12 MAY 1894, Page 3

Lord Salisbury spoke at the meeting of the friends of

King's College, London, on Monday, and made a very strong speech in condemnation of the Government for withdrawing the grant which has recently been given to King's College, as to University College, London, and other colleges of the same type, on the ground that King's College is a strictly denominational institution, requiring all its professors, except those of Oriental languages, to be Churchmen. We quite agree that it is much better to keep the professorships in secular subjects open to men of all creeds, and not to in- sist that amongst mathematicians, for example, none, except only those belonging to the Church of England, can be selected ; but we cannot understand on what principle an efficient college with only Church teachers is to be inadmissible for a grant, when National elementary schools admitting only teachers belonging to the Church of England are open to the grant. Nevertheless, Lord Salisbury's language, in condemn- ing this exclusion of King's College, was far too vehement. He called it "mere persecution, spontaneous, gratuitous, arbitrary persecution,"—conduct like that of "Julian the Apostate," and so forth. We wish to see all efficient teaching institutionp„ whether denominational or not, admitted on equal terms to State aid, where State aid is necessary. But to discourage the application of religious teats to secular teachers is cer- tainly not a policy so alien to recent legislation as to be condemned in Lord Salisbury's violent and undiscriminating language. Julian the Apostate was a very different kind of ruler from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who only endeavours to get Dissenting chemists or Baptist engineers admitted to compete with Churchmen for the chairs of Chemistry or Engineering.