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

264 W. E. HeitlandProfessor-ridden people had proved its superiority to allthe nations of Europe in practical qualities. To England,and not least to Cambridge, the result of the wars from1866 to 1871 was a sharp and much-needed lesson. It wasnot easy to grasp all at once the truth that an educationalsystem with the Professoriate at its head could be thenurse of such prodigious national efficiency. But oldEnglish prepossessions were shaken for good. The Governmentdealt with army reform and elementary education.Meanwhile the old Cambridge self-satisfaction and pridein present institutions began to give way. German ideasand German experience gained respect at the cost ofFrench, a reaction perhaps at the moment excessive, buteffectual in preparing men's minds for a period of academicreform. As a sign of the times it may be noted thatin 1870 the subject proposed for an University prizeessay called forth a learned response in the form of twoworks on University Life and Studies in the EighteenthCentury. These books (1874 and 1877), dealing withOxford as well as Cambridge, were by Christopher Wordsworthof Trinity and Peterhouse. Whether the authoritieswho provoked this inquiry were beginning to suspect thatthe existing system (dominated by private tuition) wasa recent growth, and entitled to no respect on the groundof antiquity, I cannot tell. At all events the books leftan impression to that effect on the minds of some readers.At the back of all these movements and conflicts ofopinion, certain convictions were in process of formation,and were by the middle of the 'seventies tacitly assumed.It was evident that something would be done to providea regular academic career for teachers in Cambridge itself,in fact to recognise official teaching (and research)as a profession in which men might spend their lives. Alsothat this implied stipends on a living-wage scale; for ina scheme of permanent employment to require celibacy