The Convocation of the University of London, which met on
Tuesday, was well advised in determining not to hinder the great experiment which the recent Commission has proposed in the way of combining a great teaching University in the Metropolis with the Examining University which has had so great a career and done so much to raise the ideal of secondary education in the country. It refused by a very large majority to protest against the surrender of the veto which Convoca- tion at present possesses on the acceptance of any new Charter, and so intimated its willingness that a very con- siderable power should be handed over to the teachers for deciding on the curriculum and the standard to be required from candidates for the strictly academic degree which will stand side by side with the present degree so soon as the new teaching University is called into existence. We trust that the magnanimity which the Convocation of the University has thus shown will be met by the appointment of a Statutory Commission which will give Convocation a considerably larger representation on the reconstructed Senate of the University than the Commission proposes, and a special control over the Board which is to regulate the conditions for the examination of the external students who do not take the new academic degree. If the great experiment is to be successful, the Government must provide a very large addition to the revenues of the University. New Chairs, new physical laboratories, new libraries and Fellowships, cannot be provided without new and very large means.
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