426 
THE PROBLEM OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
LONDON. 
K Fe University of London problem is still un- 
solved. Within the memory of most of us 
there have been three Royal Commissions on 
the University, and some of us are beginning to 
think that the problem is insoluble. 
It will be remembered that the present consti- 
tution of the University was based upon the 
report of the Gresham Commission in 1891. The 
recommendations of the Gresham Commission 
were not adopted fully and completely, but, from 
many important points of view, were modified 
by the terms embodied in the schedule to the 
Act of 1898. The Act of 1898, under which the 
University now works, and under which it became 
a teaching as well as an examining university, was 
frankly a compromise, and few who were intim- 
ately connected with university organisation anti- 
cipated that the compromise afforded a lasting, 
much less a permanent, solution. 
The 1898 Act took effect in 1900, so that the 
University has been working under its present 
constitution for a period of thirteen years. It 
started on its new career as a teaching university 
with a list of “recognised” teachers that had 
been drawn up for it by the Statutory Commis- 
sion. It had no real control over teaching, nor 
did it own or possess any teaching institution. 
It was not until 1907 that the University be- 
came in any real sense of the word a “teaching 
university.” This was brought about by the 
incorporation of University College. In order to 
aid and promote the aims of the reconstituted 
University, the old corporation of University 
College agreed to be dissolved, and to transfer its 
powers and property to the Senate of the Uni- 
versity. By this means the University became 
possessed of land, buildings, and educational 
appliances of great value, and acquired a teach- 
ing staff of high distinction, and an academic 
organisation of proved efficiency and honourable 
tradition. 
The step taken by University College was 
followed, so far as circumstances permitted, by 
King’s College, which was incorporated in the 
University two-and-a-half years later. Since that 
time the development of the teaching side of the 
University has been rapid. It would have been 
more rapid, but for the hindrances of the present 
constitution. But for those hindrances, the 
Imperial College of Science and Technology, 
which was constituted about the same time as 
University College was incorporated in the Uni- 
versity, would also, from the first, have been part 
and parcel of the University. As things stand, 
the Imperial College is only linked to the Univer- 
sity by the slightest of all links—that which is 
implied by the style and title of a “school” of the 
University. 
The rapid progress of the organisation of teach- 
ing and research, the desirability of incorporating 
the Imperial College, and the need for a constitu- 
NATURE. 
[DECEMBER II, I993 
the present, led to the appointment of a new 
Royal Commission in 1910. The report of that 
Commission was issued last April. This report 
has been generally acclaimed by educational ex- 
perts as setting forth in an admirable fashion the 
aims and needs of a university placed in a great 
city such as London. € 
‘he report contains detailed suggestions for the 
reconstitution of the University, and at the same 
time suggests far-reaching educational reforms, 
for which it will take many years to prepare. It 
is this blending of proposals that may be im- 
mediately effective with schemes that cannot 
mature for many years to come that makes the 
report leave in some respects a doctrinaire im- 
pression. It appears to us, therefore, that the- 
President of the Board of Education has taken 
the only possible practicable step in the circum- 
stances in appointing a departmental committee 
“to consult the bodies and persons concerned, and 
to recommend the specific arrangements and pro- 
visions which may be immediately adopted.” 
In a recent speech at the Mansion House, the 
Minister for Education laid down the principles 
upon which immediate action might, in his 
opinion, be taken. He has confirmed those 
principles in a letter dated November 12 addressed 
to the vice-chancellor of the University, and pub- 
lished in our issue of November 20. We agree 
with him in the view that the five principles he 
lays down are the essential principles. If they 
were once adopted, the main difficulties that at 
present exist would undoubtedly disappear. Under 
these principies, the supreme governing body of 
the University will be a senate, small in size, 
predominantly lay in composition, and in no way 
representative of special interests. Its supreme 
business will be to guide and direct the high policy 
of the University, especially so far as that is 
affected by finance. It will not be overloaded, 
as the present Senate is, with every imaginable 
detail. A reference to the agenda paper of the 
present Senate will show that it concerns itself 
with everything and anything, from the wages of 
a lift-boy up to the appointment of a university 
professor. 
The composition of the Senate that is proposed 
would only be possible if it were assisted in its 
work by a number of well-organised bodies. 
Among these, the most important are the faculties, 
consisting in the main of the University professors 
and University readers, all of whom in future will 
be appointed by the University Senate. To these 
faculties will be committed very great powers. 
They will, of course, be subject to the general 
control of the Senate, and to the statutes and 
| ordinances existing for the time being. Subject 
to those, the faculties will determine the courses 
of study, the subjects of study for degrees, and 
all the details of educational work. It is clear 
that if the faculties are to do their work effectively 
they must be composed of teachers of the highest 
rank, and those teachers must be able to meet 
frequently and easily. The more directly and 
tion more adapted to university government than , completely those teachers are controlled by the 
NO. 2302, VOL. 92] 
