The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-14 00:00:00

OXFORD.

Modern History, Dr. Cramer
Geology, Dr. Buckland lOO
Mineralogy, Dr. Buckland
Chemistry, Dr. Daubeny.... lOO
Botany, Dr. Daubeny
Experimental Philosophy, Mr. Walker lOO
CAA/BRIDGE.
History, Mr. Smyth 330
Anatomy, Dr. Clark ..... . lOO
Chemistry, Mr. Cumming
Botany, Mr. Henslow
Natural Philosophy, Mr. Willie lOO
Mineralogy, Mr. Miller lOO
The sums voted by Parliament are certainly not large, but
the question is, whether for the good which these professors
seem to do they are not paid dear at these small salaries ;
or, probably, the inefficiency of the professorships:is to be
traced to the smallness of the emoluments; and if so, we
should by all means say, pay the professors better, and make
them more efficient. At any rate, the present state of things
is indefensible. Either give no money, or give enough to
do good.
The celebrated Dr. BUCKLAND holds the two professor-
ships of geology and mineralogy in Oxford; and how many
pupils does the reader think that this philosopher of
European reputation has had in both classes dining the last
fouryears? 107, says the return. That is, less than an average
of ten for each class in the year! Dr. DAUBENY'S average
annual number for his botany class is six, and for chemistry
eleven ! The Professor of Modern History averages twenty-
four ; while the Professor of Experimental Philosophy beats
all his colleagues, having had, in 1842, seventy-five pupils;
in 1843, ninety-one; in 1844, sixty-two; and in 1845, eighty-
five. But there may be, and probably is, some special reason
for these larger numbers, as we bee by the returns that a
considerable proportion comes each year from one college
(Christ Church), where probably some regulation exists for
enforcing attendance.
In Cambridge things are no better than in Oxford. The
Professor of Anatomy had only six pupils last year, and the
Professor of Chemistry only ten : the average number of
pupils with the Professor of Botany is only /Vi enty ; the Pro-
fessor of Natural Tbilosephy has only ten to fiften pupils a
year; the Professor of Mineralogy cannot state tLe number,
not, however, we may safely conclude, because they are too
numerous to count ; and the Professor of Modern History has
given no lectures at all for the last four or five years, " not
only (we quote from a letter written by the professor,
which is quite a curiosity in its way), because I had
become deaf and old, but because I found that I had lost
my audience, and that if my lectures were to
have any chance of doing good they must be
published, which was accordingly done, precisely as I had
been accustomed to deliver them." To the loss of his uni-
versity audience, then, the public is indebted for Professor
SMYTH'S works on " Modern History," and the " French
Revolution." But why did he lose his university audience?
" The number of pupils," lie says, " that used to attend
were, for some years, from 70 to 90 ; but when the examina-
tion, called the Little-go,' was instituted, I lost a consider-
able part of my audience, one-fourth at least. My audience
afterwards dwindled down to about 18 or 20." We believe
that with most professors, as with Professor Ssivrir, recent
changes in the educational system at the Universities, which
have the effect of absorbing more and more of the time of
the young men in classical and mathematical studies, have
been the cause why their lecture-rooms have been emptied.
This is the explanatioa given by Mr. LYALt in his strictures
on the English University system, in his work on America.
But what can justify to foreigners, 'whatever tbere may be
to explain, the desert state of lecture-rooms presided over
by such men as Professor S3IYTII and Professor BUCKLAND ?

Nothing can be more lamentable than the frequent occa-
sions in which, of late years, public attention has been drawn
to the serious delinquencies—to use the mildest term—of
which, in our courts of law, the clergy of the Established
Church, whom, from their position, we are taught to regard
as the appointed instructors in both moral and religious edu-
cation, have been found guilty. Our columns of Friday
contained the:report of the second day's trial of an action for
damages, in which a reverend gentleman, a doctor of di-
vinity,".an incumbent, having the cure of souls, and the
recipient of a large income, figured as the defendant, and in
which the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff. We are not
about to descant upon the evidence upon which this verdict
was obtained ; suffice it to say, that a special jury, composed
of men of property, education, and intelligence, whose sym-
pathies, if they could at all be supposed to sway :their judg-
ment, would be far more likely to be entertained on behalf
of the reverend defendant, a gentleman in: their own rank
of life, and moving in their own circle, than of his accuser,
who had been his menial, found the charge to be true,
although this divine enjoyed all the advantages which
wealth can afford, especially in securing for him the
services of the Attorney-General, who has made himself so
distinguished an advocate in cases of this peculiar description.
Thus, then, has another instance been added to the black
catalogue of clerical offences. Are these shocking errors
traceable in any degree to the loose manner in which the
Universities educate, and the hierarchy suffer, candidates fur
holy orders to be inducted into the Establishment ? How
notoriously loose is the life too generally led by young
men at Oxford or Cambridge; and where is the restraint
upon the destined and youthful recipients of clerical prefer-
ment from following in the crowd of his dissolute com-
panions ? Once formally through his degree and the subse-
quent nominal examination of the bishop, he immediately
acquires, without test, let, or impediment, the full enjoyment
of his family patronage in the Church, the emolument of
which he has been taught to regard, from his earliest years,
as being as much his own as that of the ancestral domain is
of his elder brother. How different is the probationary
course with the ministers of other persuasions. The evidence
of their fitness for the sacred office must be well established
previous to their entrance upon it by a long course of
arduous study, supported by a life of irreproachable purity.
Surely the time has come when some better means should be
adopted by those seats of learning for grappling with the evils
by which the public mind is, as it were, gangrened and
which spring, too, from the very sources which are regarded,
and which they boast, to be within their own special juris-
diction. For years have the Dissenters claimed the right of
admission into the Universities, which bigotry and spiritual
monopoly have, as yet, unfortunately too successfully resisted.
This narrow-mindedness is reaping the penalty of its own
selfishness, for we are constantly witnessing the unhappy
fruits of the education pursued within the college walls;
whereas, if the doors of the national :academies had
been long ago liberally thrown open; as they ought to have
been, to the disciples of every creed, bigotry and superstition
would have soon become shrouded under the auspices of that
enlightenment which is the sure result of permitting all
classes to mingle together, and generously to com•
pete for the honours of the state as well clerical as laical.
No doubt much has of late years been done by the Legislr.-
ture towards eradicating in part, and more in amending,
many of the administrative evils of the established religion,
but it is greatly to be regretted that so little has been
effected towards improving the constituted ecclesiastical
tribunals for visiting in a more efficacious manner the recog-
nised functionaries of religion with the severest penalties
when they have been adjudged guilty of such atrocious
charges as have, unfortunately, within the last few years:been
so frequently brought against them. To the exemplary
manner in which the ministers of the various classes to which
we have referred have discharged their solemn vocations,
are we indebted that the State religion has been compelled to
adopt even such partial and scanty reforms as those to which
and (if
we have alluded, and we do sincerely hope that the example
fipeeensitsihbt.eieeidrs,hto,lig.uill,slesabolyloinntsbhee
followed,Sc otec
gl Church, in the investigating,
guilty) punisltiiontghsuch
.ministers of religion assacri-
Church,
au trai
cfinheda g
its ratification
spiritof their lustful
incorporated. pr pro-
pensities, in-
our statute-book. In that
ju madediat againsted
o n
boyn ethoof
Presbytery,its pa tor iftroim,s
it.uhlootnhucoldefa complaint be
trnst instance ad-
the Synod, and thence to the General Assembly,apal lies to
court of final resort, whose decision is hindinand the
elusive. To a tribunal so constituted there can' be no con-
elusive.
objection; every one must be satisfied of the pQ2impar-
tiality with which its judgment is arrived at. The wise
provision
of our Brittish constitutional law, that every con-
tested fact in which the life, the property, the reputation of
any man is involved, shall be left to the decision of his peers,
is there acted up to, and the public, satisfied that strict jus-
tice is done, at once acquiesce, without cavil or complaint,
in the ultimate decision. Such, however, cannot be the case
when the entire matter is to be investigated before a single
judge, whose prejudices and feelings may possibly lead him
to take too lenient a view of the circumstances, and it
is to
the comparative impunity with which so many grave of-
fenders against all that is sacred, against all that they
have so solemnly undertaken to fulfil, and by pre-
cept and example to inculcate, have been suffered to escape,
that the confidence of the public mind has been altogether
shaken in the decisions of the clerical courts of judicature.