NA TURE 



265 



THURSDAY, JULY 27, 1876 



THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER 

 III. 



IN former articles we have come to the conclusion that 

 the higher education of this country ought to 

 be extended, and further, that this cannot be accom- 

 plished by an extension of the powers of the present 

 Universities. The question remains how this can most 

 properly be brought about ? Let us, in the first place, 

 ref>;r to those projects that have already come before 

 the public in a manner more or less definite. To begin 

 with the American system. This is one of nearly abso- 

 lute liberty. A number of men agree together to found 

 an educational establishment, and they obtain, without 

 any difficulty, by application to Government, the power 

 of granting degrees. It can hardly, we think, be said 

 that this system has worked so well in America as to 

 encourage the hope that it may solve the educational 

 difficulties of this country. As a rule American degrees 

 are not highly thought of on this side the Atlantic, and 

 we even question whether many of them command much 

 respect on the other side. The cause of this failure is, 

 we think, to be found in the motives which often induce 

 men to combine together with the view of founding an 

 educational institution. In some cases these are of the 

 most praiseworthy character. The inhabitants of a large 

 and influential district, while they, perhaps, differ from 

 one another in their religious views, are yet convinced of 

 the great importance of the higher education, and agree 

 together to found an institution which is truly unsectarian, 

 and which represents those good things upon which they 

 are all agreed. But in other cases the motives of the 

 promoters have reference not so much to the points on 

 which they agree with the rest of the community as to 

 those in which they differ from it ; and in consequence, 

 the institution founded partakes of a denominational 

 character to a greater or less extent. In the one case the 

 institution succeeds ; the constituency is a large one ; 

 they possess sufficient means, and are enabled to com- 

 mand the services of the most eminent men — chosen 

 only with reference to their acquirements. But, in the 

 other case, the institution is a failure ; the constituency 

 being a limited body, is net possessed of sufficient means, 

 and the field from which they must select their lecturers 

 is limited by this as well as by religious considerations. 

 They are, however, able to obtain a charter, but their 

 degrees are of very little value. 



It cannot be supposed that the British Government 

 will ever consent to the introduction of such a system ; 

 this alternative may, therefore, be dismissed, as we see it 

 has been (very summarily in a foot-note) by the pro- 

 moters of the Owens College scheme. 



The second proposal requires discussion becauue it 

 appears to have commended itself to some of the leading 

 statesmen of this country. It is the scheme for founding 

 one great examining-board or degree-giving body for the 

 entire country to which the various provincial colleges 

 shall be affiliated. This scheme is alluded to in the 

 following terms in the Owens College pamphlet : — 

 " Without dwelling on the experience of such systems 



> Continued from p. 346. 



Vol. XIV.— No. 352 



as that till recently obtaining in France, or contrasting its 

 results with those of systems like the German, it may be 

 remarked that a centraUsation of this description is at the 

 present time, and must long remain, practically impos- 

 sible in England, where neither are Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge likely to surrender their self-government, nor 

 public opinion to require them to do so." 



It is probable that a central board of this nature while 

 confining itself to the province of examination might yet 

 require, unless under exceptional circumstances, the pre- 

 vious training implied in a college education. But even 

 then its faults would be those of the present University 

 of London carried out to their logical climax. At the 

 risk of repeating ourselves we shall again state what we 

 believe to be the faults of such an institution. 



In the first place we have the paramount power — that 

 of granting degrees possessed by a body which does not 

 take the responsibility of itself imparting or seeing im- 

 parted by others a true education in the complete sense 

 of that word. This education may no doubt be imparted 

 by the various colleges, but the degree is given by a body 

 which is virtually ignorant of the previous educational 

 training of its candidates in a moral and social aspect. 



In the next place the degree-examinations, as they are 

 unconnected with any previous class examinations, form 

 only a rough test of the amount of knowledge which each 

 candidate can produce. There is absolutely no attempt 

 to test the quality and excellence of the producing power 

 of each candidate. In fine the moral and social training 

 is not tested, and the intellectual training only imperfectly 

 tested by the central board. - 



Thirdly, and this is a point of the utmost importance, 

 the Calendar of the Central Board must inevitably 

 embody only the best known and most widely diffused 

 results of knowledge — not that which is growing and 

 plastic, but that which has already grown and hardened 

 into shape — the knowledge in fact of a past generation 

 which has become sufficiently well established to be 

 worthy of this species of canonisation. A very powerful 

 inducement is thus offered to the professors of the various 

 colleges to teach their pupils according to this syllabus, 

 and a very powerful discouragement to attempt to alfer 

 it. They may be men of great originality and well quali- 

 fied to extend and amend their respect've spheres of 

 knowledge, but they have no inducement to do so — their 

 interest is to adhere to the syllabus as rigidly as a priest 

 of the Church of Rome adheres to the syllabus of the 

 Pope. 



It is the old and time-honoured custom of killing off 

 the righteous man of the present age in order the more 

 effectually to garnish the sepulchres of his predecessors. 

 Our readers are well aware that the natural philosophy 

 course has changed its character very greatly of late 

 years, and, that for this we are much indebted to Pro- 

 fessors Sir W. Thomson and P. G. Tait. But could these 

 men have done this under the system of a central board ? 

 If they had succeeded it must have been, as Galileo suc- 

 ceeded, against the attempt made by the ruling authorities 

 of his day to stop his voice and strangle his originality. 



The next proposal is a modification of this. It does 

 not propose that the system of the University of London 

 should swallow up all other systems, the impossibility of 

 this consummation (however desirable in itself) being 

 recognised. It rather proposes that the University of 



