686 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



the task of reviewing and co-ordinating the local interests of 

 the various colleges, schools, and other institutions more or less 

 closely connected with the University is likely to be heavy and 

 lengthy. I do not propose to enter upon any discussion of 

 these various interests, nor to suggest any scheme for a recon- 

 stitution of the University of London. But in connection with 

 " the provisions for teaching'and research that should exist in the 

 Metropolis, and their connection with similar provisions existing 

 in other parts of the United Kingdom and of His Majesty's 

 Dominions beyond the seas," I shall sketch a scheme that 

 commends itself to my mind as a concrete and feasible outcome 

 of the foregoing considerations. 



The teaching personnel of Colleges, Schools, and Institutions 

 of the University of London form as many separate groups of 

 men (and women) very slightly attached to " the University." 

 These groups may be pictured as a collection of variously coloured 

 strands more or less loosely attached to an imaginary central 

 point called "The University"; of these several groups, two 

 principal groups — University College and King's College — 

 form a distinct and united body at this point — they have incor- 

 porated themselves there, and without any surrender of College 

 identity are by reason of that " incorporation " entitled to be 

 regarded as the commencing embodiment of a true University. 

 A third group, the Imperial College of Science and Technology, 

 is nominally a School of the University, but in reality is 

 entirely independent of its control, and, as far as we know, 

 desires to remain so. Other groups — the Medical Schools, the 

 London School of Economics, the East London College, the 

 Birkbeck College, the three Women's Colleges, the six Poly- 

 technics, are loosely tacked on to the imaginary point called the 

 University of London. The collective value of the stuff in these 

 disconnected strands is very great, but it is in great measure 

 wasted for lack of a transverse bond of union threading together 

 the strands themselves. That bond of union by which the 

 loose fabric should be knitted together should be found in 

 the Boards of Studies and Faculties of the University, which 

 are the groups of teachers with like interests, attached to the 

 several colleges, schools, and institutions. 



The Faculties. — The organisation of these groups on Faculty 

 lines, which are to be regarded as lines transverse to the lines of 



