2 - The university: its constitution, personnel, and tasks

Summary

THE UNIVERSITY

CHANCELLORS, VICE-CHANCELLORS, AND UNIVERSITY JURISDICTIONS

I come now to the town, and university of Cambridge; I say the town and university, for tho' they are blended together in the situation, and the colleges, halls, and houses for literature are promiscuously scatter'd up and down among the other parts, and some even among the meanest of the other buildings; as Magdalen College over the bridge, is in particular; yet they are all encorporated together, by the name of the university, and are govern'd apart, and distinct from the town, which they are so intermix'd with.

It was hard to see where college buildings ended and citizens' houses began, and it was harder still to distinguish the colleges from the university. University employees, as distinct from college members wearing university hats for a period, were few in number. In the centre of the city the university had imposing buildings, the Old Schools, reserved for its use, and the new Senate House (built between 1722 and 1730) was one of the noblest structures in Cambridge. But college courts dwarfed these university premises, and visitors might be forgiven for assuming that the ‘university’ was merely a very weak federation, with a feeble central government. Yet only the university could carry out certain essential tasks, like matriculating freshmen and, three or four years later, examining them and awarding the bachelor's degree. These functions were carried out by men spending most of their lives doing rather different things for their colleges.