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foundation, therefore, of seven colleges; and the sixteenth, of thirteen. The population was then four millions, it is now twenty; that is, fivefold. We see, then, that as the demands of the nation, both from increase of number, and, much more, from increase of intellectual activity, became greater, provision was thus made whereby that active intellect was satisfied, and retained in a willing allegiance to our great schools of Faith and Learning. But is it so at the present time? There are one or two facts of a kind so striking that I cannot but add them to what has been said. It is remarkable that in the three last centuries, during which the population has multiplied fourfold, the scientific character of England-I may say even science itself—has spread itself abroad, and multiplied its branches, even in a still greater proportion. All forms of pure and of applied science, ranges of intellectual labour unknown to our forefathers, have become the habitual employment of a countless multitude of minds. These later centuries are characteristically centuries of science. We date the exact method of scientific investigation within the last three hundred years; and it is specially observable, that while the popular intellect has taken so strong a course in the direction of professional and abstract science, our Universities, and especially one of them, have become comparatively unscientific. Of course, certain eminent names are excepted; I am speaking not of individuals, but of the system. The circle of faculties has almost disappeared in the one faculty of arts; or, at most, in the two faculties of arts and mathematics. Medicine, music, physics, law, common and civil, and the like, linger yet as theories, but as a professional discipline have been superseded: the practitioners in such faculties, if graduated in our Universities, are formed and qualified elsewhere. As professional men, their relation to the Universities is slight: it is rather social and national than professional. The very defence set up for the Universities by some—namely, that they educate what is universal in man, that is, man as man, and not professions as professions-(good as it is in their behalf as great lay schools of popular education) is a direct inversion of the true order and even name of an University, which is a system professing to teach in all faculties as such. The defence proves the indictment.

"Now when we remember how great a mass of able and powerful minds are engaged in all branches of professional labour throughout our dense population, and that without so much as the honorary relationship of an University degree, we cannot but entertain great and reasonable fear that the day may come when our Universities may lose the intellectual supremacy of the people. There are revolutions in literature and science as well as in empire. What were once fruitful and tributary provinces may become independent and hostile states. How far this may have accomplished itself already I do not now undertake even to conjecture; but it may be well to consider what has been said by an acute writer, not unobservant of the facts around us, and representing opinions and feelings adverse to our own. Speaking of the attempts made to throw open our Universities to all, without distinction of religion, he says:—

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The truth is, that the claims of the Church to control the higher

seminaries of education would not have been so long tolerated in this country had not means been discovered of evading that control. The practitioners in the courts of common law were early formed into corporations, which instituted a system of education for their members independently of the Universities. The medical corporations, in the same way, have taken upon them to educate their own members, who, by resting satisfied to practise under less ambitious titles than that of 'physician,' have been enabled to evade the control of the Universities. From the aspirants to a diplomatic career no testimony of their having received a learned education has been demanded. The hardship imposed upon individuals by exactions of religious tests in the Universities has thus been evaded; but the State has suffered. The exclusively practical education of two of the learned professions has impaired their intellectual character; and the want of any regular system of education for the civil servants of the State has affected every branch of government. The Universities themselves have suffered from this state of affairs. Instead of being complete Universities, with all the faculties, they have become de facto mere clerical seminaries, with faculties of literature and theology. They still retain the exclusive privilege of conferring the title of M.D.'; but who would trust his life in the hands of a physician whose medical education has been confined to Oxford and Cambridge? They have still the exclusive privilege of training the aspirants to Doctors' Commons; but how small a field of our English law is that! And how stands the character of the English school of civil law when contrasted with that of France, Belgium, and Germany? The exclusive character of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge has deprived them of all influence over the medical, legal, and diplomatic professions.'*

"If this be true even in a very much less degree than this writer imagines-and that it is so in some measure, I fear we cannot denythen the necessity of some extensive remedy is established.

"The love and veneration we have to our Universities for their antiquity, the associations of a thousand years, the lineage of great names they claim among their offspring, the treasures of science of which they are the keepers, their past and present eminence in literature and national cultivation, and above all, the grateful and filial allegiance we owe them for unnumbered blessings conferred upon ourselves, must make us deprecate any departure from the principles on which they are founded, and very earnestly desire that some persevering effort may be made, for the sake not more of the Church than of our popular Christianity, to restore their intellectual sway, and to enlarge their extent until they again overtake the vigorous and energetic people which for a time has outstripped their care. We have heard and endeavoured much of late for the education of the poor in the principles of the Church. Is it not rather, and above all, for the middle classes that such a discipline is needed?

We may assume it as a social law, that next after the food necessary for life, there is no demand of man which will provide for itself so certain a supply as the demand of his intellectual powers. The human "Spectator, Dec. 9, 1843."

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mind will organize itself and found its own systems. As, among other causes, the narrow area of our unenlarged parish churches has led to religious systems and establishments which should never have been forced into existence, so if the Universities and great schools of instruction within the communion of the Church fail to find room and provision for the intellectual life of the people, imperfect and dangerous systems formed by individuals, or, still worse, founded without religion by the State, will rise up and render the reunion of the people upon our old basis of Christian education impossible. We see this already. Numberless institutes and associations are already springing up on every side. The last year was not without its warnings from the legislature. Our Universities are not the schools of the poor, nor of the middle classes, but of what I may call the titular and natural aristocracy of the country. But, through the abundant blessing of GOD upon us, our people is multiplied, and the number of those who are by nature born or gifted with powers to affect the course of events and the character of the nation is likewise multiplied. In one word, there is the great middle class, for whom in the Universities a new and distinct provision is required. I need not say what the Church is able to do for them; and what, if the English nation is again to be folded by the English Church, it must do. I need not say what that middle class might do for the Church, if it were drawn into its ministry and service. Let us not forget what the middle class of England really is. Perhaps there exists nowhere anything to which we may compare it. There is in politics, as in nature, a temperate zone, in which the powers of man seem to be developed and braced to their highest energies; in which the intellect becomes clear and critical, the conscience vigorous and inflexible, selfrespect calm and cold, the passions checked by reason (it may be, tinged by selfishness), the affections kept down by a round of duty, and the imagination subdued by a life of restless action. The character formed in such a school is eminently solid, and often as eminently secular. The pressure of poverty and the refinement of wealth have both their moral discipline; the middle class have less refinement and little want.

"This habit of mind is characteristically strong, active, practicalendowed with all that can command the course of this world. It is made for enterprise, hazard, and empire. But it is as characteristically remote from faith. Its very excellences are a hindrance to the spirit of humiliation and self-mistrust and its whole process is opposed to the belief of mysteries which seem to contradict the inferences of intellect and sense.

"With such a people the Church is daily drawing into close contact ; and if they are to be retained or won, it must be through the power and persuasion of truth.

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'Here, then, we may foresee the danger and the work of our successors, the clergy of the next generation. And surely it must convince us, if facts can, of the necessity, before all things, of training an order of pastors able to endure the trial. How stands the matter now? The number of the clergy may be put at about 12,000 or 14,000. Year by

year more than 500 are ordained.* But these are not all graduates; nor, without an enlargement of our universities, can so great a number be provided. At this moment they do not yield the required supply, and many are ordained who come from other seats of instruction. The writer to whom I have referred supposes the universities to have become mere clerical seminaries. It were better if he were nearer to the truth. It would appear that the number of men graduated year by year is about 600 or 700. We have seen that the number ordained is more than 500. But it is notorious that a large proportion of graduates do not take orders. And yet so many are absorbed by the priesthood as to leave a fearfully small proportion for other classes and professions. But if this be so now, how shall it be when the clergy of the Church are so increased in number as to meet the necessities of the population? Certainly not less than 4000-probably 6000-additional clergy are needed to provide pastoral care for our people. And how shall a priesthood of 16,000 or 18,000 be drawn from sources which even now do not yield the proportion necessary to sustain a priesthood of 12,000 or 14,000?

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"The number of Deacons may be taken at the average.".

"Great and necessary efforts have been made for many years to provide education for the poor. And lately the attempt has been directed, in some slight degree, to the middle classes. Colleges for the instruction of schoolmasters have been happily founded; a collegiate system for medical students is in course of maturing; another is now rising for a missionary clergy; all things are drawing the convictions of men, in an inverted order, to the ultimate and vital work-a wise and sufficient training for the pastors of the Church.

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It seems, at last, to be agreed that an academical career alone is not enough to qualify a man to watch for souls as they that must give account.' An academical education is a great advantage, both as laying the only firm basis of learning, and as uniting the clergy and laity in the bonds of early sympathy and in an intellectual commonwealth. But there remains to be added that without which no man risks, I will not say the life or health of a fellow creature, but the character or the money of a client—a distinct and well conducted professional education. Shall we argue by such comparisons? I had almost said, 'They do it to obtain a corruptible crown;' and what do we, of whom the blood of souls shall be required? Is it not manifest that what is needed for Holy Orders is not only the learning of a scholar, but a mature and exact knowledge of sacred truth? And yet the intellectual training is the least momentous part in preparing for Holy Orders. What is required is not only a professional course of lectures, but a collegiate life of spiritual discipline-an order of devotion wherein to subjugate ourselves and to unite our whole will with the great laws and realities of our Master's Cross and Kingdom. Exact theology is most necessary; but a life moulded upon a discipline higher than the academic rule is still more absolutely needed."

TEXTS FOR THE HOLY DAYS OF THE CHURCH. (Continued from Vol. II. p. 120.)

ANNUNCIATION OF OUR LADY.

GEN. xvi. 11.-And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael: because the LORD hath heard thine afflictions.

EXOD. xxxvii. 1.-And Bezaleel made the Ark of shittim wood.

NUM. xxiv. 17.-I shall see Him, but not now: I shall behold Him, but not nigh: There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall arise out of Israel.

1 SAM. XXV. 41.-And she arose, and bowed herself on her face to the earth and said, Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord.

1 KINGS Xi. 1.-And the LORD said unto him,-I have heard thy prayers and thy supplication, that thou hast made before Me: I have hallowed this House, to put My name there for ever: and Mine eyes and My heart shall be there perpetually.

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