248 



NATURE 4£ f.^ [July 16, 189: 



that the jubilee of a firm which has played so prominent 

 a part is an event of interest in the social history of the 

 nineteenth century. Messrs. Cook, by their energy and 

 enthusiasm, have given a powerful stimulus to the 

 popular love of travel ; and they may fairly claim that 

 their establishment ranks to some extent among the in- 

 fluences which are tending to break down international 

 prejudices. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part oj Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. '\ 



The Albert University. 



I DESIRE to associate myself with Prof. Carey Foster and, to 

 a great extent, with Prof. Ray Lankester in the statements 

 made and the opinions expressed by them in your last issue. 

 Present circumstances force me to do so as briefly as possible ; 

 but I should be the less satisfied to keep altogether silent be- 

 cause I had something to do with the drafting of the " Albert " 

 charter in 1887. 



For my part, that draft was never regarded as an effective 

 solution of the problem of a University /^r London. I thought 

 of it only as a handy weapon for forcing the appointment of 

 a Royal Commission, and for shaking the London University 

 Senate out of its happiness in the steady increase of untaught 

 candidates for degrees. 



A Commission ' was extorted ; and it had the impartiality, at 

 least, of ignorance. Its inquiry was short and hurried, yet it 

 learned enough of what had been done for academic organization 

 by the London Colleges, during sixty years, to condemn the 

 sufficiency and self-sufficiency of the London University, That 

 the Commission, notwithstanding, should first give the London 

 University an opportunity of transforming itself for London's 

 good, was natural and proper in all the circumstances. 



We know what followed. The London University Senate 

 was slow, very slow, to move at all towards meeting the London 

 Colleges. But at last it woke up, and then after a time began 

 to display a novel spirit of conciliation. Fifteen months ago, a 

 real accommodation seemed to have been attained between the 

 Councils of the Colleges on the one hand and the University 

 Senate on the other. Even when the Senate thereafter, yielding 

 to an irrelevant clamour from Provincial Colleges, decided to 

 give these also a "direct representation (in the teeth of the Com- 

 mission's instruction and without warning to the London 

 Colleges), I was one of those who here were still willing to try 

 what could be made of the top-heavy and lumbering scheme. 

 But trial there was never to be ; for Convocation, which prob- 

 ably would reject any measure of reform, gathered itself up and 

 made swift end of this one. 



It looks now as if the "Albert University" were straight- 

 way to be upon us instead. I will not inquire into the 

 agencies that have brought this result into such near view. Nor 

 will I in your columns follow up my present and my late col- 

 league's arguments against the prospective creation with others 

 that seem to me of serious import. But I may be allowed 

 to endorse emphatically what Prof. Lankester has said as to the 

 absence of sanction by the professorial body here to the 

 ' ' Albert " draft charter. And nothing could be more to the 

 point than Prof. Foster's observation that the "Albert" 

 scheme has never been submitted to a meeting of the Governors 

 of the College — which means, to the College as a corporate body. 



Prof. Lankester is clearly right in contending that the whole 

 question should now have been, or should still be, referred back 

 to the Commission. I must, however, as a Scot, remark upon 

 his assumption that the Northern Universities are professorially 

 governed— free especially (as he urged in a former letter) from 

 the mischievous lay influence of mere graduates. The fact is, 

 that, ever since 1 860, graduates, in "General Council" and 

 also by direct representation in the " University Court," have 

 not been without voice or influence ; while, by the later reform 

 of the other year, not only is graduate and other lay influence 

 increased, but also the professorial powers of general manage- 

 ment are largely diminished or even (as respects finance, &c. ) 



NO. II 33, VOL. 44] 



abolished. There were more reasons than evidently Prof. 

 Lankester knows of for curtailing the old professorial supremacy 

 in Scotland. But it does not follow that in England, and more 

 especially in London, there should not be a much franker re- 

 cognition of professorial (that is, expert) knowledge of edu- 

 cational ends and means than appears in the "Albert" draft 

 charter. G. Croom Robertson. 



University College, London. 



P.S. — Since these remarks were put in print, a decision of 

 the Privy Council has been announced infavour of an "Albert" 

 (or " Metropolitan ") University. They lose, therefore, most 

 of whatever interest they may have had ; but they may still 

 appear, so far as I am concerned, if the Editor pleases. I regret 

 the decision, and think the promoters of it may yet have reason 

 to wish that their action had been less hurried. At the same 

 time, one may acknowledge the remarkable energy and fertility 

 of resource with which the enterprise has been conducted to its 

 thus far successful issue. — G. C. R. 



Ii<" I may be allowed another word on this subject, I should 

 like to say that, having been all along a keen advocate of the 

 establishing of a strong professorial University in London, not 

 necessarily in slavish imitation of the German system (of which 

 I happen to know something), but combining the main features 

 of its professoriate (of which I think I showed my appreciation 

 in a paper read at Bath in 1888, before Section B of the British 

 Association) with the essential elements of the present University 

 of London, and believing that the draft charter of the Senate, 

 which was presented to Convocation, contained in it the poten- 

 tialities, out of which (with the exercise of a little common-sense 

 to soften down such asperities as might cause friction in its 

 initiatory working, together with a little patience to allow for 

 the time necessary in all evolutionary changes) a strong pro- 

 fessorial University could be developed, I voted for the Senate's 

 scheme, and still think the adverse vote of Convocation the 

 greatest disaster that has befallen the University in the half- 

 century of its existence. 



Of all the bitter things said by Prof. Lankester in his former 

 letter, nothing was more to the point than his sarcastic challenge 

 to the existing University to reform itself, if it can, with the 

 " dead weight of graduates tied round its neck, and called 

 Convocation." But must an institution, which has admittedly 

 done so much good, be swamped because of the accident of a 

 flaw in its constitution ? Is there no power to remove this mill- 

 stone from its neck ? If anything can exceed one's admiration 

 for Prof. Lankester's candour in penning the letter, which 

 appears in Nature this week (July 9, p. 222), it is the 

 satisfaction one must feel at finding that the projected repetition 

 of "federal futility " which is at present in a state of incubation 

 at the Council Office, has no attraction for him. It is to be 

 hoped that the main question will be referred back to the Royal 

 Commission, and that the Commissioners will give such advice 

 to the "powers that be," that the shortsighted decision of 

 Convocation may be overruled, as Prof Lankester has suggested 

 twice over, and that (to use the words spoken to me, the 

 morning after the vote, by a distinguished Oxford'^man, whose 

 academical experience no one could challenge) " the Govern- 

 ment will take up the matter, and pass an Act doing what 

 sensible people wish to see done," by co-ordinating and har- 

 monizing, instead of segregating, the present machinery for higher 

 education in the metropolis, including the great medical schools. 



Prof Karl Pearson's idea of the "fusion " of the two Colleges 

 (see Nature, June 4, p. 102), as distinct from "federation," 

 is splendid in theory ; but will it work ? Can the fluxing 

 material be found, which shall make the iron and the clay inter- 

 fuse without either Gower Street or Somerset House, or both, 

 sacrificing those traditions which are the strongest element in 

 that individuality which each values so highly and both seem so 

 anxious to conserve? A. Irving. 



Wellington College, July 10. 



Name for Resonance. 



Although inadvisable as a rule to correct errors in a report 

 for which one is not responsible, there is one little mistake on 

 p. 238 this week, which, uncorrected, may lead to the extinction 

 of a useful suggestion. 



In discussing the subject of "electric resonance" recently at 

 Cambridge, I found that the term conveyed no correct meaning 



