Edward Gibbon at the University of Oxford

The tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, from Christ Church Meadow. Edward Gibbon was a student at Magdalen College for just 14 months

Edward Gibbon’s Memoirs contain a remarkable description of his time as a student of  Magdalen College, Oxford. It must rank as one of the most comprehensive indictments of a university education ever written.

To the university of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College; they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.

What did Gibbon not like about university? It is remarkable that some at least of his complaints may still have some relevance today. It would be an interesting exercise to examine each of these complaints and if they still exist (or are relevant) today. Here then are his issues with Oxford (all extracts from Gibbon are taken from the University of Michigan Digital Library (Text Creation Partnership) edition.

Lack of good teaching

In the discipline of a well-constituted academy, under the guidance of skilful and vigilant professors, I should gradually have risen from trans∣lations to originals, from the Latin to the Greek classics, from dead languages to living science: my hours would have been oc∣cupied by useful and agreeable studies, the wanderings of fancy would have been restrained, and I should have escaped the tempta∣tions of idleness, which finally precipitated my departure from Oxford.

Oxford and Cambridge the victims of their foundations

The schools of Oxford and Cambridge were founded in a dark age of false and barbarous science; and they are still tainted with the vices of their origin. Their primitive discipline was adapted to the education of priests and monks; and the government still re∣mains in the hands of the clergy, an order of men whose manners are remote from the present world, and whose eyes are dazzled by the light of philosophy.

Oxford and Cambridge have a monopoly on higher education

The legal incorporation of these societies by the charters of popes and kings had given them a monopoly of the public instruction; and the spirit of monopolists is narrow, lazy, and oppressive: their work is more costly and less productive than that of independent artists; and the new improvements so eagerly grasped by the competition of freedom, are admitted with slow and sullen reluctance in those proud corporations, above the fear of a rival, and below the confession of an error.

The Universities are incapable of reform

We may scarcely hope that any reformation will be a voluntary act; and so deeply are they rooted in law and prejudice, that even the omnipotence of par∣liament would shrink from an inquiry into the state and abuses of the two universities.

The academic awards are not indicative of genuine study

I should applaud the institution, if the degrees of ba∣chelor or licentiate were bestowed as the reward of manly and suc∣cessful study: if the name and rank of doctor or master were strictly reserved for the professors of science, who have approved their title to the public esteem.

The academic staff don’t teach

in the university of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have for these many years given up altogether even the pretence of teaching.

Academic tenure makes the teaching staff complacent

instead of being paid by voluntary contributions, which would urge them to increase the number, and to deserve the gratitude of their pupils, the Oxford professors are secure in the enjoyment of a fixed stipend, without the necessity of labour, or the apprehension of controul.

Teaching staff uninterested in academic study

The fellows or monks of my time were decent easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder: their days were filled by a series of uniform employments; the chapel and the hall, the coffee-house and the common room, till they retired, weary and well satisfied, to a long slumber. From the toil of reading, or thinking, or writing, they had absolved their conscience; and the first shoots of learning and ingenuity withered on the ground, without yielding any fruits to the owners or the public.

Conversation with the academics was unstimulating

Their conversation stagnated in a round of college business, Tory politics, personal anecdotes, and private scandal: their dull and deep potations excused the brisk intemperance of youth; and their constitutional toasts were not expressive of the most lively loyalty for the house of Hanover.

Tutors were not bothered by student absence

My growing debts might be secret; but my frequent absence was visible and scandalous: and a tour to Bath, a visit into Buckinghamshire, and four excursions to Lodon in the same winter, were costly and dangerous frolics.

Tutors did not engage with students

Instead of guiding the studies, and watching over the behaviour of his disciple, I was never summoned to attend even the ceremony of a lecture; and, excepting one voluntary visit to his rooms, during the eight months of his titular office, the tutor and pupil lived in the same college as strangers to each other.

Students were not given proper study materials

No plan of study was recommended for my use; no exercises were prescribed for his inspection; and, at the most precious season of youth, whole days and weeks were suffered to elapse without labour or amusement, without advice or account.

Teaching staff were uninspiring

The first tutor into whose hands I was resigned appears to have been one of the best of the tribe: Dr. Waldegrave was a learned and pious man, of a mild disposition, strict morals, and abstemious life, who seldom mingled in the po∣litics or the jollity of the college. But his knowledge of the world was confined to the university; his learning was of the last, rather than of the present age; his temper was indolent; his faculties, which were not of the first rate, had been relaxed by the climate, and he was satisfied, like his fellows, with the slight and superficial dis∣charge of an important trust.

There was no religious training

It might at least be expected, that an ecclesiastical school should inculcate the orthodox principles of religion. But our venerable mother had contrived to unite the opposite extremes of bigotry and indifference: an heretic, or unbeliever, was a monster in her eyes; but she was always, or often, or sometimes, remiss in the spiritual education of her own children … My college forgot to instruct: I forgot to return, and was myself forgotten by the first magistrate of the university. Without a single lecture, either public or private, either christian or protestant, without any academical subscription, without any episcopal confirmation, I was left by the dim light of my catechism to grope my way to the chapel and communion-table.

Attending university makes you lose interest in reading

It is whimsical enough, that as soon as I left Magdalen College, my taste for books began to revive

Sadly, Gibbon reports, his reading after leaving Magdalen College was just as exotic and unstructured as before - hardly surprising, given his experiences above.