NOTES 5*3 



man, to leave it abruptly with some anger in his heart and 

 without ever having entered the beautiful temple within. 



Bristol University 



We learn with regret, which will be shared by all well- 

 wishers of our modern civic universities, that at the annual 

 meeting of the Court of Bristol University held on November 13 

 last no steps were taken to institute the reforms in the govern- 

 ment of the University required by public opinion, or to render 

 impossible the recurrence of those administrative irregularities 

 so severely censured in a report published some months ago 

 over names well known in the academic world, in the columns 

 of the Athenaeum. A meeting of Convocation of the University 

 had been called for November 5, but unfortunately the thirty 

 graduates required to form a quorum did not attend ; and for 

 the third time successively, and from the same cause, Convoca- 

 tion failed to fulfil the statutory duties. 



The continued neglect of the Court to deal with the question 

 of reform so urgently demanded in academic quarters, and the 

 seeming indifference (for which, no doubt, an adequate explana- 

 tion would not be far to seek) of graduates to the affairs and 

 fortunes of the University are of grave augury for the future of 

 it ; and go far to establish the case of the reformers within the 

 University who have so long contended that the Court, a body 

 in which the members of Council form a numerous and powerful 

 section, is unable to protect the interests of the University, and 

 to exercise a salutary supervision over the Council, which is in 

 name, but only in name, subordinate to the Court. Convocation, 

 it has been said, has at times raised its voice but has not 

 been in a position to intervene in affairs effectually. In short, 

 it would appear that the safeguards designed by Charter and 

 Statutes to prevent or remedy abuses in the government of the 

 University are inoperative; or, in other words, that the Con- 

 stitution provides no adequate machinery to ensure a sound 

 administration of the University or to remedy abuses when 

 they arise. 



The Senate, consisting of the professors, has little right or 

 authority in the management of the University, though con- 

 stituted by the Statutes as an advisory body to Council in 

 academic matters ; and indeed it is impossible that a body 

 whose members hold office by the precarious tenure of the 

 34 



