240 



NA TURE 



[August 19, 1922 



University Education in London. 



The University of Loudon (History, Present Resources 

 and Future Possibilities). By Sir Gregory Foster. 

 Pp. 48. (London : University of London Press, 

 Ltd., 1^22.) is. <)d. net. 



Till". Provost of University College has been well 

 advised to publish in the form of a pamphlet, 

 attractively printed and illustrated, the two lectures 

 delivered at the College in February last, together with 

 the speech of the president of the Board of Education 

 (Mr. Fisher) at the conclusion of the second lecture. 

 A less ambitious title might perhaps have been chosen, 

 for in effect the lectures are a closely reasoned apology 

 for the Bloomsbury site and for the L T niversity policy 

 which it represents. At the outset, the popular 

 illusion that University education in London is to be 

 concentrated entirely in one quarter is examined and 

 dismissed. The sites alone of the thirty-six Colleges 

 of the University occupy no less than 212 acres and 

 their students number 21,600. Their halls of residence 

 account for 7! acres and their playing fields for another 

 215 acres, making a grand total of 434J acres. To 

 bring together these vast educational resources would 

 be a prodigious undertaking — extravagant (a " wanton 

 waste " as the Provost says), impracticable by reason of 

 the necessary contiguity of the medical schools to their 

 hospitals, and undesirable in an educational sense. 

 Other less fortunate Universities have discovered 

 that it is impossible to educate in crowds. The 

 Provost's arguments against carrying the " concentra- 

 tion " idea too far are complete and unanswerable. 



< )ne asks at once why if a large dose of the medicine 

 is fatal, a homoeopathic dose should be beneficial — in 

 other words, why the Government should urge so 

 strongly the removal of King's College to the Blooms- 

 bury site. " It is." says the Provost, " for the obvious 

 reason that King's College on its present site, delightful 

 as it is from many points of view, cannot grow and 

 extend according to its needs." This argument is 

 hardly relevant, for there are other parts of London 

 than Bloomsbury where King's College could grow 

 if thai is what it wishes to do. The question of the 

 optimum size for a college is involved ; and there are 

 other ways of growing, it may be suggested, than in 

 size and numbers — in efficiency, for example, or by 

 planting out part of its work as King's has done already 

 in the case of its Household Science Department at 

 Campden Hill. The impression left on the mind of 

 the reader of these discourses must be that the King's 

 College question is not discussed with force or 

 conviction. 



There is a peculiar habit in University circles in 

 NO. 2755, VOL. 1 10] 



London of continuing the argument after a con- 

 clusion has been reached. From this point of view 

 the Provost's carefully compiled statistics in favour 

 of the Bloomsbury site will fortify the loyal forces in 

 the guerilla warfare which is now being waged with 

 vigour and persistence. Of the total of 21,634 students 

 in the Colleges of the University, no less than 16,764 

 are in Colleges within two miles of the Bloomsburv site. 

 whereas the corresponding figure for the rival Holland 

 Park site is only 1520. The number outside the two- 

 mile radius of either site is 3306. Whether the two- 

 mile radius was chosen because of the distance covered 

 by the i</. bus fare of a happier generation, we cannot 

 determine ; but we may fairly ask why the University 

 quarter should be within this reasonable distance of 

 the students, seeing that except for compulsory attend- 

 ance at examinations they have in recent years found 

 no pleasure in visiting the University headquarters. 

 On the only occasion on which the present writer 

 remembers to have seen a thousand London students 

 in one room, their object in coming together was to 

 denounce the existing constitution of the University ! 



On this question the Provost maintains a strange 

 silence. He fails to stress the need which exists in 

 London for the active encouragement of all those 

 social, athletic, and extra-academic influences which 

 make for the development of students' personalitv 

 as distinct from intellect. The Bloomsbury site 

 should provide these facilities as far as practicable 

 in the form of dining-halls, clubs, hostels, accommoda- 

 tion for debates and meetings of extra-academic 

 societies, theatres, concert-rooms, art galleries, museums, 

 gymnasia, fives courts, swimming baths, churches, and 

 mosques ! Unless something can be done on these 

 lines, the whole discussion is meaningless from the 

 point of view of the students regarded as human 

 beings and not merely as statistical units. 



For administrative purposes and for ceremonial and 

 public meetings of all kinds, the need for a central 

 position is paramount and incontestable. Busy public 

 men, administrators, and teachers who do voluntary 

 work as members of University Committees may reason- 

 ably demand that their sacrifice of time and money 

 in travelling shall be reduced to a minimum. A few 

 weeks ago some five hundred graduates attended a 

 meeting of Convocation at South Kensington for the 

 purpose of electing a new chairman. At the lowest 

 computation 10/. extra was spent in travelling to South 

 Kensington as compared with, say, Bloomsbury ; 

 more important and serious, the meeting must have 

 been less representative because of the inability of 

 graduates living or working on the remote side of 

 London to attend. How any person of common sense 

 or knowledge of London can argue that South Kensing- 



