July 14, 192 1] 



NATURE 



611 



separated geographically, but inspired by the 

 same ideals and working for the same increas- 

 ing purpose. This number, it may be observed, 

 has not grown markedly since 1912, when the 

 first congress was held in London; but those who 

 were privileged to attend both congresses must 

 have been impressed by the different conditions, 

 moral and economic, which have arisen during 

 the intervening nine years. Lord Rosebery, in 

 his opening address to the first congress, spoke 

 with eloquence and prevision on the throes of 

 travail which the world was at that time under- 

 going to produce something new to history — 

 ■"something, perhaps, better than anything we 

 have yet known, which it may take long to perfect 

 or to achieve, but which at any rate means a new 

 evolution." Two years later the thunderclap of 

 war burst over the world. Evolution ceded place 

 to a process more catastrophic in both its physical 

 and its spiritual workings. May it not be said 

 that the universities, stunned and hesitating, are 

 still groping their way in the new world which is 

 in slow and tentative formation? 



Assuredly the note of uncertainty was frequently 

 sounded in the papers read at the congress. Prof. 

 Desch, in an address on the place of the humani- 

 ties in the education of men of science, asserted 

 that scientific education to-day lacked the " syn- 

 thetic view " which would harmonise the laws of 

 human society and of the physical universe and 

 life. " Science without sociology is imperfect, 

 but with it the artificial division between scientific 

 and humanistic studies disappears." The relation 

 of the universities to secondary education would 

 appear to be a subject upon which definite con- 

 clusions should by this time have been reached 

 by those who have applied their minds to the 

 problem. Prof. John Burnet, the distinguished 

 classical scholar of St. Andrews, confessed that 

 his chief qualification to act as spokesman on 

 this question, appeared to be that he had failed 

 in rather a conspicuous manner to find a solution 

 which commended itself to anyone in his own 

 country. Universities have been engaged in the 

 training of teachers from their origin, and have 

 for centuries granted to their masters of arts the 

 ]us uhique docendi. But, as Prof. John Adams 

 pointed out, the principle that all teachers should 

 be trained in universities is not yet established, 

 and there is indeed a dangerous tendency for local 

 authorities to train directly their own teachers 

 within their own areas. 



The subject of adult education found eloquent 



exponents in Lord Haldane, Prof. G. H. Leonard, 



NO. 2698, VOL. 107] 



Sir Michael Sadler, and other speakers ; but how 

 vast and inchoate the issues must appear to uni- 

 versities harassed, almost overwhelmed, in the 

 discharge of their immediate obligations ! If there 

 is one lesson enforced by the war, it is the danger 

 of neglecting the applications of science. We find 

 ourselves, as Prof. Smithells pointed out in a 

 singularly temperate and closely reasoned address 

 on the universities and technological education, 

 "a people far spent by the cost of victory over a 

 nation of technologists, a nation which had carried 

 to the highest point the training of its people in 

 applying exact science to the mechanical arts of 

 both peace and war." Nevertheless, he was con- 

 strained to raise his voice against the unbridled 

 pursuit of applied science and to direct attention 

 to the restraints under which it should be fostered. 

 The Germans, he admitted, among their excesses 

 of regimentation, had good cause to reconsider 

 their educational plan of isolating seminaries of 

 technology. Technological studies must be given 

 their proper place in our universities as a neces- 

 sary part of the educational organism. 



This line of thought was developed also by Sir 

 Robert Falconer, president of Toronto University, 

 who denounced the conception of a university as 

 a set of public utility schools bundled together 

 by the tie of a common administration. A uni- 

 versity should be an organism with an intellectual 

 and moral spirit giving it unity and life. The 

 discussion on the nationalisation of universities 

 raised the temperature of the congress by a few 

 degrees. It is noteworthy that the idea of nation- 

 alisation has greater terrors at home than in the 

 overseas dominions, some of the representa- 

 tives of which seem disposed to hug their 

 chains. 



We have referred to a few of the questions of 

 university politics and organisation which were 

 discussed at the congress. There are others not 

 less pressing. The relations of the central and 

 local education authorities to university education 

 in this country are still, in a large measure, un- 

 settled. Further, the question of the future supply 

 of university students under existing economic con- 

 ditions gives cause for grave anxiety. In Nature 

 for June 30 we published statistics of students 

 receiving university education, which indicated a 

 total full-time student population for the United 

 Kingdom in 1919-20 of 52,600, of whom nearly 

 17,000 were ex-Service students. Is it not obvi- 

 ous that this net total, assuming it will be main- 

 tained, is entirely inadequate to meet the future 

 needs of our great and extending Empire? 



