LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE PROPOSED UNIVERSITY CHARTER FOR OWENS CON.EGE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—The supporters of the proposal to seek for this College the charter of a University have reason to thank you for some of your remarks on Mr. Lowe's recent article on the subject in the Fortnightly Review. You contest his position that efficient ex- aminers must be quite independent of and unconnected with the teachers ; and you advocate a system of examinations very much the same as that which we have in view for the University we desire, viz., one of "complete and hearty co-operation between those who know accurately what the pupils have been taught, and those who do not know that, but do know, from their own ex- perience in teaching on the same area, what the pupils might reasonably be expected to have learned."
On the other hand, you consider that Owens College is at present not ripe for the position of a University, because its Professoriate does not furnish a sufficient variety of modes of study and methods of teaching in all the greater departments of education. It may seem in doubtful taste for one who himself holds a professorship at the College to endeavour to meet this objection. But I do not fear that I am in any danger of the in- sinuation of motives which it is equally easy to impute and useless to disclaim. It is possible not only to desire the advancement of an institution with which one is personally connected, but also to take pride in its past, and to give open expression to both feelings, without being guilty of self-conceit or intent upon a puff. I believe, then, that the teaching body of this College, and the modes of 'the study and the methods of the teaching carried on in it, are, notwithstanding the hampering effects of the particular outside system of examinations against which we protest, as various as those of any university (except the large German Uni- versities) with which I am acquainted, and that this variety is not least apparent in what I presume you to designate as the greater departments of education. Our professors and lecturers (numbering at present 32, exclusive of the Medical Department) are drawn from the old English Universities, from University -College, London, from the Scottish and the German Universities, and from other Universities and Colleges (including Owens College itself), in proportions suffici-
ently balanced to hold their own against one another. Any one taking the trouble to glance at the distribution of the chairs and lectureships in classics, in modern languages and literatures, in mathematical and cognate studies, and in the several depart- ments of physical science and engineering, will, I think, find
sufficient illustrations of a variety in the unde of the teachers, which is at least some antecedent indication as to the variety of the qui and of the quo modo. And having had some experience of tuition, both at Cambridge and at a large Scottish University, and being tolerably well acquainted with the condition of German and some other foreign universities, I may conscientiously add this,— that which I value most at Owens College, and which I have nowhere else more freely breathed, is the air of academical variety in the methods of teaching and the modes of study pursued and directed by its teachers, which you justly desiderate for an in- stitution claiming University rank. The "requisite variety of in- tellectual resources and the requisite experience of teaching" are claims which I must leave it to others to deny or concede to us, but as Mr. Lowe has expressed an apprehension lest, if left to our own devices, we may end by making our "teaching a school for the learning a particular trade, such as calico-printing, for instance," or putting "Pegasus in harness to draw the wheel of a cotton-mill," I may add that Chimaera and Pegasus are intimately associated in fiction, and were perhaps in this instance struggling together in Mr. Lowe's mind.
As the expression of a single opinion, this letter mast go for what it is worth, and to those who consider it an interested opinion it will be worth very little. But "freedom is a noble thing ;" in Academical life "variety and independence" are the primary conditions of true freedom, and it is this "variety and independence" of which I confidently assert that we possess enough at Owens College to entitle us to ask for legal emancipa- tion. Of the public safeguards, which we are not only willing to accept, but desirous of providing, this is not the occasion to speak ; my purpose was merely to protest—pro dome, certainly, but without any domestic commission—against a preliminary objection of which I trust you will see fit farther to examine the basis.—I am, Sir, &c., Owens College, Manchester, February 12. A. W. WARD.
[Our correspondent will hardly maintain that where there is but one Professor of Greek, but one Professor of Latin, and but one probably of most other subjects, there can be the same variety of method in teaching and in testing the knowledge of these subjects as there is at Oxford or Cambridge, where there are a very large number of first-rate tutors and scholars deeply versed in all the principal subjects.—En. Spectator,)
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