The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, The Morning News and The Echo. The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, The Morning News and The Echo.

Auckland Star, Volume XVI, Issue 3807, 21 October 1882, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, The Morning News and The Echo.

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, The Morning News and The Echo.

For tha causa that Indus assistance. For the wrong that needs reslstiuc* For tho futitro in the.distance. And tho good that wo can do.

A cable de«patch last week nnnounccd the formal opening of Echvya College, at Cambridge. From Bullish papers by the last mailAvo loam that a great fuss and controversy has bean raved at Cambridge about this College, which, It will bo remembered, was initiated aomo time ago by adiuirois of the late Biahop of Lichficld on strictly sectarian principles. Tha authorities at Cambridge do not liko sectarian collcgos in genera?, and have strong objections to this Boiniuary in particular, Some yoars ago Kcblo College, Oxford, wai founded and endowed on similar principles. It wna to b»a college for yonng men who, alter the very strictest sect, belonged to tho High Church Persuasion. They were to live economically, they wore to attend worship in the college chapel with the strictest regularity, and they were to furnish an example to profano places liko Balhol, where the tutors do not attempt to maak their lack of orthodoxy, and tho undergraduates make no sectet of their coiiyictious- or wha» is woiae—their want of convictions. Keblo College, somehow, becama a groat sacce»s. it was patronised by Lord LyttoltoD, Mr Gladstone, and other magnates of tha land, and being wcalUily endowed sooa attracted numerous collegians. Unfortunately, however, tho institution has never falfillod its otigioal purpose. It wai intended to be a sort ot monastery with ascct c, studious fellows, and strictly pious undergraduates. lu3te:ul of thi-*, Keblo is much like other colleger aud (ho undergraduates differ but little from their brethren f.t Italia.1, Morton, or Bx»t«r. Tuoy have their Eleven, lh"ir boat oa tha river, their wine parties, a»d their jollifications— in fact, it is wcll-nndorstood at Keblo that it ouiy a man attends chapel regularly all will go well. With this oxa-nple before them, it scarcely need be exoiaincd why tho Cambridge authorities oppose the foundaliou of a sectariuu college at their Alain Mater. They urge that froir a fcoctanafl point of view.Sehvyn will be a failure, thatiacrc are already small halls and colleges enough jn the University, that the institution is at present very iusuffioiently endowed, »nd therefore unlikely to attract scholais, nud, finally that the Bishop, afier whom tbc college U named, was not a sufficiently great and good man to merit the honour. On this lust paint wo quote from a London daily some (to New Zealand cars) tttttlingly heterodox opinions. The journal in question saya :" In behalf of Bishop Selwyn's memory, no real claim can bo urged. Ho rowed in the University Eight; be more or less <fistinguished hinneit in the Ciaas List, and ho went ont with a very considerable Hoziiaaot trumpets to become a Bishop among iho heathen. Stories reached us as to how ho swam rivers, and made perilous voyages, and faced mousters of the deep and of tlio drsert, and otherwise behaved himself as a s-ldicr of the Cros?. But the result was that ho came back to Knglaud—as Colonial Bishops generally do—and that when an English bishopric waa offered him, he disc»vered that Providence had called him t• a wider sphere of usefulness. Selwyn Co lege, if it is to succeed, mu-t have some better example than that sot by tho life ol the Bishop from whom it takes its name." The came authority (presumably a Cambridge don) go;s on to say in the »amo article, "it is closr that the Unirersity of Cambridge, as a body, \a not best plcmed with Selwyn College, and in fact, would rather be without it. There arc at Cambridge a number of sm«ll Colleges and Halls, some of them with no more than three or four fellows and perhaps a dozen undergraduates. These lesser intitutions ob]' ct to a competitor which is started up)n a-cUrian line». The larger Oollr cjiss, such as Trinity and St. John's, are equally opposed lo the institution of a sectarian seminary which has norea connection with the University or wi'h its traditious. It is po'Bible that there may be money behind frelwyn College, and that, be ore long, thousands may bs t übsotiDsd towards its support. Its frienda aastit as much, nau they ought to know. But there is no escape from tho hard and fail di'omma presenting itself to a University man who accepts the present status in quo of his Alma Ma*er. If Selwyn College is te be a sickly ba^t ing, it were better that it had n':Vcr been hatched. If it is to become strorjg and vigorous, then oao of two fates must inevitably befall it. Either it will fall away from the intention* of its promoters, and bicome jn.it such a college as any other, or else it will bo a nuisance in the University i and a Liodratco to that progress of open and liberal thought which has of late years done ao much to make the Universities pene^ally popular," 'Filially the wiiter tbproc-itcs the cliaices otany Uirerg-aduat:s who nay think of patrolling the ins'itution. "New colleges, such asaelwj n," he says, " have no endowment fiorn wuich to fouud 'Fellow-, ships, and have, consequently, nothing to offer an Industrious and eaino.-t lad beyond avjjavren University di-groe, He will come fr< m a co'lege which hrs no prestige ; his mo'e desroe will no? give him the status of a gentleman, and lan will find himself three yars handicapped in life. On tho whole—unless he intends to be a schoolmaster—he had bettor set about his work at once, whatever it may be, and leave Selwya Colleie to inevitable inanition." The tone of these crifciams betoken? a lurking feeing of Ku mus.ty towards the late Bishop. I'rom attacking the principle of the College—which may be allowable— the writer pusses on to sueom at tho character of Biahop Selwyn. This is an ignoble and ungenwous part. Bishop Selwyn'a work in New Zealand was finished before he left these Qhcrei to enter upon diries which, though arduous, made le s ocmunda upon his shattered ; hysical piwera. He had spent the bo3t years oE his life in the exhausting and dangerous labours that appertain to tho lite ot a missionary Bishop in a country just emerging from barbarism. He worked unceasingly until safe foundations -were laid. The devoted Bifhup Patteson had relieved him of the work through the scattered islands of Melanesia; and, as for New Zealand, the progress of set1 lenient had completely chnnged the conditunsj aud there was no longer aoy heroism m

remaining a Coloniul Bishop. Higher dutiej lay in the work of the Church in the mother oun'ry. There, nun ot brain and of devotion to their divine Master wore most wanted; and Bishop Sclwyu, following out tho impulses which had guided his action consistently through life, took his remaining powers to tho sphere where ho could employ them best. His whole life was a noble one, and no cowardly sneer, made under the safe' shelter of anonymity, will mar a reputation which, even though tbe Selwyn College should fail, will yet have its nobler monument in tho records of imperishable work, i