104 



NATURE 



[June 4, 1891 



8. The suspension of the power to grant medical degrees 

 until such time as the Senate of the new University shall have 

 satisfied the Lord President of the Council that an agreement 

 has been reached with the Royal Colleges and the chief London 

 Medical Schools as to the terms on which medical degrees shall 

 be granted. 



9. Providing, on the repeal of the Acts of Incorporation of 

 University and King's Colleges which would accompany the 

 granting of the new Charter, special regulations for the control 

 of certain portions of the endowments or of certain branches of 

 the College teaching, which it may not seem possible or advisable 

 at present to hand over without special conditions to the manage- 

 ment of the new Senate. For example, the Department of 

 Divinity at King's College. 



10. Paying due regard to the pecuniary interests of existing 

 teachers (many of whom depend entirely upon students' fees) in 

 the appointment of future University professors or readers. 



11. Offering those professors of the existing Colleges, who 

 might be willing to surrender the title of College professor, 

 that of University reader, but not creating the occupants of 

 chair* in any of the existing Colleges ipso facto professors in the 

 new University. 



In this mere sketch I have said nothing as to how faculties and 

 boards of study might be constituted or as to how the University 

 should grant degrees, for these seem to me "academical " prob- 

 lems, i.e. problems to be thrashed out by the University itself when 

 it is once incorporated. Objection will be taken to much of 

 the above by many individuals, but I believe it foreshadows the 

 direction in which the only scheme at present under discussion 

 must be modified if it is to lead to the ultimate establishment of 

 a great teaching University in London, and not to a mere 

 organization of teachers for examination purposes. 



Karl Pearson. 



It seems to me that the force of the arguments of Profs. 

 Lankester and Ramsay in last week's Nature (May 28, pp. 76, 

 78), so far as they harmonize with each other, would have to be 

 admitted, if the main object of a University were to foster that 

 premature specialism, which, under the scholarship sj stem, -has 

 already wrought great mischief to real education in this country, 

 or to increase as far as possible the number of clever but half- 

 educated specialists, with whicli a close acquaintance with any 

 of the great scientific societies makes one only too familiar. 

 The example of this has been well ^et by at least one of the 

 great metropolitan day schools. The fatal weakness of the 

 arguaients referred to is that they ignore, as no University ought 

 to do, the claims of general education. If the advancement of 

 scientific research is really desired by University and King's 

 Colleges, all they have to do is to institute on their own account 

 a diploma of the nature of the Associaleship of the Royal School 

 of Mines or College oi Science, and make the training for it so 

 good and thorough that the possessors of such a diploma shall 

 be such a desideratum in those "commercial" quarteis to which 

 Prof. Ramsay appeals as a sort of final authority, that they shall 

 drive such creatures as B.Sc.'s out of the field. Special brain- 

 power, highly developed, is no doubt a splendid thing in its 

 way, and recognition of it in the field of science is fully provided 

 for in the B.Sc. honours, and in the ultimate D.Sc. degree ; but, 

 in considering the terms on which a degree should be given, 

 general education and culture cannot be left out of account. In 

 Germany something of the sort is guaranteed by the examinations 

 which have to be passed on leaving the gymnasium (or high 

 school) before students proceed to the University to specialize ; 

 in England it has been found necessary to institute the matricula- 

 tion examination. That need, however, is no longer so impera- 

 tive as it was ; and for my own part 1 sec no real objection to 

 the "leaving certificate" of the Oxford and Cambridge Ex- 

 amining Board being accepted in lieu thereof; for I speak of 

 what I know, when 1 say that this carries with it a guarantee of 

 as much education and culture as the Matriculation Examination 

 does, and often a great deal more. I would only stipulate that 

 it should include one modern language and one branch of 

 science. 



Prof. Ramsay has over-ridden his horse, by the emphatic 

 preference he gives to a German de^iree. He is a comparatively 

 young man ; but some of us (who are not yet quite senile) can 

 remember the time when the facilities for obtaining the German 

 Ph.D. degree were such (they are such to this day in America) 

 that the degree became a by- word and a reproach, and still 



NO. II 2 7, VOL. 44] 



carries with it suspicions altogether disadvantageous to those 

 who have taken the genuine degree in Germany. This is surely 

 a warning against the multiplication of small Universities in this 

 country. Again, if the time-honoured Universities of Oxford 

 and Cambridge are not proof against the temptation to swell 

 the contents of the University chest by accepting fees for the 

 silken degree of M.A., which in the eyes of the vulgus is sup- 

 posed to represent higher intellectual attainments than the B.A., 

 can we expect greater virtue in a small and brand-new Univer- 

 sity struggling to " make both ends meet "? Were any further 

 illustration required of the way things would be likely to drift 

 with small and independent degree-granting corporations, we 

 might find it in the readiness with which the authorities of King's 

 College threw over Latin two years ago in the mercantile de- 

 partment of their school (then in a state of depression), at the 

 mere bidding of the Chambers of Commerce, although its. re- 

 tention had been advocated by two leading scientific men. The 

 really inspiring motive of this agitation is, I think, astutely kept 

 in the background. A, Irving. 



Wellington College, Berks, June I. 



One of the taunts most frequently levelled at the London 

 University — or "Burlington Gardens," to use Prof. Lankester's 

 favourite expression — by certain professors of University College 

 and other advocates of a " teaching University in and for Lon- 

 don " is, that the present University is a " mere examining 

 board." The University has, it is true, a Brown Professor of 

 Physiology and Pathology, who delivers annually a course of 

 lectvires relating to the studies and researches carried on at the 

 Brown Institution. But this professorship is an exception, 

 though the University, by accepting the Brown Trust, showed 

 clearly enough that it did not recognize any obligation to abstain 

 from appointing University Professors and Lecturers. We have 

 been previously told that there was a "tacit understanding " at 

 the foundation of the University that this should not be done. 

 But Prof. Ray Lankester goes far beyond the assertion of a 

 " tacit understanding." He talks of " pledges " given by the 

 founders of the University being " falsified," and " most solemn 

 obligations" violated — terrible crimes, which, however, have 

 been committed already by the appointment of the Brown Pro- 

 fessor. But how such "obligations" and "pledges," or even 

 a " tacit understanding," could ever have existed, I fail alto- 

 gether to see, for it was the expressed intention of the founders 

 of the University that its powers and privileges should be the 

 same as those of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 

 Testimony as to this pledge may be found in the evidence given 

 before the recent Commission. The late Dr. Carpenter's view 

 of this matter was stated by Mr. Dickins in his communication 

 to Nature. Convocation has, years ago, voted in favour of 

 the establishment of University Professorships and Lecture- 

 ships, though I do not in the least believe that the graduates 

 would sanction any proposal involving that the University 

 should prepare candidates for its examinations, or compete with 

 the ordinary work of the Professors in University College and 

 other similar institutions. Whether research is or is not carried 

 on successfully at University College is a matter on which I 

 express no opinion. But, however this may be, it should be 

 remembered that the students of this College have become only 

 a small fraction of the candidates for London degrees. It would 

 be, it seems to me, in the public interest that the University 

 should make provision for the encouragement and reward of 

 those among the great majority of its members who show a 

 capacity for research and a power to extend the boundaries of 

 knowledge. That the University has only one solitary Professor 

 is due, I believe, in great measure to the narrowminded and 

 unwise jealousy of University College, and to the fear lest some 

 endowments should chance to be diverted to the University. 



Prof. Lankester abandons altogether the scheme set forth in 

 the Draft Charter of the "Albert University of London." This 

 Charter proposed the establishment of a University whose range 

 of activity should extend over colleges or other institutions in an 

 area with a diameter of thirty miles. Prof. Lankester's ideal 

 University, which would still be federal, is to consist only of 

 University and King's Colleges. These institutions have not as 

 yet shown any disposition to amalgamate the one with the 

 other, and such a disposition is not likely to arise. They are, 

 in fact, founded on distinct principles. The motto of the one, 

 if I recollect rightly, is Cuncti adsint and of the other Sancte et 

 sapienter. Some time ago I heard of a Society of University 



