THE GRESHAM UNIVERSITY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your able article on the Gresham Charter, in the Spectator of February 20th, you point out some of the objec- tions to the institution of such a University for the Metropolis as its provisions foreshadow. May I again trespass on your space, in order to add a few criticisms from an educational standpoint P As one of those who assisted in the rejection by Convocation of the Draft Charter prepared by the Senate of the University of London last May, I should like to say that I feel now, as I felt then, that a University upon the lines of the petition of King's and University Colleges is not the only, and certainly not the best, alternative to the plan then rejected. Indeed, a third alternative was hinted at, but not elaborated by the Commissioners in their report. The present University, as an Examining Board, with examinations conducted as impersonally and impartially as it is possible to expect, appears to me to be doing admirably the limited work which it has been permitted to undertake. No second Examining Board, as such, is required in London. University Extension students would probably be worse off in their rela- tion to any other University that could be devised than they are in regard to the present one.
To make Universy and King's Colleges more attractive to day-students, or to endeavour to keep medical students in London rather than to allow them to migrate elsewhere, may be worthy professional grounds for dissatisfaction, or they may not ; they can hardly be regarded as high educational motives for a new University.
If the suspicion has gained ground that the new M.D. degree is to be one which shall imply but slender preliminary acquaintance with science and arts, it may fairly be attributed to the incautious utterances of the promoters of the Gresham University.
In the medical faculty, with its twelvefold professorships in each subject, the teacher.examiner principle, which has been regarded as a cardinal principle in the new venture, can at any rate have no place. The tendency would appear to be inevitable that, given the new graduation, the academical requirements for the M.D. (Gresham) must approximate, to the point of convergence, to the evidence of knowledge now deemed requisite for the licences of the corporations. The degree will be a professional diploma rather than an academical distinction. It is not surprising that many profess to see in such a Teaching University a tendency to dispense with, rather than to encourage, University teaching, and desire a further consideration of the questions at issue, and the withdrawal of the Charter which has been so impatiently pushed forward.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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