Oxford and cambridge

England is unusual among European countries in having had only two universities until 1820 – though there were already four in Scotland in the sixteenth century, when Scotland was still a separate kingdom. England’s two ancient universities, Oxford and Cambridge, were the only ones in the country for almost 500 years. They still have a special pre-eminence, as well as many characteristics peculiar to themselves, and are best considered separately.

Oxford University dates from the Middle Ages. It was founded in the 13^th century as an aristocratic university. Now the University consists of 39 colleges located in a beautiful city of Oxford on the river Thames about fifty miles from London. Most of the Oxford colleges are fine buildings of grey or yellow stone with Merton college being the oldest which started in 1264.

Cambridge is situated at a distance of seventy miles from London, the great part of the town lies on the left bank of the river Cam crossed by several bridges. Cambridge University consists of 29 colleges, each of them is an autonomous body governed by its own laws.

As recently as 1950 these two universities together had almost as many students as all the other English universities outside London. Now they have less than a tenth of all university students, but they have had a big influence on the development of the university system, including the use of small groups for teaching.

Oxford and Cambridge are known for their tutorial system of education. The students have lectures and tutorials. Each student has a tutor who gives personal instructions to the students numbering not more than four. Every week the tutor and his students meet to discuss the work they have done, and to set the next week’s work. He requires from his students to write essays and papers on the subjects they are studying. Tutors are responsible for the students’ progress.

The students of these universities make up one of the most elite elites in the world. Many great men such as Bacon, Milton, Cromwell, Newton, Byron, Darwin, Rutherford and many other scientists and writers were educated there as well as members of the Royal family. Nowadays their pre-eminence is diminishing, but not extinct. They continue to attract many of the best brains and to mesmerise, an even greater number, mostly on the account of their prestige. Both universities grew gradually, as federation of independent colleges, most of which were founded in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In both universities, however, new colleges are periodically established: Green College, Oxford (1979), and Robinson College, Cambridge (1977), so the universities are still growing.

Keeping their old customs, all the students must wear black gowns and caps. They eat their meals in the college dining hall, a large room with long tables line the hall and at one end there is a raised platform on which is a special table for the Dons, known as the High Table. It is a great honour to be invited to dine at the High Table.

Discipline out of college is the responsibility of two Dons appointed by the university, called Proctors. Each evening a Proctor with two assistants, called “Bulldogs”, in full morning dress and top hats, wanders about the town keeping an eye on the students’ behaviour.

These two ancient universities have, through the centuries, had a major role in English politics – Oxford more than Cambridge. Of the nine prime ministers since 1955 Mrs Thatcher was the seventh to have been to Oxford University. In 1988 her cabinet of twenty-one included seven who had been to Oxford, seven to Cambridge; two had been to old Scottish universities, one to London, none to any other university in England. The top civil servants have a similar background. This preponderance of Oxford and Cambridge graduates among the political elite (and among MPs in general) has declined, but it is still significant.

With about 10,000 first-degree students each and over 2,000 postgraduates Oxford and Cambridge are not big by modern standards. In most respects they are similar to each other so a general description of one could apply to the other as well.

Apart from newly-developed small colleges for postgraduates, Oxford has more than twenty separate colleges, all rather like small independent universities. Sixteen of them already existed in 1600, when a few were already well over 200 years old, scattered among the streets of what is now the middle part of this town of about 100,000 people. Each college has within its precincts a hall, chapel, common rooms, library, lecture rooms, old and new buildings where half or two-thirds of the students and some staff live. Each college has between 200 and 400 undergraduate students and around thirty or more fellows (colloquially, ‘dons’), who teach small groups as well as forming the college governing body. Nearly all the fellows (called by some other title in a few colleges) also hold office as university lecturers or professors, and are paid partly by the university, partly by their colleges. For each subject there is a university organization resembling the departments in the other universities. Each college has a chief, who may be entitled Master, Warden, Provost, Rector, Principal, President or Dean

For lecture courses, which are centrally organized, students go to other colleges or to the central lecture rooms, which are also used for the university’s examinations. Teaching and research in sciences must be mainly in university laboratories.

All the colleges now take both men and women students, except for two of the five which were founded for women about 100 years ago. This change has been major revolution of the past twenty years; so too has been the modernization of the students’ rooms on the old college staircases, with proper plumbing, baths and central heating systems.

With their old college buildings Oxford and Cambridge are inevitably visited by countless tourists, who are allowed to go within some college precincts, including the best gardens, at least on summer afternoons. The fifteenth-century chapel of King’s College, Cambridge is one of England’s finest churches, and the chapel of Oxford’s grandest college (called Christ Church – or more familiarity and with a curious arrogance, ‘The House’) serves as the cathedral of the diocese. Oxford’s 400-year old Bodleian Library, like that of Cambridge, is entitled, by long-established law, to receive free of charge a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom.

Some of the colleges in both universities are very wealthy, owing vast areas of land all over England. But much of the revenue from all this property is absorbed by the additional costs which arise form the maintenance of ancient buildings and providing everything that is needed for any university at an exceptionally high quality. For their basic expenditure Oxford and Cambridge, like other universities, became accustomed to dependence on the grants which the central government distributed in the period of expansion in roughly 1950–75. Since 1975 they, like other universities, have had to adapt themselves to steadily less generous government financing.

The universities were encouraged to try to supplement their funds form non-government sources, particularly for research projects. They have tried hard, with some success, to fill their buildings with conferences in vacations.

Text D

Read the text. Make up questions on the main facts of the text. Discuss your questions in pairs.