Page:A review of the state of the question respecting the admission of dissenters to the universities.djvu/32

30  faculty in which the individual is liberally educated to the general development of his various capacities." This religious instruction here required in the faculty of Arts, he very properly distinguishes from any theological instruction in the theological faculty given by the professors of theology. Such theological lectures form part of a distinct and professional study, with which none but those who are proceeding in the faculty of theology have any concern, and they therefore offer no impediment in the way of dissenting students in the faculty of Arts. It is from overlooking this distinction, and this peculiarity of our English universities, that it has been ignorantly supposed, that the whole difficulty about degrees arising out of the subject of religion could relate only to degrees in theology, and would therefore be removed by specially exempting that faculty, when the others were thrown open to the Dissenters.

On the contrary, the whole difficulty as to this part of the subject arises from that blending of religion with general education, and the consequent study of it in the faculty of Arts, which, according to the Reviewer, is peculiar to our English universities. Let it be admitted that this is the case. It may be true that no other universities have ever attempted to effect this; but it does not follow from this that it is not a thing in itself very desirable to be effected. It may be a peculiarity; but why