The noble earl stated that individuals might obtain admittance to the universities both of Oxford and Cambridge, notwithstanding that they were dissenters; but there is a great deal of difference between casually admitting dissenters, and permitting them to enter into the universities as a matter of right.  I see no objection to the admission of the few now admitted, who must submit to the regulations and discipline of the university, and of its several colleges; but I do object to the admission of dissenters into the universities by right; and my reason for making this exception is, that I am exceedingly desirous that the religion taught there should be the religion of the church of England; and I confess I should be very apprehensive that, if dissenters of all denominations were admitted by right, and they were not under the necessity of submitting to the rules and regulations of the several colleges, not only would the religion of the church of England not to be taught there, but no kind of religion whatever.  I state this on the authority of a report which I have recently received of the proceedings of an institution in this country for the instruction of children of dissenting clergymen; from which it appears absolutely impossible, for any length of time, to adhere to any creed, or any tenet or doctrine in these seminaries, in which every doctrine is matter of dispute and controversy.  I was rather surprised to hear the noble viscount opposite—­a minister of the crown—­express his preference for polemical disputations in the universities.  I should have thought that he would have felt it to be his inclination, as well as duty, by all means to protect the universities from such disputes, and from a system fruitful in such controversies; and probably to end in a cessation of any system of religion or religious instruction whatever, on account of the different opinions of the members.

July 14,1835.

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University Tests rendered necessary by Toleration.

The tests in our universities are the children of the Reformation, which the system of toleration wisely established in this country has rendered still more necessary, if we intend to preserve the standard of the religion of the church of England.  If we open the door wide and say “We will have no established religion at all—­every man shall follow the religion he chooses”—­if, in a word, we have recourse to the voluntary system,—­then we must make up our minds to take the consequences which must follow from the enactments of the bill and the polemical and other controversial agitations to which it must lead.  But, supposing the object of the noble lord, to put an end to these tests, to be desirable, I can conceive no mode of effecting this object so objectionable as the interference by parliament with the privileges of the universities, secured to them by charter and repeatedly acknowledged and confirmed by parliament.