Book contents
5 - Religion and literature: toward the Broad Church
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
Summary
Oxford and Cambridge had traditionally been viewed as ‘Seminaries of Sound Learning and Religious Education’, and the exclusive legal connection between the old English universities and the Established Church was deeply rooted in British history. As the nineteenth century wore on, this relationship came ever more sharply into question. The Church itself was failing to satisfy the needs of an increasing number of people; the universities were patently doing an inadequate job of teaching theology and educating clergymen; and the exclusive admissions standards came more and more to be criticized for denying the benefits of ‘national’ institutions to a large segment of the nation. The process of ‘opening’ the old universities was a slow one, by no means completed by mid-century. But with respect to religion as in other matters, Sedgwick, Whewell, and their friends were tolerant and in favor of moderate reform. During their period of leadership Cambridge made a good beginning toward freeing itself from rigid sectarian control.
The earliest question of religious toleration to attract the University's attention had to do not with its own regulations but with the extension of general political rights, with Catholic emancipation. In the very early part of the century, with religious questions much disturbing popular opinion, the University twice refused to succumb to the hysterical cry of popery and elected public officials who were at least moderates on the Catholic issue. The University as a whole was probably about as conservative as the country at large, mustering in 1812, for example, a small majority vote for a petition against Catholic relief.
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- Information
- Cambridge Before DarwinThe Ideal of a Liberal Education, 1800–1860, pp. 70 - 89Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1980