On Thursday the House of Lords rejected the Bill which
opens the highest degrees and a place in Convocation to Dissenters or Catholic students of the two national Universities, by a majority of 28,-74 against, to 46 for it. The Earl of Kimberley made a very good speech for the Bill, as did the Duke of Devonshire (Chancellor of the University of Cambridge), the Duke of Somer- set, the Duke of St. Alban's, and Earl Russell. Though the Government had not resisted this Bill in the Lower House, the Duke of Marlborough, president of the Council of Education, moved its rejection in the Peers, and carried it. The House of Lords seems determined to show by anticipation that they can never be in sympathy with a popular assembly. Almost the only thing the Conservatives had to say against the Bill was that the Universities ought not to be so often " disturbed." They should be allowed to slumber a little after being disturbed by legislative interference so recently as thirteen and eleven years ago. The Conservative idea of a University appears to be a body with weak nerves or a weak heart, liable to palpitations on any legislative shock, and quite unnerved for academical purposes by these fits of palpitation. Does a single student learn a mathematical problem or a line of Greek poetry the less, because the Hebdomadal Board
is threatened with seeing a small sprinkling of Dissenters amongst its masters?
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