The grievance of the university tests as applied to professors of physical science in the colleges of Scotland : a letter, addressed to The Right Honourable Spencer H. Walpole, Secretary of State for the Home Department / by George Wilson.
- Date:
- 1852
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The grievance of the university tests as applied to professors of physical science in the colleges of Scotland : a letter, addressed to The Right Honourable Spencer H. Walpole, Secretary of State for the Home Department / by George Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![would by requiring him to fill up so many formal schedules. You will in like manner learn the nature and grounds of a can- didate’s morality much more certainly by leaving him to state what they are, than by subjecting him to the unrelenting, indiscriminating action of the Test, which, like a coiner’s press, puts the same stamp upon a piece of lead and a piece of gold. Lead is a very excellent metal for many purposes, but it acquires no new virtues by having the gold stamp upon it, and is best to circulate through the country as lead. If at any time it affect to be gold, it can be truly tested and assayed, and the deceit de- tected. The country—directly, through the bodies to whom professors are responsible, and indirectly, through its power to withhold pupils from teachers it distrusts—is Assay-Master of the Universities; and can at any time subject to the furnace of public judgment a questionable professor, and even remove him from his place. No other test has guarded the Scottish Uni- versities from immorality and infidelity, and no other ever will. It is time that I conclude this letter. I will not do so, how- ever, without again pleading with you, to legislate against the Religious Tests. You cannot refuse to give a legal sanction to a relaxation of which, in the House of Commons, you appi’oved. Grant us at least what the present learned and accomplished Lord Advocate of Scotland, an attached member of the Estab- lished Church of his native country, is prepared to recommend. “ I desire,” says he, “ to see a measure introduced which shall secure for these [the Scottish University] Chairs, men of un- doubted principle. I care not wdiether they be Established Churchmen, Free Churchmen, United Presbyterians, or Church of England men. It is all one ; for provided they agree with me on the great essentials of the Protestant faith, I will open my arms to them all.”'—(Scotsman newspaper, July 24, 1852.) The Lord Advocate, I think, wrould find room for me among those he is willing to admit;, but you will permit me, in con- cluding this letter, to remind you why I make my present com- plaint to you. I have lectured publicly on Chemistry for ten years. During that period, I have either shown myself to be morally disqualified from acting as a public teacher, and should](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28041860_0044.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
