February i, 191 2] 



NATURE 



445 



tionalities, and there are various instructive notes. 

 Stimulation is provided, for example, by the inclusion 

 of some simple pseudo-elliptic integrals, and those 

 who are familiar with Abel's theorem will see frequent 

 traces of its application. Practical ends are served 

 by the inclusion of Simpson's rule and the theory of 

 the planimeter, and a sufficient number of examples 

 for practice is given throughout. 



The actual limits of the table are best seen from 

 the section on definite integrals. Here we have, for 



instance, / ^-"-^ cos ^.rrt^.r, but not \ ■sixw ax.dxlx. From 



his position at Cambridge, Mr. Bromwich has no 

 doubt been able to fix the line at the most appropriate 

 place; in a table of this sort it is not very easy to 

 decide where to stop. G. B. M. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



k[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 • expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] 



The Value of the "External" Degrees of the 

 University of London. 

 It is often the case that a system, whether of Govern- 

 ment or of social custom, passes muster until its short- 

 commgs are brought to light by some specific instance of 

 hardship or mjustice. The reform introduced in the con- 

 ■Stitution and government of the University of London, 

 Sue to the report of the Commissioners of 1898, was devised 

 to remedy alleged shortcomings in the system of awarding 

 degrees on examinations alone; and the "internal" side 

 j>f the University was then constituted, in which the 

 ►eachers were given considerable (but in the opinion of the 

 irriter, insufficient) control over teaching and examinations. 

 In spite of the fact that purely " external " examinations 

 ^.e. exammations in which the teacher takes no part) were 

 unknown, save in London, in China (the system has since 

 Biat time been altered there), and in New Zealand and in 

 India (the latter two countries having copied the system 

 H vogue in the University of London), it was resolved that 

 lis " external " system should be continued ; it has ever 

 lince formed one of the divisions of the University. 

 '. It is a matter of common knowledge that this course 

 has not made either for peace or fdr efficiency ; and at the 

 present moment Lord Haldane's commission is reconsider- 

 ing the whole question of university education in London. 

 ♦ IS rumoured that their decision may involve complete 

 paration of the " internal " and " external " sides of 

 lie university. I wish here to give reasons why the 

 external " side of the university should not be per- 

 etuated, and I base them upon an instance where flagrant 

 iljustice has been done to a late student of University 

 college, Mr. F. P. Burt, whose permission I possess to 

 nake known the facts connected with his candidature for 

 he D.Sc. degree in chemistry. 



^At a meeting which took place some years ago of repre- 

 pntatives of the Sorbonne (the University of Paris) and 

 ' the University of London, I, among others, was asked 

 give a short address. I ventured then to point out that 

 Jt of 100 candidates for an external examination, 25, on 

 1 average, were undoubtedly "passes"; 25, equally in- 

 sputably failures; but as regards the remaining 50 it was 

 i matter of good luck if they passed, or of bad luck if they 

 Uled. I suggested that as an excuse for persistence in 

 system involving such haphazard results the well-known 

 ambling spirit of the English was satisfied; they like to 

 ^ke a risk of the kind. 



My remarks may have been somewhat exaggerated ; I 



VI 11 not insist on the proportions; but it is indubitably 



the case that no proper judgment can be formed on the 



fitness of a candidate to pass which is based solely on the 



verdict of external examiners reading written papers. The 



number of candidates at such examinations is very large ; 



"10 physical strain to the examiner in reading and " mark- 



ig hundreds of papers in a comparatively short time is 



NO. 2205, VOL. 88] 



immense, and with the best will in the world he cannot 

 act tairly. I speak from ample experience, both in London 

 and elsewhere. 



For higher degrees, such as the Doctorate, it is within 

 the discretion of the Senate to appoint examiners ad hoc, 

 for It IS not to be expected that the official examiners shall 

 always be able to form an accurate judgment on the 

 matter of a thesis of a special nature. This, however, the 

 Senate does not always do on the " external " side ; on 

 the " internal " side, the services of a special examiner 

 are rarely, or never, dispensed with. 



While in 1858, when the degrees of the University of 

 London were thrown open to all applicants, solely on an 

 examinational test, with no restrictions (except in the 

 faculty of medicine) as to how they had .acquired their 

 knowledge, some excuse might have been found for this 

 course; but the spread of education, and the existence all 

 over the country of teaching institutions where advanced 

 instruction may be obtained, and in many cases where 

 degrees are awarded, has rendered it practically un- 

 necessary to provide for the " private " student. Indeed, 

 in the faculty of science at least, very few students pre- 

 sent themselves for examination who have not received 

 training at some public institution, and many of them 

 have received degrees elsewhere. 



Mr. F. P. Burt, whom I mentioned before, was a student 

 in University College, Bristol. He subsequently prosecuted 

 a research, begun there, in the laboratories of University 

 College, London. Having completed this research, he sent 

 it to the University as an external student, without having 

 consulted any members of the London staff. My position 

 in connection with him is therefore merely that of an out- 

 side member of the public ; I am in no way responsible 

 for his thesis. 



This thesis was received by the University last spring, 

 and Mr. Burt was informed by the University authorities 

 that it had not been accepted as qualifying for the degree. 

 To those who knew the work, the refusal was so extra- 

 ordinary that I sent copies of the thesis, which dealt with 

 the atomic weights of nitrogen and sulphur, to three 

 gentlemen, one of whom is a member of the International 

 Commission on Atomic Weights, who publish an annual 

 table, printed in all the leading chemical journals, 

 stamped with their authority. It is their function to read 

 and examine critically all the work on the subject done 

 during each year, and to assign a value to it in drawing 

 up their table of these constants. This gentleman, Prof. 

 Ostwald, late of Leipzig, is, it may be taken, particularly 

 qualified to judge of such work as that of Mr. Burt. 

 The second referee was Prof. Th. W. Richards, of Harvard 

 University, well known for his work on atomic weights ; 

 and the third. Prof. Guye, of Geneva, who has special 

 experience of the kind of work done by Mr. Burt, and who 

 is also a leading authority. I now give a translation of 

 Prof. Guye's letter ; he is himself a graduate of Paris : — 



"Geneva, June 22, if)ii. 

 " Sir William Ramsay has railed my attention to the 

 researches of Mr. Burt. I was already acquainted with 

 them, through having followed them closely as they 

 appeared. A fresh study of them has confirmed me in the 

 opinion that they place Mr. Burt among the small number 

 of experimenters capable of carrying out satisfactorily 

 chemical researches of high precision. This opinion is 

 derived from his researches on helium and neon, and on 

 those on sulphide of nitrogen ; they present very great 

 experimental difficulties, which have been admirably sur- 

 mounted, so much so that they form a very important con- 

 tribution to the recent determinations of atomic weights. 

 Work of this kind ought to be greatly encouraged, for it 

 forms a particularly stable foundation in fixing the values 

 of atomic weights. I hold the opinion that the memoir on 

 the ratio of N to S would assuredly be accepted as a thesis 

 for the doctorate in Swiss and in French universities, 



" (Signed) Ph. A. Guye." 



Prof. Ostwald also wrote a letter, of which the follow- - 

 ing is a tr.Tiislation : — 



" Gross Bothen, Saxony. 



" The collected works of Mr. F. P. Burt show him t 

 be an experimenter who knows what to aim at and how tv. 

 arrive at results. He appears to be already sufficiently 

 mature to ix ( upy a position which demands the services 



