Various - The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862

The educational system pursued at Cambridge is open, I think, to one very grave objection. Unless the student is tolerably wealthy, he is deprived of the advantages which his richer companions enjoy. The brief lectures—of one hour's duration only—delivered daily by the college tutors to a crowd of undergraduates, are ill calculated to benefit the striving individual student. As far as the college is concerned, the youth is left to himself. If he cannot afford the expense of a private tutor, his attainments are due to solitary application, and he is self taught within the very walls of a college. The private tutors reap a rich harvest from this careless system. They are usually members of the university who have recently taken their first degree, and prefer the large recompense of tuition to the miserable stipend of a curacy. To each of their pupils—and a popular private tutor has usually eight or ten—they devote one hour daily, and their charge is $70 for the term. As a term sometimes expires at the end of seven weeks, they receive about $2 an hour. This sum is beyond the poor scholar's means, and he has to run an unequal race at the examinations with his more fortunate competitor.

If appearances are to be trusted, the Trinity undergraduates are not untiring students. They seem to pass their days and nights in the pursuit of pleasure. The great evil of the English universities is the credit system, and though Dr. Whewell endeavored to show me that it was thoroughly discountenanced by the college authorities, he did not succeed in convincing me that they were dealing properly with the difficulty. A student, in defiance of all the restrictions imposed upon his intercourse with the tradesmen of the town, may contract debts to almost any amount. It is notorious that parents are brought to the verge of ruin every year by their sons' misconduct at college, unless they choose to contest the demands of the tradesmen in a court of law, by pleading the infancy of the debtor when he has not attained his majority. The college regulations demand that every tradesman licensed by the university—and with none other is the student authorized to deal—shall send to the tutor, at the expiration of each term, the bills of the respective undergraduates who have been his customers. From the position occupied in society by the friends of the student, the tutor is enabled to judge whether he is exceeding his income. The expenditure which would be excessive for the son of a clergyman, with a small living, would be moderate for the heir to a peerage. It is further required that the expenses of each term shall be paid before the undergraduate recommences his studies, and any tradesman who is known to withhold from the tutor's knowledge any debt, or portion of a debt, owing him by any student, is immediately deprived of his license. Nevertheless, all but a few of the more wealthy tradesmen conduct their transactions with the students on the understanding that these regulations are to be violated at pleasure. Thus, from term to term, debt is added to debt, until the student is preparing to leave the university. Then the tradesman becomes eager for a settlement. The student endeavors to put him off with promises. The tradesman hurries to a lawyer. A writ is issued, judgment is delivered, and the student has to fly from the university without taking his degree, in order to escape a prison. Or, if he is in his minority, proceedings are commenced against his father, who, if he is a proud man, will rather pay the bill than contest it, though the entire amount will seriously impair the fortunes of his other children. Or he may deny his liability, plead that his son is a minor, and that the articles furnished were not necessaries. In this way, it has been argued by barristers on the plaintiff's side that wine, cigars, jewels, and hired horses were necessaries of life, and the presiding judge has sometimes ruled on one side that they were, and sometimes on the other, that they were not. Hundreds of young men have had their prospects in life blasted by this system, and yet, no cure has been found. I heard of one instance, and it was only one of many nearly similar, where an undergraduate had contracted debts amounting to upward of $10,000 beyond his ability to pay. Of this sum, I recollect some of the items: $1,000 was for cigars, $3,000 for wine, $2,500 for the hire of horses, $1,900 for rings, pins, and other trinkets, and only $200 for books. He had attained his majority, and was sent to prison, his father resolutely refusing to pay his debts. He languished in prison for two years, and died there.

Nor does it always follow that the undergraduate may be saved from this disgrace and ruin by firmness and honorable principles. He is, for the first time in his life, his own master. The superintendence of the college tutor amounts to just nothing at all. Immediately he arrives at the university, he is besieged by tradesmen. It is particularly impressed upon him, that money is not necessary to conclude a bargain. He can pay when he likes. Three years hence will do. The youth is sorely tempted. He finds his new college acquaintance sailing under press of canvas, over the sea of extravagance. They give splendid wine parties, and invite him to the jovial board. He is bound to return the hospitality of these prime fellows. One extravagance leads to another. The port and sherry, that he could afford, shine no more upon his table. He drinks hock now, and claret, and princely champagne, at two dollars and fifty cents a bottle. He smokes cigars at $10 a pound. He is living like a gentleman. Let the poor sizar toil over musty books; he will have a race horse. 'Tis a fine life. How much better than a schoolboy's. He speaks of his father as the governor , and talks in a flash manner of the girls he is acquainted with. He thinks he will marry one of them, but his choice is not determined. The college dons, professors, tutors, fellows, know the temptations, know the risk, know the ruinous goal, but no one arrests his career. Which is most to blame; the raw, undisciplined boy, or the evil university system?

I passed a rare time at Cambridge. What delight it was in those cold mornings to take a bracing walk into the country, and looking back over miles of level land, to behold the chapel of King's College, and the tower of St. Mary's church, which had been the land beacons of aspiring students for so many generations! I verily believe that the chapel of King's College is the finest piece of modern architecture in the world. It is a poem in stone! Teaching so much—not of this earth, only; least of this earth, perhaps. I never wearied of walking in it, and around it, repeating Wordsworth's sonnet, and feeling that 'for a few white-robed scholars only,' it was not built; but as an utterance of man's spirit, more fervent than he could express in the articulate speech of man. The soul of the individual, nurtured by any semblance of culture, who can stand unmoved beneath that fretted roof, must be cold as the frozen zone. It remains with me, like Niagara.

As a college, Trinity is the most interesting. The chapel is very inferior to that of King's, but it is hallowed by the memory of Newton. Roubiliac's statue of the philosopher is the chief object of interest, and the Trinity men do not envy the scholars of King's their chapel, when they behold that statue. The dean of Trinity, the Rev. W. Carns, author of the 'Life of Simeon,' is the present possessor of the rooms once occupied by Newton. The little watch tower where he pierced the heavens with his telescope is still standing. One ascends it, and surveys the firmament, not without a reverential feeling. Cambridge abounds with the associations of genius. Chaucer studied here, and at Oxford also, it is said; and in treading the great court of Trinity, one cannot help thinking of Bacon. Milton's mulberry tree is yet standing, and puts forth a few fresh leaves every spring in the garden of Christ's College. His manuscript of 'Comus,' partly in his own writing, partly in that of his amanuensis—of one of his daughters, it is probable—is in the library of Trinity College, and may be seen by the curious. The spirits of these venerable men still haunt the scenes of their studious youth, and with their mighty shadows brooding over us, what is the value of dollars and dimes?