NATURE 



505 



THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 1887 



,-/ UNIVERSITY FOR LONDON 



WE have from time to time informed our readers of 

 the progress made in the attempt to organise the 

 capacities for teaching and learning in London into a 

 more complete and more efficient shape. The movement 

 is most natural and admirable. What we have desired 

 is to warn those interested in it not to lose sight of the 

 full result obtainable while busied in their attempts to 

 remove a particular grievance or further a particular 

 interest. Each constituent of the future University— the 

 Colleges and professional schools, the teachers and the 

 students, the medical corporations, and the Senate and 

 Convocation of the existing University of London — each is 

 indispensable. Any one of these can block the way for 

 the rest. Together they make up amply sufficient 

 elements for the foundation desired, and this foundation 

 would not be strengthened, but weakened, by attempts 

 (which can never be realised) to bring in such hetero- 

 geneous elements as the British Museum or the Royal 

 Society, the Government technical schools or the 

 Corporation of the City and its Companies. 



The present state of affairs is, we believe, pretty much 

 as follows. The Convocation of the present University, 

 in which the first efforts towards its reform began some 

 six or seven years ago, rejected a scheme presented to it 

 by aCommittceofforty of its most distinguished members, 

 of which Lord Justice Fry was the chairman. Among 

 them were the present Home Secretary, the President 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons, Mr. Justice Wills, Sir 

 Joseph Lister, Dr. Wilks, Prof Michael Foster, Dr. 

 Bristowe, Mr. Power, Mr. Howse, Dr. Ord, Prof. Unwin, 

 :Mr. Thiselton Dyer, Mr. Anstie, Prof Carey Foster, 

 the Rev. Dr. Dale, and Mr. Cozens-Hardy. A second 

 and much smaller Committee was then constructed by 

 Mr. (now Sir Philip) Magnus, who had taken the lead in j 

 opposing some of the provisions of the previous scheme, 

 and this Committee brought up, on report, a second and 

 modified plan of reform, which passed Convocation last 

 May, not without opposition, but by substantial majorities 

 and with only minor alterations. This second Committee 

 laid the amended scheme before the Senate and remain 

 in charge of it. Meantime the Senate had appointed a 

 Committee of its own members, who have for several 

 months been elaborating a scheme of their own, who 

 have already conferred both with the Committee of Convo- 

 cation and with one appointed by the Teaching University 

 Association, and who have now presented their Report to 

 the Senate. Some opportune vacancies, which occurred 

 in the latter body during the last two or three years, have 

 led to the presence of Lord Justice Fry himself, and of 

 Dr. Wilks, Dr. Pye Smith, and Prof Carey Foster. It 

 seems probable that a scheme of reform will be accepted 

 both by Senate and Convocation, which will go as far as 

 most who are sanguine could expect, and farther than 

 most who are timid will approve. The Convocation of 

 graduates will gain more direct representation, and the 

 teachers of the Colleges which send up men for the 

 University degrees will probably be also directly re- 

 VoL. XXXV.— No. 909 



presented on the Senate. But a more important im- 

 provement, one that would be useful even if the Senate 

 were to remain exactly as it is, will almost certainly be 

 the institution of Boards of Studies, which will represent 

 the teachers and probably the examiners in each Faculty, 

 much like the standing Committees which sit under the 

 same name at Oxford. The general body of teachers 

 which would elect these Boards would include provincial 

 as well as London Professors, and would more or less 

 correspond to the Congregation of Oxford, but it would 

 probably seldom meet, except for the purpose of election 

 of the representative Boards of Studies. 



The Association for Promoting a Teaching University 

 held a general meeting several weeks ago, and admirable 

 speeches were made, especially those of Mr. Marshall 

 and Mr. Bryce, but it lacked the enthusiasm given by 

 numbers. After communicating with the principal 

 London Colleges and Medical Schools, the Council of 

 the Association propose to apply either to the Crown 

 or to Parliament, probably with the object of securing a 

 Royal Commission on the whole question. 



University College, after coquetting with the Victoria 

 University (which has apparently not welcomed with great 

 warmth the proposal of accepting so large and distant a 

 Society as its daughter), is now engaged in direct nego- 

 tiations with King's College, with a view to agreement 

 upon a common plan of action. This is a prudent course, 

 for if the reform of the University of London should prove 

 unattainable or inadequate, the two chief Colleges, by 

 acting together, would be far more likely to obtain the 

 privileges which they then would rightly seek. 



Meantime the great medical corporations have become 

 tired of waiting. They represent the most urgent griev- 

 ance, and are fully justified in pressing for its redress. 

 They appear likely to ask for power to grant degrees to 

 their own licentiates, though under what authority and on 

 what terms, either of examination or of residence, they 

 have not yet determined. They have the advantage of 

 practically undivided counsels, of knowing what they want, 

 and of having an indisputable cause of complaint. They 

 are naturally supported by the whole influence of the 

 medical schools of London, and it adds not a little to the 

 complexity of the situation that those connected with 

 University and King's Colleges prefer to throw in their 

 lot with the other professional schools rather than to 

 hold aloof and unite with the other Faculties of their 

 own Colleges. 



Of the several bodies concerned, it is possible that 

 the Senate, or at least the Convocation, of the exist- 

 ing University may fear that the just value of its degrees, 

 attained by fifty years' efforts, will be compromised by 

 allowing teachers to have a voice upon the Senate. But 

 they must see that if the University is forsaken by its two 

 most important London Colleges after the secession of its 

 only important provincial one (Owens College), and if 

 the medical schools of London, which have supplied 

 nine-tenths of its graduates in that Faculty, also forsake it, 

 its position will be untenable. Even if it were suffered to 

 exist as a degree-conferring machine for unattached and 

 imperfectly-taught students all over the kingdom, it would 

 become what its worst enemies have called it, a mere 

 Government Board, and could scarcely keep the title of a 

 University, still less of the University of London, when it 



