R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

Oxford in the 'Seventies 231as the cognate notion that science, as such, was hostileto religion, and might have been refuted by appeal tothe literary eminence of the leaders of science in Oxfordat the time, such as Acland, Rolleston, Henry Smith,Vernon Harcourt, Moseley and others. But I see nowthat I did less than justice to the philosophers in Oxford,when'I deserted their ranks, under the conviction thathistorical methods furnished the safest clue to the riddlesof human existence in every time and place.VII. HISTORY AT OXFORD IN THE 'SEVENTIESCertainly in the 'seventies the brightest hope for lettersin Oxford lay with the growth and vigour of the School,or Faculty, of Modern History, especially after its releasefrom the mariage de convenance with Jurisprudence. Notthat Jurisprudence was not alive at the time, at least inthe Professoriate. Throughout our decade Sir HenryMaine was delivering his classic lectures on Early Institutions,on Law and Custom, and so forth, all immediatelyfit for publication. But Maine was a nonresidentProfessor—like the Professor of Poetry, or theSlade Professor of Art—and his true academic homebeckoned from the sister University, to which he of rightbelonged. Of course our School of Law, as the sequel hasproved, stood to gain quite as much by an independentconstitution, as did its yoke-fellow; it had, moreover, aunique advantage among the Faculties of the Universityin being based, so to speak, on All Souls College, with itsmagnificent Library and endowments. But the floruit ofthe Oxford Law School falls after our limit, and the newModern History School was the proudest edifice of the'seventies, though its early pillars, so to speak, had beengrounded in Literae Humaniores, and were good scholarsbefore they became great historians. William Stubbswas Regius Professor, and his Constitutional History of