NA TURE 



361 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1921. 



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University Grants. 



THE governing bodies and teaching staffs of 

 the universities will view with dismay the 

 proposal of the Lords Commissioners of H.M. 

 Treasury to reduce the annual grant-in-aid of 

 university education from 1,500,000/., at which it 

 stands in the current year, to 1,200,000/. for the 

 coming financial year 1922-23. 



It will be recalled that in the Estimate^ for 

 1921-22 a sum of 500,000/. was added to the 

 annual grant, which at that time stood at one 

 million. Of this 500,000/. it appears that 200,000/. 

 has already been allocated in the form of annual 

 grants to the various institutions participating in 

 Parliamentary grant, while it is presumed that 

 the remaining 300,000/. has been, or will be, avail- 

 able for non-recurrent allocation. On some such 

 assumption it is explainable how the sum of 

 1,200,000/. has been arrived at. If the reduction 

 of 300,000/. is agreed to by Parliament there will 

 be in consequence no addition in the coming 

 financial year to the annual grants now paid to 

 these institutions, and obviously no non-recurrent 

 allocation. 



In the light of these statements it is important 

 to review the question of university grants. Two 

 facts are clear : (i) When Parliament voted the 

 additional annual grant of half a million last 

 session it did so on the ground of necessary and 

 essential expenditure — this was made perfectly 

 clear by Sir Philip Magnus and others in the 

 debate on the Estimates; and (2) the governing 

 bodies and teaching staffs of the universities 

 assumed, and with perfect justification, that the 

 grant, voted as an annual grant, would be dis- 

 NO. 2716, VOL. 108] 



bursed as such. That only 200,000/. was allocated, 

 as annual grant and the rest as a non-recurrent 

 allocation — 4 principle which, whatever its good 

 points, is open to serious criticism — does not make, 

 the assumption less justifiable. .\ccordingly it 

 was perfectlv legitimate for the universities to 

 make their plans in the belief that the 300,000/. 

 would be available in succeeding years. The with- 

 drawal will mean that these institutions will be 

 let down and let down badly. One can readily 

 understand why, at the recent opening of a bazaar 

 to raise funds for Manchester L^niversity, "this 

 grave fact was a subject of pained comment " by 

 the vice-chancellor. " Comment " characterised 

 by quite a different word from "pained" would 

 not have surprised us. Sir H. A. Miers must have 

 exercised great restraint on that occasion. 



If the additional grant of 500,000/. is necessary 

 and essential for the current year, what is the 

 reason for the proposed withdrawal of three-fifths 

 of it for next year? Is it less necessary or essential 

 then, or is there some other reason? The plea of 

 national economy cannot be justified. Very little 

 consideration will show that to curtail the range 

 of university education or to limit its possibilities 

 is to curtail and limit the progress of civilisation, 

 whether in things of the spirit or in the organisa- 

 tion and development of science as applied to com- 

 merce and industry. It is a short-sighted policy 

 and one fraught with sinister import if the highest 

 institutions of learning in the country are allowed 

 to flounder in a morass of financial difficulties. It 

 is certainly economy, but economy of a peculiar 

 kind; it is the economy which leads to spiritual 

 and material bankruptcy. 



Let us examine the question a little more closely. 

 Last February the University Grants Committee 

 reported in no doubtful terms upon the clamant 

 needs of the universities, and in particular upon 

 the emoluments of university teachers. The report 

 stated that the salaries were still below the mini- 

 mum necessitated by economic conditions, and 

 that the committee was satisfied that unless 

 further substantial improvement was made the 

 efficiency of university education would be seri- 

 ously endangered. It went on to say that "the 

 best men and women would neither enter nor con- 

 tinue in the profession at the rate of salaries then 

 within the competence of the authorities to offer, 

 nor could a teacher under the perpetual shadow of 

 financial anxieties give his best to the work of 

 instruction and research." This statement, strong 

 as it is, has been amply confirmed by the diffi- 

 culties which various departments in the universi- 



