Terræ-filius: or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford/Terræ Filius No. XII
Terræ-Filius. No. XII.
Veluti in speculum.
Saturday, February 25.
ONE of my ocrrespondents calls the Sculls of Colleges the Directors of the university; and I have my self, more than once, made use of that allusion already; I am sorry that the iniquity of the times will allow me to draw the parallel so close as I think I can do in this paper. Let us try the Experiment. Several hundred years ago (suppose, for instance, in old King Alfred's reign) certain straggling scholars, who liv'd and studied at Oxford without any regulation, or at most only an inconsiderable number of them, not yet incorporated, form'd a scheme amongst themselves, and offer'd it to the King, in which they proposed, That if he would grant them such a charter, and such privileges as they desired for encreasing their capital stock, and for establishing a publick nursery of youth, they would requite his benevolence, by furnishing his subjects with a vast quantity of learning, loyalty, good manners, religion, and other useful commodities, to the value of several millions, of which they stood grievously in need. They represented several advantages which would accrue to the publick by this new scheme, which, in those days, was call'd (without intending a pun) the Oxford scheme; as th[?] particularly, it would save us the great expence, and trouble, and scandal of sending our children abroad for education; that when we had a publick seminary of our own, we should export great quantities of academical manufacture to other countries, instead of importing it from thence, which was always esteem'd a beneficial branch of trade; that young men are apt to learn abroad principles incompatible with our constitution, and to assimilate with the nations amongst whom they are educated; and several other reasons, que nunc perscribere longum est.
On the other side, it was suggested, that it was too great a trust to be reposed in so mean and contemptible a body of men: that it would be of dangerous consequence to let them engross and monopolize all the learning in the kingdom; that it would put it in their power to instil what principles they pleas'd into the minds of youth; and by that means to give to government disturbance, whenever their ambition, or resentment, or caprice should prompt them to it; and that, in short, they would grow too powerful and restiff to be managed.
Notwithstanding all which, what with the interest they had, or made amongst the courtiers, and what with the plausibleness of the thing at sirst sight, their proposals were accepted, and a charter was granted them fuller than they desired.
When they had carried this point, subscription-books (by them call'd matriculation-books) were open'd, and most of the nobility and gentry subscribed their sons and their wards into them; presently their stock rose, and happy was he that had any thing in it! Every old hunks and miser unhoarded his dea treasure upon this occasion, and thrust it into this fund, in expectation of vast dividends of learning and philosophy, which being novelties in those days, consequently bore a great price; scarce was there a country farmer, or a chimney-sweeper, who had rak'd a little money together, but must come into the fashion, and make one of his boys a parson, or a philosopher; nay, some sent whole colonies of male-heirs thither as fast as they could beget them, and were seiz'd with an insatiable avarice of letters and religion; insomuch that people began to think, that in a short time they should have nothing but Plato's, and Seneca's, and Aristotle's in the nation.
This scheme met with such popular encouragement, that, in imitation of it, several Bubble-schools and academies sprung up and aped it in all its proceedings; they too produced old obsolete charters, or bought new ones to teach youth in the same faculties, and took in subscriptions in the same manner that the other did. Those persons, who could not raise money enough to come into the grand Oxford fund, jobb'd in these little bubbles, one