Page:A review of the state of the question respecting the admission of dissenters to the universities.djvu/47

45 years in the university, and requires a residence of nearly four; and the whole amount, therefore, of this grievance is, that a four years' residence at Oxford or Cambridge is allowed to be equivalent to two years residence at the inns of court. If one of any two persons were to go to the university, and the other were to spend at Lincoln's Inn or the Temple the time during which the first must necessarily reside in order to obtain the degree of M.A., the latter would be able to be called to the bar two years sooner than his competitor from the university, notwithstanding the advantage given to the former by his degree. Or if the latter, whom we may suppose to be a Dissenter, were to spend at one of the inns of court two only of the four years, during which the other was engaged at the university, they would start on precisely equal terms. Now, this privilege may be proper or improper; wise or foolish; but it cannot surely be said to amount to a very heavy grievance.

What may be the exact extent of the advantage given in the medical profession, I do not rightly know. No person who has not graduated in medicine at Oxford or Cambridge is, I believe, eligible as a fellow of the College of Physicians. And without a degree from some university he cannot practise at all; though, from the facility with which decrees may be obtained at the Scotch universities, there is in this little especial grievance to the Dissenter.

But the whole of this system was established at