13 MAY 1876, Page 3

On Wednesday Lord Granville, as Chancellor of the University of

London, presented the degrees and other honours gained by its students, and made a speech, in which he dilated at some length on the changes suggested by the Government in relation to the Civil Service of India ; and deprecated, as did also Mr. Lowe, the proposal to pay a bounty of 1300 on all Civil-Service candidates who, after their success at the preliminary examina- tion, go to Oxford or Cambridge for the two years which must intervene before they go out to India. This would not only be unfair to students of University College and King's College, London, but, as Mr. Lowe subsequently insisted, it is needlessly underrating the attractions of the older Universities, to suppose that they need a bounty on the importation of students to make them attractive. Lord Granville also took occasion to say that he thought the time was coming when the admission of women, to medical degrees more especially, must be fully and fairly considered. The demand for women as physicians was increasing, and women anxious for a qualification to practise are now driven abroad for their degrees. The remark is quite correct. The present writer happens to know that one lady — the wife of a clergyman — is now studying medicine abroad in order to qualify herself to practise, who would pro- bably much have preferred to study at home, had she been permitted to get her diploma here. What vast good might not the wives of the clergy do in their parishes, if they could gain the influence appertaining not merely to gratuitous tracts and flannel, but to liberally-dispensed medical advice !