ADMISSION OF DISSENTERS TO THE UNIVERSITIES.
THE claims of the Dissenters to be admitted to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are generally urged as a right or a boon, which ought to be granted in justice to them. This is taking too narrow a view : the Dissenters ought to be admitted to the Univer- sities in justice to the State. It is the right and for the interest of the State, to be able to avail itself to the utmost of the talents of all classes of its subjects or citizens. So long as any classes are excluded from participating in the education that would develop their talents, the State allows a part of the national talent, which might be turned to account, to be wasted. It is said that the institution of the London University has in a great measure removed the ground on which the claims of the Dis- senters to be admitted into the other two Universities rest. Even taking the usual narrow view of the question, this assertion is not exactly correct ; but taking the wider, the statesmanlike view, it is utterly erroneous. A degree from Oxford or Cambridge is in this country a passport to many employments—the "open Sesame" to the career of office : until the University of London is placed on the same footing, it is mockery to say that the Dissenters have in it an equivalent for Oxford and Cambridge.
When the State has founded an University, it has done but half its duty. To say, " There—you may go in and learn," is not enough : it ought to hold out motives to induce men to go in and learn. With all the talk about the love or ardent desire felt by this or any age to acquire knowledge, there are but few men who culti- vate science or literature for its own sake. They may begin from a disinterested inclination to the pursuit ; but if learning is left to be its own reward, the lucrative occupation of the merchant, the career of the lawyer, statesman, soldier, or divine—all so lucrative, all so flattering to man's Jove of distinction and applause—will, one by one, wile away the votaries of the muses from the threadbare cloak of the student. The interest of the State requires that all the higher branches of knowledge be cultivated; but this end the State can only attain indirectly—by giving a numerous class of the most aspiring spirits a motive for cultivating them. This can only be done by demanding a certain amount of preliminary study—a certain previous course of education as a qualification for admis- sion into the service of the public.
Not only is this the sole means by which Universities can be rendered attractive ; it is the sole means by which they can be made useful as well as attractive. Look back over the whole his- tory of these important institutions, and you will find that they have been frequented, supported, rendered influential, because men found the instruction obtained in them efficacious in promoting their advancement in rank and fortune. The University of Paris made itself, without regal aid or encouragement, in a dark age, be- cause it was found that those who had studied there were sought after, on account of their superior acquirements, to fill the highest offices in church and state, and because students flocked to it on this account from all parts of Europe. At a somewhat later period, Bologna and the other older Law Universities of Italy rose to emi- nence by the same means. Emperors, kings, republics, rivalled each other in their efforts to attach to their respective services the more distinguished jurists of those corporations ; and the ingenious youth of Europe flocked in crowds to earn the Doctor's degree, which made a man of so much consequence. Even in those countries where privileged Universities have been founded by the State, it has been only by making them seminaries of professional educa- tion that they have been raised to eminence. Universities like those of Berlin and Gottingen, in which young men are trained for the legal, medical, diplomatic, and other learned professions, have become celebrated and useful; while mere literary Universities have remained nullifies—equivocal hybrids between elementary schools and colleges—neither useful nor ornamental.
To render the University of London really useful to the State as an instrument for diffusing a higher education through society, its degrees must be made passports to professional employment. Right or wrong, the majority of parents will look upon the time and money spent on their sons' attendance on the Faculty of Arts, merely to make them more learned, as thrown away. Nor are they altogether wrong ; for studiek which have no definite practical aim are apt to degenerate into empty theories, and to be listlessly pro- secuted. But let it be declared by law that degrees conferred by the Faculties of the London University entitle their bearers to be- come candidates for admission into the medical, (this is already the case, we believe,) legal, and other learned professions, and that none who do not hold degrees from it or some other University shall be allowed to become candidates ; and students will be attracted to its walls, and their studies prosecuted in an earnest and practical spirit. The privileges of the Inns of Court interpose difficulties in the way of accomplishing this with regard to the legal profession ; and our theological seminaries might impose obstacles in so far as the Church is concerned : but it is desirable that our Consuls, Diplomatists, and employes in the different Go- vernment offices and Parliamentary Commissions, should have a professional education. A Faculty might be instituted in the Lon- don University for the purpose of training young men as civil servants of the State. Its professors would be well attended ; their systematic instruction would develop higher capabilities and a more generous spirit in the civil service; and the prospect of ob- taining a professorship would encolurage scholars to devote them- selves to the branches of science the future civilians were required to study. At present, the University of London is mainly sup- ported by its medical school : the addition of a school for the civil service would raise it to a higher state of prosperity ; and its Fa- culty of Arts would necessarily rise along with the other two. As Dissenters are already admissible into Government offices, no pre- text could be alleged for restricting the benefits of the Civil Ser- vice Faculty to the adherents of one sect.
All monopolies are bad, and the London University ought not to have the monopoly of this new Faculty. But it ought to be insti- tuted in the other Universities on the condition that admission to its honours should be, as in the London University, open to all sects. Government ought to give Oxford and Cambridge to understand that this new Faculty, with its array of professors, lecturers, examiners, &c., should be added to those they already possess, only on the condition that Dissenters and Roman Catho- lics as well as members of the Church of England were to be ad- mitted to study and take degrees in it. The offer would be accepted—not perhaps at first, but after no long hesitation. There is a growing conviction among the members of the two Universities themselves, that they are paralyzed by being too exclusively theo-
logical seminaries. They are practically connected with the Church alone of all our institutions. The law, medicine, the scientific branches of the civil and military services have no neces- sary connexion with them. All the bolder and more aspiring spirits regard a University appointment as a condemnation to obscurity. It is become almost impossible to obtain really emi- nent men to fill the fellowships and professorships. Every year the intellectual standard of the Universities is falling more in arrear of the age. The necessity of identifying them to a greater extent with real practical life is beginning to be felt • and the institution of a new Faculty, which would have this effect, will in time be gladly purchased by admitting Dissenters within the exclusive walls of Oxford and Cambridge.
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