OXFORD

the population of the city increased from 53,048 in ror to 57,052 in 1921. the garden suburbs on the cowley and the iffley roads are only small, but others are in progress. in 1925 the city adopted a town-planning scheme, by which arrangements are made for diverting through traffic round the city, and to preserve its amenities. ouse—oxford the war period.—the two most important facts in the his- tory of the university since r911 have been the world war and the two commissions. in the war 14,561 oxford men served in the british forces, and 2,660 lost their lives. but the greatest service rendered by the university was the supply of officers. thanks to the o.t.c., nearly 2,000 oxford men received com- missions in the first two months of the war. after this, oxford became one of the main training grounds for officers; for the last three years of the war, there always were nearly 2,000 cadets in oxford and the examination schools and those colleges which were not given up to cadets became hospitals. the number of undergraduates fell to 1,087 in jan. t915 and 550, 460 and 369 in the same months in 1916, ro17 and 1918 respectively. the tide began to turn in the latter part of 1918; in jan. ro19 there were 1,357 men in residence; and in the following 18 months the entries were so heavy that by oct. 1920 there were about 4,500 men and 650 women actually in residence. since that time, all the men’s colleges have striven to reduce their numbers; so that the figures for undergraduates in oct. 1925 were about 3,400 men and 750 women. these figures indicate clearly one of the indirect results of the war, the admission of women as full members of university. this change was made in 1920. new statutes.—the royal commission, set up in 1919, reported in 1922; most of its recommendations had been embodied in statutes by the end of 1925, by the statutory commission appointed in 1923, although the actual changes made by the com- mission will only begin to come fully into effect in oct. 1926. it was satisfactory to oxford men to find that a commission ap- pointed by a reforming government, and composed of men of all political parties, reported so favourably on the work of the uni- versitics as a whole; so far from being pronounced to be homes of idleness, the main complaint made against most of the teachers was that they worked too hard (see report, pp. 26, 39, 48). to remedy this, and to allow for the extension of university activi- tics, the royal commission recommended a grant to oxford and to cambridge of £110,000 a year each; only £60,000 was given at first, but in the spring of 1925 this was increased to £85,000. it is hard to say what the effect of the new statutes will be. they seem likely rather to carry on the developments which the old universities were already making, than to introduce revolu- tionary changes. at oxford, for example, there has been a grow- ing tendency since about 1goo to lay ever-increasing stress on the necessity of research work. ‘to encourage this, the degrees of bachelor of letters and bachelor of science were set up in 1895, the doctorate of philosophy in 1917; the regulations for the b.litt. are now being remodelled in the light of experience. in ithe cxamination, too, for the honours degree in natural science, students of chemistry can only obtain a class if they spend a year on a piece of research. another important line of change is that in future the full emoluments of college entrance scholarships will be given only to those who show actual need for help. it remains to be seen how this change will work; but in this, as in other matters, the com- missioners have done as little as possible to interfere with the independence of colleges, and great care has been taken to pre- vent the lowering of standard for scholarships and to see that scholarships do not become merely clecemosynary. the machinery of government of the university has also been developed since 1900, mainly by voluntary action, but in part by the commissioners. the hcbdomadal council has been made more representative of the whole university; university finance management has been remodelled, first in 1912 in one of the re- forms carried out by lord curzon, and then by a statute of 1920. the studies of the university too are now put under a gencral board of the faculties, which was set up in r9r3 and is elected by the resident teachers. a further instance of development is the change in the theological degrees, which in 1920 were thrown open to students of all denominations, and made to depend, so | far as the d.d. is concerned, on the production of a “‘serious con- tribution to learning.” benefactions—the material resources of oxford nave also been steadily increased by the generosity of benefactors, espe- oxford and asquith, earl of cially old members. natural science has been the chief gainer, with new laboratories for engineering (1912), for chemistry (thanks mainly to mr. dyson perrins) in 1912, for pathology from the dunn trustees and for biochemistry from mr. whitley and the rockefeller foundation. the welch bequest (1915) has added another £50,000 to the resources of biological science, and the govt. by placing at oxford the institutes of agricultural en- gineering (1923) and of imperial forestry (1924), has shown its confidence in the oldest university as the fittest place to provide for the newest needs of the empire. next to the development of natural science, the most marked feature of the decade 1915-25 has been the growth of modern language teaching. professorships of french and italian have been founded by sir basil zaharoff and mr. arthur serena re- spectively; sir heath harrison has provided scholarships for undergraduate travel (1919),and mr. laming has founded travel- ling fellowships in connection with his old college, queen’s (1924). closely allied with this development is the increasing number of fellowships for study in the universities of the united states, which are being founded by americans as a counterpart to the work of cecil rhodes. the bodleian continues to receive gifts, not only of books and pictures as in lord curzon’s napoleonic collection (1925), but also in cash, as walter morrison’s {50,000 in 1920. mention should also be made of barnett house, founded in 1914 in mem- ory of rev. s. a. barnett. bibliography.—marquess curzon, principles and methods of university reform (1909); report of the royal commission (1922); sir c. e. mallet, a jzistory of the university of oxford to 1700, 2 vol. (1924). (j. we.*) oxford and asquith, herbert henry asquith, ist