27 AUGUST 1937, Page 20

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The linking together of

these two words, as though they were compatible, and the trend of the article upon them in your last issue helps to show to what a serious extent the very notion of a university has become vitiated in modern thought. A university is not a technical school; in fact, it is, in idea, an entirely different institution. Nearly forty years ago, in a discussion upon education, I heard this aphorism urtered- " A university exists solely for the purpose of teaching useless branches of knowledge." Surely the truth which underlies that statement is capable of being recognised and understood