In confuting the propositions we have now considered, the Assertor's whole pamphlet is confuted.-We shall however notice (what we can not condescend to disprove) a few of the subaltern statements which, with equal audacity, he holds out as maintained by us, and some of which he even goes so far as to support by fabricated quotations. Of these, one class contains assertions, not simply false, but precisely the reverse of the statements really made by us. Such for instance :-That we extolled the academic system of the Laudian code as perfect (pp. 95, 96, 144, &c.);– That we admitted the actual system to be not inexpedient or insufficient (p. 95); and, That this system was introduced in useful accommodation to the changing circumstances of the age (p. 95.)—Another class includes those assertions that are simply false. For example :-That we expressed a general approbation of the methods of the ancient University, and of the scholastic exercises and studies, beyond an incidental recognition of the utility of Disputation, and that too [though far from undervaluing its advantages even now], in the circumstances of the middle ages; and we may state, that the quotation repeatedly alleged in support of this assertion is a coinage of his own (pp. 6, 11, 83, 96, 97, 138, 139);—That we reviled Oxford for merely deviating from her ancient institutions (pp. 5, 11, 12, 95, &c.);—That we said a single word in delineation of the Chamberdeckyn at all, far less (what is pronounced "one of the cleverest sleights of hand ever practiced in the whole history of literary legerdemain") "transformed him into an amiable and interesting young gentleman, poor indeed in pocket, but abundantly rich in intellectual energies, and in every principle that adorns and dignifies human nature!" (p. 113.)-Regarding as we do the Assertor only as a curious psychological monstrosity, we do not affect to feel toward him the indignation, with which, coming from any other quarter we should repel the false and unsupported charges of "depraving, corrupting, and mutilating our cited passages" (p. 24) ;—of “making fraudulent use of the names and authorities of Dr. Newton and Dr. Wallis, of Lipsius, Crevier, and Du Boullay” (p. 142); and to obtain the weight of his authority, of fathering on Lord Bacon an apophthegm of our own, though only alleging, without reference, one of the most familiar sentences of his most popular* work. (p. 7.)-To complete our cursory dissection of this moral Lusus Naturæ, we shall only add that he quotes us just thirteen times; that of these quotations one is authentic; six are more or

less altered; one is garbled, half a sentence being adduced to support what the whole would have overthrown (p. 20); and five are fabrications to countenance opinions which the fabricator finds it convenient to impute to us (pp. 9, 10, 11, 110, 141).

We might add much more, but enough has now been said.— We have proved that our positions stand unconfuted-uncontroverted-untouched;1 that to seem even to answer, our opponent has been constrained to reverse. the very argument he attacked; and that the perfidious spirit in which he has conducted the controversy, significantly manifests his own consciousness of the hopeless futility of his cause.

1 [And what was true twenty years ago, is, in every respect, true now.]

VI.-ON THE RIGHT OF DISSENTERS TO ADMISSION INTO

THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES.

(OCTOBER, 1834.)

A Bill to remove certain Disabilities which prevent some classes of his Majesty's Subjects from resorting to the Universities of England, and proceeding to Degrees therein. 21 April, 1834.

THE whole difficulty of the question, in regard to the admission of Dissenters into the English Universities, lies in the present anomalous state-we do not say constitution-of these establishments. In them the University, properly so called, i. e. the necessary national establishment for general education, is at present illegally suspended, and its function usurped, but not performed, by a number of private institutions which have sprung up in accidental connection with it, named Colleges.

Now, the Claim of the Dissenters to admission into the public University can not justly be refused; nor, were the University in fact, what it ought legally to be, would the slightest difficulty or inconvenience be experienced in rendering that right available. But the University has been allowed to disappear-the Colleges have been allowed to occupy its place: and, while the actual, that is the present, right of the Colleges, as private establishments, to close their gates on all but members of their own foundations, can not be denied; independently of this right, the expediency is worse than doubtful, either, on the one hand, of forcing a College to receive inmates, not bound to accommodate themselves to its religious observances, or, on the other, of exacting from those entitled to admission, conformity to religious observances, in opposition to their faith. Now, neither in the bill itself, nor in any of the pamphlets and speeches in favor of the Dissenters, or against them, is there any attempt made to

grapple with the real difficulties of the question; and the opponents of the measure are thus left to triumph on untenable ground, in objections which might be retorted with tenfold effect upon themselves.

The sum of all the arguments for exclusion amounts to this : -The admission of the Dissenters is inexpedient, as inconsistent with the present state of education in the Universities, which is assumed to be all that it ought to be; and unjust, as tending to deprive those of their influence, who are assumed to have most worthily discharged their trust.-In reply, it has been only feebly attempted, admitting the assumptions, to evade the right, and to palliate the inconveniences. Instead of this, it ought to have been boldly contended:-in the first place, that the actual state of education in these schools is entitled to no respect, as contrary at once to law and to reason; and that all inconveniences disappear the moment that the Universities are in the state to which law and reason demand that they be restored; in the second, that so far from unjustly degrading upright and able trustees, these trustees have, for their proper interest, violated their public auty; and, for the petty ends of their own private institutions, abolished the great national establishment, of whose progressive improvement they had solemnly vowed to be the faithful guard

ians.

In attempting any reform of an ancient institution like the English Universities, it should be laid down as a fundamental principle, that the changes introduced be, as far as possible, in conformity with the spirit and even the mechanism of these institutions themselves. The English Universities, as spontaneously developed and as legally established, consist of two elements; and the separate perfection, and mutual co-operation and counterpoise of these elements, determine the perfection of the constituted whole. The one of these, principal and necessary, is the public instruction and examination in the several faculties afforded by the University Proper; the other, subordinate and accidental, is the private superintendence exercised in the Licensed House, which the under-graduate must inhabit, and the private tuition afforded by the Licensed Tutor, under whose guidance he must place himself. We are no enemies to this constitution. On the contrary, we hold that it affords the condition of an absolutely perfect University. The English Universities, however, afford a melancholy illustration of the axiom,

"Corruptio optimi pessima." In them the principles of health are converted into the causes of disease.

In two preceding articles [the two last], we have shown (especially in regard to Oxford, but in all essential circumstances our statements apply equally to Cambridge), that in the English Universities there is organized, by Statute, an extensive system of Public instruction, through a competent body of Professors constantly Lecturing in all the Faculties; but that, de facto, this statutory system has now no practical existence. We have shown that, besides this original and principal system-through which, in fact, alone other Universities accomplish their endthe English Universities came subsequently to employ two other subordinate means- -means intended more to insure order than to bestow instruction. In the first place, they required, from a remote period, that every member of the University should belong to some house governed by a graduate, licensed by the academical authorities, and responsible to them for the conduct of the other members of the establishment; and in the second, they have, for above two centuries, enjoined that all under-graduates, who were then generally four years younger than at present, should be likewise under the special discipline of a tutor, whose principal office it was, privately to do what the University could not constitutionally, in its lay Faculty of Arts,' publicly attempt-" institute his pupil in the rudiments of religion and the doctrine of the Thirty-nine Articles;" but so little was expected from this subsidiary instructor, that by statute any one is competent to the office who has proceeded to his Bachelors' degree in Arts (a degree formerly taken by the age at which the University is now entered), and whose moral and religious character is approved by the head of the house to which he belongs, or in the event of a dispute on this point, by the Vice-Chancellor. We also showed how all these parts of the public academical constitution had been illegally annihilated, or perverted by the influence and for the behoof of a private interest in the University. This interest

2

1 [It has been ignorantly contended against this, that the Faculty of Arts in the older Universities was not lay but clerical; and this on the ground that the learners and teachers of that faculty are frequently called clerici. But those who know any thing of medieval language are aware, that clericus necessarily means nothing more than gownsman, scholaris. Even the expression benefit of clergy in the English law might have prevented the mistake.]

2 It does not appear from the statutes that the tutor must be of the same house with the pupil.