NATURE 
THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1883 
THE SCOTCH UNIVERSITIES BILL 
ee long expected Scotch Universities Bill has at last 
made its appearance. As no explanation of its 
provisions has yet been offered in Parliament, and the 
Scotch newspapers have shown the caution characteristic 
of their country in declining to commit themselves to an 
opinion about it till they learn what its authors have to 
say in its favour, it may be interesting to our readers to 
know what the Bill proposes to do and how it proposes 
to do it. Se much at least can be stated in a few sentences. 
The Scotch Universities derive a-considerable portion of 
their revenues from Parliamentary grants. The Bill 
proposes to give them a sum which is estimated at about 
8000/. a year, or 25 per cent., more than they now get; to 
remove the whole of their payment from public moneys 
from the annual estimates to the Consolidated Fund; to 
settle this sum of 40,000/. on them “ in full discharge of 
all claims past, present, and future,’’ and to cut them 
adrift. They now get really about 28,000/. annually, the 
other 4000/. going to two institutions—the Royal Obser- 
vatory in Edinburgh, and the Botanic Garden there, 
which are in future to be handed over to the University 
of Edinburgh and to be maintained by it out of the 
portion of the 40,000/. to be allocated to it. The alloca- 
tion of this sum as between the Universities is to be 
made once and for ever by a new Executive Commission, 
with whose judgment, except in the form of a somewhat 
complicated and expensive appeal to Her Majesty in 
Council and the usual formal laying of their ordinances 
on the table of Parliament, the State will not farther 
concern itself. 
The second main provision of the Bill is that these 
Commissioners are directed to make ordinances, subject 
only to the same appeal, regulating everything in or con- 
cerning these Universities, and in particular fixing anew 
the constitution and functions of all the various Univer- 
sity bodies and officers, such as the University Court, the 
University Council, the Senatus Academicus, the chan- 
cellor, the rector, the assessors, and all other University 
officers. They are directed in only two particulars. They 
are to institute a first examination which is to be com- 
pulsory on all persons who intend to graduate in Arts or 
in any other Faculty, and to institute if they think fit, in 
any or all of the Universities, a new Faculty of Science, 
subject to these particular directions : they are to ‘‘ regu- 
late the manner and conditions in and under which 
students shall be admitted, the course of study and 
manner of teaching, the amount and exaction of fees, the 
length of the academical session or sessions, and the 
manner of examination.” 
The next important duty imposed on the Commissioners 
is to report within twelve months whether in their opinion 
it is no longer possible for the University of St. Andrews, 
which is the oldest and by far the least numerously 
attended of the four, “‘in consequence of the want of 
sufficient endowments,” to “continue to perform its 
functions with advantage,” and in the event of their so 
reporting they are to make “suggestions for dissolving 
that University and its Colleges, and creating a new 
corporation to which the funds and property of the 
University and Colleges shall be transferred.’’ 
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There is another curious provision, which we mention 
only from the interest which will generally attach to it, 
not because we should venture in this place to express 
any opinion about it, in one wayoranother. Like all the 
Universities in the kingdom, except London and the new 
Victoria University, the Scotch Universities have a 
Faculty of Theology. This has been hitherto in direct 
connection with the Scotch Established Church, and the 
Professorships can only be held by clergymen of that 
Church. It is well known that the Nonconformist de- 
nominations in Scotland prescribe a professional course 
of their own for students preparing for their ministry, 
and the two great Presbyterian nonconforming bodies 
have each of them Colleges and Professors, whose lec- 
tures their students must attend. The Bill provides that 
from this time forward no test of any kind shall be appli- 
cable to the University Chairs of Theology, which may 
therefore either be held by clergymen of any persua- 
sion or by laymen. Should this provision become law; 
it will be most interesting to watch what may be the 
tendencies and character of the new scientific theology 
which will develop itself in Scotland after it has been 
freed from the trammels of any creed. It is to be feared, 
indeed, that the first effect may be that the students who 
now attend the University Chairs of Theology may be 
directed elsewhere to new Colleges or Halls of Presby- 
terian theology taught from the point of view of the 
Established Church, and that the rising clergymen of the 
nation, who are generally of opinion that they do enough 
when they do all that their licensing bodies require of 
them, may not sit in great numbers at the feet of the 
occupants of the new scientific Chairs. There is another 
provision which illustrates in a singular way the jealousy 
with which a lay State can scarcely help regarding theo- 
logy, even after it has become scientific, and “in the 
abstract.” Whatever happens, whoever may benefit by 
the 25 per cent. of increased emolument to be made over 
to the Scotch Universities, it is expressly provided that 
the scientific theologians are never to get any of it. 
The most interesting question to our readers is how the 
new Bill will influence the progress of science in the 
Scotch Universities. The obvious and only answer is 
that nobody can tell. The Commissioners may make 
provision fora Faculty of Science, and in the three younger 
and more numerously attended Universities they will 
probably doso. In Edinburgh they could certainly do so 
without requiring to create new Chairs. In Glasgow there 
is not at present a Chair of Geology, though that subject is 
taught in an old-fashioned alliance with zoology, by the 
single Professor of Natural History. There is no Pro- 
fessor of Geology or of Astronomy or of Engineering in 
Aberdeen. The foundation of new Chairs on these sub- 
jects may possibly be thought necessary before a Faculty 
of Science is instituted; and there are medical Chairs, like 
that for Pathological Anatomy, which are not established 
in Glasgow. A great deal will depend, in fact, on the 
extent to which the free balance of 7500/. or thereabouts 
may be found sufficient to meet the more urgent and im- 
mediate demands which will be made on it from all 
quarters. Glasgow and Aberdeen have no Chair of 
Modern History. In Aberdeen one Professor teaches 
English Literature and Logic, and there is no Chair of 
| Political Economy. In the University of Adam Smith 
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