Even in Oxford itself, it seems to have been too much assumed that a broad line of distinction could be drawn, placing on the one side the advocates of progress, who were desirous of remodelling the constitution of the University, and re-distributing its revenues, at whatever cost; and, on the other, those who thought they saw in every change a dangerous innovation. Whereas, in fact, both these extreme sections would at any time have made but a very poor show in the Convocation-house, the former especially having been always inconsiderable in numbers, and more noisy than influential; while the ranks of the latter, more open to argument and conviction, were thinning day by day. That the first were represented in Her Majesty’s Commission was a mistake in its composition, of which the present Government at all events have begun to feel the consequences embarrassing; it has furnished weapons against them to the hands of both supporters and opponents: either too much was intended, or too little has been done. The two great points on which a vast majority of members of Convocation, resident and non-resident, found themselves united in a hostile attitude against the government of the day, were, first, the constitutional right of Parliament to interfere at all; and, secondly, the _animus_ of the Commission. As to the necessity for practical reforms, for rearranging some of the machinery of university education, and extending its basis,—this had for years impressed itself upon most thinking minds,—had at least received a formal acknowledgment at the hands of a committee of the Hebdomadal Board so long ago as 1846, and had been elaborately, if not wisely, dealt with in the new Examination Statute of 1850; a measure which, whatever may have been its tendencies, could not be charged with narrowness or prejudice, and showed, at least, much zeal and pains-taking in its compilers, and an honest wish to meet the educational wants of the age. The real difficulties—not the faults—of Oxford were, that she was fettered by a code of Caroline Statutes which checked her attempts to take a freer attitude, and a form of local government which was the very reverse of representative. Had some friendly ministry given her the power, as she had the will, to rid herself of these incumbrances, we should have had a measure of reform and extension—we are not afraid of the words—not perhaps so showy and sweeping as the present, but much better considered, and therefore more really effectual. No one can have read the evidence laid before the Hebdomadal Committee, and the Tutors’ Association, and considered the various suggestions there embodied, from men of very different minds, sometimes widely at variance with each other, but almost always thoughtful and fairly argued, without feeling that we have there the only materials out of which any wholesome scheme for the “good government” of Oxford is to be built, and can there trace the hands best fitted to combine them.