LONDON UNIVERSITY.
TF, oblivious of Royal Commissions and of existing facts and records, we were to set oat to imagine an ideal University of London, where and what would it be ? A graduate of Oxford or Cambridge, no doubt, would find some difficulty in shaping his ideas on lines different from the insti- tutions which have sprung up on the banks of the Isis and the Cam. Perhaps, in some respects, the ideals uppermost in his mind would not be wholly suitable for the needs of a metropolis, as distinguished from a seat of academic learning ; but in other respects, particularly those of externals such as situation and buildings, he would probably apply standards which could not be bettered. Let us then, without asserting that his choice is necessarily the best, imagine him contemplating from a convenient standpoint the buildings and the situation of a London University of his own design and choosing. At the back of his head, governing every idea and every application of ideas, is the word L' central " : he begins, then, with a central position. Here, of course, he will be met with a dozen admirably argued propositions as to what is properly a centre. He accepts and admits provisionally all such arguments, but without hesitation chooses as his own central position the blocks of buildings which lie between the British Museum and Oxford Street, where be watches a stream of north and south traffic down Southampton Row and Kingsway, and a stream of east and west traffic on the greatest of London highways, which passes almost as the crow flies from the City to Shepherd's Bush. These buildings, mean and fine, he demolishes at a blow, and instead contemplates a group of grey and weather-worn courts and quadrangles, quiet and austere beyond the roar of the crossing highways, cloistered from the noise of the profane, communicating with and linked with the life and the commerce of the working world without. Level grass spreads round the fountains in the courtyards ; here a group of noble planes and sycamores breaks the ordered lines and cross-lines of brick and stone; there, under a wide archway, heavy oak gates shut in and guard the quiet of great quadrangles open to the sky. The gates open, and to and from chapels and theatres and lecture- rooms pass and repass young men and women, of different classes, of different means, with different aims and purposes, united in a common life with common traditions and common ideals. Beyond the gates to the north lies the Museum, greatest of all the treasure houses ; to the south lies the river, and all that the river sums up for Cambridge and for Oxford. Beyond the Museum, and beyond the mouth of the river, lie the open ways of the world.
Well, there are no University buildings between the British Museum and New Oxford Street, and perhaps there are never likely to be. But the sketch of the foregoing paragraph, perhaps, suggests something of the possibilities of the new, transformed London University present to the minds of the Commissioners who issued their final report on Monday. It was four years ago, on February 24th, 1909, that a Royal Commission on University Education in London was appointed,
and if the Blue-book containing their final report is more than usually voluminous, the terms of reference of the Commission were more than usually wide. Analysed, the Commissioners find that the two fundamental questions on which they were asked to report are, first, How does the present organization of the University of London work ? and What provision ought to be made in Loudon for University teaching and research ? The answer of the Commission as regards the first is, shortly. that the whole organization of the University is fundamentally defective. The chief defects are apparent in the relations between the internal and external sides of the University, and in the lack of co-ordination between the large number of different institutions, with different aims and ideals, connected with it. These defects go deeper than mere questions of machinery of government. They are due in the first place to an incompatibility of ideals. The functions of the University have been regarded throughout from two standpoints. One is the academic or internal stand- point, which regards training in a University under University teachers as by. far the most important factor in University education. The other is the external standpoint, from which the University is regarded as a degree-conferring institution, and which attaches the chief importance to a system of examination based upon a syllabus, the examination forming the sole test as to whether the candidate is fitted to receive the University degree. It is this claim from the external side which the Commissioners regard as forming the real cause of the defective working of the University. The aim, therefore, which they put before the University for the future is the correlation of internal and external interests on a new basis, and here they come first to a definition of what, in their view, should be the essentials of a University existing in a great centre of population. In the first place, the students must work in Close contact with their fellow-students and with their teachers. In the second place, University work ought to differ in its character and in its aim from the work of a secondary or a professional school. In the third place, under- graduate work must be closely connected with postgraduate work. Throughout there must be an interdependence of teacher and taught. The ideal for a University is that the student should gain strength and should be inspired to a breadth of outlook from the influence of the older men about him, and that the older men should be stimulated by association with the younger, fresher minds continually adding their new energy to the life of the University as a whole. With that ideal set before teacher and student, the granting and receiving of degrees become merely a characteristic of a University career, not the be-all and end-all of University existence. At this point, the question of the conferring of degrees, the Commis- sioners are brought, naturally enough, to the consideration of a standard of work, and so to the inclusion or exclusion of institutions allied to or connected with the work of the University to-day. They examine the claims of these institu- tions, and make their own recommendations. These cannot, of course, be examined here in detail, but it will be noted with interest that though the Report provides for Faculties of Arts, Science, Technology, Economics, Medicine, and Theology, Faculties of Laws and of Music are at present excluded. This does not mean that the Commissioners consider the study of law and of music outside the range of University education, but merely that, as a fact, they find that there does not exist to-day, in connexion with the University, a body of teachers in either Faculty of Laws or Music to which a proper status has as yet been assigned. To call into existence such a properly qualified body of teachers is mainly a matter of money, and the obtaining of the necessary money is, of course, a question of time. As an example of the breadth of view characterizing the Commissioners' Report, it will be noticed that a special recommendation is made for the con- stitution of King's College for Women as the University Department for the teaching of home economics and household and social science. That is excellent and a signal triumph for the band of able women and men who, during the last five years, have been working to give the status of University recognition to the study of domestic science. Speaking generally, the scope of the aims of a University situated in a. great centre of population could hardly be better emphasized than in this portion of the report: We come lastly to a recommendation which, regarded from certain points of view, deserves to come first. That is the formation of a "University quarter." The Commissioners realize that London cannot be made into a University town like Oxford or Cambridge, where the University dominates the town; but they point out that it would be quite possible to create a University quarter in London in which the Unhersity life and interests could grow and develop. But the creation of a University quarter means, of course, a building. Without a building you cannot get the central idea, the nucleus which accumulates by itself an atmosphere alike of traditions from the past and of purpose for the future. There must be a building, an enclosed space, a gate—in a word, a home for any University which is to live and to grow. If a University cannot flourish without an inward and spiritual life, no more can it take its stand in the work of a great centre of population without an outward and visible sign of its existence. The sign of its existence must be a building, and a building worthy of the life and work it is to foster. But with the idea of a build- ing you come inevitably to the choice of a site, and there, for the present, the question must be left. In London, as we see it to-day, perhaps leas than half developed, with build- ing after building marked to come down in its gradual process of growth and strengthening and cleansing—which is a process of the existence of cities in which men live, just as it is a process of the human body—there are sites almost without number fitted for new and noble buildings. There is Kensington, already a centre of museums ; there is the centre marked by the British Museum itself; there is the southern bank of the Thames waiting to be purged from its smoke and slime. But the choice of a site for the central building of a University is too wide a question for a paragraph. It is a question which will solve itself in time, and the solution, when it comes, will be the beginning of the new life of the University.
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