Page:University Reform - Two Papers.djvu/18



SUPPOSE I may take it for granted that the interest which Lord Salisbury's speech of last Thursday has excited is a sufficient reason for postponing the consideration of the Professoriate, which was to have been the subject of this paper, to the new Reform Bill now hanging over the University. I have tried, and had hoped to get a copy of the Bill by this time; but though I understand one or two persons in Oxford have seen the Draft, the Bill does not yet seem to have been issued.

The shortness of the time that has elapsed since the speech was made, and the need it has of being supplemented by the provisions of the Bill, must be my excuse, if in anything I misrepresent the tendency of the proposed legislation, or approve or criticise anything which may not form a part of the legislation.

Perhaps it will be most convenient to take the subjects which call for remark in the order in which they occur in the speech. My own views on the question of University Reform have been laid so recently before the Society, that I need not violate your patience by advancing a substitute for Lord Salisbury's proposals.

After a prelude about the Commission of 1854, Unattached Students, Private Halls, and the cheapness with which the University and College property is managed, we are given the γένεσις of the Bill. It was with great reluctance that the work was undertaken, nothing but an absolute necessity would have induced Her Majesty's Government to