influence and the pride of the Universities of Germany, dedicated apparently to learning, but fountains of infidelity and sin. I have counted the apostacies in Trinity College, Dublin; the utter ruin of Catholic souls, some actually accepting emoluments as the price of divine faith,—and thousands silently, to themselves insensibly but surely, losing the bloom, the purity, the sensitiveness of Catholic faith, merging and compromising their religious profession as far as they dare, and daring more than they know. As a shepherd with his sheep, I forbid your entrance into poisonous pastures, but I lead you into pastures which are pure and healthful." And thus the Church has condemned Oxford and Cambridge as seats of education for Catholics. She has condemned them upon her past experience, with her divine instinct, and after a due examination of the peculiar circumstances of the case.

The invitation, therefore, tendered to us by Parliament and the Universities to participate in their Protestant or mixed education, is declined by the Church; and her children, who are properly informed of her mind and discipline, have no longer the possibility of hesitation. The question was raised; it is decided and closed.

But our desire after a University education is none the less keen; nor is this desire thwarted by the Church, because she is obliged to forbid us the Protestant Universities; it is but turned into another and a safer channel.

We propose, therefore, briefly to consider two questions: the first, concerning the value to us as Catholics of the Oxford education, which we are compelled to forego; the second, the possibility of establishing a Catholic University of our own.

II.

We fully admit that there are several natural advantages attaching to an education in the Protestant Universities of England, which Catholics are called upon to forego, for the sake of their faith and their eternal salvation. But we believe that many Catholics have very much exaggerated these benefits.

"It is a known fact, that of the Catholics who have studied at Trinity College, Dublin, few have escaped without more or less of injury, not only to piety, but to faith. And yet the Catholic student there has the advantage of living in one of the most energetically Catholic cities of the world, and of possessing in abundance all the means of his own sanctification and perseverance. Hundreds, it is said, could easily be counted up who have lost their faith in Trinity College-two of them a Dean and a Bishop in the Irish Establishment. A Catholic Bishop, who studied there, has been heard to say that his preservation from perdition amidst so many dangers, was as great a miracle as the preservation of Daniel in the lions' den."-P. 153, DUBLIN REVIEW, July, 1863.

Whether it be from the character of the mind which holds. omne ignotum pro magnifico; or, whether they have judged of the benefits to be derived by a Catholic youth, from what they have seen or heard of the bright and perhaps rarer specimens of Oxford education, whom we have the happiness now to possess amongst us, we know not. If the latter be the cause, it must be remembered that the most prominent of these are exceptional men, and by no means a fair average type of what Oxford turns out every year in hundreds, who are never more heard of. But if the former be the cause, we hope in some measure to remove it, by introducing our readers to the testimony of Oxford men of position and ability, who have been put upon their evidence concerning the Oxford system. Our subject naturally falls under four heads: the social, the professional, the intellectual, and the religious. The subject is large; we can touch on each but briefly.

I. A strong feeling prevails among some persons, that a few years spent at Oxford would form an admirable introduction for their sons into the best society. This is a delusion, based on just a sufficient groundwork of evidence to render it specious and plausible.

For, in the first place, Oxford and Cambridge have both of them far more the character of major Seminaries for the Protestant clergy than of dominant aristocratic schools. The Alphabetical List of the clergy of the Church of England contains 23,000 names: and if you except an insignificant number ordained from St. Bees, Lampeter, S. Aidan's, Durham, and London, these are almost exclusively supplied by Oxford and Cambridge.

Secondly, of the twenty-four Colleges* and Halls in Oxford, the Heads of all (except the Warden of Merton) are Protestant

ministers.

Thirdly, the Professorial and Tutorial staff is chiefly in the hands of the Protestant clergy.

Fourthly, five-sevenths of the students + may be considered clerical students, or candidates for Protestant Orders.

And lastly, of "Tufts," as they are called, i. e., noblemen's sons, wearing a gold tassel, their number varies from, say, five to twenty in residence at one time; and as they enjoy the privilege of counting eight terms of residence instead of

Fourteen of the nineteen Colleges, and four of the five Halls, were founded by Catholics.

Based upon a calculation made on the number of clergymen and laymen who have taken degrees in seven or eight Colleges. The fact, however, of a greater number of men for the world leaving before taking a degree than of the candidates for Orders, would somewhat modify the proportion given above.

twelve before they take their degree, social intercourse with them is in that proportion restricted and curtailed.

Now we quite understand the Protestant gentry of England wishing their sons to be educated in the society of their future clergymen. Such acquaintance and companionship may be very nice and profitable for them; but we can hardly understand the advantages accruing to our Catholic young men from such society: they do not intend, we presume, to cultivate closer relations with the Anglican clergy than their fathers did before them. And yet, as numbers show, the greater number of their companions at Oxford must be men who are to take Anglican Orders; and nearly all their superiors and masters are actually Protestant clergymen.

Dr. Döllinger will certainly not be accused of unfriendliness or of undue Catholic bias in his estimate of our Institutions. In speaking of our two great Universities he says, "They may best be described as a continuation of the public school in connection with a series of clerical colleges."*

If, however, a man's high ambition be the cultivation of the fashionable society of his fellow mortals, we believe he will attain his end far more successfully by entering a regiment of the Guards, whose prestige and welcome in society is always certain, than by running into excess with a young Marquis at Oxford or Cambridge, or having the entrée to the supper-table of a Duke, or being the familiar and the "bottleholder" of half a dozen other young "tufts."

We hesitate to print the words "toady" and "tufthunter;" but vile ideas get vile names. Truth is better told than concealed; and the fact is, many persons spare their friends in their presence, who can neither stay the current of their own reflections, nor silence the open criticism of others behind their backs.

But to proceed: of these companions, the fancied heralds and ushers into good society, let us hear what has been deposed in solemn evidence from Oxford.

"If the Oxford system wanted to present a pattern specimen of its defects . . it would do so in the ordinary and recognized career of its noblemen and gentlemen commoners."-Vide "Oxford University Commission.”— E. p. 56, Rev. D. Melville.

A gentleman commoner, says the Report, is well known to be marked out for every kind of imposition. He is usually courted by the worse among his equals; he receives his instructions, and is subjected to a less careful

Vide "Universities Past and Present." A lecture delivered in the University Hall at Munich, Dec. 22, 1866.

discipline. This class may be regarded, taken collectively, says Professor Daubeney (and his words are quoted by the Commissioners in their Report), as the worst educated portion of the undergraduates, and at the same time the one least inclined for study. Its qualification is notoriously only that of wealth. The practice of taking gentlemen commoners has been discontinued in several colleges from a sense of its inexpediency.

The Royal Commissioners advised in their Report, "that all distinction between noblemen, gentlemen commoners, and commoners should be discontinued." The advice has not been adopted.

Dr. Liddel in his evidence before Mr. Ewart's Select Committee, on being asked whether the sons of noblemen and country gentlemen are more or less numerous at Oxford than formerly, replied,-"I think they are rather fewer."

Were we here to consider the unaffected simplicity and kindly consideration for others which form the charm of the English gentleman, we could by no means say that these are the exclusive inheritance of Oxford and Cambridge. A few months ago one of our leading journals published some articles upon the characteristics of the young men of the present day. We were told of their "uppishness," conceit, and arrogance, joined to superficial knowledge and slender attainments. The Rev. M. Pattison speaks of the "conceit of knowledge where knowledge is not," and says

The experience of every Oxford tutor must bear witness to the great amount of tumid verbiage, of metaphysical and philological terms current among students in their third year, who are quite untrained in power of reasoning, of distinct thought, and of correct knowledge of language.

We are speaking here, however, of mental foppery and conceit only as they are odious in the character of a gentleman. The intellectual gentlemen Pharisees of our day, the chief tenet of whose creed is contempt for the opinions of others, are a growing set from Oxford. Very different from the men of other days! They are the groundwork of superficial unbelief, and the destruction of the principles of "respect and authority," which are called by the Bishop of Orleans the bases of true education.

II. Oxford is considered by some persons to be a good preparation for the learned professions and public life. And no doubt a liberal education is becoming every year more essential for success. But it is also sometimes popularly imagined that a young man, by taking his degree at Oxford, thereby pretty nearly insures success in after-life. There could not be a