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to pull through all its difficulties. He would allow him (Mr. P.) to say that, in the observations he made to them, he limited himself to the advantages held out by the Manchester College to divinity students. They must allow him (Mr. P.), on the other side of the question, to address them on behalf of the laity. He must say that he was strongly persuaded that the institution had failed in one of its contemplated objects, viz., the education of laymen and divinity students together. Having been called upon for a number of years to quit the path of merely private life and take a share in the great assembly of the nation, there was nothing he felt to be a greater drawback upon his usefulness and a greater drawback upon his comfort and happiness, than the want of association in public life with men with whom he had associated in early life. (Mr. Philips proceeded to speak of the advantage and pleasure it afforded to the men who took part in the proceedings of Parliament and the higher courts of law, to act with those with whom they had in youth, at Cambridge and Oxford, studied and formed friendly intimacies.) He did say from his own experience that it was essential for every man, in these stirring times, to receive as good an education as any public institution can afford him, and that there he should be enabled to associate with those young men with whom he entertained common feelings. He rose for the purpose of expressing his dissent from the arguments brought forward by the Committee. Entertaining the convictions he did, he could not accede to the acceptance of that report. While he was grateful to those who made it for their services-while he was glad to listen to the sentiments which they had put forth in a manner so straightforward and manly, he had no alternative, with his opinions on the subject discussed in the report, than to object to its acceptance by the Trustees. To not one member of the Committee had he the slightest feeling of captious objection. In former years he had acted with them in an harmonious and amicable spirit. The question of the present locality of the College had been decided by a very small majority. The question raised by that discussion had been floating in their minds since 1839. The accident of the majority of two decided the removal of the College from York to Manchester. They were as nearly as possible equally matched nine years ago. They had had

the experience of the subsequent years to enable them to decide how the institution would work, and he must say that the result had been fully equal to his anticipation of disappointment. Notwithstanding his anticipations, the moment he found himself in a minority, he thought it was his duty (and with his sense of duty his feelings of affection conspired) to do what he could to make the institution as available and valuable as he could in the prescribed locality. From that time to this, he had done what he could to promote the welfare of the College. Now he thought the time had come when a change ought to be made. He was ready to face all the difficulties of the question. He knew there were others who felt as he did. He could not, therefore, agree to the report. They had heard that the course of the divinity students was to be enlarged from five to six years. He felt satisfied that their excellent friends had duly weighed the importance of that point. To their decision in that matter he bowed with perfect cordiality. But he thought he saw in the fact of the necessary extension of the course, an additional argument for the removal of the institution from Manchester. He saw no other way of giving expression to the opinions he held, than by doing what, under similar circumstances, was, he believed, usual in public meetingswhat he knew was the practice in Parliament, viz., moving an amendment to the effect that such words as recommend the maintenance of the College at Manchester be expunged from the report just read.

JOHN TAYLOR, Esq., seconded the amendment.

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T. E. LEE, Esq., was of opinion that the institution would be more useful in London; but he could not think, without special notice, the meeting was competent to entertain a motion for removal. There was, too, a doubt whether the funds were transferable to another vicinity. If it were certain that the funds could be removed, he should be prepared to move that the institution should go to London.

Rev. F. BAKER said the address was at present the opinion, strongly expressed, of the Committee. If adopted, it would become the expression of the meeting. He welcomed the opportunity of discussing the question, and hoped the Trustees would by their vote settle the merits of the case.

JAMES HEYWoon, Esq., M.P., said that with respect to the point now

raised, as to the right to transfer the funds from Manchester, there was a passage in the Memoir of his ancestor, Dr. Percival, which threw some light on the subject. It appeared from the passage (which Mr. H. read) that so firmly was Dr. Percival convinced, in 1802, of the failure of the College in Manchester, that he was of opinion that it ought to be removed to Glasgow. If this was the opinion of the powers of the Trustees held by the Chairman of the Committee in 1802, he should imagine they might now remove the institution where they saw fit. But if there were any legal difficulties, he thought they might be obviated by a short Act of Parliament. With regard to the Owens institution, he wished to state that the Trustees did not wish to begin their operations until the public of Manchester could raise a suitable building for the College. They must wait for better times. A delay of several years will intervene. When established, he imagined it would prove a juvenile school, except so far as it served the purposes in general instruction of the Medical School of Manchester. The Owens Trustees, he knew, wished their College to be in the neighbourhood of the Infirmary. Supposing the Trustees of Manchester New College were, therefore, to wait five or six years, their College would then have to be moved, as the distance between the Infirmary and Grosvenor Square would be inconveniently great. He thought it an important consideration that in London the students would have better and more genteel society than they could possibly have in the Owens institution. The demands of the Unitarian laity, from their education and position in society, were higher than other Dissenters, and he thought they would scarcely be satisfied that the young men who were afterwards to be their ministers should chiefly associate with those who were preparing themselves for Apothecaries Hall. He had voted in 1839 for the removal to Manchester, expecting that the laymen would have resorted to the College in greater numbers. Wherever the laymen attend, there, he thought, the divinity students ought to be. He regretted that the Committee had thought fit to express their opinions so strongly. He wished the passages in which the subject of the continuance of the College at Manchester was discussed, to be left out, and should therefore vote for the amendment. The institution at Manchester

seemed to him to be reduced to a sort of a shadow of a College. Mr. Kentish had spoken of University Hall being "ideal;" he (Mr. H.) thought Manchester College would soon become a mere idea.

Rev. JOHN KENRICK rose, not for the purpose of entering into the general question, but to ask Mr. Heywood, as one of the Trustees of the Owens institution, a question. Did not the will of Mr. Owens direct the Trustees to establish a College in Manchester in which every branch of University instruction should be taught?

Mr. HEYWOOD said it would be either a mere juvenile school, or that it would be chiefly connected with the Pinestreet Medical School.

*

Mr. KENRICK repeated his question. Mr. HEYWOOD admitted that, according to the wording of the will, the pupils were to be instructed in the knowledge taught in an University, but there was a limitation of age. The pupils were not to be younger than 14. They usually left school and went into warehouses at 16, so that the pupils would be mere boys.

Mr. KENRICK said the minimum age was 14, but there was no restriction on their continuing at the College after 16.

A very long discussion ensued. The speakers for the amendment were Richard Martineau, Esq., Rev. G. Armstrong, Rev. Charles Wicksteed, John Potter, Esq.; and for the original_motion, Rev. E. Kell, Robert Scott, Esq., J. A. Turner, Esq., and Rev. R. B. Aspland. We regret that our exhausted limits prevent our doing more this month than giving an outline of the remarks of

Rev. C.WICKSTEED, who said there was one disadvantage in the present mode of taking the discussion: it mixed up three entirely distinct subjects, namely, whether the report of the Committee should be adopted without alteration,whether the College should be removed at all, and thirdly (if removed), whether it should be connected with the proposed University Hall. He did not see, however, how this inconvenience could be avoided. They had a report before them which strongly advocated the continuance of the College at Manchester. Now this was the very subject on which they were met to deliberate, and on which there was, and it was known there would be, a great difference of opinion; and yet the meeting was called upon to adopt that report. He and the friends who thought

with him were thus stopped in limine; they could not possibly vote for the report unaltered, without nullifying their contemplated subsequent proceedings; for the report in fact prejudged the question, and the meeting was asked to sanction its judgment. Mr. Philips, therefore, had no alternative but to press the amendment; and though inconvenient in some respects, one practical advantage would result. The division would shew, without pledging the meeting to any distinct course, for which they were not prepared, how far the Trustees present thought a removal generally desirable or the contrary. Those, therefore, who had made up their minds that no change was desirable, would vote for the adoption of the report unaltered; those who thought a removal would be advantageous, could not adopt a report which condemned it as injurious, and must vote for the amendment. He (Mr.W.) should perhaps best explain his own sentiments on the general subject by troubling the meeting with a short piece of autobiography. Eight years ago, when this question was first agitated, he had attended the meeting then held, with convictions decidedly favourable to a removal to London. From those convictions he had not swerved one hour from that time to the present. But the majority of Trustees was in favour of Manchester, and of course it was only for him to bow to that majority. He retained his opinion, however, unchanged; and when he found so important and influential a portion of friends of collegiate education among Nonconformists disposed to make so generous a movement in connection with London, he thought a re-consideration of the decision of eight years ago was demanded. It was not every day that they were called upon to consider a disposition to devote ten thousand pounds to the cause of free academical education; and he must confess that he never was more astonished than when he found that the Committee of Manchester College had refused, on the application of the Council of University Hall, either to consider, or to promote the consideration of, the question the members of that Council has proposed to them, namely, whether any union could be effected between the movement in London and the present Manchester College. He understood, too, that the meeting of Committee at which this was decided, was convened without any special notice of

the important matter which was then to be laid before them; and notwithstanding that the Committee had disclaimed the power of considering the removal, they had exercised in the report before them very strongly the power of condemning the removal. He had not himself taken any active part in promoting the movement in London in its earlier form; and he had not done so on these grounds-he had felt a delicacy in the matter from so many of his nearest and most valued friends being directly or indirectly connected with the Manchester College; and he felt, in the second place, a disinclination to foster any movement which might be in rivalry or in prejudice of the older institution, and split the body into two schools or parties. But when he found that the movement in London had taken a determined and most important stand, he became anxious, for the sake of the Manchester College itself, and for the cause of academical education among the Nonconformists, that the older institution should act in unison with their friends in London, especially as he believed it must come to that in the end. He did not wish to wait till all was settled on the constitution and arrangements of Uni versity Hall, and then effect an alliance. He wanted the Manchester College to have a fair and legitimate influence in these very questions, while unsettled. He did not desire to wait till arrangements were effected which might be objectionable, and which could not be altered, and then for that College to be obliged to submit to them, or pursue its own isolated course in the North. It would not be to his taste to see the Manchester College, a few years hence, offering itself as a candidate for lodgings in the University Hall. He wished them to act now, when they could do so on equal terms. As to the general question of a removal to London, he was persuaded that it had become not only desirable, but manifestly necessary. It was notorious that our laity would not send their sons to Manchester. Was it desirable to contemplate a permanent arrangement, by which our lay students were educated at one place, and that a University and a Metropolis, and our divinity students educated at another, and that in the provinces ? He confessed the results of such a soparation seemed to him alarming. It would prevent that intercourse and that friendship among the future ministers and the future supports of our congre

gations which had hitherto proved one of the most valuable stays of our societies. He feared, too, that in the eyes of the world the ministers might, as men of education, take a lower standing, however, unjustly, than those who had been brought up in a place of greater celebrity and greater supposed advantages. He did not think it just to their young men, nor just to their learned men and professors, to keep them aloof from the places of largest resort, of largest intercourse and competition, and of most extended influence and honour to which their principles admitted them. Mr. Scott had alluded to the hundred years during which the Manchester College and its predecessors had existed; but he begged to call his attention a little further back, and ask, in what circumstances did those Colleges originate? Where did the Professors come from? Did they not come from the Universities? And would they not have gone back to the Universities, if they could have had admittance without a violation of their principles? Greatly as they were indebted to those learned men for handing their gifts down to others, and greatly as they were indebted to the learning and self-denial and brave resistance to the world's temptations with which their successors, down to those of the present time, had devoted themselves to the task of securing an educated ministry to our churches, there could be no doubt that those men acquiesced in the existence of small academies up and down the country as the bad necessity of bad times, and that they would, had they been living now, have gladly rallied round such an institution as the London University College, and seen whether the liberal principle could not have rivalled, and at length overthrown, the old exclusive principle of Oxford and Cambridge. He, for his part, did not think that the Nonconformists of this country had acted generously towards the London University College, in periling the great experiment which it attempted, by persevering in their separate Colleges. As for themselves, as long as the venerable Principal of the College at York was willing to continue his valuable labours, there was a sufficient reason against an immediate change; but when that reason no longer existed, he thought that the question should have been decided in favour of aiding the great effort and the great principle embodied in the foundation of Univer

sity College. Mr. Scott had alluded to the extravagant expectations with which the Manchester New College had been opened eight years since; but he must remind him that those expectations were entertained, not by the supporters of the amendment on the present occasion, but by the advocates of the continuance of the College at Manchester: it was those who wished the College to go to Manchester, not those who wished it to go to London, who were deceived. He did not, either, agree with Mr. Scott's fears about young Unitarians losing their principles by mixing more freely with those of a variety of opinions at such a place as University College: he thought, on the contrary, that while we had something to get, we had something also to give, and that by affording our students and our professorial men a larger opportunity of influencing public opinion, we should be spreading that leaven, both of theology and of social economy, which he hoped would eventually leaven the lump. He must conclude with repeating his own firm conviction that the tide in our denomination was irreversibly set in favour of larger association and combined education. He might mention, as an instance of this, the spontaneous feelings of his own congregation. They were not, indeed, among the largest supporters of the College in reference to the more recent exertion; but they had taken a steady interest in the College, had maintained a regular and fair subscription list, and had had their collections periodically, the first being in 1803, and the last in 1845. And he could not help a certain feeling of regret in saying, what, in fact, he had been in a manner commissioned to say, that that support, whatever it was, would be withdrawn from Manchester and transferred, if required, to London. The previous Sunday they had met and subscribed for a congregational share in the projected University Hall; individuals also either had done, or contemplated doing, the same; and this, he might certainly say, was the spontaneous result of the progress of opinion and feeling among them, without any urgent representations or efforts on his part. He regarded it merely as one of the many signs which would ere long burst upon the supporters of Manchester College, unless they consented to a change, that the general feeling of the body was setting in a different direction, and that there was a growing disposition to cultivate as large and

friendly an association with various religious communions in all matters, whether of educational or social interest, as principle would allow, or their own convictions justify.

Soon after six o'clock a division was called for, when there appeared-for the amendment, 31; against it, 30: but an objection being taken to the vote of one gentleman who had voted in the majority, on the ground that, having withdrawn his subscription, he was no longer a Trustee, the Chairman was called upon to decide the question by his casting vote. He voted for the amendment. The original motion was not put.

Mr. M. PHILIPS then rose to move a resolution to the effect that it was expedient to remove Manchester New College to London.-An objection was taken to the motion on two grounds: first, that it could not take precedence of Mr. James Heywood's motion, of which notice had been given to all the Trustees; and secondly, that it could not be entertained without proper notice being given to all the Trustees.-Mr. Heywood expressed his willingness to give way to Mr. Philips.

Rev. JOHN KENRICK said that the motion could not be thus withdrawn, without the consent of the meeting.

Mr. HEYWOOD then proposed his motion "That a Committee be appointed to consider the plan of University Hall, London, with reference to the interests of Manchester New College,"

and

to the Chairman for his impartial conduct in the chair, and the meeting broke up, having been engaged in the discussion about six hours. Four of the Trustees did not vote, and three (believed to be favourable to the original motion) were compelled to leave before the division came on.

Although the great division of sentiment amongst the friends of the College is to be regretted, there is ground for satisfaction and hope in the impartial character of the Committee appointed; and it may be expected that the issue of their inquiries will be a mass of facts, on which the Trustees may rest with confidence as the basis of their future decision as to the locality and discipline of the College.

Industrial Schools, Bury, Lancashire.

The extreme dearth of employment for factory operatives during the past winter, led, in the beginning of November last, to the establishing of a school for the instruction of young females in plain needlework and the cutting out and making of clothing. By the kindness of Mr. W. R. Greg, a large room in his mill at Freetown was opened for the purpose. A number of ladies undertook to superintend the management of the school by turns. About 30 young persons were admitted the first day. The number soon increased, and the average attendance at present is from 60 to 70 each day. Several of the scholars were quite unable to sew when they entered the school; they have since made their own dresses. A paid teacher was engaged to be in constant attendance, and to give instructions in cutting out and the general work. In a short time it was found advisable to classify the scholars and appoint a monitor to each class, who also received a small weekly payment. These were the only expenses of instruction. The materials of work were purchased from a fund raised by voluntary subscription among the friends of the school, and the clothing, when made up, was distributed by the Committee to the scholars free of charge. In this way a great variety of dresses, pinafores, stockings, petticoats, &c. &c., have found their way into houses where fresh purchases of clothes, however necessary, were out of the question, in the inability there existed to obtain a sufficiency of food. In the beginning of this year, a simiThe thanks of the meeting were voted lar school was opened on a smaller

named a Committee of twelve persons,
of whom nine were subscribers to Uni-
versity Hall. The other three declin-
ing to serve, some alterations in the
constitution of the Committee were
proposed, but they did not appear to be
satisfactory.-Rev. J. J. TAYLER urged
on the Trustees the importance of form-
ing a perfectly fair and equal Com-
mittee, and explained the important
questions which such a Committee
would have to examine. Ultimately,
the following gentlemen were appoint-
ed a Committee, with instructions to
inquire not only into the plans of Uni-
versity Hall, but also into those of Uni-
versity College and Owens College, and
to report to a future meeting of the
Trustees:

Rev. CHARLES WICKSTEED,
ROBERT WORTHINGTON, Esq.
Rev. FRANKLin Baker,
Rev. R. BROOK ASPLAND,

S. D. DARBISHIRE, Esq.

J. A. TURNER, Esq.

VOL. IV.

21

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