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traces of the existence of an entrance examination. Candidates must possess such a knowledge of Latin and polite learning as will enable them to stand the test of the examinations in the hall, and to take part in the college disputations. The general scheme of study corresponds in the main with that laid down in the Edwardian statutes for the university.

CHAPTER VI.

FROM THE FOUNDATION OF TRINITY COLLEGE TO THE ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH.

Abuses in the admission of students into the colleges.

THE diminution of numbers which followed upon the expulsion of the religious orders from the universities was in a great measure repaired by the increase in another class, which at first seemed likely materially to affect the general standard of attainment. The monk and the friar gave place to the schoolboy. Parents belonging to the more opulent classes began to send their sons as pensioners, feeling confident that they would now no longer be exposed to the proselytising activity of either Franciscan or Benedictine; knowing also that they would be watched over and cared for in the colleges; and, reassured on these points, not especially solicitous that their lads should become either accomplished scholars or profound theologians. 'There be none now,' said Latimer in 1549, 'but great men's sons in college, and their fathers look not to have them preachers.' Patronage now began also to exert its most pernicious influences. The acquirement of wealth had become more than ever a passion with the aristocracy; while with the mar

ried bishop it was too frequently his first thought, how to provide for his own descendants. Ascham, in a letter written two years before the delivery of Latimer's sermon, declared that 'talent, learning, poverty, and discretion all went for nothing in the college, when interest, favour, and letters from the great exerted their pressure from without.' While Thomas Lever, preaching at Paul's Cross in 1551, declared that one courtier was worse than 'fifty tunbellied monks,' and that those who possessed influential connections were now not ashamed to usurp the college endowments and to put poore men from bare lyvynges.' It was only natural, accordingly, that men of mature years and ripe attainments should have begun to seek other spheres of labour; weary of a field where merit was becoming rare and rarer, chiefly owing to the fact that when it made its appearance it met with no reward. So, indeed, matters appear to have remained throughout the troublous times which preceded the accession of Elizabeth. Down to that date, says Huber in his well-known work on the English universities, the Reformation had inflicted on both Oxford and Cambridge only injury, both outward and inward.' More than one thoughtful contemporary observer would seem, in fact, to have been much of the same opinion. When, in the year of Elizabeth's accession, after a lengthened absence from Cambridge, Dr. Caius reuniversity as visited the university, his surprise at the changes that had taken place, and his

State of the

described by

Dr. Caius.

sense of the evils which had accompanied them, induced him to give them formal record in his history.

He missed, he tells us, the dignified elders of former times, proceeding with sedate countenance and stately mien to the disputations in the schools, attended by the chief members of their respective colleges, each in his distinctive academic dress, and preceded both going and coming by heralds. The undergraduates no longer respectfully saluted their seniors from afar and made way for them in the streets; many seemed to have altogether discarded the long gown and the cap. Their pocket-money, he learned, was no longer spent on books, their minds were no longer given to study, but both were alike devoted to dress and the adornment of their persons. They wandered about the town frequenting taverns and wine-shops; their nether garments were of gaudy colours; they gambled and ran into debt. Expulsions were not infrequent. Students, he was told, complained loudly that the generous patrons of learning of former times no longer existed; but he takes occasion to observe that it is first of all necessary that the requisite merit should make itself apparent, whereas many students only bring discredit on the university and load their patrons with shame.

Loss of the university's

chief leaders.

Although Dr. Caius' description is characterised by something of exaggeration, it evidently points to a condition of things which no wellwisher to the university could regard with satisfaction. Nor can we doubt that this demoralisation was largely due to the circumstance which Ascham and Lever agreed in deploring, -namely, that the enthusiastic little band of scholars of which Cheke and Smith had been

the leaders was broken up, and that no worthy successors were now forthcoming who by their attainments and example might stimulate others to honourable exertion. In no sphere of labour, indeed, as academic history again and again shows us, is personal influence more potent for good or for evil than in universities.

The enactment of the statutes of 1549 effected some material changes in the constitution of the university, but they also deserve the praise

The statutes
of 1549.

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bestowed upon them by Dean Peacock of being brief, distinct, and reasonable.' They were the result of the labours of men well acquainted with the state and needs of the whole community, among whom were Bishop Ridley, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir John Cheke, and Dr. Mey. To these statutes were added certain Injunctions,' or additions made by the commissioners in concert with the academic authorities. They are mainly devoted to defining with greater precision the duties of the university lecturers and the text-books to be used. The ancient trivium was completely recast, while grammar was altogether discarded,-Jesus College being the only foundation where it was still permissible to give instruction in the subject. In its place mathematics' appear as the initiatory study for the youth fresh from school; they were to be succeeded by dialectic, and this again by philosophy. Further instruction in philosophy, perspective, astronomy, and Greek took the place of the subjects of the old quadrivium or bachelor's course of study; while the master of arts, after the time of his regency had elapsed, was re

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