August 4, 1887] 



NATURE 



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University, if it is to be a teaching university and not merely an 

 examining one, is entirely insufficient. In the next place, the 

 Boards of Studies, the Faculties, and the new members of the 

 governing body, would represent, not London, but all England, 

 and therefore would constitute an organization entirely different 

 from that effective organization which we contemplate, which is 

 to meet often, to take count of teaching-matters in London, and 

 to do a great deal of work in the development of University 

 education in this place. We therefore are obliged to reject these 

 proposals, and to proceed, without any feelings of hostility and 

 without any bitter words towards the University of London, to 

 ask for that which we consider necessary for the effective carrying 

 on of our own work. 



Let us keep clearly before us what a teaching university really 

 is. We need not go farther than this institution to see it, 

 provided only that were added to us which we want — the power 

 to confer degrees. It has not merely to provide for — it has to 

 commend to its students the best possible teaching under the 

 best teachers obtainable in all the subjects of the University. A 

 university which by its very constitution is indifferent to methods 

 of teaching and does not care how a man has obtained his 

 knowledge, cannot be said to commend to its students any 

 particular methods or ways of obtaining that knowledge. It 

 rather has a contrary effect. Under these circumstances it is 

 useless to try to set up an institution which shall combine a 

 mixture of two principles — the principle which considers degrees 

 merely as the marks of a liberal education, tested, no doubt, by 

 an examination, but covering very much more than the mere 

 -liowing of knowledge in examination, and the other, the rival 

 .^yslem, which, giving up the testing of methods of education — 

 giving up the marking of a regular education as beyond its scope 

 — confines itself to the setting of a mark upon performance in 

 the answering of examination-papers. 



No, gentlemen, if the University of London were to move in 

 this direction, it would spoil its own thoroughly good and honest 

 work without doing ours. There will still remain when we have 

 obtained this Charter, plenty of candidates for its degrees — 

 plenty of work for it to do — plenty of honour to those who 

 obtain them. But surely there is room for us by the side of it. 

 There is room for an institution which shall comprise not 

 merely this College, but King's College and the Medical Schools 

 of London, and which, organizing them together as a Teaching 

 University, shall give us that which we want for the efficiency 

 of our work — an institution in which the teaching which we give 

 is duly honoured — is not placed in an inferior position beside 

 the teaching which is given by other universities and in other 

 university colleges. 



We ask, therefore, that a Charter to confer degrees upon all 

 persons who have undergone a regular course of study in a 

 college or medical school of the University and have passed the 

 required examinations, shall be granted to a suitable governing 

 body, upon which the governing bodies of this College and of 

 King's College shall be properly represented, and upon which 

 the teaching s'aff not merely of this College and of King's 

 College, but also of the other Medical Schools of London, shall 

 have their representatives. In order that the interests of the 

 medical profession may be properly considered— in order that 

 we may not seem to claim that which it is by no means our in- 

 tention to claim — an unfair position for our own medical schools, 

 we ask an alliance with the Royal College of Physicians and the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, the official representatives of the 

 medical profession in London, in order that by their means that 

 representation may be secured upon the governing body of the 

 University. It is obvious that from their number it would be 

 difficult to represent directly the separate interests of eleven 

 medical schools upon the governing body of a University ; but, 

 in so far as the teachers of the various schools have their voice — 

 and that voice, I can assure you, we do not intend should be a 

 small one, in the councils of the University— in so far, we shall 

 consider the teachers of other medical schools entitled to rank 

 on equal terms with our own. . , . 



There is a movement at present on foot in the College of 

 Physicians for a single-facultied University in London, or an in- 

 stitution in the nature of a University, for conferring medical 

 degrees alone. That movement appears to us to be a part of 

 our movement. By itself, and if the movers insist upon its 

 being considered as essentially a separate movement, we could 

 not look upon it with approval ; for we believe that it would be 

 fktal to the pro'-perity of our medical school. I will put it to 

 you, gentlemen, How would you, the students in this College, 



regard a state of things under which you were called upon to- 

 work for a degree, either at the University of London at Burling- 

 ton House, or at the Royal College of Physicians? If it were 

 the case, as seems to be indicated, that the degree at Burlington 

 House is to be connected with a very high, a somewhat un- 

 usually high, standard, and if the degree which is contemplated 

 by the College of Physicians is to be that creditable average 

 degree which I have indicated as one which, personally, I think 

 ought to be established, do you not see that those medical 

 schools, which like our own, aim at the highest teaching, would 

 have serious difficulties in the matter? Here would be two 

 systems in neither of which we had the least voice, two systems 

 of examining Universities outside us competing for our students ; 

 and what would our Professors do ? They would be called upon, 

 now to train for one system and now for another, and perhaps 

 to keep up double sets of classes, so constituted as to fit the 

 arrangements of two rival bodies. 



That is the position in which we should be placed. But if the 

 movement on the part of the Royal College of Physicians (the 

 Royal College of Surgeons joining in it) can be brought into 

 accord with our own, then we shall have already obtained a part 

 of what we seek. I will just mention one reason why I think it 

 most desirable that you, the members of the medical profession, 

 should take this matter seriously into consideration, and should 

 exercise your influence with your colleagues in other institutions, 

 in order that this point may be pressed home to them at the 

 present stage. The visit which it was recently my duty to pay 

 to the Privy Council Office, in order to obtain the forms neces- 

 sary for carrying out our own proposals, revealed to me the fact 

 that there exists already in that office a pile of petitions as high 

 as this table against the proposal of the Royal College of 

 Physicians. Now, gentlemen, against our-i^roposals there is 

 no petition and there is no movement. So far as I know, 

 there is no objection in the world. 



We do not conceal from ourselves that it is possible opposition 

 may be offered as we goon. That oppositi/n which above all 

 others we should deprecate would be the opposition of the 

 University of London. I have endeavoured to preserve a tone 

 of friendship, such as I sincerely feel, towards that University. 

 I most earnestly deprecate opposition on the part of that dis- 

 tinguished body to the movement which is now on foot for 

 obtaining a University in and for London such as London ought 

 to have. I trust it will not be led into the fatal track of the 

 older Universities, which, by their interference, did not prevent, 

 indeed, the foundation of the University of London, but un- 

 doubtedly spoiled it, fifty years ago. That such opposition 

 may be apprehended by some of us we cannot ignore in consi- 

 deration of the veiy serious matter to which I have lastly to call 

 attention, the resignation, na uely, of our President and of several 

 members of the Council among us. Gentlemen, that these re- 

 signations have been to some extent a surprise to us, that they 

 have been a serious cause of anxiety to us, must be obvious ; but 

 I think that they have been partly due to a misunderstanding of 

 our aims. I think that the objections which have led to them 

 will, to a large extent, vanish when our proposals come to be 

 more carefully looked into. In the meantime, as for us who 

 remain, we are not disheartened, we are not discouraged. We 

 have at least the satisfaction, such as it is, that the Council of 

 this College is now unanimous in the matter. We have the 

 source of satisfaction which is afforded to us by the unanimous 

 support of the general meeting of the College. We have at our 

 backs the unanimous support of our distinguished body of Pro- 

 fessors. We have at our side the unanimous assistance of the 

 great College once our rival, but now our cordial ally. Besides 

 King's College we have friends in every medical school in Lon- 

 don, who are corresponding with us and working in the same 

 direction as ourselves. We have friends and well-wishers, I may 

 say further, in every University in England. We have friends 

 in the Press, and we have supporters in the public, and we have 

 received the most encouraging intimations that it will not be 

 long before we are able to fill our depleted ranks in the Council 

 with names which will inspire confidence, and which will mate- 

 rially assist us in carrying our work to a conclusion. 



Finally, gentlemen, we have this more than any other as a 

 source of encouragement — that we see our way — that we know 

 the work that has to be done and realize the way in which we 

 hope to effect it. Three years of study and perhaps scores of 

 meetings and conferences have not left us entirely ignorant of 

 the ground. We intend to make this institution greater, more 

 splendid, more efficient, than it has been hitherto, and we expect 



