chapter 70
Arthur and Elder stood in the old Camdon Square of the University of London, looking up at the iconic building of the school—the octagonal building, designed by William Wilkins, the famous architect who designed the National Gallery of England.
Although it was still early in the morning, quite a few supporters of Benthamism were already crowding around the Athena statue in the square, preparing to listen to the lecture.
The campus was actually often crowded with visitors, because no matter how the newspapers evaluated it, it couldn’t change the fact that the University of London was the most open university in England at the moment, because even its campus was open to the public.
The University of London accepted students regardless of their background, race, faith, or political views. It treated everyone who wanted to be educated. As long as you could afford the tuition fee of 23 pounds and 6 shillings, you could enroll.
Although this amount of money still sounded expensive, it was a lot cheaper compared to the hundreds of pounds charged by Oxford, Cambridge, and those lawyers’ guilds.
Just as the motto written in Latin on the red wall said—Cuncti adsint meritaeque expectent praemia palmae.
If translated literally, this sentence means, “Let all those who deserve rewards for their quality come to us.”
In a more elegant way, it can also be translated as, “Educate all the talented people in the world,” or, “Let all those who strive for glory come to us.”
Arthur had mixed feelings about the University of London.
On the one hand, he felt that he had wasted four years here. After all, after finishing his studies, the school couldn’t even issue a degree certificate. It was no wonder Arthur complained.
But on the other hand, he was also grateful to his alma mater, because it did give him an equal opportunity to receive an education.
Through his four years of study here, he could stand his ground in verbal battles with graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, and he could also chat and laugh with graduates of King’s College, which was established by the conservatives as a rival to the University of London.
After all, in this day and age, it was not easy to receive higher education.
Overall, Arthur’s gratitude for his alma mater outweighed his complaints, because it taught him to view the world from an equal perspective, and it also gave him the knowledge and ability to view the world equally.
Besides visitors, there were also some students rushing to class and some construction workers working on the campus.
The reason why construction workers could be seen on campus was because although the University of London had been established for more than four years, due to its unique open stance and controversial educational philosophy, the school was constantly in a state of financial shortage.
Although it occasionally received donations from some progressives, objectively speaking, the University of London received less donations each year than even a fraction of what Oxford and Cambridge received.
Even King’s College, which was established later than the University of London, had much more educational funding than the University of London.
The reason was very simple. As the name suggests, the founder of King’s College was the current King George IV, and the school was backed by a group of Tory bigwigs, so they were definitely not short of money.
The University of London, however, was short of funds, so the buildings on campus were constantly being repaired and stopped, and it took more than four years to finally complete the teaching areas. As for some decorative buildings or galleries, libraries, and other extracurricular activity areas, they had to be built and expanded step by step.
Even at this pace of construction, it was thanks to the fact that most of the designers who planned the campus construction were also progressives, so they did not charge much, and even completed it voluntarily.
If they had charged market prices, the University of London would have had little chance of survival.
Perhaps it was no coincidence that the architecture department here would rank first in the world two hundred years later, because you probably couldn’t find a school where students could be so close to construction sites.
If the students were willing, they could even take classes directly at the construction site.
Thanks to their alma mater, even history and classical literature students like Arthur and Elder knew more about architecture than students from ordinary schools.
Perhaps it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that, but even if they didn’t know as much about architecture as those in the architecture department, at least they knew more about the construction site than those in the architecture department.
At this time, Arthur and Elder happened to pass by the classroom of the classical literature department.
Elder, upon seeing this, excitedly pulled Arthur to stop outside the classroom and looked inside.
At this time, the professor in charge of teaching had just stood on the podium. The old professor with white hair first took out a handkerchief to wipe the rain from his face, and then with a snap, threw the book weighing several pounds that he had been holding under his arm onto the podium.
There was a thud, and a cloud of dust rose from the chalk dust on the podium.
At this time, the students who had been dozing off in the audience suddenly became more alert. They all straightened their backs and faced the teacher.
The old professor raised his hand to fan away the dust, then took a deep breath, flushed red, and roared with all his might.
“What are the graduates of Oxford!”
The students excitedly slammed their tables and roared, “Bastards!”
“Cambridge!”
“They are the same!”
The old professor, hearing this, nodded with satisfaction.
“Good! You are very spirited today! Now, let’s start the class. Today we will mainly talk about the humanist spirit in Shakespeare’s tragedies, and the poetry and romantic aesthetics contained in them…”
Arthur, seeing this, couldn’t help but twitch his eyelids.
Elder, standing beside him, was almost moved to tears.
Elder took out a handkerchief to wipe the moisture from the corner of his eyes, “Oh, I knew it, the education of the University of London is the best in all of England, no, in all of Great Britain, no, in the whole world!”
Arthur held back for a long time, but finally couldn’t help but ask, “You guys in the classical literature department are engaging in this kind of hate education every day?”
“Hate education?”
Elder frowned and shook his finger at Arthur, “Arthur, this is not hate education. If we don’t scold Oxford and Cambridge, won’t they still oppose us?”
Arthur shook his head, “Of course they will still oppose us. Our differences with them are purely in terms of educational philosophy, and it has nothing to do with whether we scold them or not.”
“That’s right!”
Elder laughed and poked Arthur in the chest with his elbow, “Since it’s the same whether we scold them or not, why not scold them? At least we feel good after scolding them, so why hold back? We in the classical literature department have never been used to those idiots.
Have you forgotten? Our mentor at the University of London is Jeremy Bentham. Equal education, utilitarianism, we in the classical literature department have implemented these two points very well.”
Arthur heard this and couldn’t help but wipe the sweat from his forehead, “Elder, this is not utilitarianism, this is snobbery. As far as I know, utilitarianism and snobbery are two different things. If Oxford and Cambridge don’t stand in our way, will you stop scolding them?”
“Of course not!”
Elder said, “If they don’t stand in our way, it means that our school’s educational charter has been issued. Since we don’t have anything to ask of them, then of course I’ll scold them even more fiercely.”
Arthur looked at him and shrugged helplessly, “In my opinion, you should have gone to Oxford. If you had gone to Oxford, you could have caused more damage to their teaching reputation from the inside than you did by going to the University of London.”
“Arthur, you goddamn! You’d rather have me go to Oxford than die.”
“But if you had gone to Oxford, you wouldn’t have joined the Royal Navy. Maybe you could even become a Member of Parliament.”
Elder excitedly sputtered, he patted the wall and said confidently, “Arthur! Being a Member of Parliament is worse than joining the Royal Navy!”
Just as he was about to argue with Arthur, he suddenly saw a few people coming from behind Arthur.
Elder took a deep breath and hurriedly doffed his hat and saluted, “Mr. Horner!”
Horner?
Arthur remembered that this was the surname of the principal. He turned his head and saw the principal leading a few deans of the colleges, supporting an old man with a cane, walking towards the lecture hall.
Principal Horner, hearing someone calling out to him, turned his head abruptly, and an expression of helplessness appeared on his face.
“Elder, haven’t you graduated? You wouldn’t be thinking of coming back to study for a doctorate, would you?”
The old man beside him also turned his head to look at the corridor in front of the classroom. His eyes swept over Elder and finally landed on Arthur.
The old man touched his forehead and thought for a moment, then suddenly pointed at Arthur and said with a smile, “Young man, I remember you. I never gave you an answer to the question you asked me last time. I wanted to think it over and come back to you, but I found that you, this little thing, had already graduated.
Look at your police uniform. It seems I was right. The Arthur Hastings police officer in the newspaper, it is you, isn’t it?”
Arthur, hearing this, also smiled, took off his hat and nodded, “It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Mr. Bentham.”
(End of Chapter)