Abstract

Recent Reforms in the English Universities

English universities, that is to say, those two oldest and greatest of them which are so much the most important that people scarcely regard the others, have just been passing through one of their periodical processes of reform. It may interest U.S. readers to learn how this is done, and not the less so because no corresponding process seems to pass upon universities of America. Oxford University in Oxford, England, and Cambridge University in Cambridge, England, hold a position unlike that of any other seats of learning on either side of the Atlantic. They are neither state establishments, like the University of France, nor, on the other hand, do they go on their way wholly untouched by the State, as is the case with Harvard and Yale universities. They are, it is true, independent corporations, which grew up of themselves in remote ages—Oxford in the twelfth, Cambridge in the thirteenth century; and they govern themselves—no Minister of Public Instruction has anything to do with them.