criticized particular renderings (and there were many small errors to be
removed in subsequent editions), it was generally agreed that he had
succeeded in making Plato an English classic.
If ever there was a beneficent despotism, it was Jowett's rule as
master. Since 1866 his authority in Balliol had been really paramount,
and various reforms in college had been due to his initiative. The
opposing minority were now powerless, and the younger fellows who had
been his pupils were more inclined to follow him than others would have
been. There was no obstacle to the continued exercise of his firm and
reasonable will. He still knew the undergraduates individually, and
watched their progress with a vigilant eye. His influence in the
university was less assured. The pulpit of St Mary's was no longer
closed to him, but the success of Balliol in the schools gave rise to
jealousy in other colleges, and old prejudices did not suddenly give
way; while a new movement in favour of "the endowment of research" ran
counter to his immediate purposes. Meanwhile, the tutorships in other
colleges, and some of the headships also, were being filled with Balliol
men, and Jowett's former pupils were prominent in both houses of
parliament and at the bar. He continued the practice, which he had
commenced in 1848, of taking with him a small party of undergraduates in
vacation time, and working with them in one of his favourite haunts, at
Askrigg in Wensleydale, or Tummel Bridge, or later at West Malvern. The
new hall (1876), the organ there, entirely his gift (1885), and the
cricket ground (1889), remain as external monuments of the master's
activity. Neither business nor the many claims of friendship interrupted
literary work. The six or seven weeks of the long vacation, during which
he had pupils with him, were mainly employed in writing. The translation
of Aristotle's _Politics_, the revision of Plato, and, above all, the
translation of Thucydides many times revised, occupied several years.
The edition of the _Republic_, undertaken in 1856, remained unfinished,
but was continued with the help of Professor Lewis Campbell. Other
literary schemes of larger scope and deeper interest were long in
contemplation, but were not destined to take effect--an _Essay on the
Religions of the World, a Commentary on the Gospels_, a _Life of
Christ_, a volume on _Moral Ideas_. Such plans were frustrated, not only
by his practical avocations, but by his determination to finish what he
had begun, and the fastidious self-criticism which it took so long to
satisfy. The book on Morals might, however, have been written but for
the heavy burden of the vice-chancellorship, which he was induced to
accept in 1882, by the hope, only partially fulfilled, of securing many
improvements for the university. The vice-chancellor was _ex officio_ a
delegate of the press, where he hoped to effect much; and a plan for
draining the Thames Valley, which he had now the power of initiating,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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