A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



" To the solid ground 

 Of Nature trusts the mind which builds for aye." — WORDSWORTH. 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1892. 



THE UNIVERSITY COMMISSION. 



nPHE University Commission is sitting frequently and 

 has heard witnesses representing nearly every 

 interest and every shade of opinion wrhich have a right 

 to be represented before it. We have no knowledge of 

 the effect which the evidence laid before them has pro- 

 duced upon the minds of the Commissioners ; but we 

 are sure that it must largely depend on the view which 

 they have adopted as to the nature of their duties. They 

 may regard themselves as entrusted with the task of 

 finding the terms on which a heterogeneous crowd of 

 colleges and mechanics' institutes may be huddled to- 

 gether, called a university, and allowed to confer degrees 

 on such conditions as the rivalries of competing institu- 

 tions may permit when tempered by the moderating 

 influence of Crown nominees, county councillors, repre- 

 sentatives of the School Board and of the learned socie- 

 ties, and any other assessors whom fancy may suggest. 

 Such a solution might no doubt secure peace in the 

 sense that, wearied out by long debate and hopeless of a 

 satisfactory 'solution, those who are most nearly inter- 

 ested in the question might at last be compelled to 

 make the best of a bad job. 



This, however, must be urged against it : That almost 

 every teacher of eminence in London, together with a 

 large number of those best qualified to represent the 

 educational views of the provinces, have declared a priori 

 that it would be unsatisfactory. 



The other view which the Commissioners may take is 

 that they are charged with the responsible task of de- 

 fining the ideal system which would best provide for the 

 supply of the higher education in London. That having 

 defined this ideal they are then to proceed to show by 

 what means the closest approximation to it which pre- 

 sent circumstances will allow can be made, and so to 

 fashion the constitution of the University as to ensure 

 in the future a closer approximation still. That this is the 

 wider and more statesmanlike view is beyond question, 

 and we sincerely hope that the Commission will adopt it. 

 NO. I 20 1, VOL. 47] 



We may further hope that they will remember that 

 although the new University should be able and willing 

 to undertake all the multifarious duties which modem 

 Universities have accepted as their own, the provision of ' 

 the highest education and the doing all that in it lies for 

 the advancement of learning must after all be the first 

 and the highest duty of a University worthy of the name. 

 As to the means which would best realize these ideals 

 there cannot be a doubt. The present educational chaos 

 must be reduced to order, the unwholesome rivalry 

 between the London Colleges must be checked. 



On this point Prof. Riicker, in an address recently 

 delivered at the Yorkshire College in Leeds, made some 

 remarks which we cannot do better than quote in full : — 



" The great provincial colleges are grouping them- 

 selves into greater Universities. In the north Manchester, 

 Liverpool, and Leeds have concluded a formal alliance. 

 Negotiations are already in progress for the establish- 

 ment of a similar confederation in Wales. The Midlands 

 will no doubt follow suit. But if these afford, if in 

 particular the north of England affords in the Victoria 

 University, one of the happiest illustrations of the advan- 

 tage of allowing free play to the tendencies which make 

 for union no less than to those which encourage separa- 

 tion, we have, unfortunately, in London a striking instance 

 of the harm which follows if the action of either the one 

 or other is artificially restrained. 



" The northern colleges were indeed happy in that the 

 tendency to union was called into play while they were 

 still in a sufficiently early and plastic stage of their his- 

 tory to yield easily to its influence. In London difficul- 

 ties, which seemed far more serious half a century ago 

 than they do to most of us now, have unfortunately 

 retarded all centralizing action, till the sentiment and 

 traditions which accumulate round institutions that have 

 long moved independently, have enormously increased 

 the inertia which tends to keep them in their separate 

 paths. 



" This is the more unfortunate, as if a new University 

 of London is to be a really great teaching university, 

 the relationsbetween the London colleges must ultimately 

 be closer than those which obtain between Manchester, 

 Liverpool, and Leeds. The principle of recognizing as col- 

 leges of the University institutions for the teaching and 

 managementof which the University is not responsible, has 

 worked and is working admirably in the north of England. 

 It does not follow that it would succeed in London. There 



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