the University and Colleges of Cambridge;" and the documents relating to them published by direction of the Commissioners. Other available sources of information within the reach of the compiler have been employed, besides the assistance of several friends and other members of the University, to whom the writer is under very great obligations.

It is a subject of regret that many of the exhibitions and scholarships left for the maintenance of poor scholars at the Universities, being fixed payments in money from rent-charges, have remained stationary. These payments at the times they were first granted were sufficient for the purpose; but at the present day they are no longer so; for in the progress of time it has been found, that as land has increased, so money has diminished, in value. In cases, however, where the benefactions have been left or invested in land, the revenues have increased and the design of the benefactor has not been defeated.

Next in importance to the Universities come the cathedral grammar-schools, with their ample provision, ordained by the statutes of Henry VIII., for the maintenance of students in divinity at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. After the dissolution of the monasteries, King Henry VIII. proceeded to the reformation of the older cathedrals and the erection of other cathedral bodies with new sees. In the preamble of the statutes he gave for their government, it is stated, in connexion with their main design, to be one of the objects, that "youth might be liberally trained, &c. to the glory of Almighty God, and the common welfare and happiness of the subjects of this realm." For the purpose of securing this important object, liberal provision was ordained by the statutes to be made from the cathedral funds, both for the maintenance of grammar scholars, and of students of divinity selected from them at the Universities. For instance, the statutes of Canterbury cathedral ordain, that from the revenues of the cathedral, there shall be 50 grammar boys maintained and educated at the cathedral school, and 24 poor students at the Universities, 12 at Oxford and 12 at Cambridge. The statutes of Worcester cathedral direct that there shall be 40 grammar scholars in the cathedral school and 12 students of divinity at the Universities, main

tained out of the cathedral funds. The statutes of Rochester direct that 20 grammar boys shall be maintained and educated in the cathedral school, and four students at the Universities. It may be especially remarked, that the sums prescribed for these purposes are stated not separately, but in the list of expenses for the support of the cathedral, from the dean down to the lowest menial in the establishment.

In the revised cathedral statutes of Queen Elizabeth the intention of King Henry VIII. with respect to the grammarscholars and the students at the Universities is preserved in these words: "Moreover, we direct that out of the whole number of grammar boys who have their sustentation in our cathedral church of there be for ever maintained of those

in our

who have made greater progress than the rest * University of Cambridge, and the same number at Oxford."

It must not be denied, that within the last few years some two or three of the cathedral bodies have established theological colleges in connexion with their cathedrals. This effort on their part is designed to supply what was considered to be deficient in the theological education of graduates of the Universities. How far these new institutions are likely to form sound ministers of the Church of England, may perhaps appear from two or three opinions expressed at the end of the evidence returned to the Cathedral Commissioners.

The Rev. F. Jeune, D.D. master of Pembroke College, Oxford, remarks that, "It is of great moment, that the ministers of the Church of England should be men of enlarged views, and as free as possible from the spirit which is fostered so carefully in the Church of Rome, by the seclusion of her future ministers in seminaries altogether ecclesiastical.”

The Rev. R. Harington, D.D. Principal of Brasenose College, writes, "If a young man, by the time he has reached the age of two or three and twenty years, has not acquired sufficient sobriety of character to pursue his theological studies with the same advantage at the University as in the comparative seclusion of a Cathedral College, it will be a measure of very doubt

• In those Cathedral Schools, where there are 50, 40, 24, or 18 Grammar Scholars, there shall always be 10, 8, 4, or 2 students at the Universities respectively.

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