A PLEA

FOR

THE ABOLITION OF TESTS.

A PETITION from members of the University of Oxford for the abolition of tests of religious opinion on admission to academical degrees was presented to both Houses of Parliament last Session. It was signed by 106 persons, two of whom were Heads of Colleges, while the rest were or had been connected, as Professors, Tutors, or Fellows, with University or College government and education. The petition was presented in the House of Lords by Earl Russell, in the House of Commons by Mr. Dodson. Its prayer was supported in the Upper House by Earl Granville and the Bishop of London, and in the Lower House by Mr. Buxton, Mr. Grant Duff, and Mr. Goschen. Mr. Gladstone, without actually supporting the prayer of the petition, commended the question, as one requiring attention, to the consideration of the University, and went so far as to intimate his own opinion that the stringency of the present tests was in the case of laymen, at least, open to reasonable objection.

B

The opponents of the petition directed their arguments more against the manner in which it had been got up, than against its actual prayer, or the reasons by which its prayer was supported. It will scarcely be thought presumptuous to claim for the persons whose names were appended to it credit for not having intentionally done anything insidious or unfair towards their opponents. Those of them especially who are clergymen, and who know well what obloquy they incur in their own profession, and how their professional prospects may be affected, by a declaration in favour of liberty of conscience, have, in signing the petition, given a sufficient guarantee at least for their integrity and courage. The changes which the document underwent were not intended to mislead opponents, but were such as documents intended to be signed by a large number of persons, who, though agreed as to their main object, may differ in details, are very apt to undergo. An anxiety to make the petition as little open to misconstruction as possible, especially on religious grounds, will scarcely be imputed as a fault to the framers. And it was certainly not by any contrivance or in accordance with any wish of the petitioners that the presentation was postponed till very near the end of the Session of Parliament, when it was scarcely possible that a question of any importance should be

* I believe I am justified in stating that the Vice-Chancellor wrote to Lord Derby assuring him that though the time when the petition was presented might be thought inconvenient to its opponents, no suspicion of any insidious intention on the part of the petitioners could be entertained. Mr. Henley's misstatements, couched in language indicative of their levity, may safely be allowed to find their own level.

effectively discussed, and quite impossible that the discussion should result in legislation.

The number of those who signed the petition must be compared, as Mr. Gladstone justly remarked, not with that of Convocation at large, but with that of the much smaller body of men who hold or have held headships, professorships, fellowships, or tutorships, and have thus not merely possessed the academical franchise, but been really connected with the University. It must also be regarded, as Mr. Gladstone emphatically avowed, not merely as a stationary quantity, but as indicative of a growing feeling in the University; in which, twenty years ago, probably not a tenth of the number would have been found ready to sign a similar petition. And further, the number of clerical signatures must be estimated as having been obtained in the face of a hostile feeling on the part of the clergy generally, falling little short of professional terrorism, which vents itself in the gravest imputations against teachers of Christianity, convicted, by their own act, of believing that reason and conscience, when left unfettered by political tests, will bear free witness to Christian truth.

It has been said that the petitioners ought to have applied in the first instance to the University and that they were guilty of a breach of academical loyalty in going at once to Parliament for relief. No one can feel more strongly than the writer of these pages, no one, when there was occasion, has more earnestly asserted the expediency of keeping the great places of national education independent of the political government of

the country and of the influences by which, especially under the system of Party, that government is controlled. No one can be more sensible of the evils which arose, both to the University and the nation, when Oxford, the common heritage of Englishmen, became, through unhappy accidents, the miserable tool of the Jacobite faction; and which would again arise if ever she should be made the tool of a similar faction again. But as regards the present question, it is to be observed, in the first place, that these tests were, in fact, imposed from without by the arbitrary exercise of a political power which was then vested in the Crown and exerted through Chancellors nominated by the Sovereign, but which has now passed into the hands of the Legislature, and carried with it the responsibility for the maintenance of the tests. In the second place, it is to be observed that to the University, in the proper sense of the term, it is idle to apply, since she is not a free agent in the matter. The great majority of Convocation consists of clergymen not resident in the University, nor much touched by academical needs or sympathies, who come on these occasions to vote-and can be little blamed for voting ---with a single eye to the objects and interests, necessarily and perhaps rightly paramount in their minds, of the clerical profession. To ask such a Convocation to repeal religious tests would seem rather like an act of ironical mockery, especially if the inevitable refusal were to be followed by an appeal to Parliament, than like a tribute of allegiance and respect.

What is it that actually takes place when these questions are brought before us in Convocation? The term before last, the Council proposed a petition against Mr. Bouverie's bill for enabling colleges, if they thought fit, to admit candidates to fellowships without tests of religious opinion. When Convocation assembled it was evident that the members really engaged in the work of the University, to whom arguments founded on the claims of academical industry and the expediency of extending the benefits of the University, might have been addressed with some hope of success, and with not a few of whom such arguments did in fact prevail, were swamped by clergymen having only clerical objects and interests, whom such arguments would not only have failed to move, but perhaps have hardened in their determination. It was therefore of little consequence, that, by a strained construction (as many thought) of the medieval statute forbidding us to speak in English, we were denied liberty of debate, and compelled to agree not only to the prayer of the petition, but to a whole string of what appeared to opponents very questionable reasons, without discussion and in the lump.

Parliament has already taken the subject in hand. It has interposed so far as to abolish the tests at Matriculation, and on the Bachelor's degree, and thus to save us for the future from the crime (for it deserves no milder name) of oppressing and corrupting, for political purposes, the consciences of boys. But this measure of relief, in favour of which not only a regard for morality, but almost the voice of decency