students in search of special and extraordinary aid, on terms settled
privately by themselves. Of these persons, or their existence, the
college takes no cognizance; but between the two classes of tutors, the
most studious young men--those who would be most likely to avail
themselves of the lectures read by the professors--have their whole
time pretty severely occupied: and the inference from all this is, not
only that the course of Oxford education would suffer little if no
professors at all existed, but also that, if the existing professors
were _ex abundanti_ to volunteer the most exemplary spirit of
exertion, however much this spectacle of conscientious dealing might
edify the university, it would contribute but little to the promotion
of academic purposes. The establishment of professors is, in fact, a
thing of ornament and pomp. Elsewhere, they are the working servants;
but, in Oxford, the ministers corresponding to them bear another
name,--they are called _Tutors_. These are the working agents in the
Oxford system; and the professors, with salaries in many cases merely
nominal, are persons sequestered, and properly sequestered, to the
solitary cultivation and advancement of knowledge, which a different
order of men is appointed to communicate.

Here let us pause for one moment, to notice another peculiarity in the
Oxford system, upon the tendency of which I shall confidently make my
appeal to the good sense of all unprejudiced readers. I have said that
the _tutors_ of Oxford correspond to the _professors_ of
other universities. But this correspondence, which is absolute and
unquestionable as regards the point then at issue,--namely, where we
are to look for that limb of the establishment on which rests the main
teaching agency,--is liable to considerable qualification, when we
examine the mode of their teaching. In both cases, this is conveyed by
what is termed "lecturing;"--but what is the meaning of a lecture in