226 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. IX 



integrated ; much teaching — and this was especially 

 true of the medical schools — that could have been 

 better done and better paid in a single institution, 

 was split up among several, none of which, perhaps, 

 could offer sufficient inducement to keep the best 

 men permanently. 



The most burning question was, whether these 

 bodies should be united into a new university, with 

 power to grant degrees of its own, or should combine 

 with the existing University of London, so that the 

 latter would become a teaching as well as an examin- 

 ing body. And if so, there was the additional question 

 as to the form which this combination should take — 

 whether federation, for example, or absorption. 



The whole question had been referred to a Royal 

 Commission by the Government of Lord Salisbury. 

 The results were seen in the charter for a Gresham 

 University, embodying the former alternative, and 

 in the introduction into Parliament of a Bill to carry 

 this scheme into effect. But this action had only 

 been promoted by some of the bodies interested, and 

 was strongly opposed by other bodies, as well as by 

 many teachers who were interested in university 

 reform. 



Thus at the end of February, Huxley was invited, 

 as a Governor of University College, to sign a protest 

 against the provisions of the Charter for a Teaching 

 University then before Parliament, especially in so 

 far as it was proposed to establish a second examining 

 body in London. The signatories also begged the 



