207 CHAPTER VII. MODERN OXFORD. Summary-Progress of Education-The Religious Movement-A Visitor's Survey of the City. WE can only touch lightly on the events of this century; how Nelson received the freedom of the City in 1802, and was made a D.C.L. by the University; how George III.'s Jubilee was celebrated in 1809 and money collected to free the poor debtors in the Castle; how the Allied Sovereigns were welcomed with great festivities in 1814; how the Apollo Lodge of Freemasons was founded in 1819-the City has several Lodges, including the Alfred, which began in 1769, but was suspended for some time after 1783; how the city was first lighted with gas in 1819; how Carfax church was rebuilt in 1822, and Folly Bridge 1827, and St. Clement's church 1828, and Beaumont Street constructed in 1829; how the Union was founded in 1823, as the United Debating Society'; how the city suffered from the cholera in 1832, 1849, and 1854; how the British Association held meetings here in 1832 and 1847, and the Archæological Institute in 1850; and how the Royal Agricultural Society was founded at Oxford in 1839; how the first cricket match with Cambridge took place in 1837, and the first outrigger race in 1846, when Cambridge won; how the Great Western line from Didcot was opened to a station near Folly Bridge in 1844, and continued to Banbury in 1852, and a new line made to London through Thame in 1863, while the London and NorthWestern line to London through Bletchley was opened in 1851; how many people who went to Wellington's funeral in 1852 had difficulty in returning home owing to part of the Great Western line being washed away by a flood (there were other heavy floods in 1846 and 1875); how the City Public Library was founded in 1852; how there were bread riots in 1868, and some of the Coldstream Guards were sent down from London how the Queen and Prince Albert came repeatedly to visit the place, and the Prince of Wales and Prince Leopold became members of the University; how the two rifle corps of the City and University were founded in 1860, and a review held on Port Meadow in 1863; and how a volunteer fire brigade was formed in 1870. The present constitution of the City of course dates from the Municipal Act of 1835, which superseded James I.'s charter of 1605. There are now ten aldermen and thirty councillors to represent the five wards, which extend considerably beyond the old boundaries, and include South Hincksey and parts of Cowley and Headington, besides the old North Hundred. Each ward is represented by two aldermen and six councillors. Five aldermen go out of office every third year, and two councillors of each ward every year. The whole system of University teaching has been remodelled during this century, and separate honour schools instituted for separate subjects, a system which began in 1802. A first class in mathematics was not granted till 1808, when it was given to a single student, who also took a first in classics; he was not quite twenty-one, his name was Robert Peel. The next double first was given to John Keble. Schools for Law and History and Natural Science were added in 1853, and a museum and laboratories and an observatory were built in the Parks. Schools for theology and for Oriental studies have been instituted more recently. It still remains to provide for English language and literature. Bacon long ago remarked, 'There is no education collegiate which is free, where men might give themselves to histories, modern languages, books of policy and civil discourse, and other the like enablements unto service of State.' Sir John Herschel adds that 'education should be more real than formal, i.e. less weight should be attached to the dead languages, and more attention paid to the actual system and laws of nature, both physical and moral; to the principles of political economy, of jurisprudence, of trade; to either mathematics or inductive philosophy.' The middleclass examinations have connected the University with schools all over the country. And even the long injustice towards women in the matter of education is being partly atoned for. There are two ladies' halls, Lady Margaret and Somerville Halls, and women are now admitted to the examinations. Two new colleges have been founded, Keble in 1870, and Hertford in 1874-under happier auspices than the old Hertford College; and a new Nonconformist college was established in 1886. Many colleges too have added to their buildings. An Indian Institute has been built in Broad Street, and the non-collegiate students will P 6 soon have central offices of their own. Nor has Oxford been unaffected by the wave of religious reaction which swept over Europe after the French Revolution. But here the fires still glow under the ashes,' and the time has hardly come for writing the history of the Oxford movement of 1833. How speak of what is thus described by two men who took part in it? One speaks of it as a period which in my memory is as a golden age. The characters themselves have to me an unearthly radiance . . . but I do not think one of them (save Keble) would be a living name a century hence but for his share in the light of Newman's genius and goodness.' The other, also an admirer of Newman, says, Tractarianism was only one phase-the indispensable reactionary and complementary phase-in the movement of thought which belongs to the nineteenth century. . . . Newman's conversion was a deliverance from the nightmare which had oppressed Oxford for fifteen years. For so long we had been given over to discussions unprofitable in themselves, and which had entirely diverted our thoughts from the true business of the place. Probably there was no period of our history during which, I do not say science and learning, but the ordinary study of the classics, was at so profitless or so low an ebb as during the period of the Tractarian controversy. By the secession of 1845 this was extinguished in a moment, and from that moment dates the regeneration of the University.' But no spiritual and generous effort dies out without leaving enduring results, especially when it has enhanced the sense of brotherhood and of the increasing purpose that runs through the ages. There are now twenty-two churches within the city boundary, and sixteen chapels or meeting rooms, five belonging to the Baptists, one to the Brethren, one to the Free Church of England, two Independent, one Irvingite, six belonging to the various bodies of Methodists, one to the Roman Catholics. A list of charities in the parishes is given in the Charity Commission Report of 1828, pp. 145-8. High schools have lately been founded for boys and girls; there is an undenominational elementary school and a school of art, besides the various denominational schools. Magdalen School still retains its fame. very The visitor who reaches Oxford by rail sees little, from the Great Western or North-Western stations, of the fragments of Osney and Rewley Abbeys. But on his way up the main road to the city he observes on the right the conical mound of earth raised by Alfred's dynasty as a fortress against the Danes and, as the Norman castle has nearly vanished, its appearance is not perhaps different from what it was almost a thousand years ago. On reaching the High Street he sees the old city church of St. Martin's, at the meeting of the‘four ways' called Carfax, and if church and tower seem to him low, let him remember that they were lowered in the fourteenth year of Edward III., because the citizens galled and annoyed the students from thence with arrows and stones. Not so long ago the curfew bell was still rung at the church at eight o'clock, and this was followed by the bell being tolled a number of times corresponding to the day of the month. On his right he looks down St. Aldate's, to the Great Christ Church, with Pembroke opposite. Tom gate of |