The annual ceremony of admission to Degrees took place at
the University of London on Wednesday, in the presence of the Chancellor, Lord Granville, when Mr. Lowe made a clever and effective attack,—of which we have spoken elsewhere,—on the proposals which he evidently expects from the present Govern- -ment for "nibbling" at the principle of open competition in relation to the Civil Service, especially in relation to the Indian Civil Service. He had himself, he said, begun life at Oxford in that capacity which is now regarded as that of "a monster abhorred of gods and men" (not, "a monster and a bore to gods and men," as the Times funnily reported it), a cram- mer, and that he knew how much intellectual good a crammer -can do to a man, as he is sure, if he knows his business, to try and make him master a few subjects thoroughly, rather than many imperfectly. He believed good crammers were amongst the most useful and energetic of teachers, and he objected entirely to the cry against the crammers, by which it was hoped to frighten the British public into resigning the boon they had won for their children in the shape of real open competition. He especially defended this in relation to the Indian Civil Service, and declared that it would be a change purely for the worse even if the selected candidates, though selected honestly by open competition, were sent to the Universities for the years intervening between their selection and their departure for India. London, with its busy life and active Law Courts, was the true school for Indians who wished to be good men of the world, good statesmen, and good judges ; and le thought the mild sweetness and light of the Universities very ill adapted for the training of youths of this kind. This does not seem to us the strongest part of Mr. Lowe's speech. The Law Courts do not do much for mere students, and as for London society, London is generally a wilderness to young Irishmen and Scotchmen. We should wish to see the Indian Civil Servants kept together, if not in our own Universi- ties, still in a College of their own, for these two years ; and perhaps no place for that College would be so good as the place formerly chosen,—Calcutta.
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