The means here proposed for the extension of the University, by the unrestricted establishment of private halls, are those which we have already advocated in a previous article. Established under due regulations, they cannot prejudice the discipline of the University. It would be ridiculous to suppose that they could interfere with the colleges, whose wealthy foundations must always enable them, if they will, to educate more cheaply and with greater advantages; whilst we still believe that they will succeed in drawing to Oxford a class of students which it does not now possess, in developing the demand of which the existence is so disputed, and in proving, in spite of Mr Gordon’s clever irony[15] on so tempting a subject, that a more kindly and domestic discipline is both possible, and in some cases very desirable, without treating men as children. At any rate, if they fail, they will involve no interest but their own. There is yet one principle boldly laid down in this bill—for one principle it is under several forms—so cruel and so unwise, involving such a deep wrong to the memory of the dead, and such contempt for the claims of the living, that it forms alone one of the most solemn questions ever submitted to the decision of the legislature. Beneath this great injustice—if once it pass into law—all the minor evils of this measure may take shelter and be forgotten. If Parliament, more faithful to Oxford than her own sons and representatives, shall deliver her from this, we know of no surrender of her liberties which would be too great a price to pay. It is proposed by this bill to take away the heritage of the poor; Oxford is to be no more what she has been for above five hundred years—“the almshouse of noble poverty.” It is by the merest rule of consequence that the same hands sweep away the rights of families, of counties, and of schools. “No preference shall, after the passing of this Act, be accorded to any candidate by reason of birthplace, kinship, education at any school, or INDIGENCE, over any other person of superior fitness in character and attainments,” (clause xxviii). These are the words. Then follow some grudging exceptions in favour of kinship, of districts, and of schools; _none_ in behalf of poverty. For this wholesale confiscation the Commissioners had striven hard to prepare the public mind; voices within the walls of Oxford itself had shamefully avowed it as their object; the doctrine of “open competition” and “abolition of preferences” has been preached as an intellectual gospel; and still good and wise men have been slow to realise its growth: whilst those against whose rights it is aimed are lured into a blind belief in it.