Calendar: 1896-1897 Page 628

xxxvm REPORT presented to the ANNUAL COURT of MEMBERS of KING'S COLLEGE on Friday May 16th 1896 The Council are happy to meet the Court of King's College this year in circumstances which are far more satis factory and hopeful than those of late years At the Court last year the Council had to explain that they had felt it their duty to sacrifice the share the College had hitherto enjoyed of the Parliamentary Grant to the University Colleges of England as the Government then in power had attached to it the condition of 4'King's College removing the denomi- national tests from all its teachers other than theological It was required in fact that no religious qualification what ד ever whether of membership of the Church of England or of any other nature should be required of the teachers in any of the Faculties or Departments of the College except that of Theology The Council considered that to agree to condi- tion of this unqualified character would be to surrender the main principle on which the College was established and would be breach of faith both with its founders and with most of those who have supported it by their donations since its foundation They therefore refused the condition required and their share of the Grant was accordingly withheld from the 1st of April 1894 The course taken however by the late Government in this matter had been strongly protested against by public men of great authority and when in Midsummer of last year the present Government came into power steps were at once taken by the Council to obtain reconsidera- tion of the claim of the College to the Annual Grant The result was that in October last an intimation was received from the Treasury that the Grant would be restored to the College as from the 1st of April in the present year without