NA TURE 



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THURSDAY, JUNE 6, i! 



REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON A 

 UNIVERSITY FOR LONDON. 



THIS Report is a disappointment. The spectacle of 

 three eminent lawyers taking an eminently legal 

 view of a question, and three teachers an educational 

 view, is instructive and amusing, but it is not business. 

 Passing over, for the present, the question how far its 

 conclusions are discredited beforehand, by the dissent, on 

 the material point at issue, of all the Commissioners who 

 have had experience of teaching, we shall consider the 

 principal Report from our own standpoint ; which is that 

 of a complete impartiality as between the University of 

 London, the petitioning Colleges, and the other institutions 

 and interests concerned, and of an earnest desire to see 

 established in London a real University for teaching and 

 research — that is to say, one of which the function is the 

 dissemination and advancement of knowledge, while the 

 examinations are relegated to their proper place, as 

 accessories to study, not fetters on the teaching. 



At first sight the impression is favourable. " The 

 general case for a teaching University is," in the Com- 

 missioners' opinion, " made out." The limitation of its 

 area to London, so far as concerns its teaching functions, 

 is strongly insisted on, and reiterated in several para- 

 graphs. The rejection of a separate University for 

 Medicine is good in itself, and is of good omen, when the 

 position of the two leading Commissioners is cons idered, 

 for a future association with the University of the only 

 possible London School of Law, that of the Inns of 

 Court. The Commissioners have adopted some excellent 

 ideas as to the constitution of Faculties, consisting ex- 

 clusively of actual teachers, and as to the formation 

 from the Faculties of Boards of Studies. They further 

 " think it desirable to give a definite value to the 

 training and teaching which those students will obtain 

 who go through the prescribed courses of constituent 

 colleges and teaching institutions connected with the 

 University," and they formulate certain proposals for their 

 exemption from specified examinations, which at least 

 serve to show that the recognition thus given to the value 

 <)f systematic study under competent guidance is not, 

 in their minds, a purely nominal one. There cannot be 

 a doubt that, if their recommendations were adopted, the 

 administration of the University of London would be 

 improved, and the influence of its examinations upon 

 study, in London at all events, greatly modified for the 

 better. We do not see vvhy, subject to some further con- 

 sideration for the case of students elsewhere than the 

 Commissioners have cared to give, the reforms suggested 

 in the Report should not now be carried out, as it pro- 

 poses, by the independent action of the University of 

 London, with hearty support and approval from the 

 University Colleges, and without in the smallest degree 

 impairing their case for the simultaneous establishment 

 as a separate institution of a real teaching University for 

 London. 



But this, ot course, is not the intention of the Com- 

 missioners. On the contrary, they recommend, in so 

 many terms, that if this reform should take place in the 

 Vol. XL.— No. 1023. 



University of London, "the prayer of University College 

 and King's College be not granted." This obliges us to 

 examine whether the reform in question will insure to us 

 that further benefit to be expected from the establishment 

 of a teaching University which lies apart from any possible 

 good results to follow upon the mere perfecting of the 

 machinery of examinations. Upon this head it is our 

 deliberate judgment that they will fall short of what is 

 needed. It is not the somewhat stinted amount of repre- 

 sentation upon the Senate which is otTered to University 

 College and King's College ; not the representation on a 

 more liberal scale of teachers in the University Colleges 

 and schools, arranged in Faculties for the purpose, upon 

 the same body ; not even the appointment by these 

 Faculties of so-called Boards of Studies, limited to 

 the function of advising the examining body ; nor 

 yet all these concessions taken together, which will 

 transform a general examining body into a teaching 

 University for London, as we understand the term. Far 

 less will such a University be constituted by " con- 

 federating " or "co-ordinating," for examining purposes 

 only, all the " various societies and institutions in London 

 which profess to give advanced teaching," such as, for 

 example, " the Birkbeck Institution, the City of London 

 College, and the Working Men's College." In the Charter 

 of the Victoria University it is expressly provided that the 

 affiliated Colleges shall be, for teaching purposes, efficient. 

 This necessary safeguard has been overlooked by the 

 Commissioners. There remains the recommendation 

 that " the University should have power to teach by pro- 

 fessors and lecturers of its own, attached or unattached to 

 particular Colleges or institutions, and to receive endow- 

 ments for that purpose." Assuming the necessary en- 

 dowment to be forthcoming, the bearing of this proposal 

 depends on its application. If the University Colleges 

 are willing to allow of the " attachment " to them of 

 University professors— that is to say, to allow the 

 University to appoint the leading members of their 

 teaching staff— and if further they permit the University 

 " Boards of Studies " to arrange their prospectuses, then, 

 indeed, the result will be that the Colleges, for teaching 

 purposes, will become merged in the University ; and we 

 shall have, at the expense of the sacrifice of their indi- 

 viduality, and not without considerable violence ,to their 

 traditions, a strong and homogeneous teaching University 

 in London. Otherwise, one of two things will happen : the 

 separate University staff may be a mere peripatetic staff 

 of lecturers, doing what is known as "University exten- 

 sion " work ; or else it will constitute a third University 

 College, with a privileged position, competing with others 

 for their students. In neither of these cases shall we have 

 reaped the characteristic benefit of a teaching University, 

 which is, shortly, the organization of teaching power. 



Thus, on the most careful examination we have been able 

 to give to the proposals of the Report, we are brought to 

 the conclusion that only on one condition — a condition 

 very unlikely to be realized — will they result in giving us a 

 real teaching University for London. In default, we shall 

 have a general examining University as before, but one 

 largely under the control of London teachers. The 

 change will entail a violence to the traditions of the Uni- 

 versity, and perhaps a disparagement of its Imperial posi- 

 tion. The Commissioners, indeed, say : " For other parts 



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