1891] THE UNIVERSITIES 407 missions connected with the national Church"; even in 1850 he insisted that " as matters now stand there is not the shadow or the pretext of a case for enquiry". But Lord John Russell thought otherwise, Univerand in 1850 two Royal Commissions were appointed to enquire into sity Comthe state, discipline, studies, and revenues of the University and of 1850 Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge respectively. The Reports of these Commissions and the resulting legislation mark an epoch of first-rate importance in national education. In the forefront of the Oxford Report there was an emphatic assertion of the national character of the University: "Such an institution cannot be regarded as a mere aggregation of private interests; it is eminently national. It would seem, therefore, to be a matter of public policy that . . . such measures should be taken as may serve to raise its efficiency to the highest point and to diffuse its benefits most widely." Many of the resulting reforms were primarily domestic in character, affecting the constitution and powers of the governing bodies within the University-Convocation, Congregation, and Council; others were intended to facilitate the admission of a poorer class of students by giving permission to undergraduates to reside in licensed lodgings, or even to become members of the University without incurring the expense of joining a College or Hall;1 of even wider significance were those which admitted Dissenters to Matriculation and the Bachelor's Degree at Oxford (1854), and which, at Cambridge, abolished the test for all Degrees except those in Divinity. But at both Universities Dissenters were still excluded from all share in the government and (virtually) from all part in the teaching work alike of the Universities and of the Colleges, as well as from the enjoyment of the more permanent emoluments. Between 1860 and 1870 there was almost continuous agitation for the complete and final abolition of all such restrictions, and on several occasions attempts were made to legislate in this sense. such legislation Mr. Gladstone was the most powerful opponent. "It was," he declared in 1863, "a fair and just demand on the part of the Church of England that the governing body in her University and her Colleges should be composed of her members."? Of 1 The admission of Non-Collegiate or Unattached Students was the object of The University Education Act of 1867, a Statute due to the efforts of Mr. Ewart, an untiring worker in the cause of University reform. versities and the nation But in 1865 Oxford unmuzzled her champion, and as member for Greenwich he carried the sweeping legislation of 1871. The Act of that year abolished all religious tests at Oxford and Cambridge, except in the case of College headships and clerical Fellowships and The Uni- of Theological Chairs and Degrees in Divinity. The principles of the Act of 1871 were enlarged still further by the Executive Commissions appointed at Lord Salisbury's instance in 1876. By these Commissions, whose functions extended over several years, the Universities and their Colleges, their Degrees, prizes, and endowments, their offices and their government were opened freely to all creeds and classes.1 Apart from the removal of the Tests, the principal changes effected were: the limitation of the tenure of the ordinary Fellowships to seven years; the abolition of restrictions upon marriage; the equalization in the value of College scholarships, and the application of College endowments to the increase and a higher remuneration of the Professoriate and other University purposes. Mr. Jowett and others urged upon the Commission to enlarge the principle of Local Examinations and to make provision for the extension of University teaching to persons beyond the limits of the University. Cambridge had already made a beginning in this direction (in 1873), and Oxford followed suit. The ancient Universities thus show themselves "no longer content to be only in the strict sense of the phrase 'seats of learning'; they now desire to be mother-cities of intellectual colonies, and to spread the influence of their teaching throughout the land ".3 This colonizing movement undertaken by the older Universities prepared the way for another remarkable development in higher education the foundation of Universities and University Colleges in London and many of the great provincial towns. University Colleges were established in London in 1828, and in 1836 the University of London came into existence as a Degree-giving institution. In 1898 it was transformed into a teaching University. The Owens College, Manchester, the nucleus of the Victoria University, was founded in 1851; the Newcastle College of Science (in connection 1 A very few exceptions do not demand separate enumeration. 2 Lord Selborne, one of the most loyal and distinguished of living Oxonians, was induced by Lord Salisbury to accept the chairmanship of the Oxford Commission. For some misgivings as to the effect of the changes effected—not wholly unjustified by the event-cf. Selborne, Memorials, ii. vol. ii. pp. 374-376. 3 Jebb, op. cit. pp. 1-2. 1891] UNIVERSITY COLLEGES 409 with the University of Durham) in 1871, and during the next thirty years similar Colleges were established at Leeds, Bristol, Sheffield, Birmingham, Nottingham, Liverpool, Reading, Southampton, Bangor, Cardiff, and Aberystwyth. From every point of view, therefore, the second half of the nineteenth century was fruitful in educational activity. In 1850 Higher education was a preserve of Anglicanism, Secondary education was simply chaotic, and Primary education reached only a small proportion of the children of the poor. Before the close of the century the old Universities were completely nationalized; Colleges of University rank were springing up in great centres of industry; a coherent and comprehensive system of intermediate education was being gradually evolved, and primary instruction, without payment and without price, was within the reach of all. More important still, the different educational grades no longer existed in isolation; they were closely correlated; and for the boy or girl of promise the transition from one grade to the other was rendered easy and cheap. The nation had learnt the lesson that of all forms of national waste, the most extravagant is the waste of brains. The Civil Army reform CHAPTER XXII ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS. THE CLIMAX THE (1868-1874) 'HE disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church, the reform of Irish land tenure, the establishment of a national system of elementary education-these things, large and difficult as they were, did not exhaust the tireless energies of Mr. Gladstone's first administration. The Army and the Civil Service, the Judicial Bench and the licensed victuallers, trade-unionists and miners, were some of the people who came within the orbit of their reforming activities. Down to the middle of the nineteenth century the principle prevailed that the Public Services existed, in large measure, in order to provide appropriate occupation for the cadets of the ruling families. Qualifying examinations for candidates were instituted in 1855, and a year earlier the places in the Civil Service of India were thrown open to competition. The same principle was applied, with few exceptions, to the Home Civil Service by an Order in Council in 1870. A very few of the highest posts may still be filled by nomination; in the Foreign Office there is a combination of nomination and competitive examination; the Education Department is recruited mainly from the Universities by nomination; but the great mass of Civil Service appointments are given exclusively on the results of an examination which is both open and competitive. Consequently, since 1870 the higher ranks of the Civil Services have commanded some of the best brains of the nation. Much more thorny was the question of Army reform, but Mr. Gladstone had put at the War Office one of his ablest lieutenants. Mr. Edward Cardwell was, like his Chief, the son of a Liverpool merchant. Educated at Winchester and Balliol, he found a seat 1874] THE WAR OFFICE 411 in the House of Commons1 before he was thirty, and served his official apprenticeship under Peel. As President of the Board of Trade (1852-1855) he was responsible for the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854; in subsequent Ministries he served as Chief Secretary for Ireland and Secretary of State for the Colonies. He brought, therefore, to the War Office in 1868 wide administrative experience and a high reputation for firmness and tact. Like his colleague Lowe he was a stern economist of the Manchester School, and disliked the desertion of laissez-faire principles implicit in the Irish Land Act of 1870. But he had other opportunities of enforcing them. It was a dominant maxim of the Manchester School that the Colonies should be gradually prepared for independence.2 To this end the British garrisons had been already withdrawn from Australia and New Zealand. Mr. Cardwell carried the same principle much further. When he took office the number of British soldiers in the Colonies was 49,000; by 1870 he had reduced them to about 18,000; the military expenditure on the Colonies he reduced in the same period from £3,388,023 to £1,905,538. Of the latter sum a large proportion was expended on Imperial garrisons in stations such as Malta and Gibraltar, and Cardwell reckoned the strictly colonial expenditure in 1870 at less than £700,000. Office It was Cardwell's hope and belief that diminished expenditure The War might go hand in hand with increased efficiency. His first task, therefore, was to complete the reorganization of the War Office itself. Down to 1855 the confusion which characterized army administration was appalling. But the Crimean War necessitated a measure of reform, the main outlines of which have been already described. Cardwell completed the process. He assigned the business of his office to three departments under the Commander-inChief, the Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, and the Financial Secretary respectively; and all were brought under the control of the Secretary of State. The subordination of the Commander-inChief to the Parliamentary Minister was emphasized by the removal of the Headquarters' staff from the Horse Guards to the War 1 For Clitheroe in 1842. 2 Cf. e.g. Lewis, Government of Dependencies, or A. Mills, Colonial Constitutions. 3 Supra, pp. 240-41. |