11 SEPTEMBER 1920, Page 23

The new University of Dacca, in Bengal, of which we

have received a prospectus, is a noteworthy experiment for India, inasmuch as it is to be a residential and teaching university as distinguished from an examining board with affiliated colleges. It was constituted by an Indian Act of March last, and is to be opened next year, with Mr. P. J. Hartog as Vice-Chancellor. Dacca College and the Jagannath College will form the nucleus of the university, with about fifteen hundred students. In accordance with the recommendations of the Calcutta University Commission, Dacca will insist on a high standard for entrance, equivalent to the present inter- mediate examination of other Indian universities. If this standard is maintained, Dacca ought to become a real seat of learning, where young Indians of all creeds and both sexes can be properly educated. Hitherto the admission of all and sundry to the Indian universities has tended to produce the half or quarter educated Babus who are a discredit to them- selves and a danger to their country.