5 OCTOBER 1945, Page 4

The retiring Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge delivered a singularly interesting address

on relinquishing his two-years' stewardship on Monday. The Master of Emmanuel is a man of original mind and clear-cut ideas. He talked challengingly of the creation of a graduate college, open to graduates of all countries who wanted to work at Cambridge (here surely is an opportunity for a discerning benefactor) ; the reform of that time-honoured, or time-worn, institution, the University Sermon ; and spoke wise and necessary words of warning regarding the twin dangers to which the older universities are ex- posed, of either so adapting themselves to modern trends as to let themselves be mechanised to the detriment of education, religion, learning and research, or else of finding themselves no longer univer-. sines, but jumbles of unrelated professional and .technical institutes. These are serious questions, particularly for Cambridge, with its

early developments in the fields of medicine, science generally and engineering. There is, no doubt, an ideal combination of conserva- tion with adjustment, but it may be easier to miss than to hit it.