15 MAY 1947, Page 5

" You couldn't hear a debate like this in any

other assembly in the world," a noble Viscount, himself of the highest academic as well as political distinction, said to me as I was listening to the House of Lords debate on universities on Wednesday. I think that is true. The debate, on the future of universities, was opened by Lord Lindsay of Birker, who is Master of Balliol. After the Lord Chancellor had replied for the Government, there followed Lord Cherwell, who is an Oxford Professor, Lord Beveridge, who has been both Principal of the London School of Economics and Master of University College, Oxford, and Lord Simon of Wythenshawe, who is' the chairman of the Council of Manchester University. I should be the last to underestimate the virtues of the House of Commons, but it cannot produce quite this. I am bound to add, with proper regret, that all but one of the speakers I have men- tioned, including the Lord Chancellor, were educated at the wrong university.

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