THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE ORGANISATION OF' ACADEMICAL STUDY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.']
SIR, —In a notice of Mr. Percival's pamphlet on the" Universities. and Great Towns," in the Spectator of June 21, you draw atten- tion incidentally to various other "ideals of University improve- ment," and amongst these you speak of one as represented by the Association for the Organisation of Academical Study. Of this body you say that "it seeks to substitute for the present unsatis- factory system of sinecure Fellowships a plan which shall aim primarily at the maintenance of a body of resident teachers of various grades, and their equipment with the apparatus necessary for study and research ; and secondly, at the material assistance of students and investigators actually engaged in research, but not. necessarily in teaching, and at the provision of help and apparatus. for this object."
Will you permit me to say that this statement of the principles " represented " by the Association is premature ? It is true that something like this view of the relative claims of the remunerative
employment of teaching and of the unremanerative employment of advancing knowledge to subsidy out of public funds, did appear in a report presented by the Provisional Committee to a meeting ot the Association, and, indeed, was accepted at the end of the meet- ing, after more than half the members had quitted the room, by eleven voices against eight, three of the committee voting on one • side and three on the other ; but it has been since disavowed in writing by a majority of two to one, as contravening the original principles for the assertion of which the Association was established.
The report has not been published ; and until the members of the Association have reassembled after the summer, and decided, upon the policy to which they desire to direct public attention, it- is premature, and, I would venture to add, undesirable, to quote the Association as " representing " for the present any opinions-.
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