:“我的男人,谁敢抢?”手指一挥,号令出声,百万大军和精英骑士直导帝都!
  • 冥妃在上,至尊绝宠

    冥妃在上,至尊绝宠

    盛婠穿越了,本以会上演一辈子的宅斗。不料却被无良面瘫王爷拉进了一个千年的阴谋里。为了解毒,她扔了节操,毅然决然的投入到了‘盗墓’的伟大事业中去。第一次下墓:“王爷大人,臣妾胆小懦弱,可否回家继续帮您调教王妃?”寂卿寒面色淡然的看了她一眼,却突然伸手揪住她,直接扔进到墓里,第二次:“王爷大人你快来,这‘家’主人睡得寒玉床真是解暑神器,咱搬回去家吧。”寂卿寒大手一挥,暗卫们就把‘人家’的床给搬回去了。【情节虚构,请勿模仿】
  • 半夏忧伤

    半夏忧伤

    挚友的背叛让她恍若死了一般,颓废,堕落,但是青春便是如此。最终,当重重误会被解开,我们还能再回到当初的那般美好吗……致敬我们终将逝去的青春,缅怀那些年的烂漫……
  • 虚空之言

    虚空之言

    没有人知道我说的是不是真的?只有我自已。没有人知道我是不是在自言自语?只有我自已知道。其实都是自已
  • 缤纷气候

    缤纷气候

    地球上的生物包括人类都必须承担气候变化的后果,人类社会不得不开始反省、认识,并采取科学的措施,积极行动,减少对环境的污染和对生态的破坏。 由王建国主编的《缤纷气候》介绍气候的形成,气候的分布、应用气候,气候与其他自然因素的关系,人类活动对气候的影响以及气候变化对人类生产、生活的影响等相关知识。