Lord Palmerston distributing certificates to the successful candidates in the recent Oxford middle-class examinations at Southampton, 1861. When Lord Palmerston entered the Carlton Rooms he was received with loud and protracted cheering...After adverting to the objections which some parents were supposed to have to subjecting their sons to so severe a test with the prospect of failure, [the Bishop of Rochester] showed that they were groundless, and urged upon the parents and the public generally to give a more ready and generous support to these examinations, which were calculated to be productive of a vast amount of good throughout the country. With regard to these local examinations by the University of Oxford, he believed that they would have an important and blessed influence on the kingdom at large, and they deserved all the aid and co-operation which the town of Southampton could give...Mr. Falvey remarked that, though the English people often exercised the privilege of abusing their Prime Ministers, yet they were ready to say of Lord Palmerston, in the words of a late eminent statesman, "We are all proud of him". Women were not permitted to take university entrance exams until 1868. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.