Trittro to Of fititor.
THE DISSENTERS, THE 'UNIVERSITY, AND THE COLLEGES. NO. IL
Oxford, April 1854. I ventured last week briefly to indicate the plan which appeared to me likely best to obviate the difficulties and objections incident on the admission of Dissenters to University privileges—that, namely, of a separate collegiate organization to be set on foot by each body for themselves. I would now enumerate the comparative advantages which I conceive to attach to such a plan, over that pursued at Cambridge ; considered under the three heads pro- posed last week—the University, the Church of England, and the Dissent- ing bodies.
I. Advantage to the University.—This may be briefly stated. The Uni- versity wants increase of numbers more than it wants any other single thing that can be named. Exactly two centuries and a half ago there were double the present number of resident members; the population of England then being not more than a quarter of the present.* In round numbers, then, if we assume the proportion of University residents to population which then existed to be the legitimate one, we ought to have 12,000 in- 'teed of 1600 residents now. I do not of course wish to insist on this num- ber, which approaches too near to the mythical 30,000 of Hume, and cannot be conceived as necessary, now that so many facilities for education exist elsewhere, even did material conditions and the altered manners of society admit of such close packing in a country town of moderate size; but surely we may infer that increase is called for. Now, by the admission of Dissenters in the way proposed, every one that comes to the University is a clear gain to its number ; the Dissenter coming to a college is not preventing another from coming there who would otherwise do so, which must happen if any considerable number is to come from the Dissenting body to existing Col- leges. If there are one or two Colleges which are at present not entirely full, perhaps it would not meet the views of Dissenters to be relegated to these, while Colleges held in fair estimation are always overflowing, even should these Colleges court their admission to fill up their vacant places. But the indirect effect in increasing numbers would, I believe, be much greater,— we should be introducing a healthy form of competition between different Dissenting bodies. Each would be anxious (like the monasteries of old) to have a locus standi for their own body in Oxford, at once to represent itself, and secure the beat education the place afforded for its members. Each would feel that the efficiency of their college would reflect credit and in- fluence on their body. Thus we should have a great number of new aca- demical bodies formed, and insure (through the simple instincts of human nature) that the most strenuous efforts would be made to keep each as full and efficient as possible. On the Cambridge plan, whether extended as re- gards privileges or not, private choice only may bring individual Dissenters to the University ; but the powerful momentum of corporate spirit would rtot be enlisted in the cause of augmenting their numbers and influence.
II. Comparative advantage to the Church of England.—I Bay comparative advantage ; for though I will not say that the Church would not gain in some points, it is clear that what she has mainly to look to in the matter is not to lose ; no one will pretend that her advantage in the matter is more than incidental. And certainly it is a vital matter to her not to lose any proportion of her collegiate endowment, now that her own members in the country considerably outnumber the whole population of England at the period above alluded to, and the demand for clergy, for home and colonial service, has increased and is increaseng so vastly, and almost beyond pre- sent means of supply. And surely I am justified in saying " her " collegiate endowment; although the not uncommon confusion of ideas as to the dis- tinction between the University and the Colleges may necessitate the re- mark, that hers they most distinctly are by the law of the land and on the principles always recognized by equity courts in dealing with charitable trusts and foundations in general. "The general objects of Colleges," says a high legal authority, f " are matter of history. I conceive them to em- brace all manner of science that can be made subservient to the good of the Church in the widest sense of the term. * • • I need scarcely meet the fallacy that the Church intended in the older foundations was the Church of Rome. It was the Church of England, which, before it shook off, -whether rightly, or wrongly its subordination to the see of Rome, and for- bade practices still retained by the Church of Rome, had its own identity under that name, as truly as the colony of Massachusetts had before the declaration of independence a civil being, which it still retains, and under which the details of its polity are carried on." The question of right, how- ever, all-important as it is, is here incidental merely, and our main proposi- tion, that it is expedient for the Church to retain her endowments, and every potable member that she can bring to the University on her present re- sources, is self-evident. It is moreover expedient for her to be stirred by the example of rivals on ground hitherto exclusively her own, to fuller de- • Vide University Correspondence published by Parliament, leo. 33, Appendix A. t Sir J. Awdry. Tutors' Reports, p. 48. velopment of her existing resources, or the foundation of new bodies in connexion with herself. Lastly, the theological teaching of her own col- legiate bodies might gain in depth and reality by the fact of different sys- tems being tolerated near her throne, ready to profit by any suicidal pas- siveness on her part, and at any rate would escape the tendency to a general indifferentism and laxity inherent in what I have (for want of a name) de- nominated the Cambridge system, which admits different creeds to one es- tablishment, making no special provision for the religious training of one part by teachers of their own. III. Advantages to the _Dissenting bodies.--,Some of these are unavoidably suggested above ; as that their numbers are more likely to be numerous on this method. But objections may easily be started on a superficial view. " What ! are we to believe (it might be said) that our exclusion from Church endowments is for our own good ? Is it not palpably better for us to have a part of the Church's good things than to provide ourselves with similar ones ?" To this we could conceive a reply, and not a trivial one, that all, and a wealthy body like Dissenters not least, have an interest in not weak- ening the foundations of property by undermining the outworks. Arbitrary transference of ownership will not perhaps stop at Church corporations— perhaps ultimately not at corporations at all ; and whenever it reaches the individual, no body will suffer more, because none are wealthier, than the Dissenting interest themselves. This, however, we do not propose to urge here : the danger is perhaps remote, though not therefore unreal. It ap- peals more forcibly to general instincts to suggest, that power is better se- cured by concentration than dispersion of force. Small minorities of Dis- senters among the fellows and students of each College (and for obvious reasons they must long continue minorities, as now at Cambridge)—the very minorities themselves paralyzed by internal differences—can hardly act powerfully on the conduct of the College or of the University. The Cam- bridge plan, indeed, of merging Dissenting monads of whatever form of per- suasion in Collegiate bodies conducted by Churchmen on Church principles and with great majorities of Churchmen among the students, is in fact a virtual bar to the attainment of power, influence, or credit in the University by the Dissenting bodies themselvee, as effectual as it could have been if designed for that very end. How different would be the result were every such body to augment the University family by a college of their own ! The number of such colleges would be considerable, and of the number each would be animated with a vital principle of its own, with the consciousness of independence and separate personality, with the sense of a duty to per- form and important ends to gain for the body that established it, with a common principle of action and internal union to render their action effective and durable. Assuredly, if the Dissenters would leaven the University, and successfully guard against the exclusive supremacy of the Church in it, these are the instruments they must seek and wield. Thus, too, will they best secure their own students from the tendency to fall in with the reh- gious profession of those around them, whose numbers and (on the average) higher social rank would tell powerfully in rendering their own profession distasteful to the few. Thus only will their own teaching in theology be secured to them in its fulness. Thus only can an effective esprit de corps among their academical coreligionists be organized and main- tained ; and thus the sympathy and cooperation of those scattered through the whole country be best attracted and preserved. In short, thus and thus only can they gain that inestimable power for good, which, in spite of the somewhat prejudiced efforts of a small knot of profes- sors and would-be professors to depreciate it, is still by the thinking public of England at large felt and acknowledged to reside in the Collegiate system.
It is perhaps hardly necessary to show that to paralyze the religious teaching of the English Church, or to diminish the number of her students by inter- mixture of a foreign element in her Colleges, is not in itself a prudent policy, or an end which any far-seeing Dissenter would deliberately pursue, ab- stracted from other considerations. It is no new view that the principles of the Reformation, which all Dissenters prize in common, could not receive a more severe blow than by the weakening of the 'largest and most morally and materially powerful Reformed communion in the world. There is scope enough for Dissent beside the English Church while she stands, but little enough of power or political consideration left for its isolated con- stituent bodies when she is removed. Let our Dissenters observe the disin- tegrating process under which German Protestantism dwindles away and de- cays. Let them apply to their own case, too, the ingenious apologue of our great satirist, and believe that if the adamantine Laputa of Atheism or Ito- monism does not crush the lesser dwellings of our Balnibarbi to powder, they owe much of their safety the " tall rock " of the Establishment, and the "high spires and pillars ", of the still firm and still powerful Church of Eng- land.
" But," it may be said, " it is difficult in these days to induce persons of wealth to found colleges at all; the thing is out of date : we may use up old materials, but we will not sacrifice new ones to copy a relic of Medievalism itself ready to crumble away." We deny both the principles and the fasts involved in such an objection. We believe that colleges, substantially on our present model, will supply, and will best supply, the wants of the time. The stimulus supplied by endowed fellowships and scholarships has not ceased to operate ; it would be nearer the truth to say it is but beginning to be properly .felt : we wish we could see it greatly. extended, and adopted by all the religious bodies in the state of sufficient importance to require their aid ; for we believe each would thus progress most, and impede the progress of others least. We do not think it would be easy to overstate the stimulus that might, for instance, be given to the Wesleyan body by the foundation within the University of Oxford of a college which should attract to itself, by adequate endowments, the flower of that body, and enable them to reap the full benefit of the various improving influences of the place, while they yet preserved their distinctive character and an organization of their own. It would of course be open to them to sift their candidates at admission by such religious test as they chose, just as the Church Colleges would retain that now somewhat anomalously made the condition of admission to a Na- tional University. Even should the Legislature, by a despotic act, declare Dissenters eligible to the Church foundations, they could not hope to reap the same benefits from their position as the minority among en uncongenial body. There remains, then, but the alleged difficulty of the one and ism's- mental condition of the plan—the procuring the requisite endowments. Let us look around us ; are no analogous foundations being set on foot in spite of it ? The mere impulse of gratitude and admiration for departed worth have sufficed to raise a fund of 100,0001. for the Wellington College, which is even now rising. The plan for a " Clergy College," with a more purely eleemo- synary object, is meeting with high and liberal support. Can we believe that when the powerful motives of zeal to propagate and advance a form of belief and desire to perpetuate a name by connexion with a permanent in- stitution, are alike enlisted in support of the impulse or duty of charity, that none of the many wealthy Dissenters among our merchant princes (to name no other class) will be found willing individually or collectively to supply an acknowledged want ? The munificent subscription by a leading Dissenter of 20001. to the missions of his own communion, wino has but lately been announced, (to be continued, if we mistake not, an- nually,) would alone lead us to think otherwise. A capital which should secure an equal annual sum in perpetuity would at once start an efficient college, with an adequate staff of foundation members, at least fully sufficient for a commencement :* for it must be borne in mind that the deficiency now existing of first-rate preparatory and public-school teach- ing available for the children of Dissenters must prevent a sudden in- flux of large numbers at starting. Is there any way open to charitably-dis- posed or zealous Dissenters of so greatly and permanently benefiting their own body at so cheap a rate ? If not, we would suggest that the removal of such legal and statutable restrictions as now prevent such plans from taking effect in the University, would be the greatest boon that external in- terference in the University by the Legislature could confer on them ; and should the admission of Dissenters take this form, we, albeit sincere Churchmen, should hail their admission with pleasure. We should then feel that the University, the Church, and the Dissenters, had all found, or were in the right way to find, their proper relative position, and their fullest capacities for working out their respective ends. The Univer- sity would have become really national, and would have its numbers actually augmented, and not merely differently constituted ; its constituent bodies might be rivals in the race of learning and distinction, but the harmony of each within itself would be neither rudely broken by odium theologicum, nor falsely patched up by a compromise that sacrificed distinctive religious teaching. The Church of England, now certainly the bulwark of Reformed Christianity, would still retain the foundations bequeathed to her by her members, and now well nigh necessary (humanly speaking) to her very ex- istence; she would be stimulated by the healthy application of competition to more active and sustained exertion in the centre of her operations, and her whole frame would be invigorated by the freer pulsation of the heart ; the Dissenters would partake corporately, as well as individually, in the be- nefits of the University, and guard the faith of their students while they stimulated the zeal and public spirit of their whole body, by presenting them with real and living institutions, in the progress of which their in- terest and efforts might centre ; and the nation at large would assuredly have no reason to regret the extension in the most natural way of growth of its highest education, and much cause to rejoice at the simultaneous aug- mentation in the energy of her two main religious sections, and the conse- quent advancement of the moral and spiritual welfare of her overgrown population ; in short, in being enabled at once to secure a benefit to the Church, in which she recognizes the strongest bulwark of her religious faith, and to the Dissenting bodies, whose independence and diversities form the surest guarantee of her political freedom. A RESIDENT FELLOW.
• We calculate eight fellowships, and eight scholarships, at 2001. and 501. each respectively, as an effective start. Substitute twelve for eight in the above numbers, and we have the same staff, and about the same pecuniary resources, as the most distinguished open foundation in Oxford. Buildings would of course form an ad- ditional item.
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