THE PEERS AND ORIEL COLLEGE.
IT is not often that a private Act of Parliament deserves or obtains much general discussion ; but a Bill promoted by Oriel College has been so far exceptional in its fortunes that it Waa attacked in the House of Lords by Lord Derby, Lord liedesdale, and the Bishop of London,—was rejected by the Committee which heard evidence upon it, and has since been discussed in the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette by the Duke of St. Alban's. It may be worth while to inquire what general principles were involved in the measure, and how far the peculiar jurisdiction of the Peers has been exercised to public advantage in its rejection.
Oriel College applied for two things ; that it might recover its old liberty of electing a layman to the Provostship, and that the large clerical endowments attached to the headship might be set free for other purposes. There is no doubt that the statutes of Oriel College are copied from those of Merton, where a layman is warden ; and there is a high probability that a layman was Provost of Oriel in the seventeenth century. It is within the last two years that the College learned from counsel's opinion that it had forfeited its old freedom of election by accepting endowments which could only be held by clergymen. These endowments are of two kinds. The Provost holds a canonry in Rochester bringing in about £1,000 a year ; and is also Rector of Purleigh parish, in Essex, the proceeds of which may be put at nearly £1,600 a year net. Of course the Provost's duties at Oxford and Rochester preclude him from residing in Purleigh ; and his care of the parish is confined to providing an efficient curate, supporting schools, and subscribing to charities. The College was of opinion that these arrangements worked badly for all interested: for the parish, permanently without a resident rector ; for the Provost, saddled with several different responsibilities ; and for the Fellows, restricted in their choice and bound to elect not only an academical Head, but a proper member of a chapter and a good parish priest. They proposed to take a rent-charge on Purleigh and to make up the Provost's income from other sources to from £1,200 to £1,500 a year, which would still leave his office one of the best endowed in Oxford. In return, the College would obtain two pieces of preferment, a living and a canonry, with which they might deal by sale or exchange, as should seem advisable.
Of the evidence taken upon the Bill and the speeches made for and against it it is not necessary to say much, as from what the Duke of St. Alban's writes, the evidence was not attended to, and the arguments of the opposing counsel do not seem to have had much weight. To have disregarded nine-tenths of Mr. Denison's speech is creditable to the good feeling of the Committee. Insinuations that the promoters were influenced by personal motives and jokes on the youthful looks of one of the witnesses are a style of argument better fitted for the Old Bailey than for any dignified tribunal. The deprecating plea against a lay Provost, who might be outside the communion rails while a junior Fellow was officiating, would deserve notice if it were possible to suppose that it was meant seriously. But Mr. Denison must have known that many Cardinals have been and are unable to officiate, and are not supposed to suffer any loss of dignity. There is no need for Oriel to be more Roman that Rome. The Committee, says the Duke of St. Alban's, were mainly guided by the considerations that the Bill did not provide sufficiently for the local wants of Purleigh, and that, as Lord Redesdale had suggested, to make a Headship secular was matter of public Policy, not of private interest. In other words, the evidence baying established that the Provost of Oriel never did and never could reside in Purleigh, and the Bill proposing to substitute a resident rector, with from £700 to £900 a year, for a curate, whose rector may or may not be as liberal as the Present Provost has been, the Committee decides that local Claims have been disregarded The evidence proves that Oriel does not follow the analogy of some other Colleges ; but has bad the right to elect a layman from the first time of its foundation, and has only lost it by accident ; and the Peers
decide that the question of the Headship is not special to the C 011 ege .
Be it so. It is much better that the whole question how
far it is well to confine educational prizes to clergymen should be taken into consideration. Almost all the headships of Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, almost all those of the great public schools and of a vast majority of the grammar schools, and a certain number of Professorships are confined to persons in orders. Where there is no such restriction, they compete with laymen on more than equal terms. The result is that a certain number of very unfit persons take orders, and that some of the best qualified men are shut out from the careers they would like to follow, or from the posts in which they could do most good. Conservatives set against those drawbacks the facts that the priesthood is increased by several hundred men who, on the whole, behave decorously, and that if priests are the chief educators, the public will probably assume them to be also the best and most natural. They trust, not unwisely, that the love of prescription natural to clergymen will influence the opinions of their pupils ; and they are willing to buy this advantage at the price of a little sacerdotalism and with some loss to education. These, however, are not reasons which ought to weigh with a Liberal Government, and as the Peers are shy of piecemeal legislation, it is a pity they should not be gratified with an Act abolishing all limitations to persons in orders as against public policy. If the Church wants compensation, there is a wide field for it. No Liberal would grudge a measure by which a clergyman, wishing. to change his profession, should be allowed to become a soldier, or a barrister, or to sit in Parliament. What we dislike is the assumption that the imposition of hands confers knowledge or capacity.
Previous page
