DURHAM "CASTLE " COLLEGE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] among your many readers, was very much moved by the letter of Mr. Warren Sandell. One of the oldest descriptions of the Castle is " pro-pugnacultun," and his letter proves that as it was a fortification against barbarous inroads in ancient times, so in modern it has proved itself an educational bulwark against vicious and destructive teachings accompanying the growth of industrial population.
I am not a " Castle " man myself, but that does not hinder me from seeing the importance of preserving this magnificent link with England's great past, and of handing it down to future generations. It was Oliver Cromwell of all men who first saw the great importance of this University of the North and Durham rightly claimi to be the oldest Theological School in England. She honours the two great Southern Universities, particularly Oxford, where the Monks of Durham maintained their " Durham College " until the dissolution, but she claims to have for her men as high a qualification as can be gained even at these seats of learning.
It is therefore particularly irritating to some 12,000 Durham graduates to see sometimes in the Press such manifestation of ignorance as is revealed by a snobbish cleric advertising for a curate and requesting only replies from " graduates of Oxford and Cambridge " Or to see an appeal for this large sum of :money for• the restoration of the College which appears to ignore the fact that the " Castle " is Durham's oldest and most historical College. It reminds me of the shop • assistant, an annual witness of the famous University Boat Race, who told me that there were only two Universities in the world ! But both Oxford and Cambridge men know that there is at least one other University that has succeeded in carrying out their own ideals. And hundreds of the leading men of Oxford and Cambridge who have seen the buildings in Durham will be glad to help maintain this old historic pile which is not even rivalled by anything in either of these larger Universities.—I am, Sir, &c., - WALTER W. JOYCE, - M.A., Hatfield Coll., Dunlichn.
Charles Parsonage, Barnstaple, Davin.
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