youth in any house or private family as a tutor or schoolmaster," shall before admission subscribe a declaration of which an important clause was "that I will conform to the liturgy of the Church of England, as it is now by law established," upon pain of deprivation. It is plain that this penalty was scarcely applicable to a tutor or schoolmaster in a private family, and accordingly the following section provided that such persons should obtain a license from the Bishop of the Diocese, and that if any person should instruct or teach any youth as a tutor or schoolmaster before obtaining such license and subscribing the declaration he should suffer three months' imprisonment without bail or mainprize1. disabled in the and These provisions were not very rigorously enforced, at Dissenters least as regards teaching in private houses, but were quite from sufficient to exclude all persons not members of the Church teaching of England from taking any part in the instruction of youth public in the public schools of the country, nor can it be doubted schools that such was the intention of the legislature throughout colleges. the eighteenth century, for the Act of 1769, expressly passed for the relief of Protestant dissenting schoolmasters, in terms provides that nothing therein shall extend "to the enabling of any person dissenting from the Church of England to obtain or hold the mastership of any college or school of royal foundation or of any other endowed college or school for the education of youth, unless the same shall have been founded since the first year of the reign of their late Majesties King William and Queen Mary, for the immediate use and benefit of Protestant Dissenters 2." The Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791, which enabled Roman Catholics to be tutors or schoolmasters, has a similar proviso "that no person professing the Roman Catholic religion shall obtain or hold the mastership of any college or school of royal foundation or of any other endowed college or school for 1 13 & 14 Car. II, cap. 4, secs. 8-11, superseding the provisions of 23 Eliz., cap. I, secs. 6, 7 and 1 Jac. I, cap. 4, sec. 9. 2 19 Geo. III, cap. 44. The ties Act, 1846. The Uni and Dissenters. the education of youth or shall keep a school in either of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge1." No relief from this disability was ever expressly granted to the Jews, but in 1846 the Religious Disabilities Act (9 & 10 Vict. c. 59, s. 1), which, as has been already mentioned, placed the Jews as regards education on the same footing as Protestant Dissenters and thereby legalized their communal schools and any endowments attached to them, absolutely repealed the disability so far as it related to teaching in a private house or family, and a quarter of a century later the Universities Tests Act of 1871 (34 & 35 Vict. c. 26, s. 8) abolished it so far as it related to teaching in colleges or public schools. The Universities themselves were for a long time imposversities sible of access to the Jews, who were nevertheless in regard to the Universities in no better or worse position than all others who dissented from the Church of England. Acts of Parliament had been passed at various times (1 Eliz., c. 1, 7 Jac. I, c. 6, 1 Guil. & Mar., c. 8, 1 Geo. I, st. 2, c. 13) requiring oaths, some of which at least would have been obnoxious to Jews, to be taken by persons admitted to degrees or offices in the Universities. But by means of the annual indemnity Acts, any difficulty thus created might have been surmounted in the same way as entrance to the liberal professions had been gained by the Dissenters. The Universities and their colleges, although not originally ecclesiastical foundations 2, had always kept up a close 1 31 Geo. III, cap. 32, sec. 14. The Act further provided that no schoolmaster professing the Roman Catholic religion should receive into his school for education the child of any Protestant father. The rights given to Roman Catholic schoolmasters were thus, though given twentytwo years later, much more limited than those conferred on Protestant Nonconformists. The reason for this was the popular distrust of Roman Catholicism which insisted upon a declaration of the illegality of any endowment of a school or college for the instruction of persons professing that religion; see sec. 17 of the Act- -a disability which was only removed by the Roman Catholic Charities Act of 1832 (2 & 3 Will. IV, cap. 115). 2 The Universities are civil corporations and their colleges eleemosynary corporations (see Stephen's Blackstone, vol. III, p. 3). connexion with the Established Church, and, so far from smoothing the way for sectarians to take degrees, actually insisted on all their members taking religious tests in addition to the statutory oaths, including in most cases subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. These tests had to be taken at Oxford before matriculation or admission to membership, but at Cambridge might be deferred until candidature for a degree. In 1850 Royal Commissions were appointed to investigate and report on the constitution of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and legislation was initiated in consequence of their reports. The University of Oxford was first dealt with. The Oxford University Reform Act, 1854 (17 & 18 Vict., c. 81, secs. 43, 44) provided "that it shall not be necessary for any person, upon matriculating in the University of Oxford, to make or subscribe any declaration or to take any oath, any law or statute notwithstanding," and further that no such subscription or oath should be necessary upon taking the degree of Bachelor in Arts, Law, Medicine, or Music, but a proviso was added that such degree should not constitute any qualification for holding any office which had theretofore been held by members of the United Church of England and Ireland, unless the oaths and declarations required by law had been taken and made. The opening to Dissenters of the lower degrees only was intended to prevent them from taking any share in the government of the University, and the object of the proviso was to continue the monopoly of educational appointments belonging to members of the Established Church. Two years later the Cambridge University Reform Act, 1856, carried the cause of religious liberty, so far as the younger University was concerned, one step further, by enacting that no oath, declaration, or subscription should thenceforth be required to be taken by any person either (1) upon obtaining any exhibition, scholarship, or other college emolument available for the assistance of an undergraduate student in his academical education, or (2) upon matricu Р The Universities lating or taking any degree in Arts, Law, Medicine, or Music, provided, however, that such degree should not, until the holder subscribed a declaration stating that he is bona fide a member of the Church of England, entitle him to become a member of the Senate or qualify him to hold any office either in the University or elsewhere which had theretofore always been held by a member of the Established Church, and for which such degree was a qualification 1. Not unnaturally, after the passage of these Acts of Parliament the University of Cambridge was more frequented by Jews and other Dissenters than the sister University; for at Cambridge all scholarships and the higher degrees (except in the faculty of theology) were thrown open to all persons irrespective of religion, but the right to hold a fellowship or take any part in the government of the Universities was still strictly confined to members of the Established Church. The position was not satisfactory, and a wider toleration Bills to effect this end were regularly Tests Act, was demanded. 1871. brought forward in Parliament, and at length in 1870 the government of the day took up the question, and a Universities Tests Bill was piloted through the House of Commons by Sir John Duke Coleridge, the Solicitor-General. The Lords, however, shelved it by appointing a Select Cominittee to consider the matter. The Bill was again introduced the following year and passed, but several amendments intended for the protection of the Church of England were inserted by the House of Lords in accordance with the recommendations of their Select Committee. The effect of the Act is that all degrees, together with all rights and privileges annexed to them, and all offices in the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham (which was also included in the Act), or any of their colleges, subsisting at the time the Act was passed, were thrown open to all persons irrespective of their religious belief. The only exceptions are degrees in and professorships of 119 & 20 Vict., cap. 88, secs. 45, 46. divinity, and such offices as had been previously by some ordinance or statute confined to persons in or about to enter holy orders (thereby saving the clerical fellowships and headships of houses), or confined to members of the Church of England by reason of a degree being a qualification for holding them. Moreover, no member of a university or college can henceforth be compelled to attend the public worship of any church, sect, or denomination to which he does not belong, or any lecture to which he, if of full age or, if he is under age, his parent or guardian shall object on religious grounds. On the other hand, it is expressly stated that the Act shall not interfere with the religious instruction, worship, and discipline previously established, and every college is required to provide sufficient religious instruction for all its undergraduate members belonging to the Established Church, and also to continue in its chapel as theretofore the daily use of the Morning and Evening Prayer according to the Order of the Book of Common Prayer. The Act does not apply to new foundations1, but refers only to colleges subsisting at the time of its passage. It is therefore open for the adherents of any legally recognized religion to establish a college or hall in any of the universities, and conduct it on purely sectarian principles. The Jews have never attempted to create such a foundation, but have liberally availed themselves of the right of becoming members of the colleges thrown open to them by the legislation of the second half of last century. the lower tion. Having now completed a summary survey of the civil Jews and disabilities of the Jews and the means by which these have branches been removed, before passing to the consideration of their of educapolitical rights, it may be not without interest to those who have followed the story of their admission to the universities to add a short account of the religious position in the lower branches of education. The anomalies and want of system which characterize almost all our English institu 1 See Reg. v. Hertford College, Oxford (1878), L.R. 3 Q.B.D. 693, |