SCOTCH UNIVERSITIES: RELIGIOUS TESTS.
WHEN the Universities of Scotland were remodelled, under the auspices of BUCHANAN, at the time of the Reformation, the object in view was to accommodate them to the immediate wants of the community. A new church had risen or was rising on the ruins of the old. The powerful lay coadjutors of the Reformation betrayed great unwillingness to appropriate any part of the spoils of the old clergy to the formation and support of a new. The most urgent need of the community—the object most at heart with the sineere and enlightened intellectual leaders of the Reformation—was the means of providing an educated clergy. The Universities, or more properly the Colleges of Scotland, were reorganized in this sense. A Literary faculty was instituted in each, for purposes of general education, and a Theological faculty, for the purpose of training for the ministry those whose intellectual powers had been already Cultivated by the other. The Colleges were intended to be clerical seminaries : the general education which laymen might receive at the hands of their literary faculties was a very secondary and subor- dinate consideration.
So long as the Scotch Universities retained this ecclesiastical character, the exaction of a pledge to adhere to the doctrines and discipline of the Established Church was a natural if not a neces- sary arrangement. But time has materially though insensibly worked a change in their character.
In the course of last century, faculties of Medicine have developed themselves—fully in the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, imperfectly in the Universities of St. Andrews and Aberdeen. Law Professorships have been instituted in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen ; although it can scarcely be said that in any one of these seminaries a legal faculty has been fully developed. In Edinburgh there are Professors of Scots Law, Civil or Roman Law, Convey- ancing, Medical Jurisprudence, and a Professorship of Public Law ; in Glasgow, there is a Professor of Civil Law and the Law of Scot- land, and a Professor of Forensic Medicine ; in Aberdeen, a Pro- fessor of Civil Law and a Lecturer on Forensic Medicine. The growth of two secular faculties in addition to the ecclesiastical faculty of Theology has done much to secularize the studies pursued at the Universities. The faculty of Arts or Literature (embracing the chairs of Languages, Logic, Morals, and Physical Science) is necessarily theoretical, and preliminary to the three practical facul- ties. It might retain something of an ecclesiastical character so long as the Theological faculty was the only one to which admis- sion was sought and obtained through it ; but this character has been of necessity in a great measure effaced when aspirants to the degrees of the other two liberal professions received their elementary training in it.
The consequence has been, that the imposition of a religious test as a qualification for holding a professorship has been felt in the case of lay or secular professors to be an obstacle to the efficiency and prosperity of the Universities, and has in many in- stances been tacitly dispensed with. Professorships have been held by many gentlemen from whom no declaration of conformity to the Established Church was ever asked or given, and by more whose well-known opinions would have rendered such a declaration a mockery that could scarcely be called solemn. The most dis- tinguished and useful lay professors of the Universities have be- longed to one or other of these classes; and the religion of Scot- land has not been found to suffer in consequence.
A most unworthy effort is now making to enforce the exaction of a declaration of conformity from all office-bearers in the Uni- versities, to gratify personal and partisan enmities. One instance of this is the attempt in St. Andrews to deprive Sir DAVID BaEw- STER of his appointment of Principal, for adhering to the Free Church. It is notorious—it is not denied by the more frank of Sir Dann'a opponents—that his adhesion to the Free Church is a mere pretext ; that his deposition is sought for entirely different reasons. It is not necessary to enter into those reasons: they may have weight in themselves, but they can afford no apology for the reenactment of a useless and exclusive practice, which has for up- wards of half a century been disregarded whenever it was felt con- venient. The threat of deposition is also held over the heads of two eminent Professors in Aberdeen, to whom no other objection can be offered. The last and most glaring attempt to recall to ac- tivity the religious exclusive test is a protest by Principal MACFAR- LANE of Glasgow against Mr. Fox Ment.E's officiating as Rector, on the ground of his having seceded from the Established Church ! Principal MACFARLANE had no protest to offer when Sir ROBERT PEEL and Lord STANLEY, who are Episcopalians, were elected Rectors. Principal MACFARLANE connived at Sir WILLIAM BOOKER, Sir DANIEL SANDFORD, and Dr. RADIUM, all three Epis- copalians, holding professorships: but Principal MACFARLANE pro- tests against Mr. Fox MAULE acting as Rector, although Mr. Fox MAULS adheres literally to every article in the Confession of Faith, the signing of which is the test imposed upon Scotch University office-bearers.
The consequence of this attempt to revive a useless and mis- chievous restriction is exactly what could have been wished. The Glasgow Argus, in an article which has a kind of semi-official appearance, speaking of the proceedings in the Rectorial Court, says— "A highly important series of resolutions, deeply affecting the prosperity of this in common with the other Universities of Scotland, were afterwards laid on the table of the Senate. The propriety of abolishing the present religious tests, as regards the Professors and other office-hearers in the Scottish Univer- sities, has long been matter of discussion; and a fresh impetus has been given to the question by the recent vast secession from the Church established by law. Whatever may have been the case in times past, it can no longer be denied that the members of the Establishment are now a small minority of the Scottish people; and if, therefore, the Universities are to continue to educate the youth of Scotland, all exclusive statutes must be abolished. • * * The resolutions tabled on Friday are to be taken into consideration at an early meeting of the Senate ; at which Mr. Mauls has expressed his determination, at whatever inconvenience, to he present; and it affords us great pleasure to learn. that even although Principal Macfarlane and the whole of his supporters should come forward in opposition, ng doubt is entertained of their being car• ried by an overwhelming majority. Similar movements are understood to be in contemplation by the other Universities."
It is certainly high time that the exaction of a declaration of conformity by Professors in the three lay faculties of Arts, Medi- cine, and Law, should be abolished; which if enforced would have deprived the Scotch Universities of some of those Professors who have given them an European reputation, and which have of late years been once and again resorted to, to serve the ignoble put.r poses of personal and party hostility.
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