202 
It may be said at once that London should have a 
university college in each one of the various parts of the 
enormous district it covers. If one of the most 
important phases of the education imparted by the 
university is the intimate association of the under- 
graduate with his professors, the free exchange of views 
‘between the students themselves, and that mellowing 
effect which results from the feeling of a close con- 
nection with the corporate life of an important institution 
—then surely many small universities are incomparably 
better than one many-sided and multi-tentacled body 
with which the individual student can have no personal 
-connection. 
Nor is this conception of local universities in the 
different districts which build up the straggling wilder- 
ness we call London a dream of Utopia. As has been 
before pointed out in these columns, there already exist 
in London eleven polytechnic institutions, and the found- 
ation stone of a twelfth has been laid. These, with four 
branches which have been established, provide sixteen 
separate centres scattered throughout an area which 
extends from Woolwich to Wandsworth in one direction, 
and from New Cross to Holloway in another. Why 
cannot some of these extensive buildings and lavishly 
furnished lecture-rooms and laboratories, representing 
half a million sterling in capital outlay, be utilised for 
the purpose of university work ? 
A reference to previous issues of NATURE will 
abundantly prove that there is nothing incongruous in 
undertaking university education in the lecture theatres, 
-class-rooms and laboratories of these polytechnics. Com- 
paratively few additions to the apparatus and fittings 
already provided would be necessary. Indeed, the work 
which has already been accomplished, valuable though 
it is, is scarcely return enough for the munificence of the 
City companies, the City parochial charities, the London 
County Council, private donors and others, which has 
placed the London polytechnics in their present con- 
dition of complete equipment. 
A common retort to any such suggestion as has 
now been briefly stated—that the work of a university 
college is of a much more advanced nature than any- 
thing accomplished in a polytechnic—will not bear close 
examination. Several tests can easily be applied. An 
inspection of the lists of graduates of the London 
University, for instance, shows that a comparison of the 
numbers of successful candidates is all in favour of the 
polytechnics as compared with the university colleges. 
As it happens, it is possible to obtain the verdict of 
former professors of university colleges who are now 
engaged in the work of the polytechnics, and their 
assurance is that a greater quantity of advanced work, 
at all events in science, is done in the polytechnic. 
Moreover, the amount of work of an advanced type 
accomplished in English university colleges is usually 
somewhat exaggerated. A few quotations from a 
report presented in 1897 by Mr. P. H. Warren, Pre- 
sident of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Prof. Live- 
ing, Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, to the 
Lords Commissioners of her Majesty’s Treasury, will 
justify this statement. Of one university college it is 
stated, “On the Arts side it cannot be said that at 
present any amount of work of a high standard is being 
done in the college,” or later, ‘“‘most of the work, 
both in‘arts and science, is of an elementary kind.” Ot 
another similar place of instruction, “ With regard to the 
work now being done there, judged by University 
standards, a good deal of it is of an educational and 
preparatory rather than of an advanced and learned 
character.” In the case of another college, “It is, there- 
fore, not to be wondered at that the work on the Arts 
side should be still in a somewhat incipient stage, and 
mainly educational rather than learned.” Of a fourth 
NO. 1548, VOL. 60] 
NATURE 
[JUNE 29, 1899 
college it is reported, “A great deal of this work is 
in the nature of things of a somewhat preparatory 
kind, and there is throughout the college a great deal of 
work of not a very advanced character.” Similar re- 
marks concerning other university colleges might be 
multiplied, but quotations enough have been made to 
show that in apportioning the Treasury grant to univer- 
sity colleges the mere fact that elementary instruction is a 
part of the work carried on in the buildings is not con- 
sidered a disqualification for also undertaking university 
instruction. 
It is true that a very large part of the instruction of 
the 50,000 members and students enrolled by the London 
polytechnics takes place in the evening. This has been 
urged as evidence of the wide disparity between the 
methods of polytechnics and those of university colleges, 
but such an allegation reveals a want of knowledge of the 
prevalent conditions of instruction in university colleges, 
The evening classes of King’s College, London, form an 
important part of the whole work of the institution. At 
Owens College, Manchester, a very complete system of 
evening lectures has been arranged for schoolmasters 
and others engaged during the day. The evening classes 
at University College, Liverpool, are strong and well at- 
tended, and are encouraged by the College authorities. 
The number of evening class students at Mason College, 
Birmingham, steadily increases. Besides the regular 
day work of the Bristol University College, there is an 
extensive system of evening classes, covering almost all 
the subjects taught in the college. At the Durham Col- 
lege of Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, there were in 
1895-6, 1092 evening students compared with 499 day 
students. At Nottingham, in 1894-5, there were more 
than three evening students to one attending during 
the day. 
Attention has already been called (No. 1523, p. 236) to 
the very complete arrangements in some of the poly- 
technics for instruction in the methods of scientific re- 
search, and to the excellent results, as evidenced by 
papers read to the learned societies, which have followed 
the lectures and demonstrations. 
It would consequently appear that a judicious system of 
coordination and a little levelling-up would convert some 
of these sixteen institutions, which in the past ten years 
have had a phenomenal growth, and are steadily im- 
proving in status and influence, into satisfactory university 
colleges, bringing the highest order of culture to the very 
doors of the so-called metropolitan Philistines. 
THE PLANS FOR ANTARCTIC 
EXPLORATION. 
ie is understood that the German Antarctic expedition 
for the year 1901 has now been fully organised. A 
grant of 60,000/. towards the expenses has been made by 
the Reichstag. Dr. Erich von Drygalski, one of the 
professors of geography in the University of Berlin, has 
been appointed the scientific leader, and an influential 
Committee is charged with perfecting the arrangements. 
This Committee is anxious that all the plans should be 
arranged for joint action, so that the German and British 
expeditions should supplement and reinforce one another 
at every point, thus ensuring the maximum return of 
scientific knowledge for the money expended. The ex- 
pedition of the Valdivia, under the scientific leadership 
of Prof. Chun, is a proof of the splendid results which 
attend deep-sea expeditions under a scientific chief, if 
indeed the Challenger expedition did not supply proof 
enough. It is, however, still the opinion of some autho- 
rities in this country that an expedition which has to be 
carried in a ship must be under the sole and exclusive 
charge of a naval officer. The subject is one which 
