The
buildings inherited from the past had to go, at least so it was
thought, because they were not suited to modern methods, or because
the site they occupied was worth so much more for other purposes. But
the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge could not carry on their work on
different sites; "residence" was an essential of academic
arrangements; and there was no temptation to the fellows of a college
to make money by parting with their old buildings, for their incomes
were determined by Statute, and any great increase of wealth would
not advantage individual fellows. Hence, while great nobles and great
merchants sold their splendid houses and grounds, and grew rich on
the unearned increment, and while non-residential universities moved
bodily from their old positions to new and more fashionable quarters,
Oxford and Cambridge colleges went on working and living in the same
places. Much the same reasons have preserved, in many old towns,
picturesque alms-houses, to show the modern world how beautiful
buildings once could be, while all around them reigns opulent
ugliness. Certain it is that only in one instance, in recent times,
has an Oxford college contemplated selling its old site and buildings
and migrating to North Oxford, and then the sacrilegious attempt was
outvoted.
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