whose sentence they review, and are entirely without check if they decide unjustly; if the laws of the universities give them a power over the professors, which must be degrading to men of liberal feelings; how can order be preserved? What authority can a professor exercise over those who may drag him next day as a criminal to the bar of a court consisting at best of country gentlemen of the neighbourhood-perhaps of political tools of the basest kind? This will be the condition of those wretched colleges-" Magister ut discipulos metuat, et iis blandiatur, spernant que discipuli magistros; adolescentes ut senum sibi pondus assumant, senes autem ad ludum adolescentium descendant, ne sint iis odiosi et graves."-Cic. de Rep. Next, as to instruction.—The reason why the Scotch do not in general cultivate classical literature to a great extent, or with much zeal, is this,—that it is their practice to enter professions at an early age; and their education is so arranged as to leave them at liberty to do so. It cannot, then, comprise that learning, precious as it is, which takes many summers to ripen. To the wants of those years which precede professional education, their university system is adapted; nor does the country possess other institutions qualified to minister to those wants, or which can justify the withdrawal of that elementary instruction which the universities alone at present afford. The Royal Commissioners propose, in their Report, that all students shall display, before admission, a degree of classical knowledge which they can, under the present constitution of the schools, hope to acquire nowhere but at college. The commissioners ought to have considered more closely the state of the schools, and the circumstances of the many who cannot afford to send their sons away from home to school, before they fixed this standard, so unsuitable to the present condition of Scotland, and enjoined the acquisition of classical knowledge upon those who have not classical teachers at command. If the increase of knowledge in the country is desired, we must not begin with taking away the knowledge already accessible. If sound scholarship is to be advanced, it must be by adding to the existing machinery of instruction both means and inducement (as, for example, by encouraging studious men to a longer residence after graduation,) to make further progress; not by multiplying early impediments. The powers intended to be given to the Royal Visitors of the Lord Advocate's bill, with reference to the subject of instruction, are evidently designed to carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commissioners. What will be the consequence? Simply this, that clergymen and other persons of small property, in remote situations, not having schools within reach at which their sons may be prepared to undergo this examination with success, must forego even the moderate ambition of seeing them in the same situation which they occupy themselves, and be content to see them merged in the lower classes of society. Thus will be lost to the people that supply of poor but well-principled and intelligent teachers who have hitherto been the prime instruments in improving the national character. The opinion is abroad, that the sons of the country people ought not to be encouraged to aspire to a learned education. This from the party who are actually over-stimulating the minds of the artisans! Can it be intended to give pre-eminence to the towns by diminishing knowledge in the country? Or is it that the instruction which flows from the universities, through the parish schools, to the country people, does not make them sufficiently discontented with their lot? To the means of becoming useful and estimable, which the present system affords, let the Government add the opportunity of becoming deeply learned; but let it not chill and disappoint the humble and industrious student; let it not barricade the avenues of knowledge, nor pronounce upon the sons of the virtuous and self-denying inhabitants of the Highlands and thinly-peopled dis. tricts the sentence of eternal ignorance, poverty, and depression. To pass to another topic. The Board of Visitors is to have a power of final decision (which no court in the British dominions can pretend to, but the House of Lords, and, in certain cases, the Privy Council,) upon complaints affecting the administration of property-a subject reserved in this country for the solemn and searching investigation of the High Court of Chancery. They are to regulate the government of the universities in their business and property-to exhibit their accounts-and make what regulations they think fit with regard to endowments. Now, what singular and anomalous powers are these! Are the visitors to be in the situation of judges, or of owners? If judges, they are unnecessary, as the King's Courts have already the required authority, and can enforce due administration of funds. The courts, too, are gifted with the trifling qualification of some smattering of law, which it does not seem that the proposed board is likely to possess. No doubt a meddling attorney may find his way into the board; but how are men of legal science and ability to be found in the neighbourhood of a country town, qualified to adjudicate the most delicate and abstruse questions connected with the law of property? Again, how utterly repugnant is it to all principles of civilized government, that executive officers should possess power without responsibility! But perhaps the property is to be vested in the Board of Visitors, as the grant to them of such judicial powers is too monstrous to be supposed. If, then, the administration of the college property is bestowed upon a body of persons not interested in its proper application, is not there a risk that its arrangement will be usurped by some busy and unscrupulous member of the board? And if, in the regulation of their own funds, a society of gentlemen, acquainted with college business, and accustomed to transact it, (with honour and fidelity, as appears by the Report of the Commissioners,) and whose income and reputation are concerned in the prosperity of those funds,-if such men are not to be relied on, what confidence is due to strangers, ignorant of the complicated conditions with which the property is loaded? The English colleges manage their own property and discipline with the highest credit, and wholly free from external interference. Why should not the men of letters in Scotland continue to occupy the same footing? Why should it not, in both countries alike, be allowed to the gown to manage the affairs of the gown? It is good policy to watch the inmates of a convict ship; but it can be neither policy nor reason, and is highly degrading to literature, to subject learned and upright men to the same suspicious observation. There is nothing, it seems, to prevent men of business from being men of literature, or from superintending systems of education; but there is every reason why literary men should be incapable of transacting the most ordinary business! Let us remember the innumerable societies throughout the land, which are allowed to manage their own business without invidious and absurd control. In them we see that men of education or no education, character or no character, gathered together anyhow, from all walks of life, are admitted to the discharge of public duties, and get through for the most part without reproach. Shall, then, the professors, men of learning and education, men of most acknowledged honour and integrity, be deemed incapable of managing the property of the universities? But the Visitors, in whom these enormous and unconstitutional powers are to be vested, are, it seems, to be nominated by the Crown, and are to be authorized to legislate for the universities, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. Alas! will our statesmen slumber on amidst the ruin of the old English government? Will no one interfere, ere yet the nation is inextricably entangled in the meshes of that net which is evidently extending from the Home-office in endless ramifications over the whole country? It will be vain to move, fruitless to remonstrate, and dangerous to repine, when the giant force of this country lies shackled with a thousand tiny fetters. The Visitors are to make laws for the universities, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State! That is, we are to have a minister of public instruction! Now, without questioning the fitness of the present secretary of state to teach teachers and taught, and to prescribe to Great Britain what she shall know and what she shall not know, to become, in a very different sense from the poet's, "Il maestro di color che sanno," to fix bounds to human inquiry, and to make the vaunted march of mind resemble the measured tread of a regiment of infantry along a narrow lane, who does not see that it is in the very nature of letters to assume a republican aspect, and that learning, which has flourished in independence, must wither in the shade of harsh and arbitrary control? The practical effect of the new enactments will be, at Aberdeen, to enable the Royal Visitors to cripple, impoverish, and destroy the ancient university and King's college, in order that the Marischal College, in the borough of Aberdeen, an university wholly of its own creation, may rise higher upon the ruins of its rival. This will undoubtedly be denied, but it will be seen that the powers of the Visitors are so enormous that they may easily make such alterations, in the courses of study and in the application of the funds, as to render attendance at King's College wholly inefficacious for all the purposes of ostensibility and worldly advancement. But this opinion does not rest upon conjecture; it is about to be substantiated in stone and lime. Marischal College is about to be re-built with public money obtained from the treasury, upon the credit of a statement which its author has never yet ventured to make public. The buildings now being contracted for are to contain sixteen lecture-rooms. But there are only ten professors! On turning to the discarded bill of last year, it will be found that the number of the professors in the proposed new university was to be sixteen. Yet we are gravely assured, that all idea of uniting the colleges has been abandoned. The highland students, then, and most of those who come from the agricultural districts, will be excluded by the high test at entrance; and all the bursary funds, amounting to several thousand pounds a year, will be bestowed upon the town students, who, residing with their families, will be enabled to undergo that preliminary instruction which the students in the country cannot command. In what spirit these bursaries will be dispensed by political commissioners, and what effect they will have in determining the choice of the town constituency, it is not difficult to anticipate. The agricultural districts will fall back in intelligence, and, all reasonable outlets for ambition and activity being closed, they will grow wretched and discontented. Thus will be established throughout Scotland "normal schools," for disaffection and disloyalty, and public opinion will be poisoned at its source. But the Scotch Colleges are only the outposts of the real objects of attack. Already are the Chronicle and Courier yelping for a commission to inquire into the state of the English Universities. If those bodies, and the many great and good men who are attached to them, leave the Scottish universities to their fate, they will be subjected very soon to similar treatment themselves, and will exclaim, when it is too late, "Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam." [P. S. It is impossible to make out what the government means to do. The Lord Advocate's paper shows the design, and the radical Scotch papers talk of a Royal Visitation, and a bill to be introduced, into the Lords (the most radical parts being added in the Commons, and sent up as parliament closes its session). The resolution to centralize and place all power, of all kinds, in the government-i.e., in the House of Commons-i.e., in the ten-pound votersis distinctly visible in every proposal as to education.-ED.] The Candidates for Holy Orders, who have given notice of their desire to be ordained by the Bishop of Oxford, on Trinity Sunday, are required to deliver their testimonials and certificates to the Archdeacon, at Christ Church, on or before Saturday, May 7th. The Bishop of Gloucester will hold an Ordination in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, on Sunday, the 5th of June. Baker, Thomas CLERICAL APPOINTMENTS. Rural Dean of the Deanery of Kidderminster A Surrogate for the Diocese of London Archdeacon of the Island of Van Dieman's Land Steele, J., (of Trinity College, Cambridge,) Assistant Master of Harrow Head Master of the Exeter Free Grammar School, and Master of Aldenham School, near St. Alban's, Herts Second Master of Shrewsbury Grammar School { { Catton V. Scaldwell Easton V. Rimpton R. Moulton V. } Northum. Durham Stafford L. & C. Suffolk Duke of Devonshire the vacancy of the T. Kinnersley and Meynell Norwich D. & C. of Norwich Suffolk Norwich St.John's Coll.,Camb. Merioneth Bangor Bp. of Bangor Northam. Peterboro' Duke of Buccleugh Sydenham Damarel R. Devon Exon J. Carpenter, Esq. Todd, Fortescue...{St. Peter's P. C. Northam. Peterboro St. John's Coll., Oxf. Middlesex London The King Cornwall Exon Crick R. Marylebone } Somer. (of W. Warre, Francis ... Bishop's Lydiard V. Devon Exon Pec. of D. & C. Rev. T. Carlyon S Rev. A. Farwell, R. of Stoke Flemming D. & C. of Wells |