Back in the early part of the 19th century, a British army officer who had served in India left a small fortune to Oxford University to create a professorship in Sanskrit. His plan was that the professor would help convert the heathen masses to Christianity by teaching Sanskrit to those would be administering British India or working as missionaries there. The 1860 election (and, yes, it was a proper election, with manifestos, bitching and adverts in newspapers appealing to the 3,700 electors) was a clash of two philosophies: one candidate represented scholarship for the sake of scholarship, the other represented evangelical Christian zeal. The Times supported one, other papers backed his rival. Special trains had to be laid on to cope with the number of graduates returning to cast their b