SECTARIAN TRUSTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7402, 4 February 1908, Page 1

SECTARIAN TRUSTS.

the; q'sullivan bequest to " "the university.

WELLINGTON, February 1. Sir Robert Stout, in a letter to the NeV Zealand Times, refers to the action of the University Senate in accepting the O'Sullivan bequest. He declares that if his suggestion had been accepted the boquest would have been maintained for the benefit of Roman Catholic students, but would not have been an University Scholarship. The Public Trustee would have been the trustee, and the fund a private one. Sir Robert- Stout believes that great injury may be done to Roman Catholics by * the University accenting the bequest. "By that acceptance the Thuversity," he says, "invites Protestants to mako sectarian gifts, that is, to make it a condition of. their benefactions that Roman Catholics be excluded from participating j n ttumv" In his opinion, the University should have so acted as to have discouraged sectarian trusts, and to have maintained the provisions in its Act that for no University Scholarship should there bo any religious exemption or trust. Ho believes that the founding of the O'Sullivan University Scholarship is an injury to the University, and a -wrong to all religious bodies. The creation of this p.v-$-. cedent must lead to heartburnings, animosities, and. difljeuitjea m the near future, •