Yesterday week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer received a very
influential deputation from the Victoria University (headed by Lord Harlington, who spoke for the Duke of Devonshire, who is the Chancellor of that University) to press upon the Government the grant of some subvention from the State,—the subvention understood tabs asked for was one of something like 432,000 a year,—for the purpose chiefly of paying the fees of the Examiners whom the University must appoint in order to make their degrees what they should be. The deputation carefully avoided raising the more general question of a Government grant to the local Colleges themselves which Professor Jowett raised in his letter to the Times of March 3rd, because they saw that that proposal was a very considerable one, and that it involved also a certain discouragement of local generosity and local effort ; and they therefore dwelt, with considerable tact and prudence, on the great distinction between grants for local education,—for which you may look to local generosity,—and grants for mere exami- nation, which excites no enthusiasm, and is none the less quite essential to the testing of true education. For example, it is said that the Yorkshire College (at Leeds) cannot, as it desires to do, join the Victoria University at present, because it cannot afford to contribute the share which would be abso- lutely necessary for the payment of the University Examiners,— say, some 2500 a year. Mr. Cowbell gave an encouraging reply, though he could not, of course, commit himself ; but he care. folly guarded his ground from being supposed to cover in any way even encouragement to the notion of the grant of Govern- ment subventions to the cause of intermediate education itself. If, by the way, he did grant 2-2,000 a year to the Victoria University, he would grant that infant University nearly as much as the Government give to the great London University, which, though it receives 213,000, repays 211,000 in fees, as the Registrar of the London University showed in his letter to Wed- nesday's Ti»zee. However, it is in infancy only that cradles are needed.
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