The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-24 00:00:00

1.1,1 Lt

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1850.

"A Bill of Indictment" against the Universities
has at length elicited from the Government a reluc-
tant acknowledgment of the necessity existing for
their re-organization. Such, at least, was the feli-
citous consequence of the motion brought forward last
evening in the House of Commons, by the Hon.
Gentleman the Representative of North Lancashire.
Having listened attentively to the very excellent
speech in which Mr. HEYWOOD inveighed against the.
perverse maintenance of an obsolete system, having
heard various Honourable Members speak in
terms of coincidence with the declaration that all
systems of academical education require necessarily
to be modified from time to time, according to the pro-
gress of opinion, the change of external circumstances,
and the intellectual advancement of the multitude—
the First Lord of the Treasury explicitly avowed the
willingness of himself and his Ministerial colleagues
to consent to the appointment, and that forthwith, of a
Royal Commie ion. On this official declaration, of
course—satisfied with the prospective co- cperationof the
Executive—the Hon. Member for North Lancashire
at once consented to the withdrawal of his proposal.
That the Hon. and Learned Member for Plymouth
should have questioned the legality of any such pro
ceeding as the one suggested in remedy by the
Premier could be no matter of surprise, con -
sidesing the dim and indistinct character of
the relaticns existing between the Par-
liament and the Universities. And, under ail
circumstances, cf course any such objection, coming
from the lips of one v►hoee genius as a legal authority
is altogether indisputable, would be entitled to every
respectful consideration. Yet, when it is remembered
that the scheme spoken of by the Prime MiniSter is
expressedly sanctioned by the principal law officers
of the Crown, and that the legality of ita.projsction
was formally avouched last evening by the distin-
guished Attorney- General of the Administration—it
must be sufficiently obvious that the perseverance of
the Cabinet in their reformatory resolution is in no
respect marked by a single characteristic cf temerity.
That the intimation of any readiness to reform abuses
of such a protracted existence, and of such a grievous
description, should be received with cries of dismay
and indignation from a certain section of the com-
munity is, again, in no degree subject for asto-
nishment, seeing the devotion, the pertinacity,
and the resolute fanaticism with which some
individuals will insist upon clinging to t' e relics of
antiquity. Fortunately, however, whatever possesses
within it the influence of wrong and injustice, the
germs of stubborn opposition to improvement, pos-
sesses also, and we may even say, in consequence, the
seeds of decomposition, the blight of destruction.
It is thus that the poet, in our own day, dreams that
he can recognize the ban of decay, even in the
&alit of the sacerdotal pornps of the Eternal
City, and that he raises his eloquent and
impassioned voiee in the accents of admonition.

" Rome impel-jut! Rome majestic!
Shade of greatces, vanished all—
Looking down th' abyss of ages
To behold thy rise and fall.
We can tra!,:.4 upon thy forehead,
Queen atd wonder of thy day,
Broadly marked the awful sestecee,
Pais Away. "

Unfortunately for CHARLES MACKAY his beautiful
and earnest verses receive a signal disproof in
their simultaneous appearance with the announce-
ment of the triumphal return of his Holiness to
the Vatican. Fortunately for any one who might
have predicted the destruction of the dying
system of the Universities, such a prediction would
have been, last evening, verified by the bold and re-
solute course adopted by her MAJESTY'S adviser?.
When the Hon. Bironet the Member for the Uni-
versity of Oxford opposed the notion of any inter-
ference with the management of academic education,
on the classic banks of the Cam and the Isis,
whether through the interposition of the Par-
liament, of the Cabinet, or of a Royal Commission,
maintaining, in justification of such dissent from the
motion of the Hon. Representative of North Lanca-
shire, that all requisite reforms and improvements were
spontaneously made by the University authorities
themselves, he was arguing complacently on the
strength of a sophism most unsubstantial and trans-
parent. Honourable Members were quite familiarly
enough acquainted with the nature and the position af
the pathways conducting acre ss the Pons Asinorurn
to detect at a glance the insufficiency of any such pre-
posterous argument. Not an orator could be found
sufficiently adventurous to defend it with any extent
of gravity, to assail the motion of Mr. HEYWOOD
with any amount of earnestness, or to ridicule the
alternative of Lord JOHN RUSSELL with any degree
of consistency. The very circumstance, in fact, of
such and such laudable changes having been
effected of late years in the University of Oxford
and the University cf Cambridge, as those referred to
with so much exultation by Sir ROBERT HARRY
INGLIS, IS a fact of itself powerfully corroborative of
the necessity for comprehensive changes taking
place periodically in all systems of academic educa-
tion. With regard to the evil complained of in re-
ference to the Dublin University, and especially with
regard to the demand raised by Dissenters for
their admission to the great halls of learning,
this state of things must afford matter
fur more serious debate in the adjourned discussion.
What has been rendered obvious beyond the reach of
doubt by the proceedings of the House of Commons
on this particular question last evening is, the impera-
tive necessity existing, at any rate, for inquiry into the
position of affairs at the two Universities (if for nothing
else), and the course adopted thereupon by the Prime
Minister indicates that, in the opinion of her MA.
aasTa's:Crovernment, such an inquiry should be insti-
tuted through the means of a Royal Commission.

There appears to be a general concurrence of
opinion among educated- and intelligent men of
all classes in Ireland in favour of the views
which we have from time to time put forward
respecting the Securities for Advances Bill, the
adjourned debate on which is to be resumed
on Friday evening. As we stated on the 28th lilt.,
and have since repeated on several occasions, " the
measure is admirable so far as it goes, but it must be
extended to every description of real property." It
iwfoauvldl
uina
bd elee dpo, inflictrniv a: aes aws heavylr already ea ay
extendedbsluo w and great dis-
couragementlators that was denied to bona" fiffidecipetronotinplyreieraetgogrserpi.eecvueld;
would be an act cf the deepest injustice, such as we
hope and believe the Imperial Parliament could never
be induced to sanction on any grounds under any
circumstances. It is, therefore, the duty of
friends of Ireland, of the lovers of fair play and equity
e
between man and man, to attend in their places and
to demand " justice for Ireland"—justice for the op-
pressed and long-suffering owners of land in that un-
happy country.
The measure is well worthy of most attentive
consideration. The existing state of affairs on the
other side of St. George's Channel, the extraordinary
depreciation in the value of landed property—as
evidenced by the recent sales under " the Commis_
sion," and even more powerfully by the fact but too
mt
the
s tmaonsyt
painfully notorious, that the most eligibly circum-
stanced estates cnonare.ost
be
ee disposedon osfe a
almost
terms, nor can loans
suchtern
es
t sha
')c
;MI enactments.
ru suf-
ficientlyinous and uz:eueteis:iittsy rtafte
somes :f in
When we hear of an estate king !mucked down at
oce and a half-year'a purchase—a circumstance of
which we trust a full explanation tray be afforded on
Friday—when we have seen a perpetual annuity, or
yearlyl rent-charge of 200?. per annum, secured on
lands of ample value, sacrificed at 14k year's purchase,