Notes

Abstract

WE give on another page an abstract of the revised edition of the proposed statutes on the professoriate promulgated by the Oxford University Commissioners. It is, to say the least, hopeful to find the Commissioners so amenable to criticism and suggestions, and the proposed revised statutes, it will be found, obviate most of the objections which came from all quarters to the harassing and humiliating nature of the first draft. Occupying the position we do in relation to science, we could not but condemn the statutes in their first form. Were we the mouthpiece of the College of Preceptors, then possibly we might not have objected to the Oxford professors being legislated for as if they were merely elementary school-teachers; but as we are bound to consider the interests of science and its advancement, and as we believe one of the chief duties of an Oxford professor, as of a German or a French professor, to be original research, we could not but consider the statutes in their first form as a serious blunder.