NATURE 



'45 



THURSDAY, DFXEMBER 18, i! 



A TEACHIXG UNIVERSITY FOR LONDON 



A Ml IVEMENT, which first began to shape itself into 

 form at the Educational Conference at the Health 

 Exhibition, made its first formal public appearance at the 

 house of the Society of Arts on Monday afternoon. The 

 crowd of well-known and much-occupied men with which 

 the room was filled was at least an earnest of something 

 more than a discussion of a mere speculative project ; 

 and the speeches made, though revealing, as might be 

 expected, a considerable diversity in point of view, 

 were listened to with a closeness of attention which indi- 

 cated a pretty confident belief that the movement was not 

 likely to evaporate in mere debate. 



Lord Reay opened the proceedings with an address, 

 which was admirably conceived both in tone and matter. 

 If subsequent speakers scarcely can have been said to 

 have carried on the discussion on the same level, this may- 

 be attributed to the fact that the report submitted to the 

 meeting for adoption by Lord Justice Fry embodied an 

 amount of detailed suggestion which the meeting was 

 naturally not in any way prepared to assimilate without 

 a good deal of consideration. 



Even- one knows that we have in London a body 

 bearing the title of a University. Every one, at least 

 w ho has looked into the matter,knows equally the immense 

 services which this institution has rendered in raising the 

 standard of middle class education. But a L^niversity 

 all the same, in any intelligible sense, it is not. It is 

 essentially nothing more than a Government Department 

 forgiving, after examination, academic certificates. Nor, 

 as Professor Lankester very properly pointed out, is it, any 

 more than the Home Office for example, an institution 

 which, because its head-quarters happen to be in London, 

 is locally identified with the metropolis in the same sense 

 in which the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are 

 identified with the places in which their work is carried 

 on. The operations of the University of London are, in 

 point of fact, more wide-reaching than those of any other 

 Government office, and are, indeed, co-extensive with the 

 Empire itself. 



In one aspect the whole movement may be regarded as 

 an outcome of the nascent municipal feeling in the life 

 of the metropolis. The Examining University, for reasons 

 stated above, does not, and in its present form never can, 

 satisfy the reasonable desire that the metropolis should 

 possess that academic crown which is worn by every other 

 great capital in the world. The disembodied spirit of 

 what might be brooding over gloomy examination halls 

 may strike a wholesome terror into the hearts of candi- 

 dates, and sustain a certain feeling of emancipation in 

 the hearts of candidates ; but it cannot, and does not, 

 excite any enthusiasm in either. Nor has the cold 

 officialism of Burlington Gardens ever treated with more 

 than a lofty disdain the more humanly organised institu- 

 tions which furnish the victims who pour into its 

 portals. 



The movement to constitute a Teaching University is 

 undoubtedly in some degree due to a reaction against this 

 state of things. Those whose business " is to teach, know 

 Vol.. xxxi. — No. 790 



now-a-days that a great deal depends on the way teaching 

 is done. It is here that the educational bodies of the 

 metropolis fee! their isolation. There is no central 

 authority to gather their representatives into its fold and 

 smooth away the individual difficulties in the way of 

 common action and " bringing into harmonious coopera- 

 tion the dual business of examination and teaching. Life 

 is getting appreciably shorter now ; the thread of existence 

 has more knots though its length remains the same. The 

 time that can be given to education out of an ordinary 

 existence cannot be indefinitely expanded. Method must 

 be brought in to economise labour in instruction. This 

 is a very different thing to cramming ; it is on the contrary 

 a scientific mode of directing the educational attack in 

 the most effective way. Here the rulers of the LTniversity 

 have shown themselves most deficient in sympathy ; they 

 have turned an obdurately deaf ear to the entreaties 

 which have been repeatedly addressed to them by the 

 Convocation of the University to get "touch" with the 

 teaching bodies. And, what 1= perhaps even still more 

 irritating, though, as remarked at the meeting, for the most 

 part, laymen in education, they still issue in a purely 

 doctrinaire spirit directions which of course from the 

 nature of the case have the binding force of edicts at the 

 actual seats of education. Dr. Carpenter, with an official 

 optimism excusable enough in one who has devoted a 

 lifetime to loyal and honest work, contended, it is true, 

 that the university was blameless in this respect. But 

 those who are familiar with the other side of the shield 

 know how far this is from being the feeling in teaching 

 institutions. Manchester has already broken away from 

 the rule of Burlington Gardens, and it can scarcely be 

 doubted that had the University of London shown a more 

 conciliatory attitude with regard to the formation of 

 Boards of Studies, the present movement would in all 

 probability have taken a very different shape. 



It is proposed, then, alongside of the existingexaminations 

 to have a Teaching University. This it is also intended 

 should examine and grant degrees. It may be thought 

 that this is going too far, and that it is not desirable that 

 the one thing should become a mere mechanical reflection 

 of the other. But the risk is small ; the principle is now- 

 a-days accepted by all who have really studied the matter, 

 that teachings and examinings must be in the hands of 

 the same persons ; but this does not imply that the same 

 individuals should control both. Nor, it must be admitted, 

 is this merely a matter of interest to the teaching bodies. 

 The imperfect educational discipline to which a large pro- 

 portion of the candidates who frequent the examination 

 rooms of the university have been subjected, leads to an 

 inordinate amount of rejections. This creates the mis- 

 conception in the public mind, that the examinations are 

 unreasonably severe. The real fact is that the candidates 

 are badly prepared. In this way the want of cooperation 

 between teachers and examiners becomes indirectly a nil 

 obstacle to educational progress. 



So far we have endeavoured to give our readers an ac- 

 count as distinct as we have been able to gather of the 

 forces which have initiated this movement, and the aims 

 which are desired by it. We cordially sympathize with 

 both, and it is because we do so that we must now indulge 

 in a little criticism on the scheme as put forward by Lord 

 Reay's committee. In the first place, we found it difficult 



