May 2 1, 1891] 



NATURE 



53 



language "a qood boy." But when the congratulation of his 

 friends has subsided, the real question arises, what will he do 

 with the tools he has learnt to use ? Here, I think, University 

 work enters upon a new phase, and one, it seems to me, too little 

 regarded — I mean post-graduate study. To control this in any 

 measure by means of examination seems to me in the highest 

 degree absurd. And I must contend that by mr\king original 

 investigation, at any rate for its doctorate'of science, the qualifica- 

 tion for that degree, the University of London has taken a step 

 in advance of many of the older Universities towards destroying 

 the idea that the passing of examinations is the final end of 

 University study. 



A Teaching University. 



I have always found it not a little difficult to understand what 

 those people exactly mean who so strenuously demand a teaching 

 University for London. What Prof. Lankester means, there 

 -can, as is usually the case, be no sort of doubt about ; and this 

 I shall discuss presently. But, as far as I can make out, all other 

 persons seem to think that London University students labour 

 \mder some special disadvantage which undergraduates at 

 Oxford and Cambridge do not experience. Perhaps, then, it 

 may surprise many to be told that there is no essential difference 

 in the two cases. Examining in the two older Universities is in 

 the hands of the University, and is just as much distinct from the 

 teaching in their case as in that of London. I can speak with 

 some positiveness upon this point, for having been for four years 

 an examiner for the Natural Science Tripos at Cambridge, a 

 University with which I have no connection, I found the func- 

 tions I was called upon to perform exactly the same as those I 

 have also fulfilled at Burlington Gardens. In fact, I can see no 

 essential difference between the position of an undergraduate of 

 New College, Oxford, examined for his degree by the local 

 University and an undergraduate of University College, London, 

 examined by the University of the capital. If Oxford and 

 Cambridge are teaching Universities in any intelligible sense of 

 the phrase, then I contend that the University of London is 

 •equally so. 



Prof. Lankester adopts the view of Fichte, who says "that 

 a University is not a place where instruction is given, but an in- 

 stitution for the training of experts in the art of making know- 

 ledge, and that this end is attained by the association of the 

 pupil with his professor in the inquiries which the latter initiates 

 and pursues." Most excellent, and I can imagine nothing more 

 delightful than for some wealthy man to give, say, half a million 

 of money to found such a University in some quiet country town 

 in England, where professor and pupils might labour together, 

 undisturbed by the life and movement of a big city, or the worry 

 of the examinalion-room, for the advancement of knowledge 

 But if such " a seat of learning," in the true sense of the words, 

 could be brought into existence, it would probably be found in 

 practice that the students would be men who had already 

 graduated, i.e. in my view acquired that knowledge of the 

 elements of a subject which is essential to the proper perform- 

 ance of any work in it. A Professor of Biology, for example, 

 would not care to have to teach a pupil at the commencement of 

 a research how to interpret what he saw through the microscope, 

 or how to cut a section. And if we firmly grasp the idea of the 

 non- finality of the graduation course, we get an intelligible dis- 

 tribution of labour amongst the staffs of the older Universities : 

 the college lecturers will prepare men for their degrees ; the 

 professors will guide their maturer studies afterwards. 



While I cannot help thinking that those who advocate the 

 creation of a so-called teaching University in London, have got 

 hold of an idea which they have only imperfectly assimilated, 

 it is still worth while to examine some of the ways in which 

 it might be realized. 



With an adequate endowment a new so-called teaching 

 University might no doubt be established in London. It would 

 have a staff of professors who, we may assume, would be 

 adequately paid. The posts would in that case be no doubt 

 filled with men of distinction and eminence. Would they be 

 able to spend their time, full of enthusiam but free from care, in 

 leading students in the paths of research after Prof. Lankester's 

 ideal ? Not a bit of it. Such an institution would not be very 

 different from a Scotch University, where one of the most dis- 

 tinguished scholars of his age is said to have found his time 

 largely taken up with teaching schoolboys of larger growth the 

 mysteries of Greek irregular verbs. In proportion as the new 

 institution became a success the drudgery would increase and 

 the advantage diminish. The bigger a professor's class the less 



personal contact he can have with his pupils, till at last he has 

 to rely for any influence at all on the stimulus of lecture-room 

 oratory. As Mrs. Garrett-Anderson has, it seems to me, 

 correctly pointed out in the Times, there is very little really to be 

 said in favour of anything like a great central teaching institution 

 for such a city as London. 



The other alternative is to combine University and King's 

 Colleges into a teaching University. But can this be regarded 

 as in any way a statesman-like proposal? Why should two 

 out of many institutions be picked out for University honours? 

 And can anyone really suppose that such a settlement would 

 have any finality about it ? Why, for example, should Bedford 

 College be left out, developing, as it apparently is, in usefulness 

 and activity every day ? Then how can the Royal College of 

 Science at South Kensington be ignored? It is already in 

 popular esteem ranked as a University, and bids fair to become 

 in time in actual fact the great science University of the 

 country. Why, too, ignore the City and Guilds Institute ? It is 

 difficult, then, to believe that a teaching University founded on 

 University and King's Colleges can be regarded as in any way a 

 final solution of the problem. If it is sought in this direction it 

 must be based on a wider federation of institutions of academic 

 rank. But in this case all the teachers will have something to 

 say as to the conditions of common examination. Yet, accord- 

 ing to Prof. Lankester, the essence of a true teaching University 

 idea is the "absence of examiners — the professor himself is 

 examiner and teacher in one." Schedules will nevertheless 

 reproduce themselves, and the influence of colleagues will be 

 quite as much an obstacle to the independence of the individual 

 professor as the oppression of boards of examiners. 



Furthermore, it is quite a mistake to suppose that unless the 

 existing University is abolished, it will be possible for a younger 

 one to escape its influence. Notwithstanding the establishment 

 of the Victoria University, it is still found necessary, and at the 

 request of Owens College, to hold the examinations of the 

 University of London in Manchester. Consequently, the pro- 

 fessors of Owens College have to adapt their teaching to a 

 double curriculum. If the proposed University of Westminster 

 were founded, it cannot be doubted that the same thing would 

 happen. The professors would still have to bow their necks to 

 the yoke of the Burlington Gardens schedules. 



Expansion gf Existing University. 



It may be taken as quite certain that the existing University 

 of London is too well rooted in the esteem of the community to 

 be got rid of. Nor, with its own consent, will it readily submit 

 to be mutilated or dismembered. And its pride and confidence 

 in itself admits of easy justification. With all its demerits it 

 can hardly be denied that it has accomplished a great work in 

 raising the standard, throughout the country, of academic edu- 

 cation. This need not be wondered at, seeing that it has always 

 succeeded in enlisting in its service the most accomplished and 

 distinguished men in every branch of education. If examination 

 is to be conducted at all, I can hardly imagine conditions more 

 favourable to its conduct than the University of London affords. 



Instead of trying to diminish and curtail the usefulness of an 

 institution which has such strong claims on public gratitude, I 

 prefer to make the suggestion — and it is odd that it should have 

 any novelty about it — that the future needs of University educa- 

 tion in London should be provided for by an expansion of the 

 existing University. This has always been the ambition of 

 Convocation, and many, I know, share my own opinion that, 

 if the Senate would have given greater heed to the representa- 

 tions which the former body has from time to time made to it, 

 the present crisis in the history of the University would never 

 have arisen. 



I will briefly indicate the by no means drastic changes by 

 which this might be gradually provided for. 



Organization of the Faculties. 



I am myself personally impressed with the conviction that 

 the first step that should be taken in the interests of the 

 higher education in London, and of those parts of the 

 country which look to London for academic guidance, is the 

 organization of the faculties. Everyone is agreed, whatever 

 view they take on the examination question, that the teaching 

 bodies should be brought into as intimate a relation as possible 

 with the central University. At present there is no recognized 

 channel of communication between them, and it has been long 



NO. I 125, VOL. 44] 



