[BILL 16.] SECOND HEADING. (Hansard, 6 March 1867)

§ MR. COLERIDGE,

in moving the second reading of this Bill, said: Sir, the Bill is substantially the same as that which I introduced last year; and therefore I do not propose to detain the House 1420 at any length from the issue proposed, a simple issue—a very important issue—but one as to which I cannot bring myself to entertain any serious doubt. Indeed, it is not necessary for me to discuss the matter much at large. So far as I am able to deal with the question, I dealt with it last year at length upon a like occasion to the present; and though, of course, I do not suppose that any remarks of mine in detail are remembered by the House, yet the debate, I have no doubt, is remembered. The general scope of the discussion is well recollected, and hon. Members of the House who take an interest in this question are pretty well aware by this time, after the many debates in this and former Parliaments, of all that is to be said for or against this very short and very simple measure. It is only necessary for me, therefore, to recapitulate very shortly the heads of the argument which a year ago was submitted to the House. First of all, we contend that the University is a national institution in a sense which thoroughly justifies the interference of Parliament to compel the admission of all the subjects of the Queen to a participation in its benefits, without reference to the religious communion they belong to, or the religious belief they hold. It is national in a sense in which the Colleges are not. I do not say I do not mean that Parliament may not, as it repeatedly has, most properly interfered with the Colleges; but I maintain that to be a different and distinct question, mixed up with very different considerations from those which affect the University, and carefully to be kept separate and dealt with by itself. Next we say that it was only, so to speak, by accident, and by no means with the views and objects which are now maintained, that the University first lost its purely educational character and became sectarian, or, to avoid the use of an offensive word, exclusive. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Goschen) has shown that it was in the Chancellorship of Lord Leicester, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, that these Acts were first imposed, and then for very different objects from those for which they are now maintained. Furthermore, we say that all subjects of the Queen are entitled, as a matter of fairness and justice, to the advantages of the University, unless some danger accrues to some important part of the Constitution by their admission, and the onus is on you who exclude them. 1421 There are a set of loyal well-affected subjects—here is a national institution; show me by some strong and conclusive proof why they are not to belong to it, or at once suffer them to enter. Again, we contended, and I think we showed, that no danger was reasonably to be apprehended from the admission of Nonconformists to any interest or any institution which this House is bound to consider or to protect. On the contrary, great advantages, in many ways, are likely to follow from this admission. Nonconformists will be benefited by a familiarity with the beauties and noble associations of the University, and by the high intellectual training which they will receive in a place speaking to the mind no less than to the eye. The University will be benefited not only by the new class of minds who will come to it, but by the wider sympathy with the national mind which will follow from this measure, and the broader foundations on which in consequence it will stand in the heart and affections of the people; and the Church will be benefited by the free discussion and healthy rivalry with the best men and most cultivated minds of other communions which may be anticipated as a probable result. On this last point only I desire to add a word, for on such a subject, as this the opinions of the humblest Member of the House should not be left doubtful if he has the opportunity to make them clear. It must be plain, I think, to any one who studies the signs of the times, and who lives at all amongst educated men, that the Church will be obliged greatly to widen her gates and largely to liberalize her tests if she is in any way to retain within her communion the substantial majority of men of religious feeling and religious thought—unless she can retain them, she will cease in any true sense to be national; and if she ceases to be national, she will soon cease to be established. A repetition of the scandal of the Irish Establishment in England would be simply and wholly unendurable. I know well, indeed, that to the existence of a Church some definite limits of opinion are absolutely necessary, and if the time should ever come for discussing what those limits should be—why, they must be drawn. Now, I am only concerned to say that the liberty I claim for myself it seems fair to grant to others, and that if the Church is to be national she must needs be very comprehensive. Can any fair man 1422 doubt that already the Thirty-nine Articles are costing us dear r Does any candid man den that year by year it is becoming plainer that it will not do much longer to bind the religious thought of the 19th century within the bands of the theological language used in the 16th? I can conceive no greater boon which the University could confer upon the Church than to train and discipline the spirit, whether within the Church or without it, which is to give her greater freedom:—and I could earnestly desire that, like the light which broke from the tomb of Michael Scott over the aisles of Melrose, the lamp of religious liberty might be carefully guarded and regulated in the University and send out its benificent rays therefrom. Such, in short outline, are the affirmative grounds on which I support this measure. And what are the objections? The only practical and substantial objection put forward last year by the distinguished men on the other side was, the danger to the religious teaching of the University if Dissenters were admitted to the full privileges of membership. It is very difficult to understand or to deal with this objection if we leave the region of theory and descend to facts. A Dissenter may take a B. A. degree, and the religious teaching is safe—nay, he may take a M. A. degree, under the restrictions proposed last year by my hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford (Sir William Heath-cote) in his Amendments, and still the religious teaching is safe; but if a single Dissenter enters Convocation as a member, then it seems we are exposed to all these dangers which the acuteness of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire detected, and the more copious eloquence of the light hon. and learned Gentleman who now represents the University (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) described in greater detail. This surely is utterly unreal. It cannot be for such a reason as this that you keep up this little bit of safe intolerance, which wounds and irritates without destroying your opponent; which provokes without defending. I hope I need not say that I disclaim personal offence, and that, being obliged to differ from many with whom I would fain agree, I wish to do so without loss of temper or good feeling. But truth must be told, and surely it is the truth that for years—I had almost said centuries—the prevailing temper of the Governors of Oxford has been steadily set against religious 1423 earnestness, from whatever quarter it may come. That allay of dullness which in Fuller's time, as he has told us, was found to sort well with the headship of a College, has naturally enough been constantly opposed to anything like originality, or life, or activity. You may read in Southey's Life of Wesley, or in any other authentic record of the University of those times, how he and his friends were obstructed in their efforts to revive religious life and rekindle devotional feeling. The rougher manners of those times displayed themselves in physical dirt and mud and stones, discharged at the heads of Wesley and his friends as they walked to church; and he was finally, as we know, driven from the University and from the Church of England. A century passed by, and a great man arose in the same University and experienced, allowing for difference of time and difference of manners, substantially the same treatment. There was a man in my time of admirable genius, of rare eloquence, of saintly life, of singular humility and self-denial, who taught us not any peculiar theological dogma, but simple religious truth; whose example kept a lofty standard of practice always before our eyes; who led us by his life and by his teaching to all things "lovely and of good report," to whom many, I am sure, in Church and State owe it, that their sense of responsibility was awakened, and that they are now, in their degree, doing, in some poor and imperfect way, their duty both to God and man. Newman, like Wesley, met with cold aversion and steady discouragement on the part of the authorities; he was pelted, not with stones and mud, but with protests of four Tutors, and changes of the time of college dinners, to prevent young men going to his sermons, and wretched censures by Hebdomadal Boards, at the hands of men whom it would be simple folly to compare with him in any way; and this was at a time when he had no intention of leaving the Church of England, when, indeed, he was as desirous of remaining in her communion as any one of those who thus treated him. Nor was there, as far as I can remember, anything given us in the regular University system to justify this discouragement of irregular excellence. I find no fault with the distinguished men who administered my own College (Balliol) and others with which I was acquainted at that time. They did as others did, and the effect of the indirect teaching of their high charac- 1424 ters upon us I daresay was very good—at least it ought to have been. But I do say, that to speak of the Oxford system having been founded on religious influences, or guided by personal religious teaching in any sense which could be interfered with by the presence of Nonconformists in Convocation, is really to fly in the face of the plainest facts, and to take refuge in the merest theory and imaginative dreaming. We did not escape controversy—what young men of any sincerity and freedom of mind do escape it? And it is by no means an unmixed evil if it be one, at any rate it shows the existence of much care and activity of mind upon serious subjects. And to suppose, that by excluding Nonconformists you can banish controversy, or that by including them you will weaken religious teaching, I should call, but for my respect for those who maintain it, one of the idlest dreams that ever flitted across the brains of clever men. But as things are you may have Dissenters in positions from which, if from any positions, this very danger you are so afraid of may be apprehended. I have a letter here from a distinguished tutor of a distinguished college, parts of which I will take the liberty to read to the House in support of what I say, and as stating the facts much better than I could state them— 1. Any Nonconformist may statutably be Public Examiner in any school whatever, even in those in which Divinity (and even the Articles) enter into the Examination. For the statutable qualification for an Examiner is that he shall be M.A., B.C.L., or B.M.; and a Nonconformist may be a B.C.L. Indeed, at the present moment a B.C.L., who has never signed the Articles, is Public Examiner in the School of Law and History. It is true that Divinity does not enter into that School, but there would be no statutable bar to his appointment to the School of Literse Humaniores, in which Divinity does form part of the Examination. The real security for the appointment of Examiners is, that after being nominated by the Vice Chancellor and Proctors they must be approved by Convocation, and this would be unaltered by your Bill, except so far as Nonconformists might acquire any influence in that great body. 2. Any Nonconformists can at present teach any subject as a private tutor. I remember that Lord Cranbourne in a former debate expressed alarm lest moral philosophy should come to be taught by a Nonconformist; but certainly a few years ago one of the most celebrated resident private tutors in that subject was a Nonconformist. 3. Persons who have never signed the Articles might be at present College lecturers on any subject whatever, if the authorities of the College chose to appoint them, and many College lecturers at present are only Bachelors of Arts; though I do not know that any are at present actually pro- 1425 fessed Nonconformists, and perhaps the Act of Uniformity would prevent their being so. 4. The office of College tutor need not, to the best of my belief, beheld by an M.A. The statute says that he shall be 'in aliquâ facultate graduatus' and goes on also to require that he shall be ' religione secundum doctrinam et ritum Ecclesiœ Anglicancœ sincerus,' and vests the appointment in the head of the College, with appeal in case of dispute to the Vice Chancellor. So that whatever securities at present exist to make College tutors members of the Church of England seem to be unconnected with subscription to the Articles. Several Bachelors of Arts are at present College tutors if the Oxford Calendar may be trusted. 5. Some Professorships appear to be tenable without any necessity for the Professor to be a member of Convocation. Sir B. Brodie hold the Aldrichian Professorship of Chyrnistry for some years as a B.A. before he proceeded to the degree of M.A., and he need not have gone on to M.A. at all if he had been content to remain without a vote in Convocation. I do not speak of any other ways in which Professors are bound, as, for instance, by the Act of Uniformity, as these would, I presume, be unaltered by your Bill. There is also a clause in the statute—' Quod nullus professor vel prœlector publicus quicquam directe vel indirecte doceat, vel dogmatice asserat, quod fidei catholieœ vel bonis moribus ullâ ex parte adversetur.' This statute no doubt is rusty, and would be difficult to work, but such as it is, it would be unaffected by your Bill. I do not know how many Professors there are who need not at present be Masters of Arts. The chief practical security is no doubt afforded by the mode of election, which, except in case of the Regius chairs, is by Convocation or a board of some sort. In most of the boards theological influences are at least sufficiently represented. It seems, therefore, that either these Nonconformists are there already, and do no harm, or that if they do come they will do great good. I have now only one word to say as to the shape which the Bill assumes. It was exactly the same as the Bill of last year—and for one plain reason, which I hope hon. Gentlemen will thoroughly appreciate; it aims at a simple definite issue, and is not intended to deal with any questions that might arise collaterally about schoolmasters, fellowships, or such matters. If there be any provision in the Bill which goes beyond the simple object which I intend, if my hon. Friend will point it out I shall be perfectly willing to have it altered. On the last occasion on which this question formed the subject of debate the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) found fault with the Bill for its smallness and shortcomings. I am ready to admit the Bill is a small one, and only deals with one definite point; nor do I expect if it were to pass that any great and important changes would take place in consequence. But, on the other hand, I 1426 should not be dealing candidly with the House if I disguised from it that the Bill put forward a very important principle. It will establish the nationality of the University as against the Church of England—it will destroy its exclusive character and change its constitution. I have been informed that it is not the intention of hon. Gentlemen opposite to go to a division on this stage of the Bill. I wish it were also true of other stages; because, though I have not the slightest doubt as to the result, I would far rather that the Bill should be successful without a struggle than after one; because I have no wish to win a victory over men whom I respect in a cause which is as much their cause as my own. I wish hon. Gentlemen would see how easily they may create those very evils which they fear, and which would have no existence but for their own obstinate resistance. I wish them to reflect before too late what a difference there is between a friendly settlement and a hostile victory, between a generous and manly yielding to a just and righteous claim, and a hardwrung, sullen and angry acquiescence in an extorted right. You must know that you cannot prevent this change; why, then, make it, against the will of those who support it, the occasion of a party triumph?