THE HOME SECRETARY ON THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1
SIR,—The Home Secretary was reported the other day in the Times as saying at Birmingham that he always felt the move- ment for a Teaching University in London to have " a certain unreality about it," originating as it had done in the complaint of "teachers and professors" that the examinations of the existing University "were too severe for well-qualified and well-instructed pupils." He went on to speak of "the stringency and severity of the examinations both in Arts and Laws and in Medicine," and wound up by declaring it " worthy of being thought of once, twice and thrice, before those who set store by the higher education in this country proceed to multiply establishments in which degrees are scattered broad- cast, as they are at Glasgow, to persons whose distinction, from the scientific point of view, is not of the very first order."
It would thus appear that one who is himself on the governing Senate of the University of London believes that it gives degrees to none but a very superior class of persons. Will you allow me to offer a somewhat confident denial to that assumption of the Home Secretary's, and at the same time to the other that be joins with it P From Professors of this College, at least, no complaint has been made of the kind he supposes, for the good reason that it is a mere delusion to speak of " stringency and severity " in connection with the examinations of the University. I put, indeed, aside those in Medicine, the case of which is peculiar and needs arguing by itself. Neither do I touch upon the examinations in Science (passed over by the Home Secretary), except to say that, where these require a laboratory-training, which can be gained only in well-equipped Colleges, they do afford some real guarantee of regular instruction. But, as to the Arts examinations, I say it can only raise a smile in those who know the true state of matters, to hear them spoken of as " stringent and severe." Stringent and severe !—when scores of uninstructed youths or oldish schoolmasters, reading some books with common diligence by themselves, or of late adding a few " corre- spondence" lessons, slip every year through the meshes of the mechanical system of written examination maintained at Burlington Gardens.
It is true, the examination-scheme has a brave appearance; true, also, that every year other scores of such candidates as now crowd to the trial fail to slip through. Bystanders— and even members of Senate—may be led thereby to imagine that the University's level of requirement is high, and that it is rigidly kept up in face of the yearly swell in the number of non-collegiate aspirants to a degree. It is not so, as I could desire nothing better than to be permitted to prove in the columns of the Spectator. The truth (if made out) ought to be of some concern to the Senate, into whose hands the late Royal Commission has chosen to -throw the next move in the matter of University-reform for London. My affirmation (grounded upon an experience of ten years-as an examiner in the University, spread over twenty years altogether) is, that the standard of examination for the B.A. degree has now, for a considerable time back, materially declined from the small elevation that it ever attained ; and this for reasons upon which it-is easy to lay the finger.
I would only add, for the• present, that the Home Secretary's reference to Glasgow (and, in another report, Aberdeen) does but show farther how hard it is for a busy politician to know about Universities.—I am, Sir, &c., G. CROOM ROBERTSON.
University College, London, October 28th.
[We do not accept Professor .Robertson's conclusions, ex- cepting,, perhaps, as to those men who pass the B.A. in the second division—a small class, after all—and we believe that the effect of recent changes has been to make the nominal requirements of the University less, and its real requirements greater.—En. Spectator.]
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