Untitled - Electric Scotland

1849-53 RECOMMENDATIONS 167
the Professors ample endowments, to raise them to an
important position in the University, and to call to their
aid a body of younger men under the name of Lecturers."
While recognising the importance of that connection
with the Church of England to which, they said, "the
University mainly owes its greatness," they
stated the
many obvious objections to the existing system under
which holders of fellowships were obliged to take Holy
Orders, and urged that this obligation should be very
largely relaxed. Such a relaxation did not appear to them
likely to make a very material change
in the clerical
character of the teaching staff; they thought it probable
"
if the rule were abrogated in all the colleges, the
that
great bulk of the resident teachers would after all remain
clerical," and they claimed that the Church, no less than
the nation, would be the gainer by the change.
"
desirable that moderation and a spirit in harmony with
If it be
the institutions of the country should prevail among the
ministers of the English Church, it is important that the
zeal of their instructors in its chief seminary should be
tempered by the calmer judgment of lay colleagues, who
would themselves imbibe the moral and religious tone of
the clerical circle in which they lived."
In the effort to retain men of ability in the service of
the University, they made an advance in the direction of
more recent legislation, by recommending that the Pro
fessors and other University teachers should be allowed,
though married, to share in the emoluments of College
fellowships.
In addition to these important constitutional changes,
the Commissioners recommended the removal of many of
the restrictive conditions, local and other, which fettered
the ordinary candidature for College scholarships and
fellowships. Jhey urged the total abolition of the provi-