THE NEW LONDON UNIVERSITY. 23 



establishing a University in which the highest academical 1827. 

 teaching should be given without reference to religious First sug- 

 differences. As this could not be done in an institution 

 in which the pupils resided without excluding religion 

 altogether from education, a necessary condition of the 

 establishment was the daily attendance of students on 

 college lectures, so that while living under their parents' 

 roof they might be brought up in the religion of the 

 family. 



My father's ideas of the proposed institution had been 

 embodied in some letters signed ' Civis,' and published in 

 a monthly periodical 1 edited by Mr. John Thelwall, some- 

 where about 1819, which did not survive a third number. 

 The writer was well qualified by his own academical status, 

 and by the subsequent abandonment of Church prefer- 

 ment which led him into connection with intelligent Dis- 

 senters, to estimate the value of University training, and 

 the great loss and deprivation sustained by young men 

 every way qualified to profit by it who were unable from 

 religious belief to receive it. He looked forward to the 

 day when all forms of religion should be held equal within 

 the walls of the noble institution which he contemplated, 

 in which good conduct and compliance with rules should 

 be the only conditions of admission. 



A short time after the publication of the letters re- 

 ferred to, Mr. Thomas Campbell, the poet, first visited their 

 writer, and informed him that Lord Brougham (then Mr. 

 Brougham) and Dr. Birkbeck, with himself and one or two 

 others, believed that the time for making the attempt 

 was come. I was about twelve years old when Mr. 

 Brougham dined with my father to consult upon it. Some 

 meetings took place, other liberal men joined them, and 

 after some delay the first active committee was formed. 



Mr. Frend was prevented by long and severe illness 



1 I have tried in vain to find the title of this periodical, which is 

 not in the British Museum. It must have appeared between 1818 

 and 1822. 



