104 



NATURE 



[December 5, 1895 



•so evident that advice to treat, apparently on a footing of 

 •equality, with a section of Convocation would never have 

 Tjeen given to the deputation before him— a section of 

 Convocation, be it remembered, which has rejected the 

 •conciliatory overtures of the Annual Committee of Con- 

 vocation,^ and has made common cause with the irre- 

 concilables in promoting opposition to the scheme. 



The Duke's reply has at least made one point clear. 

 We now know that between the institutions concerned 

 with higher education in London, and the realisation of 

 their wishes, there only stands the opposition of a 

 section of the graduates of the present University. 

 Thus no alternative is left but to deal with the ques- 

 tion again from this point of view. It must not be 

 forgotten that Convocation, in the manner prescribed 

 by the charter, has twice declared in favour of 

 the scheme of Lord Cowper's Commission. But even 

 were the members of Convocation as unanimous in oppo- 

 sition to the scheme as they are divided in opinion as to 

 what measure of support should be accorded it, 

 is it right or just that the organisation of London's 

 •anrivalled facilities for higher education should be de- 

 layed at the instance of a body of graduates of a State 

 institution ? The precedents are all the other way, as in 

 the case of the Queen's University for Ireland, where the 

 hostile vote of its Convocation was set aside by Lord 

 Beaconsfield's Government, and the University re- 

 organised as the Royal University for Ireland. For what 

 is the position ? The University of London, according 

 to the clearly implied opinion, both of Lord Selborne's 

 and Lord Cowper's Commissions, and to the widely-ex- 

 pressed opinion of those outside the University most 

 ■competent to judge on educational matters, does not 

 perform the duties now required of it. Lord Cowper's 

 Commission, in its Report laid down the lines on which 

 the University may be reorganised, so that it can become 

 a Teaching University for London without interference 

 with its present work. The principles of the proposed 

 reconstruction have been accepted by all concerned, as 

 well as by outside opinion, with a degree of approval no 

 less remarkable for its wide extent than for the contrast 

 it affords with the reception accorded to all previous 

 schemes. But this approval is wholly conditional on the 

 reorganisation being effected by legislative authority as 

 recommended in the Report, a requirement so displeasing 

 to a section of Convocation that to secure its 

 -assent to this procedure nothing less is demanded than 

 a right to veto the scheme when arranged by the Statutory 

 Commission, should the "opinion of Convocation as a 

 Avhole," ascertained by voting-papers, be unfavourable to 

 it. Is it not a truly Gilbertian idea that the graduates of a 

 State-created, State-maintained Examining Board should 

 be put in a position to veto the action of the State itself? 

 The War Office clerks might with about as much reason 

 have insisted that the scheme for the reorganisation of 

 the War Office should be submitted to a plebiscite of 

 their body for approval before it appeared in the Orders 

 in Council. 



The misconception which gives the name of University 

 to the examining body at Buriington Gardens extends, 

 perhaps not unnaturally, to the Convocation of its 

 graduates, and mischievous expressions such as the 

 "opinion of Convocation as a whole" find a too ready 

 ■currency. Convocation, if it means anything, means an 

 assemblage for the discussion of matters affecting itself 

 or the body it represents, and, save in the case of the 

 election of members of the Senate, where no useful pur- 

 pose would be served by the public discussion of the 

 merits of the candidates, decisions arrived at in its 

 meetmgs are the decisions of the Convocation of 

 the University. Whatever the opinions of members 



1 Vide Report of the Annual Committee presented to Convocation at its 

 meeting on January 22, 1895. 



absent from the meetings of the Convocation, they 

 have as much weight, or as little as those of mem- 

 bers of Parliament absent from a division, and as the 

 result of the division on Mr. Brodrick's famous motion 

 showed, it is the opinion of the members present, and not 

 that of the House of Commons "as a whole," which 

 determines the fate not only of measures but ministries. 



The necessity for a Teaching University has now be- 

 come a " London question" of the first importance, and is 

 becoming recognised as such by the metropolitan press. 

 Matters obviously cannot be allowed to remain in their 

 present position, and in the fact that he has still to be 

 convinced an incentive will no doubt be found by those 

 in charge of this matter to see that the misconceptions 

 under which the Lord President labours are as far as 

 possible removed. That the true inwardness of the pro- 

 posal to make Convocation the arbiter in this great 

 question is gaining public recognition cannot be doubted 

 when " the small group whose views are represented by 

 Sir John Lubbock, Dr. Collins, and Dr. Napier" is 

 plainly told by the Morning Leader that its attitude is 

 that of Demetrius the silversmith, and by the Star that 

 " no Statutory Commission could for a moment accept 

 such a position " as that proposed for it under the postal 

 veto scheme. The following paragraph from The Times 

 is so much to the point that we gladly give it further 

 publicity : — 



"We are sorry to see that the Duke of Devon- 

 shire speaks almost with bated breath of the 

 reference of the question to a Statutory Commission. It 

 would be ' a somewhat strong proceeding,' he says, to 

 interfere in this way with the rights conferred on the 

 Convocation of the University of London by the charter 

 now in force. We cannot help feeling that this is a 

 rather strange objection in the mouth of a statesman who 

 has taken a leading part in the Liberal legislation of the 

 past quarter of a century. Was it not by Statutory Com- 

 missions that sweeping reforms were introduced in the 

 educational system and even the proprietary rights of 

 the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and their 

 constituent colleges ? Does the Duke of Devon- 

 shire imagine that those reforms would ever have 

 been carried through if it had been left to the 

 Convocation of Oxford or to the Convocation of 

 Cambridge to give or withhold its sanction ? On what 

 ground, rational or sentimental, is an immunity from the 

 reforming hand of Parliament claimed for the University 

 of London which was denied to the historic and national 

 foundations of Oxford and Cambridge? Indeed, the 

 Convocation of the University of London has itself 

 accepted in general terms the principle of the plan 

 embodied in the Report of the Cowper Commission ; but 

 the Duke of Devonshire is probably right in refusing to 

 take this as an absolutely final expression of opinion. 

 The Duke, however, goes further than this. He appears 

 to insist that some additional means should be devised 

 for ascertaining the views of those whom he calls the 

 ' external students.' If unanimity, or anything approach- 

 ing to it, is to be sought for as the result of this inquiry 

 before the reforms unanimously demanded by the friends 

 of higher education in London are initiated, the establish- 

 ment of a Teaching University here, for which educational 

 reformers have been struggling for years, will be sub- 

 stantially relegated to the next generation. This is a 

 lame and impotent conclusion from which we should 

 have thought the practical and positive temper of the 

 Duke of Devonshire would recoil. The Parliamentary 

 difficulties in the way of passing a Bill that meets with 

 any strenuous resistance need not be insisted upon. The 

 present Government, supported by an immense ma.jority, 

 and including so many distinguished statesmen, will find 

 it no hopeless task to overcome such difficulties, especially 

 as the Opposition are committed by Lord Playfair's Bill 



NO. 1362, VOL. 53] 



