666 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



solution of a series of Chinese puzzles having no relation to the 

 requirements of life, not competency and skill in doing actual 

 work. 



The University machine must be made sound in its working 

 parts, if it is to run smoothly and effectively. 



" What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators, 

 Tropics, Zones and Meridian Lines ? " 

 So the Bellman would cry ; and the crew would reply, 

 " They are merely conventional signs ! " 



And so it is with the Senates, Faculties, Boards of Studies and 

 all other such institutions — for the most part, they are mere time- 

 wasting contrivances ; the Schools are the one essential feature 

 of the University organisation : if they are guided by true 

 ideals and in honest hands, they may be counted on to do effective 

 work — not otherwise : no mere ordinances can help them ; 

 suspicion of the teachers can only nullify their efforts. 



To put the teaching of the preliminary medical subjects on a 

 sound basis in London, the first thing to do is to establish a 

 limited number of special Schools. Whatever the present 

 feeling of the various Institutions may be, however jealous they 

 may be of one another, this step will necessarily be taken at 

 no distant date. The public will demand it, as the only means 

 of securing efficient teaching. The development of a suitable 

 course of preliminary studies must be a matter of experiment — 

 it must therefore be in the hands of an independent body of 

 competent teachers : of a School free from interference and in- 

 dependent of external control. If University privileges are to be 

 attached to the Schools, they must be of a certain importance. 

 I imagine that at most three such Schools are required and can 

 be allowed in London. It is most unfortunate that a beginning- 

 was not made at South Kensington. 



My own personal experience — far from being of the ante- 

 diluvian order painted by Dr. Wade — enables me to speak with 

 some slight feeling on a proposition such as I advance above. 

 When Prof. Ayrton and I were appointed in 1879 by the City 

 and Guilds of London Institute for the Advancement of 

 Technical Education to start classes in temporary quarters at 

 the Cowper Street Schools, Finsbury, I found plans already 

 drawn for the erection of a separate chemical laboratory on an 

 adjoining site. I at once urged that these should be set aside 



