The points in the scheme which Oxford proposes to adopt for bringing its resources to the services of working people are: The appointment of representative workmen on the Committee responsible for the object. The offer of a working University tutor to a locality where a class of thirty workpeople has been formed, willing to adopt one of the two years’ courses which the committee has approved. The recognition of the students of these classes as eligible for a diploma in Economics, Political Science, etc. The open door, so that students selected from the classes may be able to enter and to reside in the University.

Two questions arise: Will the scheme attract workmen? Will it get the sympathetic, if not the enthusiastic, support of the University?

1. Will it attract workmen? Workmen, apart from the demand that they, as a class, should share in the joy and the power of knowledge, have learnt that they must have educated men of their own class to direct their own organizations. There are 1,153 trade unions, 389 friendly societies, 2,646 co-operative societies, and many other councils or congresses, most of which employ paid officers who are daily discharging duties of the utmost responsibility and delicacy, and which make demands on their judgment of men and knowledge of economic and political principles, as great or greater than those made on the Civil servant in India or in this country. Workmen want officials who, familiar with their point of view, will have the knowledge and experience to convince educated opponents of the justice of their contentions. The education which Oxford can give by broadening a man’s knowledge and strengthening his judgment, would make him a more efficient servant of his own society, and a more potent influence on the side of industrial peace.

Will workmen accept the offer which Oxford makes? Much shyness and prejudice have to be overcome. Oxford is often associated with opinions foreign to the democratic ideal. The manners of University men sometimes suggest that they are superior persons, and a reputation for expensive trifling is widely spread. Workmen are afraid that their young men in the University atmosphere may be alienated from their class, grow ashamed of their belongings, and put on artificial manners. They doubt whether the teaching may not be of a kind directed in the interest of property, and they fear lest there may be too many temptations to idleness and to play. They do not want, as one Labour leader has said, “good democratic stuff spoiled by Oxford lecturers, who may give our people a shoddy notion of respectability, and a superficial idea of things which can be shown by the airs and graces of book learning”.

Oxford is thus suspect; but, on the other hand, the place has immense attraction, as is proved by the fact that so many Trade Unions send their men to study at Ruskin College.

“What,” it was asked of one of their students, “do you get here you could not have got in a college in your own town?”

“I get Oxford,” was his reply; and it is evident in much talk that, even when Oxford is “suspect,” it has a great hold on the workman’s mind. There may be shyness, but it is only shyness that may be overcome by trust.

The place of workmen, therefore, on the University committees must be an assured place, and not one allowed as a favour or on sufferance. Their voices must be heard as to the subjects to be taught, and as to the teachers who are chosen; they must be able to make their influence felt in the University, which, as it is national, is their University. The local centres where classes are given must, in the same way, be locally controlled and independent of University control. The committees of these centres must have full choice of the place and time of their meetings, select from the list the courses of study to be followed, and approve the tutor. They must, indeed, have the same character as club or co-operative classes, while, through the Oxford tutor, the course of studies and the examination, light is let in from the University. The life must be in the local centres, but it must draw its air from Oxford.

The problem as to the admission of working people to residence is more difficult. The proposal is that, by means of scholarships, they should be enabled to live in colleges or in halls, or as non-collegiate students. The difficulty would be got over if enough students could come to be a support to one another. There must always be a fear lest, if they be few in number, they may either lose their independence or else go to the extreme of protest. The University can, however, get over this difficulty by providing sufficient money to bring up a sufficient number of men, who will strengthen one another and influence the corporate life of the place. The question whether students should reside in colleges, in halls, or in lodgings may be left to solve itself. If they are to reside in colleges, the present system of erecting new buildings, with suites of expensive rooms, might well be checked. Simpler buildings, adapted to the needs of workmen students, would save money, bring together types of men in one community, and not detract from the beauty of the city.

The schemes will, I believe, attract workmen if the University takes pain to subordinate itself, and trusts to truth rather than to power. Workmen, if once their suspicion—justified, it must be allowed—be allayed, will find that there is in Oxford more sympathy with their point of view than can possibly be found in any other English community. Oxford men have, as a rule, open minds, and many of their younger Fellows are close and devoted students of social questions. Many working men have already experienced what Mr. Crooks experienced when, at a meeting in a college hall, having hurled some stinging sentences at the superiority which University men assumed, his remarks were received, “not with boot-jacks, but with cheers” Friendships between working men and members of the University are soon formed—both are used to living in associations, both have a love of free discussion, both, to a larger extent than other Englishmen, are believers in equality. The scheme, if the University wishes it, will attract workmen.

2. The other question is, Will the scheme win the support of the University? A statute has already been passed appointing a committee consisting of working-class representatives, and it has been agreed that tutorial-class students may be admitted to the diploma course. The University can hardly do more. It cannot alter its constitution, which to a large extent leaves the government in the hands of college nominees, with an ultimate appeal to members of the University, scattered throughout the country. Its total income is only £24,000 a year, and it has no power to enforce adequate contributions from the colleges, although their total income from endowments is £265,000 a year. The University itself, unless it be reformed by Act of Parliament, or unless the colleges voluntarily endow it with the power and the means, can do very little to carry out the scheme.

Will the Colleges act in the matter? Will they pass over to the control of the University a fair portion of the money they now spend either on scholarships and fellowships confined to boys from a few schools, or on the maintenance of choirs and tutors, or on new buildings? It is not enough that one or two colleges make a grant to support some workmen’s centre. Workmen will resent the patronage of a college. The money must be transferred to the University, the tutors must have a University standing, and the scholarships, which enable men to reside in Oxford, must be both ample and numerous. The University has, so far as it can, acted on the recommendation of the report. Will the Colleges rise to the opportunity, and enable Oxford to give the people the knowledge they need, for the satisfaction of their own lives and the security of the nation?

The Colleges as yet have given little sign of a will to do anything but strengthen their own independence, and make provision for students prepared in the public schools. In one or two instances, fellowships have been given to men who have become lecturers under the University Extension Scheme, but the example has not been followed.

For many years pupil teachers from the elementary schools have come to Oxford for their training; one or two colleges have given scholarships; but again the example has not spread, and the inspector has had to complain of the scant provision which has been made for the men’s advantage.

A plan was once initiated by which parties of teachers and others were accommodated in colleges during the long vacation, and tasted some of the advantages of Oxford life and teaching. The plan worked excellently; it removed the reproach that for six months in the year the greatest educational capital of the nation is allowed to lie idle. But there was little enthusiasm; the energy of the few residents who were responsible was, after a few years, worn out, if not by opposition, by apathy.

The colleges have as yet shown little power of adapting themselves to the education of the new governing class. It may be that they will be roused by this report, and that something adequate may be done.

The point I would urge is that the something be adequate—a few classes scattered about the country, a few men admitted to Oxford, will court a failure, and justify condemnation of the attempt.

The colleges have their opportunity, but beyond the colleges is my friend Bishop Gore, now Bishop of Oxford, with his demand for a Commission, and beyond the Bishop is the rising power of labour, with its tendency, if it be not checked by University influence, to use all national endowments for material rather than spiritual ends.

The Bishop’s case for a commission is broadly based on the impossibility of working the present constitution of the University for its efficient government; on the mischievous waste which spends the resources of fine minds and unique surroundings on boys, many of whom are capable of doing little more than play; on the folly of subsidizing with scholarships and fellowships one set of schools, and one or two types of knowledge; on the expensive habits which the system fostered. The case was not answered, and cannot be answered. The report of the committee is the first response to its call, and, as the Bishop said in a speech at Toynbee Hall, it has given him a hope for which he has long waited.

The next response ought to be an appeal from the University itself for a Commission which will enable it to order the resources of Oxford as a whole, and apply its powers so as to carry out fully the recommendations of the report.