Goldwin Smith was a British historian and journalist, active in the United Kingdom and Canada. He was born at Reading, Berkshire. He was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford, and after a brilliant undergraduate career he was elected to a fellowship at University College, Oxford. He threw his keen intellect and trenchant style into the cause of university reform, the leading champion of which was another fellow of University College, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley. On the Royal Commission of 1850 to inquire into the reform of the university, of which Stanley was secretary, he served... as assistant-secretary; and he was secretary to the commissioners appointed by the act of 1854. His position as an authority on educational reform was further recognized by a seat on the Popular Education Commission of 1858. In 1868, when the question of reform at Oxford was again growing acute, he published a brilliant pamphlet, entitled The Reorganization of the University of Oxford.
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