330 



NATURE 



\_AugMst 4, 1887 



Having referred to the drawbacks connected with "the 

 system of separation between institution and institution concern- 

 ing University matters ■' in London, Sir George Young went on 

 to say : — 



I will touch upon some of these drawbacks— drawbacks which, 

 as I have said, 1 do not impute as matters of fault to any man or 

 to any set of men, but to the mischiefs of the system ; and I will 

 draw my instances (and you are to consider that I could give you 

 many others), as in duty bound upon this occasion, from the 

 medical side of the question. 



Well, gentlemen, in the first place we are brought face to face 

 with a very serious and very unpleasant condition of things in the 

 fact that several of our students, we find, are in the habit of 

 leaving us from time to time in order to finish their course of 

 study at other institutions where degrees are conferred, in order 

 to qualify for those degrees. We have always been, as Broke 

 said of the S/ia/mon, "an unassuming ship," and I am not going 

 to boast. Let us admit that there may be elsewhere teachers as 

 eminent as those I see around me. Let us admit that there may 

 be elsewhere possibiHtiesof study comparable to those which are 

 to be obtained in this place. But I will not admit — it is my duty 

 to deny, and the point is conceded by others outside our limits 

 — that there is anywhere a more eminent body of professors and 

 instructors than that which has now, for two generations, led the 

 van in matters of medical instruction of a university kind in this 

 College. I will not admit that there is anywhere, in any part of 

 the world, a field of study presenting greater opportunities to 

 the student than that of London with its numerous medical schools, 

 and with its numerous facilities for scientific study. 



Next let me mention an evil, for which the University of 

 London is not responsible — for which nothing, indeed, can be 

 said to be responsible except the non-existence of that university 

 which the University of London is not. Not only are medical 

 schools, as we know well, dependent upon hospitals, but also, 

 what is not so generally known to the public, ho-pitals are 

 dependent for their administration upon medical schools. As 

 London has spread and as one general hospital after another has 

 been founded, each has attached to itself its own separate medical 

 school. Each school must provide, in order to satisfy profes- 

 sional requirements, not merely that clinical teaching for the 

 sake of which it is founded, but also scientific teaching of a 

 multifarious and expensive character. In some of these schools, 

 as is well known, it has been found impossible to provide this 

 scientific teaching in a manner sufirciently effective for the pur- 

 poses of the school. There need be no delicacy, gentlemen, in 

 mentioning this, because, in fact, it has been most honourably 

 acknowledged by several of these medical schools in their recent 

 action. It was lately brought to our notice that in the case of 

 several of them, they have practically, in some branches, given 

 up the scientific training of their students, and have entered into 

 an arrangement with the Government school at Kensington, by 

 which their students should there receive that teaching which 

 they found themselves unable to give. Well, gentlemen, at the 

 Council of this College we had something to say — we had some 

 objection to take — to that arrangement. With that I need not 

 trouble you further than to say that we thought a Government 

 department ought not to lend itself to an exclusive arrangement 

 of this kind. We thought that it would have been better for the 

 students themselves and for the public if the matter had been 

 left open whether they should go to South Kensington for their 

 chemistry and physiology, or come, if they so preferred it, to 

 ourselves. But at the same time, gentlemen, you must not 

 consider me in this matter to be impeaching the conduct of 

 the other schoo's. As men of the world, we are quite aware 

 that medical schools are to a certain extent rivals, and we 

 cannot expect, merely because we asked it, that the natural 

 jealousies of rivals should be allayed., and that a medical school 

 in so delicate a matter should freely accept our offers of instruc- 

 tion for its students who, they might suppose, would perhaps be 

 detached from their affection for their own school by frequenting 

 this place. Well, gentlemen, what is the remedy that we should 

 look to ? I think that you will agree that we ought not, as a 

 Council, to sit down and seek no remedy for such a state of 

 things as this. Why, surely the remedy is that some central 

 authority should be provided — some institution where we can 

 meet our sister schools upon equal terms, not that wholesome 

 ernulations should be extinguished, but that the mischiefs which 

 arise from their excess should be obviated, where, in fact, 

 teachers and administrators might meet together for the purpose 



of arranging for improvements in medical education upon a 

 common footing and without fear of mutual injury. 



This, among other instances of the same kind, many of which 

 I could give you, led some of us, as much as three years ago, 

 into a long inquiry into the matter, and eventually into a move- 

 ment for the foundation of a Teaching University in and for 

 London. The year before last, at the meeting of the sister 

 Faculties, the Dean of the Faculty of Science, Prof. Graham 

 (whom, I hope, we shall see before long among us restored to 

 health), called our attention to the movement and expressed his 

 sympathy with it on the part of the Faculty. The President 

 of the College, Lord Kimberley, expressed also his warm sym- 

 pathy with the movement, and said (I am quoting his words, 

 which will be found in the Report of the College of that date) : — 

 " There is nothing more dissati-fying to the minds of students 

 and of educational men, than that in this great city there should 

 not be some more complete establishment of some universal 

 system. We may not see it accomplished. I do not suppose 

 that anyone sees at present how the end is to be attained, but 

 I am quite certain that it would be for the benefit of all the 

 institutions of this great city that they should be gathered together 

 and the teachers and managers brought into a close and imme- 

 diate contact." With that encouragement we, many of us, took 

 up the movement warmly, and it has now been brought to the 

 practical stage of definite proposals and of a formal programme. 

 We ask, in short, that the same privilege which has already been 

 conceded to country colleges through the Victoria University 

 shall be conceded also to us in London. Gentlemen, we cannot 

 go to Manchester. We cannot so far ignore our position and 

 our history as to seek for admittance from the offspring of our 

 offspring. Besides, we ought not to be compelled to go to 

 Manchester. The system of the Victoria University, as I have 

 indicated, is that of an imperfect university, arising from its 

 being scattered over several cities at great distances from each 

 other. There is within our reach the more complete system of 

 a localized university ; for who will have the face to say that 

 in this great population of something like four millions residing 

 within limits admitting of daily intercourse there is not material 

 enough — there is not ground enough — to support a local teaching 

 university of its own ? 



There were working with us for a long time, in the course of 

 this inquiry, several active members of the Convocation of the 

 University who had themselves been interested in similar move- 

 ments, and who desired to see the development of that University 

 in the direction to which our hopes and wishes also pointed. 

 By their exertions, and as a consequence of our movement, the 

 Convocation and the Senate of the University of London have 

 been brought separately to consider this matter, and have put 

 forward from time to time certain proposals for what I must call 

 a compromise. Those proposals have been officially communi- 

 cated to us through our President, and have been, I need not 

 say, carefully considered by the Council. They do not amount 

 to that which we desire. They did not cover that which we 

 claim. They are limited to this : in the first place, that there 

 should be introduced in the Senate of the London University 

 eight representatives of the four Faculties of the University — 

 two to each — such representatives to be chosen by assemblies of 

 the Faculties, and the assemblies of the Faculties to consist of 

 representatives of the institutions throughout England which 

 send up candidates to the University. There is also a provision 

 for Boards of Studies to be constituted out of these same Facul- 

 ties to exercise purely consultative and deliberative functions. I 

 think that is all — all, that is to say, of a practical character. 

 There is no doubt — and it is an important matter considered 

 from the point of view of our argument — a proposal that in the 

 preamble, in the objects of the University, there should be in- 

 cluded a statement, that its purpose is to encourage education, 

 especially in London ; and there is also a proposal that as time 

 and opportunity are given, it shall have power to found Profes- 

 sorships, provided that such Professorships shall not compete 

 unfairly with our own. But, passing over these two latter pro- 

 posals as not exactly of a practical character, I say that the 

 proposal to admit eight gentlemen, representatives of assemblies 

 the constitution of which is not very clear to me, upon the Senate 

 of the University, and to appoint these Boards of Studies com- 

 posed of representatives so gathered from all parts of England, 

 is not what we want. It does not meet our views ; and for 

 several reasons. 



In the first place, the representation which would be given to 

 this College on such a system in the governing body of the 



