Untitled - Electric Scotland

1 66 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. vi.
body a quasi-representative character, and secondly (to
quote the words of the Report) by opening the University
"
to a much larger and poorer class than that from which
the students are at present almost entirely taken." Deal
ing first with the Constitution, they recommended the
revival, with certain modifications, of the ancient House
of Congregation, once a reality, but now for some two
centuries a mere shadow, 1
its former executive functions
having long been discharged, in a more or less perfunctory
manner, by the small and irresponsible Hebdomadal
Board, consisting merely of the Heads of Houses and the
Proctors. Under this proposed scheme the revived
1
Congregation was again to become practically the
legislative body of the University, and to consist of about
one hundred members, representing the whole teaching
staff at work in Oxford.
In this teaching staff they suggested large and funda
mental changes. They pointed out that the instruction of
the undergraduates had practically passed from the hands
of the Professors recognised by the statutes of the Uni
versity into the hands of College and private tutors.
Though certain individual Professors, such as Arnold, had
succeeded in gathering round them large numbers of
students, professorial teaching had practically ceased. The
Commissioners pointed out the loss suffered both by
Oxford and the country at large
"
from the absence of a
body of learned men devoting their lives to the cultivation
of science and to the direction of Academical education ;
and gave it as their opinion that
complete scheme of University
"
for any healthy and
reform it will be neces
sary to reconstruct the professorial system, to procure for
1 The House of Congregation, as it existed in 1850, is described in the
Report, p. IO, as meeting
"
only for the purpose of hearing measures pro
posed which it cannot discuss, of conferring degrees to which candidates arc-
already entitled, and of granting dispensations which are never refused."
"