NA TURE 



653 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 1921. 



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Scientific Education in the Metropolis. 



AMO.VG the great national problems rendered 

 urgent by the world-war and its conse- 

 quences not the least important are the highly 

 complex questions affecting the scientific instruc- 

 tion of a large body of students who look to 

 London as their educational Mecca. The matter 

 of adjusting the diverse claims of institutions the 

 interests of which appear to clash is rendered 

 more perplexing and delicate by the circumstance 

 that these establishments embody in varying 

 degrees older policies and ideals of teaching from 

 which it is undesirable and, in point of fact, impos- 

 sible to separate the educational aims of the imme- 

 diate future. 



The University of London, founded by Royal 

 Charter in November, 1836, when higher educa- 

 tion of academic standard was a monopoly enjoyed 

 by the older universities, but refused to 

 many persons on the ground of sex or re- 

 ligious belief, represented an immense increase 

 in the facilities for advanced instruction offered 

 not only in the London colleges, but also in 

 several provincial institutions. 



The supplementary Charter of 1858 abolished 

 practically the exclusive connection of the Uni- 

 versity with these affiliated colleges, and threw 

 ojjen the degrees to all who were prepared to 

 undergo the prescribed examinational tests. This 

 far-sighted development, a practical realisation of 

 the high ideal of "la carriirc ouverte aux talents," 

 NO. 2673, VOL. 106] 



rendered the University increasingly the alma 

 mater of the student whose scanty opportunities 

 for self-improvement compelled him to make use 

 of whatever adventitious aids to education were 

 available within his immediate surroundings. 



The University of London Act of 1898, in recog- 

 nising again the principle of an intimate con- 

 nection between the University and the principal 

 teaching establishments of the Metropolis, gave 

 a dual aspect to the work of the University, which 

 henceforward had an internal, as well as an ex- 

 ternal, side to its activities. The dual system is 

 not without difficulties, and at one time it seemed 

 likely that extreme advocates of the internal side 

 would succeed in abolishing the older external 

 side. This step, however, which is less probable 

 now than it was a few years ago, would have 

 extinguished the most characteristic function of 

 the University as an " Imperial institution grant- 

 ing degrees and honours to all comers on condition 

 of examination only." 



It is significant of this Imperial aspect of the 

 University's work that in recent years examina- 

 tional centres have been established in Ireland 

 and Ceylon of which increasing advantage is being 

 taken by the students in those islands. The bene- 

 ficial effect of this policy is too obvious to need 

 emphasis. The young Irish or Ceylonese gradu- 

 ate, subjected as he probably is to the propaganda 

 of a separatist movement, will view this insidious 

 appeal to his insularity from a somewhat different 

 angle after his affiliation with the metropolitan 

 University ; at an impressionable age he will have 

 learnt to think Imperially. 



The teaching institutions offering facilities for 

 graduation on the internal side are the three in- 

 corporated foundations (University, King's, and 

 the Goldsmiths' Colleges), together with other 

 teaching establishments registered as schools of 

 the University. In addition there are the poly- 

 technics, controlled by the London County Coun- 

 cil, which are institutions having recognised 

 teachers, who may arrange their curricula in 

 accordance with the University requirements; 

 students of such courses form an important sec- 

 tion of the internal candidates. 



The Department of Science and Art, which for 

 many years encouraged the study of science by a 

 national system of examinations and scholarships, 

 provided also higher systematic training and 

 laboratory instruction at the Royal College of 

 Science, with which was incorporated the Royal 

 School of Mines. These two Governmental col- 

 leges formed the nucleus of the Imperial College 



