Page:University Reform - Two Papers.djvu/25

Rh itself for the battle within its own walls. This is clearly a matter of Imperial policy. On this the Government ought to have made up its mind. This ought not to be left to Commissioners, or colleges jointly with Commissioners, to determine.

Another principle which, if the foundations of the present order of things are to be examined, needs solution is that of celibacy. It will probably present itself to different people as a question of different degrees of urgency; but surely no settlement of University questions can have any chance of being permanent which does not face this problem. Face it, and the remnant that remains even of Lord Salisbury's £55,000 a—year will go but a little way towards such a pension fund as the maintenance of the efficiency of the colleges and the University will require. This again is a question which, if dealt with at all, should be dealt with broadly and universally, not thrown to be haggled about between Commissioners and Delegates of colleges, complicated as it will then be by personal interest and personal predilection, settled, perhaps for good, on temporary grounds, unacknowledged even if unconcealed.

While then there is great ground to be thankful that the drastic measures which some of our friends anticipated have not, so far as we know, entered into the University Bill; while the colleges seem secure of independence and safe from mutual spoliation, the defects to which I have drawn attention seem to me to render the present outlook only hopeful so far as it does not menace injury. That permanent good can result in any large measure from schemes which will be drawn up in the mode suggested by Lord Salisbury's speech seems to me not to be expected. That