A'ERS TO THE EDITOR.
.LN/S COLLEGE AND THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.
ITO THE EDITOS OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
• s9- —If you are not tired of the University question, may I ask a to allow me space for a few remarks? In the article on this Jubject in your paper of the 8rd inst., there is, if I may venture to say so, too little attention paid to the practical mischief in- 'volved in the creation of a new University, and too much weight given to the theoretical argument in its favour. I do not pretend to say that will be the right course in this matter next century ; I confine myself to the facts of the present.
At Owens College, on comparing the calendars of the two last years, it appears that nearly 78 per cent. of the non-medical students in the day classes entered either in the session just con- cluded or in the session preceding. About one-fifth of the students in these classes is, therefore, the outside proportion that stay more than two years in regular study at the College.
The Associateship of the College is obtainable on the fulfilment of these conditions,—(1), three years' attendance on regular courses of lectures, amounting to not less than twelve hours weekly ; (2), good-conduct ; (3), either the attainment of a University degree, or the passing of a special College examination. How many have become Associates ? Twenty-seven only in the last five years—i.e., little over five a year—and of these, only six in all have passed the College examination ; the remainder have been qualified by obtaining a University degree, usually that of the University of London.
How many students (for a longer or shorter time) have become graduates in arts or science (B.A. or B.Sc.) of the University of London ? The average for the last five years, which is the most favourable period I can take, is little over nine a year. The total number of non-medical students in the day classes in the session 1876-7 was sixty.
These being the facts, I ask, are we seriously to start a new University wherever we can find nine students a year fit for a degree? But this is not really the vital matter, in my view. I do not ask so much whether this is enough for the aggregate number of graduates per year, but where is the competitioh to come from which would make the honours worth having, and thereby raise the average reputation of the degree ? Yet Owens College is, as all admit, the best qualified College at present, except perhaps University and King's Colleges, London.
Suppose Owens made a University, I think more students would, in all probability, seek for a degree. But it would be because they would expect easier conditions and a lower standard. The men of real ability would rather stand aloof altogether, or would take the Manchester degree by the way, and eventually merge it in that of a better-known University. Meanwhile, Owens would have the painful consciousness that they had added another to the difficulties of schools, by creating a new set of Examinations, to distract the attention of students and masters. Now turn to the calendar of the University of London, and examine its lists of Honour classes. Are they not very much smaller than is desirable, and is not this meagreness due to the attraction of Oxford and Cambridge ? I have no desire to advo- cate a monopoly, it is not for the sake of Oxford, or Cambridge, or London that I deprecate the creation of new Universities. It is because, as a matter of fact, there are not enough students • ambitious of honours to fill worthily the lists of more than one university (in England) besides Oxford and Cambridge, and to fritter the remainder away by dispersing them among a number of degree-giving centres is to injure the students of every college in the country, to lower the standard of distinction, and thereby to lower the limit of attainment. I am sure that examinations, if wisely organised, are great helps to knowledge and to self-know- ledge, and to substitute a provincial standard for a wider one is a long and serious step in the wrong direction.
But it is said, a student loves to connect his degree with his place of higher education ; and he cannot do this, if London examines, whilst Manchester teaches ? Why not ? He can do so just as much as an Oxford or Cambridge man does. It is not usual even to write " M.A. Oxon," or " M.A. Cantab.," but even if it were, we should not have any denotation of the college or school. Why it should not be possible for an Owensite with a London degree to write, if he wishes, " BA., Owens College, Manchester," just as others write "B.A., Trinity Cull., Cam- bridge," passes my wits to imagine. If London were a teaching institution, the case would be different. As it is not a teaching institution, the difficulty seems to me nil.
Is it heretical to avow a belief that Scotland owes nothing to the existence of four Universities, as distinguished from four teaching institutions combining for degrees in one University ? I have seen not a particle of evidence produced that the independent right to confer degrees now existing in four Colleges, has been of any service either to Scotland or the United Kingdom. I have no doubt, and require no evidence to convince me, that the four Colleges have been of very great benefit to Scotland, and to much more than Scotland. I am not aware that the junction some twenty years ago of the two independent Universities at Aberdeen has at all impaired the value of Scottish degrees or the worth of Scottish education, and it seems to me highly probable that if the four, five, or more Colleges had combined on reasonable principles into one University, not only would a Scottish degree have ranked higher than it does now, but the Colleges would have been at least as firm in the love of their students and the fame of their teaching as they are or have been, No one feels gratitude or affection towards the Examiners or to the Vice-Chancellor, but to his schoolmaster or his tutor.
There is a nobler function for Owens College than to be the petty tyrant of the recalcitrant schools of a province. Let her seek to adorn the Sparta which is her lot,—to improve and reform the examinations which her students naturally seek, instead of inventing new ones to plague others. Let her, like Hampden and Cromwell, happily prevented from flight, abandon the fatal policy of the Commune, and contend for well-ordered liberty under a common constitution.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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