In the debate on the University Tests' Bill yesterday week,
Sir Roundell Palmer withdrew his very ill-advised proposal to impose a negative test on University professors and college tutors, a pledge committing them not to teach or inculcate any opinion "opposed to the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, or to the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England by law estab- lished,"—a pledge which might have been interpreted as commit- ting a geologist not to teach the geological doctrine as to the age of the earth, or an astronomer to respect sedulously the theory that light was created before luminous bodies. On Thursday night the Bill passed its third reading in a thin House by a majority of 51,-116 to 55. Of course, the House of Lords, which is, as Lord Malmesbury says, quite incapable of any addition to its "practical power and prestige," will exert that practical power to reject this Bill, which the nation wants, and which the House of Commons has passed by majorities sometimes (even on the most critical points) exceeding 120. It will require a good deal of "prestige" to excuse such a use of "practical power."
Previous page
