A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE unsuccessful action brought by St. David's College, Lampeter, against the Ministry of Education in the endeavour to prove that the college was of university status raises interesting questions as to what a university, in Great Britain at any rate, is. The short (not so conspicuously short) dictionary definition is: "Educational institution designed for instruction or examinations or both of students in all or many of the more important branches of learning, conferring degrees in various faculties and often embodying colleges and similar institutions."
It was given in evidence that under various Royal Charters St. David's college, which was incorporated in 1827 (and is not part of the University of Wales), is authorised to confer the degrees of B.A. and B.D. It provides honours courses in classics, mathematics, history, English, Welsh, philosophy and theology—a manifestly limited .curriculum, all forms of science being totally absent. The Ministry was on strong ground in con- tending that this did not constitute a "university education," but a number of witnesses from other universities considered that the power to confer degrees settled the matter. The learned Judge, admitting that there was no clear definition of what a university was, felt that it was fairly easy to determine what a university was not, and a college of 170 students, conferring nothing higher than a B.A. degree, fell in that category. This seems plain common sense. * * * *
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