Untitled - Electric Scotland

1 68 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. vi.
sions as to gentlemen-commoners/ Bible-clerks, and
others, which, by a series of artificial distinctions, had
tended to emphasise differences of rank and wealth in a
manner equally harmful to the rich and to the poor.
But
the most important, in Dean Tait s opinion, of all their
recommendations was the suggestion that facilities should
immediately be given
for the admission to the Uni
versity of a great body of unattached students/ who,
while obtaining the advantages of an Oxford education,
should yet be spared many of the expenses connected,
apparently of necessity, with collegiate life. 1 On the great
tests the Commissioners found them
question of religious
selves precluded, by the terms of their appointment, from
giving any formal recommendation ; but they expressed
an emphatic opinion
"
that the imposition of subscription,
in the manner in which it is now imposed in the University
of Oxford, habituates the mind to give a careless assent
to truths which it has never considered, and naturally leads
to sophistry in the interpretation of solemn obligations."
Dean Tait had evidently desired that the Commis
sioners should enter more fully into the whole question
of the oaths imposed by Colleges upon their members.
It was precisely one of those subjects which stirred his
serious and straightforward spirit, and he was unable to
share the unconcern with which some of his colleagues
regarded it. The Tutors protest against Tract XC., which
he had drawn up ten years before, had practically turned
upon a question of subscription,
and the facts which the
inquiries of the Commissioners brought to light as to the
imposition of College Oaths appeared to him to be of the
1 Not till sixteen years later (in 1868) did this plan take practical shape
in Oxford. When it did so, under the wise auspices of the present Dean of
Winchester, the detailed arrangements corresponded almost precisely with
the suggestions made by the Commissioners of 1852.
-
Report, p. 56.