NATURE 
THURSDAY, JULY 23, 1885 
A NEW DEPARTURE FOR THE UNIVERSITY 
OF LONDON 
HE influential movement which has grown out of the 
Educational Congress held during the Health Exhi- 
bition last year at South Kensington, and which has for 
its object the establishment of a Teaching University for 
London, has placed the existing University on the horns 
of a dilemma. Either it must be content to see itself 
altogether outdistanced by a new organisation which of 
necessity would absorb into itself all the teaching 
eminence of London, or it must rise to the occasion, 
and, bursting the cramped limits of its present contracted 
sphere of activity, show itself competent to the perform- 
ance of larger duties. 
The Convocation of the University, composed of the 
general body of graduates, has for its part shown at any 
rate a disposition to choose the latter alternative. After 
two successive debates it appointed a committee of forty 
of its members to see how far the proposals of the Asso- 
ciation for a Teaching University could be carried into 
effect by the existing University. The report of the 
Committee has now been issued, and was printed by us 
in last week’s NATURE. It will be submitted to an extra- 
ordinary meeting of Convocation to be held on Tuesday 
next. 
What the action of the graduates will be it is of course 
impossible to predict with certainty. But it is hardly 
conceivable that, having assented to the principle of 
developing the University in the direction proposed by 
the Association, they will find much difficulty in accepting 
the scheme of reorganisation presented to them by Lord 
Justice Fry. 
The scheme itself is necessarily cast in a somewhat 
technical form, and it is unaccompanied by any memor- 
andum explanatory of its leading principles. These, 
however, it is not difficult to glean from it, and some 
account of them will, we think, be not without interest to 
many of our readers. 
A priori the name of the University of London would 
call up to the mind of any one unfamiliar with the reality 
the image of a very splendid institution. This enormous 
city, which sooner or later absorbs into its life everything 
and everybody that rivets attention in the mind of the 
nation at large, might be expected to possess in its uni- 
versity a seat of learning where all the best of its intel- 
lectual activity would, as it were, be brought to a focus. 
That isthe ideal. The reality is quite different. It is, in 
fact, a Government office which only by a kind of grim 
jest bears the name of a university. It is true it gives 
degrees ; its graduates array themselves in gowns of 
surpassing brilliancy; it has a library and portraits of 
vice-chancellors ; it has even a member of Parliament, 
But these are the mere accidents of its nature. Pierce 
below these insignificant academic symbols, and you find 
nothing but a mere State examination board supported by 
a Parliamentary grant ; its expenditure controlled by the 
Treasury ; its accounts audited by the Audit Office ; and 
every academic regulation requiring the approval of the 
VOL. XXx1I.—No. 821 
265 
Home Secretary. Of any provision for the advancement 
and cultivation of knowledge there is none. 
London however abounds with institutions of more or 
less eminence, in which studies of an academic kind are 
pursued. The first step which the Association saw to be 
necessary was to endeavour in some way to federate 
these. The task is one of no small difficulty. No educa- 
tional establishment of any standing would care to sacri- 
fice any portion of its autonomy, or to see taken from it 
any possible field of activity to which it might legitimately 
aspire. On the other hand, universal experience has 
shown that itis only those who are actually engaged in the 
higher kind of teaching who can be counted upon to sup- 
ply the propulsive force needed for a real University 
activity. It is only those who work in the ultimate allot- 
ments of the fields of learning who can say how the 
achieved results in each area can be adapted to educa- 
tional needs, and what help a University can give in 
securing harvests still ungrown and unreaped. 
The leading feature of the scheme is—frankly following 
the principle on which the examining staff is secured—to 
bring into the University, irrespective of their previous 
connection with it, the best of the London teachers of 
University rank. These are to be obtained as repre- 
sentatives of Colleges who have agreed to come into the 
scheme. What these bodies sacrifice by so doing is 
scarcely appreciable. What they may gain may be very 
considerable. The teaching representatives so obtained 
(with some additional members) are to be grouped into 
four Faculties. In these Faculties the teaching arrange- 
ments of the several constituent Colleges may, though not 
necessarily, be brought into discussion. The result, it 
may be hoped, will be a better division by amicable 
arrangement of the higher educational appliances of the 
metropolis. And where (with the approval of the faculty) 
any particular constituent College undertakes the charge 
of some slenderly-supported branch of learning, it can 
hardly he doubted that the approval of the faculty will at 
least go a long way to securing public interest in the 
venture. 
The faculties, then, can hardly fail to promote co- 
operation among the University teachers in London, and 
to better organise the attack on ignorance. But besides 
this they will enable the teaching bodies to gain for the 
first time a direct influence upon the examinations. Each 
Faculty will appoint a Board of Studies, and this will be 
charged with the duty of watching the examinations, 
keeping up something like a continuous tradition, and 
seeing that examination and teaching are in reasonable 
adjustment. Furthermore the Faculties will have direct 
representation on the Senate and that august body will 
in time be no longer a mere assemblage of notables 
holding their seats for life, but a real Academic Council 
for London at large, the members of which, being remoy- 
able after a term of years, will always be in touch with 
their constituents. 
These are the main outlines of the scheme. They 
appear to us to have been dexterously drawn between 
interference which the Colleges would resent and responsi- 
bility for their administration which the University could 
notaccept. But though all this is admirable, it would 
not satisfy us if it were to be regarded as the final out- 
come of the scheme. Its great merit in our eyes is the 
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