*

In this year certain Members of the Senate of the University of
Cambridge petitioned Parliament against the abolition of religious
declarations required of persons admitted to Fellowships or proceeding
to the degree of M.A. The document was sent to Airy for his signature,
and his reply was as follows:

ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH,
LONDON, S.E.
_1868, March 18_.

MY DEAR SIR,

Though I sympathize to a great extent with the prayer of the petition
to Parliament which you sent to me yesterday, and assent to most of
the reasons, I do not attach my signature to it, for the following
considerations:

1. I understand, from the introductory clause, and from the
unqualified character of the phrase "any such measures" in the second
clause, that the petition objects to granting the M.A. degree without
religious declaration. I do not see any adequate necessity for this
objection, and I cannot join in it.

2. It appears to me that the Colleges were intended for two collateral
objects:--instruction by part of the Fellows, on a religious basis;
and support of certain Fellows for scientific purposes, without the
same ostentatious connection with religion. I like this spirit well,
and should be glad to maintain it.

3. I therefore think (as I have publicly stated before) that the
Master of the College ought to be in holy orders; and so ought those
of the Fellows who may be expected to be usually resident and to take
continuous part in the instruction. But there are many who, upon
taking a fellowship, at once lay aside all thoughts of this: and I
think that such persons ought not to be trammelled with declarations.

4. My modification of existing regulations, if it once got into shape,
would I dare say be but a small fraction of that proposed by the
"measures in contemplation." Still I do not like to join in
unqualified resistance to interference in the affairs of the
Established Colleges, with that generality of opposition to
interference which the petition seems to intimate.

I agree with articles 3, 4, and 5; and I am pleased with the graceful
allusion in article 4 to the assistance which has been rendered by the
Colleges, and by none perhaps so honourably as Trinity, to the
parishes connected with it. And I could much wish that the spirit of 3
and 5 could be carried out, with