That is, it

It

culture springing from it. And the effect of this little knowledge and little culture is to make those who have it satisfied with the state of things in which they find themselves, and to separate themselves from those who have not even that little knowledge and little culture. "Education," says the Spectator, "to the very moderate extent to which a University degree attests it, is a Conservative force, because to that extent at all events it does much more to stimulate the sense of privilege and caste than it does to enlarge the sympathies and to strengthen the sense of justice." would seem, a pass degree tends to make a man a Tory. does not at all follow that even the passman's course is mischievous to him on the whole, even if it does him no good politically. For, if it has the effect which the Spectator says, the form which that effect takes is, in most cases, rather to keep a man a Tory than to make him one. And it may none the less do him good in some other ways. But the Spectator leaves it at least open to be inferred that a higher degree, or rather the knowledge and consequent culture implied in the higher degree, does, or ought to do, something different even in the political way. And such an inference would probably be borne out by facts. If Lord Carnarvon looks on all passmen as "men of literary eminence and intellectual power," he must be very nearly right in his figures when he says that threefourths of such men are opposed to Mr. Gladstone. have really profited by their University work may passmen as such are entitled to that description. most ideal state of an University, though it might be reasonable to expect its members to be men of intellectual power, it would be unreasonable to expect all of them to be men of literary eminence. by literary eminence be meant the writing of books, some men of very high intellectual power are men of no literary eminence whatever. Without therefore requiring the University members to be elected wholly by men of literary eminence, we may fairly ask that they may be elected by men of more intellectual power than the mass of the present electors. We should ask for this, even if we thought that Lord Carnarvon was right, if we thought that, the higher the standard of the electors, the safer would be the Tory seats. But it is perhaps only human nature to ask for it the more, if we happen to think that the raising of the standard would have the exactly opposite result.

But those who doubt whether Indeed in the

If

The evil then, to sum up the result of the Spectator's argument, is that the University elections are determined by the votes of the passmen, and that the mass of the passmen are Tories. Now what is the remedy for this evil? One very obvious remedy is always, on such occasions as that which has just happened, whispered perhaps rather than very loudly proclaimed. This is the doctrine that the

representation of Universities in Parliament is altogether a mistake, and that it would be well if the Universities were disfranchised by the next Reform Bill. And, if the question could be discussed as a purely abstract one, there is no doubt much to be said, from more grounds than one, against University representation. There is only one ground on which separate University representation can be justified on the common principles on which an English House of Commons is put together. This is the ground that each University is a distinct community from the city or borough in which it is locally placed, something in the same way in which it is held that a city or borough is a distinct community from the county in which it locally stands. The University of Oxford has interests, feelings, a general corporate being, distinct from the city of Oxford, just as the city of Oxford has interests, feelings, a general corporate being, distinct from the county of Oxford. So, if one were maliciously given, one might go on to argue that the choice of a representative made by the borough of Woodstock seems to show that the inhabitants of that borough have something in them which makes them distinct from University, county, city, or any other known division of mankind. Regarding then these differences, the wisdom of our forefathers has ruled, not that the county of Oxford, the city, the University, and the boroughs of Woodstock and Banbury, should join to elect nine members after the principle of scrutin de liste, but that the nine members should be distributed among them according to their local divisions, after the principle of scrutin d'arrondissement. On any ground but this local one, a ground which applies to some Universities and not to others, and which seems to have less weight than formerly in those Universities to which it does apply, the University franchise is certainly an anomaly. It must submit to be set down as a fancy franchise. But it is a fancy franchise which has a great weight of precedent in its favour. Besides the original institution of the British Solomon, there is the fact that University representation has been extended at each moment of constitutional change for a century past. It was extended by the Union with Ireland, by the great Reform Bill, and by the legislation of fifteen years back. Each of these changes has added to the number of University members. And each has added to them in a way which more and more forsakes the local ground, and gives to the University franchise more and more the character of a fancy franchise. Dublin has less of local character than Oxford and Cambridge; London has no local character at all. Such a grouping as that of Glasgow and Aberdeen takes away all local character from Scottish University representation. In short, whatever James the First intended, later legislators, down to our own day, have adopted and confirmed the principle of the fancy franchise as applied to the Universities. There stands the anomaly,

with the stamp of repeated re-enactment upon it. Some very strong
ground must therefore be found on which to attack it.
Liberals may
think that there is a very strong ground in the fact that University
representation tends to strengthen the Conservative interest, and not
only to strengthen it, but to give it a kind of credit, as stamped with
the approval of the most highly educated class of electors. But this
is a ground which could not be decently brought forward. It would
not do to propose the disfranchisement of a particular class of
electors merely because they commonly use their franchise in favour
of a particular political party. From a party point of view, the
representation of the cities of London and Westminster is as great a
political evil as the representation of the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge. But we could not therefore propose the disfranchise-
ment of those cities. The abstract question of University represen-
tation may be discussed some time.
It may
be discussed in our own
time on the proposal of a Conservative government or a Conservative
opposition. It may be discussed on the proposal of a Liberal
government on the day when all University members are Liberals.
But the disfranchisement of the Universities could not, for very shame,
be proposed by a Liberal government when the answer would at once
be made, and made with truth, that the Universities were to be dis-
franchised simply because most of them return Conservative members.

We may therefore pass by the alternative of disfranchisement as lying beyond the range of practical politics. I use that famous phrase advisedly, because it always means that the question spoken of has already shown that it will be a practical question some day or other. The other choice which is commonly given us is to confine the franchise to residents. After every University election for many years past, and not least after the one which has just taken place, we have always heard the outcry that the real University is swamped by the nominal University, that the body which elects in the name of the University is in no way qualified to speak in the name of the University, and that in point of fact it does not speak the sentiments of those to whom the name of University more properly belongs. Reckonings are made to show that, if the election had depended, not on the large bodies of men who are now entitled to vote, but on much smaller bodies of residents, above all of official residents, professors, tutors, and the like, the result of the election would have been different. If then, it is argued, the Universities are to keep the right of parliamentary representation, the right of voting should be taken away from the mass of those who at present exercise it, and confined to those who really represent the University, to those who are actually engaged on the spot, in the government, the studies, or the teaching of the place.

Now every word of this outcry is true. No one can doubt that

the electoral bodies of the Universities, as at present constituted, are quite unfit to represent the Universities, to speak in their name or to express their wishes or feelings. The franchise, at Oxford and Cambridge, is in the hands of the two largest bodies known to the University constitution, the Convocation of Oxford, the Senate of Cambridge. If we look at the University as a commonwealth of the ancient, the medieval, or the modern Swiss pattern, the election is in the hands of the Ekklésia, the Comitia of Tribes, the Portmannagemót, the Landesgemeinde, the Conseil Général. The franchise is open to all academic citizens who have reached full academic growth, to all who have put on the toga virilis as the badge of having taken a complete degree in any faculty. That is to say, it belongs to all doctors and masters who have kept their names on the books. Now, whatever such a body as this may seem in theory, we know what it is in practice. It is not really an academic body. Those who really know anything or care anything about University matters are a small minority. The mass of the University electors are men who are at once non-resident and who have taken nothing more than that common degree which the Spectator, quite rightly, holds to be of such small account. They often, we may believe, keep their name on the books simply in order to vote at the University elections.

But what is the remedy? I cannot think that it is to be found in confining the election to residents, at Oxford perhaps to members of Congregation.* By such a restriction we should undoubtedly get a constituency with a much higher average of literary eminence and intellectual power. We should get a constituency which would far more truly represent the University as a local body. But surely we cannot look on the Universities as purely local bodies. It has always been one of the great characteristics-I venture to think one of the great beauties of the English Universities that the connexion of the graduate with his University does not come to an end when he ceases to reside, but that the master or doctor keeps all the rights of a master or doctor wherever he may happen to dwell. The resident body has many merits and does much good work; but it has its weaknesses. It is in the nature of things a very changing body; it must change far more from year to year than any other electoral body. And, though the restriction to residents would undoubtedly raise the general character of the constituency, it would get rid of one of its best elements. Surely those who have distinguished themselves in the University, who have worked well for the University, who are continuing in some other shape the studies or the teaching which they have begun in the University, who are in fact carrying the

* That is, to all members of Convocation who are either resident or hold University office. This, besides the Chancellor and a few other great personages, lets in a few professors and examiners who are non-resident.

University into other places, are not to be looked on as cut off from
the University merely because they have ceased locally to reside in
it. Not a few of the best heads and the best professors-I suspect
we might say the best of both classes-are those who have not always
lived in the University, but who have been called back to it after a
period of absence. To the knowledge of local affairs, which belong to
the mere resident, they bring a wider knowledge, a wider experience,
which makes them better judges even of local affairs. And can men
whom the University thus welcomes after absence be deemed unworthy
even to give a vote during the time of absence? One reads a great
deal about the real University being swamped by voters running in
from London clubs, barristers' chambers, country houses, country
parsonages. And no doubt a great many most incompetent
voters do come from all those quarters. But some of the most
competent come also. The restriction to residents would have
disfranchised for ever
or for a season most of our greatest
scholars, the authors of the greatest works, for the last forty
years. Yet surely sad men are the University in the highest
sense; they are the men best entitled to speak in its name,
whether they are at a given moment locally resident or not. It
would surely not be a gain, it would not increase the literary
eminence or intellectual power of the constituency, to shut out
those men, and to confine everything to a body made up so
largely of one element which is too permanent and another which is
too fluctuating, of old heads and of young tutors. Then too there
is a very reasonable presumption in the human mind, and specially
in the English mind, against taking away the rights of any class of
men without some very good reason. And in this case there are at
least as strong arguments against the restriction as there are for it.
I speak only of the simple proposal to confine the election to resi-
dents, in Oxford language to transfer it from Convocation to Con-
gregation. There are indeed other plans, to let Convocation elect
one member and Congregation the other-something like the election
of the consuls at an early stage of the Roman commonwealth-or to
leave the present members as they are, and to give the Universities
yet more members to be chosen by Congregation. Now I will not
say that these schemes lie without the range of practical politics,
because they show no sign of being ever likely to come within it.
They may safely be referred to Mr. Thomas Hare.

While therefore I see as strongly as any man the evils of election by Convocation, as Convocation is at present constituted,* I cannot think that restriction to Congregation or to residents in any shape

I use Oxford language, as that which I myself best understand; but I believe that all that I say applies equally to Cambridge also. For "Convocation" one must of course, in Cambridge language, read "Senate."