Winchester College Publication Winchester College Classic Talks | Page 9

Benjamin Jowett (1855–93:
Figures 14–15). I have
already mentioned Jowett’s
unconventional theological
work and the discord that
resulted. He again attracted
anecdotes. A ‘Balliol verse’
ran: ‘First come I, my
name is Jowett. There’s no
knowledge but I know it. I
am master of this College.
What I don’t know isn’t
knowledge.’ There was a
tendresse between him and
Florence Nightingale: people
speculated that she had
turned him down, and his
life was not the same again.
Margot Asquith later asked him what Florence had been like. ‘Violent,’ he
said, ‘very violent’. He raised Balliol to formidable intellectual standing, and
was the centre of intense discussion at the time on what the university was
for. The other leading player in this argument was Mark Pattison, Rector of
Exeter College, who held that Oxford should follow the German model of a
scholarly research institution; that was a pattern that several American
universities were choosing to follow. Jowett was insistent that it should
remain predominantly an institution for undergraduate teaching, with a
responsibility to educate those who were going to fill public positions of
importance. Jowett, I think it is fair to say, won, at least for the next fifty
years or so.
Ingram
Bywater
(1893–1908: Figure
16), the first holder of
the post not to be an
ordained cleric; he is
much less talked
about than his two
predecessors or his
next few successors.
His text of Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics is
still, however, the
standard one, and
that is no mean
achievement: nearly
all the other texts of
important
works
produced at the time
are now regarded as
obsolete. He had
little time for his
successor, whom he
described as an
‘insolent puppy’.
Figure 14 Benjamin Jowett; after Désiré-François
Laugée, after 1871
Figure 15 Benjamin Jowett relaxes from his labours
16
Figure 16 Ingram Bywater; by John Singer Sargent
17