ful propriety to encourage him to undertake the grave responsibilities of the Christian ministry. Nor is it at all clear that the prospect of a kind of purgatorial process in an institution designed for the reception of candidates during a short period immediately preceding ordination, might not have a tendency to make some careless of the formation or indifferent to the extinction of habits, for the correction of which they would imagine the discipline of such an institution to be the sufficient as well as the appropriate remedy."

The Rev. E. Hawkins, D.D. Provost of Oriel College and Canon of Rochester, observes, "I must add, however unfashionable the sentiment may be, that the attendance upon cathedral services, which many would consider a great advantage, I should rather regard as a positive disadvantage to a young man. He is too likely to have his religious tastes and feelings vitiated by daily participation in services conducted in part upon a wrong principle. I refer not to the chanting of the Psalms, or to singing well chosen anthems, which have the highest authority, and may well elevate the devotion of the Christian worshipper, but to intoning the prayers, the usual practice of our cathedrals, but, as I venture to call it, the relic of a corrupt age. It has the sanction, no doubt, of a long prescription, without which its very legality might, under the rubrics and the Act of Uniformity, be called in question, but it appears opposed to the true spirit of devotion. No one, probably, would so address God in private; and comparatively few, I trust, would desire to import the practice into our parochial churches. The ear is gratified, but sense is sacrificed to sound, and the more so, the better, in a musical sense, the service is intoned; the best performers only the more completely singing away the sense of the most solemn words."

The Rev. W. Jacobson, D.D. Regius Professor of Divinity, observes that, “Theological teaching in the Universities is more likely than elsewhere to be free from prejudices, fancies, and bigotry. The mutual influence of a considerable body of students is, for many purposes, fully as valuable as direct instruction. Smaller circles are liable to be unduly acted upon by the mind of the teacher, or, even more mischievously, by what is under

stood to be his mind, and are thus led to exaggerate the importance now of one particular point, and then of another."

And to the same effect are the remarks of the Rev. J. A. Jeremie, D.D. Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge: "In the present divided state of the Church, it is much to be feared that systems widely different would be taught in different dioceses. In large bodies, like our Universities, no man, however able and learned, can give the impress of his own views undisturbed by numerous counteracting influences. But in cathedral colleges there would be no such check; the teacher addressing himself with all the weight of authority, within a narrow sphere, to men of inferior attainments and capacities, would enforce his own opinions, however extreme, and widen the differences which unhappily exist among us. There is also reason to fear that a mere professional would supersede an enlarged and general education." To these opinions may be appended the following observations of the Rev. W. H. Thompson, M.A. Regius Professor of Greek :

"In endeavouring to answer these enquiries, I have to regret that I have but little knowledge of the working of those theological colleges which are already in operation, and consequently but slender data on which to build an opinion of the desirableness of increasing their number. It is true that in the course of the nine years during which I have held the office of tutor in Trinity, several of my pupils have proceeded from Cambridge after taking their B.A. degree to complete their clerical training at one or other of these establishments. These young men were certainly not very profound theologians when they left the University, nor were they, with only one or two remembered exceptions, remarkable for their proficiency in secular learning. I believe that the majority are now respectable clergymen, but I know not how much better they deserve that title than many others of similar character who have taken orders without this additional preparation. I am given to understand (but this is partly hearsay) that such students are frequently remarkable for a punctilious adherence to forms of dress and worship, which I, for one, should be disposed to regard as either trivial or mischievous. If, in

the absence of very definite information, I may be allowed to record my impressions of the effect actually produced by colleges of this description, I should say that they furnished a good machinery for raising dulness to mediocrity, perhaps also for producing outward decency of character, and, in some instances, a real though not very enlightened sense of duty, in persons who had not previously developed these qualities in any eminent degree. That they enable many students to pass an examination for orders who would otherwise have found this a difficult or impossible undertaking, I make no doubt, judging both by common report and by actual observation. This result is obviously most creditable to the professors in such establishments, whose talent and assiduity I believe to be generally exemplary. I would not be understood to extend these remarks, with the exception of the last, to the theological college established in connexion with the University of Durham."

It has been alleged that some of the cathedral bodies gave up certain estates to be relieved from the maintenance of divinity students at the Universities.

These estates, it may be presumed, were resigned to the crown, by which they had been granted with other estates for the general purposes of the cathedral establishments. It does not appear very probable that the crown on receiving back the estates from the cathedral bodies would have alienated them to other purposes, or have allowed any innovations against the express directions of the royal founder, King Henry VIII., when his object in the reformation of the cathedrals was "the glory of Almighty God and the common welfare and happiness of the subjects of this realm."

It is an enquiry of some importance whether these estates, originally granted by Henry VIII. for the maintenance of divinity students at the Universities, were deposited in other hands to be applied to that purpose which the statutes of the cathedrals ordained; and how the revenues have been appropriated since the estates were resigned-respecting these questions the writer has not been able to find any satisfactory answer in the printed evidence of the cathedral commissioners.

In no period of the history of the British Empire, with its

extended colonial possessions, has the requirement for educated and capable men to serve God both in church and state" been so urgent as at the present time. In the answer to the address of the University of Cambridge, on the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne, her Majesty was graciously pleased to intimate:-"Your University owes much to the protection and encouragement of former sovereigns. I am actuated by an equal desire to promote its interests, and to enlarge the sphere of its utility." It may be presumed that the late Commissions and the pending legislation respecting the Universities are designed "to enlarge the sphere of their utility" by affording education to a larger number of students. If a restoration of the maintenance to divinity students were made by the cathedral bodies according to their statutes, and a restitution of the estates which were granted for that purpose, the Universities would be able to send forth a larger number of welleducated and fit men for the service of the church, both at home and in the colonies, as well as missionaries to the heathen.

It cannot be pleaded that recent legislation has rendered such restorations and restitutions either impossible or impracticable: neither could it be affirmed of them, as it has been of other appropriations of cathedral funds, that they were alienated for objects foreign to those contemplated by the statutes of Henry VIII. statutes which deans of the reformed cathedrals are bound by oath to observe, in these words:

"Ego N. qui ad Decanum hujus Ecclesiæ Cathedralis electus et institutus sum, Deum testor et per hæc sancta Dei Evangelia juro quod pro virili mea in hac Ecclesia bene et fideliter regam et gubernabo juxta Ordinationes et Statuta ejusdem, Et quod omnia illius bona, terras, tenementa, reditus et possessiones, juraque et libertates atque privilegia, cæterasque res universas tam mobiles (salvo eorum rationabili usu) quam immobiles, et alia omnia commoda ejusdem Ecclesiæ bene et utiliter custodiam ac servabo atque ab aliis similiter fieri curabo: ad hæc, omnia et singula Statuta et Ordinationes Regis Henrici Octavi Fundatoris nostri quatenus me concernunt bene et fideliter observabo, et ab aliis quatenus eos concernunt studiose observari procurabo. Sicut me Deus adjuvet, et hæc sancta Dei Evangelia."

It may be remarked that the words "Regis Henrici Octavi Fundatoris Nostri" were altered into "Augustissimi Regis nostri

Caroli Secundi Fundatoris nostri” in the statutes of Ely Cathedral, on their revision in 1666, after the Restoration.

The brief historical accounts of schools and the exhibitions, &c. attached to them, have been drawn chiefly from the Reports of the Commissioners on Charities, and Mr Carlisle's work on endowed schools in England and Wales. And in order to secure correctness, the compiler has written to all the masters of grammar-schools in England and Wales for such information as he could not obtain from other sources. To those who have favoured his letters with any attention, he begs leave to express his grateful acknowledgments.

It is generally admitted that the noble impulse of Christian charity in the founding of grammar-schools, was one of the means under the providence of God for bringing about the Reformation in this country: and it is a fact to be observed, that within thirty years before its accomplishment, there were more grammar-schools erected and endowed in England than had been established in the preceding three hundred years.

The founders and benefactors of the grammar-schools in England were unanimous for the union of “sound learning with religious education," as is evident from the rules and the regulations they have left for the direction of their schools. They regarded education as a preparation not for this life only. They seem to have had no idea of separating religious and secular education, a notion which occupies a prominent place in the many crude theories of education of the present day. They had no conception of the novel process whereby "young gentlemen are expeditiously educated for the Universities, the army, the professions and public life;" nor how a young man, piously disposed, on leaving his previous employment, with no sound basis of grammatical learning, and a very imperfect education, may be rendered a trustworthy interpreter of the records of revelation, and a fit minister of the gospel, in the brief space of two years. This is advertised to be done by certain modern Theological Colleges which have been honoured with the sanction and have received the encouragement of high authority. It is to be hoped that the ancient University of Cambridge may escape the infection of the newfangled notion of "expeditious education."