Cambridge Papers. W. W. Rouse Ball
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out “Oh God, Oh God, the scholar’s eye is stroke out,” whereon his competitor accused him to the authorities as a profane person who took [40] God’s name in vain; and as confirmation added that he never came to the private prayer meetings of the students. By good luck the master was Wilkins, afterwards bishop of Chester, who owed his appointment more to the fact that he had married Cromwell’s sister than to his devotion to the doctrines of the Independents. It is clear that he disapproved of the complaint, but he considered it prudent to summon a meeting of the seniority to hear the case and examine witnesses. Creighton’s tutor, Duport (who gave us our large silver salt-cellar), spoke up for his pupil, and thereon the master said that the charge looked like malice, and it did not matter much if Creighton did neglect to go to the private prayer meetings of undergraduates since he never failed to go to chapel and to his tutor’s lectures. He then proposed, if we may trust our authority, that the seniority should at once reject the informer and his friends, and elect to the vacant fellowships the accused and his friends, and so it was done. Such were elections then!
It is satisfactory to add that public opinion in the College was against those who trumped up this ridiculous charge, and on the day after the election the following notice was found on the screens. “He that informed against Ds Creighton deserves to have his breech kickt on.” An amusing glimpse of life under the Commonwealth. Note that the tutor [41] gave lectures to his pupils, and from the tutorial point of view observe the esteem gained by regular attendance thereat.
No obligation to take pupils seems ever to have been imposed on fellows, though a pupil once taken could not be transferred. This, and the fact that scholars were elected only from students already in residence, made it undesirable to retain any rule to the effect that a fellow should not have more than one pensioner as a pupil. Hence in time those who liked tutorial work and did it well were allowed to have more than one pensioner pupil, and gradually the bulk of the entries came to be made under a comparatively few tutors.
The average annual entry of students at Trinity during the years 1551 to 1600 was fifty-one, during the years 1601 to 1650 was fifty, and during the years 1651 to 1700 was thirty-nine. During the years 1701 to 1750, it sank to twenty-seven: this diminution being partly due to the Bentley scandals. During the years 1751 to 1800 the average annual entry was thirty-seven, during the years 1801 to 1850 was one hundred and sixteen, during the years 1851 to 1900 was one hundred and seventy-four, and during the years 1901 to 1913 was one hundred and ninety-nine.
Let us see how the men were divided among the tutors. From April to December 1635, twenty-eight [42] students were admitted who were distributed among seventeen tutors, of whom eleven had only one pupil and none had more than four pupils. Taking every tenth year thenceforward, we find that in 1645, there were (excluding ten fellows intruded by order of parliament) fifty-seven entries; of these fifty-one were divided among ten tutors. In 1655, there were fifty-three normal entries divided among twelve tutors; in 1665, forty-three entries divided among six tutors; in 1675, forty-nine entries divided among twelve tutors; in 1685, thirty-four entries divided among five tutors; and in 1695, twenty-eight entries divided among four tutors. In 1705, there were twenty-nine entries, of these twenty-eight students were divided among three tutors. In 1715, there were fourteen entries divided among six tutors; in 1725, thirty-four entries divided among twelve tutors; in 1735, twenty-eight entries divided among six tutors; and in 1745, twenty-one entries divided among eight tutors.
In 1755 there were only two fellows acting as tutors, namely S. Whisson and J. Backhouse. Thenceforth there were definite tutorial “sides,” each under one tutor or joint tutors, a tutor being appointed to a side when a vacancy occurred; and every admission to the College being made on a designated side. In effect the work of a tutor was now regarded as being of a character which should occupy [43] a man’s whole energies, and it was generally held that a tutor, while he held office, had not, and ought not to have, leisure during term-time for independent work. From 1755 to 1822 there were two sides. In 1822 a third side was created. In 1872 one of the sides (being the lineal successor of Backhouse’s side) was divided into two. These four sides are to-day designated in the college office by the letters A, B, C, D; side A being that created in 1822, sides B and D being the two made out of the successor of Backhouse’s side, and side C being the lineal successor of Whisson’s side. [In the pre-war days of 1914 side A was under Dr. Barnes, side B under Mr. Laurence, side C under Mr. Whetham, and side D under Dr. Fletcher.]
Proceeding by decades in the same way as before, the entries on each of the two sides (denoted by C and BD) which existed from 1755 to 1822 were in 1755, nineteen and ten; in 1765, four and six; in 1775, twenty-one and twenty-four; in 1785, eighteen and twenty-nine; in 1795, twenty-nine and seventeen; in 1805, forty-two and twenty-six; and in 1815, fifty-one and thirty-six. From 1822 to 1872 there were three sides (denoted by C, BD, A): the normal entries on these were in 1825, forty-two, fifty-five, forty-one; in 1835, forty, forty-five, fifty-three; in 1845, fifty, sixty-eight, forty-nine; in 1855, fifty-three, forty-eight, fifty; and in 1865, fifty-eight, [44] nineteen, sixty. Since 1872 there have been four sides (denoted by C, B, D, A) which were made approximately equal: the normal entries on these were in 1875, forty-one, forty, forty-four, forty; in 1885, forty-nine, forty-four, forty-five, forty-eight; in 1895, forty-eight, thirty-eight, fifty, fifty-one; and in 1905, fifty, fifty-three, fifty, fifty-seven.
Until 1755 the number of pupils in residence in any one term assigned to an individual tutor was not large, and a tutor interested in any particular aspect of a subject likely to be studied was generally available: hence it was usually possible for a tutor to give personally the teaching and guidance required by his pupils. There were then no lecture-rooms in College, so probably all instruction was given in the tutor’s rooms and was informal in character. With the establishment in 1755 of sides, this system of teaching required modification, and in the course of the latter half of the eighteenth century it became the custom for a tutor to supplement his teaching by the services of another fellow or other fellows. These officers, known as Assistant-Tutors, were appointed and paid by individual tutors; they lectured regularly, took an important part in the life of the Society, and occupied a recognized position.
A marked development of the system of formal lectures is indicated by the erection in 1835 of a [45] block of four large and four medium-sized lecture-rooms. No other important changes were made for another thirty years, and until 1868 instruction remained normally organized by sides; indeed it was only by arrangement that lectures on one side were open to men on the other sides, though in fairness it must be added that an arrangement for throwing them open was made as a matter of course whenever it seemed desirable. The retention to so late a date of appointments by sides was due to the fact that the finances of the four sides were then kept as separate accounts.
This scheme, clumsy and illogical though it was, might have worked fairly well as long as the great majority of honour men read nothing but mathematics, classics, and perhaps theology, but it was condemned by the fact that the authorities allowed it to be superseded in practice by an elaborate system of private tuition paid for by the individual students. With the introduction of new subjects (like law, history, and various branches of science) and the development of the corresponding triposes, it became necessary to recast the scheme of teaching if adequate college instruction on such subjects was to be provided. The earliest appointment of a college lecturer (as contrasted with an assistant-tutor nominally attached to a particular side) was made in 1868, his lectures being open to all [46] students of the Society, and his stipend not charged on the funds of a particular side. This was soon followed by the placing of all educational appointments and finance in the hands of the College without regard to sides; and shortly afterwards the lecture-room