NATURE 



261 



THURSDAY, JULY 



VICTORIA UNIVERSITY 



IT was only the singular moderation and good sense 

 with which the promoters of the New Manchester 

 University movement conducted their case that could have 

 secured that no Parliamentary opposition should be made 

 to the late Government taking a step so momentous, and 

 affecting so many rival interests, as the foundation of a 

 new English university. They were compelled, indeed, 

 like many other strategists, to change front once or twice, 

 and to accept a charter different in two vital respects from 

 that which they had asked. They wanted a university 

 in England on the model of the Scotch and German 

 universities — a university of a single college in a great 

 centre of population. They were compelled, however, 

 to make provision for affiliating Leeds and other col- 

 leges, when they become adequately equipped, \Yith full 

 faculties of arts and science, and when it is completed 

 the new University will have to carry out'an experiment 

 completely novel. It will occupy a midway place between 

 the Scotch single-college universities, the English uni- 

 versities with their families of colleges bound together by 

 their'common locality, and the Central Examining Board 

 for all qualified applicants, which is known as the 

 University of London. The separate colleges will in 

 fact be Universities of the Scotch type, complete in 

 themselves before they are affiliated in respect of two 

 important faculties. They will differ vitally from the 

 single colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, each with three 

 or four tutors of its own, but each requiring to lean on 

 the private tutors and the resident university professors 

 and lecturers for the necessary supplement of their teach- 

 ing. It will be most interesting to see how the Uni- 

 versity authorities will conciliate the independence and 

 originality of the teaching of the individual colleges with 

 the examination system which must govern and regulate 

 them all. The new University will more nearly resemble 

 the late Queen's University in Ireland than anything else 

 of which we have had experience. It will differ from the 

 Queen's University only in the greater importance of the 

 separate colleges. Meanwhile all these arrangements are 

 in posse. The University will be started on the familiar 

 lines of the Scotch and German universities, with a 

 single college, with which for the time being it is prac- 

 tically identified, and whose teaching it will be its sole 

 business to influence. 



The other important modification is in the temporary 

 absence of the medical faculty. An important medical 

 school is attached to Owens College. The last Go- 

 vernment were occupied with a Medical Bill, the main 

 object of which was to diminish the number of licence- 

 granting medical centres, and to substitute a single 

 authority for the nineteen medical bodies which confer 

 the r ight to practise on the bodies o f Her Majesty's 

 subjects. It was strongly represented to them that it 

 would be an anomaly that they should add a twentieth 

 licensing body to the nineteen at the very moment when 

 they were attempting to fuse the nineteen into one. The 

 charter they have issued to the Victoria University grants 

 it the right to confer all degrees and titles of honour that 

 it is competent to other universities in the United King- 

 VoL, .xxn. — No. 560 



dom to grant, except in the single faculty of medicine. 

 Although the medical professors of Owens College become 

 professors in the University, they will remain in an excep- 

 tional position, at all events until the new Government 

 have made up their minds what course to adopt with the 

 Medical Bill. Should the agitation for a medical uni- 

 formity die out, and the Government resolve upon no 

 disturbance of the existing arrangements, it will be im- 

 possible for them not to complete the charter of the 

 new University by conferring on it the right to grant 

 medical degrees. Should they revive the proposals of 

 their predecessors and succeed in passing them into law, 

 the new University will stand in the same position as 

 that which the older universities will then be reduced to 

 occupy. 



The public will be most interested to see on what lines 

 the Victoria University will be developed. Will it strike 

 out a new line for itself? Every university in this country 

 aims at being a stiidium generale, but every university 

 has in practice shown a tendency to the exceptional 

 development of special studies. Oxford is in the main a 

 great classical, and Cambridge a great mathematical, 

 school, and London has been exceptionally distinguished 

 for the high attainments and reputation of its medical 

 graduates. In the Victoria University, so far as it is 

 possible to forecast its future, [a similar position seems 

 likely to be asserted by the scientific faculty. It is in that 

 respect that Owens College has been specially strong. In 

 all the older universities the scientific faculties have had 

 to assert for themselves a higher position than they 

 originally occupied, and they have generally done 

 so during the last century of their history. They will 

 start in the Victoria University from a position at least 

 equal to that occupied by the elder " Arts " studies. It 

 would be a mistake if they were to attempt to claim 

 an exclusive predominance, and the first step which the 

 University has taken indicates that there is no such 

 danger. They have appointed as their Chairman of the 

 Board of Studies their Professor of History and English 

 Literature. Every one who has followed the movement 

 in which the University originated knows how deeply it 

 has been indebted, from its commencement to its close, 

 to Prof. Ward, and it is safe to say that no sounder 

 appointment could have been made, and none more 

 likely to secure the impartial appreciation of all the 

 competing claims of the old and the new learning. The 

 authorities of the Victoria University will begin their new 

 career on the broad and satisfactory lines indicated by 

 the words of their founder. Mr. Owens' will pointed to the 

 creation in Manchester of a seat of learning in which the 

 subjects taught in the Enghsh universities should be 

 taught in the best way, and the promoters of the move- 

 ment have never advocated any scheme for making them- 

 selves a scientific college, or what is called a technical 

 university. But it will be as difficult as it would be 

 imprudent to ignore the fact that Manchester has special 

 opportunities for becoming a great scientific school, and 

 the eminent teachers who represent its scientific faculty 

 may be confidently trusted to maintain the position which 

 tliey have secured for their subjects. We may reasonably 

 hope to see the new University set itself to the task of 

 proving that science is as educationally effective an 

 instrument as literature and philosophy. Literature, 



