Oxford (England) -- History; University of Oxford -- History
For in the first half of the nineteenth century there was a revival of
spirituality, and men followed the lead, not of a Wycliffe, an Erasmus
or a Wesley, but of Keble, Pusey and Newman. Oriel College, whose
fellowships were confined neither to members of the college nor, in most
cases, to candidates from certain places, was the centre whence men like
Hurrell Froude, Keble's pupil, preached their doctrine of reaction; men
who, finding the Church of England in a very parlous state, counselled a
return to what was best in mediævalism, and, protesting against the
Protestantism of the English Church, taught Newman to look with
admiration towards the Church of Rome. The name of Keble and the impulse
which he gave to Anglicanism are commemorated in Keble College; the
prominence of the chapel, which contains Holman Hunt's "Light of the
World," and the arrangement of the buildings emphasise the fact that it
was founded to provide the poorer members of the Church of England with
higher education on Church lines.
The revival of mediævalism in Religion was echoed by a revival of
mediævalism in Art. John Ruskin, who had matriculated at Christ Church
in 1836, lectured intermittently as Slade Professor of Art from 1870
till 1884. William Morris, "poet, artist, paper-hanger and socialist,"
came up to Exeter in 1853 and there, in intimate friendship with Sir
Edward Burne-Jones, looked out upon "the vision of grey-roofed houses
and a long winding street and the sound of many bells," which was, for
him, Oxford. The two friends have left behind them signs of their genius
in the famous tapestry at Exeter Chapel and in the windows of the
Cathedral; whilst at Corpus and in the Schools the great teacher
gathered round him a circle of enthusiastic young men, and like an
Abelard, Wycliffe, Wesley or Newman in the religious world, so advised
and inspired them with his social and artistic gospel, that when, in
pursuance of the old monastic principle "laborare est orare," he called
upon them to mend a farmer's road at Hincksey, they laid aside their
bats and oars, and marched, with the professor at their head, to dig
with spade and shovel. Out of such inspiration grew the various
University Settlements in the East End of London, inaugurated by Arnold
Toynbee.
Oxford owes much to the stimulating if incoherent teaching and the
generosity of John Ruskin,[40] but architecturally his influence was
responsible for several bad buildings in the would-be Venetian
style--the Christ Church New Buildings and the Natural History Museum in
the parks, for instance, proving deplorably enough that the critic was
no creator.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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