The age in Oxford, as in the world at large, is the
age of collapsed opinions. Never men believed more fervidly in any
revelation than the men of twenty years ago believed in political
economy, free trade, open competition, and the reign of Common-sense
and of Mr. Cobden. Where is that faith now? Many of the middle-aged
disciples of the Church of Common-sense are still in our midst. They
say the old sayings, they intone the old responses, but somehow it
seems that scepticism is abroad; it seems that the world is wider
than their system. Not even open examinations for fellowships and
scholarships, not half a dozen new schools, and science, and the
Museum, and the Slade Professorship of Art, have made Oxford that
ideal University which was expected to come down from Heaven like the
New Jerusalem.
We have glanced at the history of Oxford to little purpose if we have
not learned that it is an eminently discontented place. There is
room in colleges and common rooms for both sorts of discontent--the
ignoble, which is the child of vanity and weakness; and the noble,
which is the unassuaged thirst for perfection. The present result of
the last forty years in Oxford is a discontent which is constantly
trying to improve the working, and to widen the intellectual
influence, of the University. There are more ways than one in which
this feeling gets vent. The simplest, and perhaps the most honest
and worthy impulse, is that which makes the best of the present
arrangements.
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