NOTES 121 



fullest equipment of the most advanced training and research in \-arious 

 branches of science, especially in its application to industry." Its responsi- 

 bilities, growing from day to day, to the industries of the Empire are manifest 

 in its title. From its charter it is clear that it is set to perform real university 

 work of the highest order in science and technology, and, as has been well 

 said, the proposal to raise it to the rank of a university with power to confer 

 degrees in its own subjects is merely a proposal to recognise de jure the 

 status that exists de facto. On the basis only of the pre-war annual expendi- 

 ture, the Imperial College is as large as Manchester University, larger than 

 Liverpool University, much larger than Birmingham and Leeds Universities, 

 half as large again as Sheffield University, and twice as large as Bristol Univer- 

 sity or Durham with Newcastle University. Its claims in science and 

 technology, whether viewed from the range and standard of its subjects 

 or from its equipment, are at least as good as those of any existing univer- 

 sity in Great Britain. 



Not only so, but there is a definite need which the Imperial College is 

 peculiarly marked out to fill, but which it cannot do adequately unless it 

 has the status of a university with the power to confer degrees. A large and 

 increasing number of students from the Colonies and from the Overseas 

 Dominions, after completing their courses in the Colonial or Dominion 

 universities and technical colleges, go to Europe or America to take up what 

 is essentially post-graduate scientific work, especially in its application to 

 industry. The courses of the Imperial College completely satisfy their needs 

 in this direction, better probably than those of any university in the United 

 Kingdom ; but the College, in its present status, cannot give to such Colonial 

 graduates who go through the full post-graduate courses anything more than 

 the College diploma. On the other hand, as has been said, Zurich and some 

 American and German cities have institutes of technology granting degrees. 

 It has already been pointed out that, in the industrial and professional 

 worlds, the university degree is recognised as a hallmark and has a com- 

 mercial value. The consequence is that there is a growing tendency among 

 these Colonial graduates and scientific students to go to America instead of 

 to England, so that they may have a veritable and recognised technological 

 degree, and not a mere diploma, to show for the work they do ; and the 

 Imperial College is thus being starved of a type of student it was deliberately 

 charged, at its foundation, to receive and train. The loss and even the 

 danger to the Empire of such a tendency is obvious. As the Imperial College 

 Overseas Students' Committee say, " The establishment of the Imperial 

 College as a degree-conferring centre of higher technological education would 

 result in the influx of a great number of students from overseas universities, 

 and would thus be the means of developing 9, vast brotherhood of technical 

 men, of immeasurable value to the Empire." On the Imperial College has 

 been cast a special duty to consider imperial, as well as metropolitan, needs. 

 It is obviously hindered in the performance of this duty if the highest award 

 it can give for work of the most advanced character, equivalent to Honours 

 standard in the universities, is a diploma, whereas technological institutes 

 in America, Switzerland, and Germany can grant degrees. 



The objection that it is undesirable to have more than one university 

 in London, will hardly bear strict examination. Greater London, with a 

 population which may be taken as from 7,000,000 to 8,000,000, is rather a 

 nation than a city, a nation as large as Canada, twice as large as Switzer- 

 land, half as large again as Scotland. Is it seriously put forward as an 

 unquestionable axiom that the needs for higher education of such a popu- 

 lation can adequately and best be met by a single university ? New York 

 and Chicago have each two universities, Washington has three, not including 

 the Catholic university ; the West Riding of Yorkshire, with a population 

 of 3,000,000, has two universities, namely those of Leeds and Sheffield; 



