Itittro fa tlir
LONDON UNIVERSITY.
SIR—As yours is one of the few journals in which one may hope to find an advocate for an institution unauthorized by antiquity and uuconsecrated by abuses, I venture to address a few words to you with reference to the London University, on a subject connected with no peculiar views she may entertain either in politics or religion, but relating solely to her internal government, and one which it well behOves her well-wishers to consider. The great defect to which I allude is, the want of unity in her constitution, and the almost total absence of the essential characteristics of a corporate body. There is a divinity that hedges in large corporations and gives them a status in the eyes of their neighbours which exercises a powerful influence on their success. The founders of the London University, trying the experiment of a new and liberal system of education, untrammelled by religious tests, and =disfigured by invidious distinctions of rank or creed, have been carried so far by their excessive ardour for freedom, (for it cannot be attributed to ne- gligence,) that they have entirely disowned any external or adventitious aids, and have trusted to sound and respectable scholarship, and that alone, for bearing them through all the powerful opposition they have to encounter. Now, Sir, this is all very well. Doubtless, the only sure foundation of suc- cess is that the University should raise her standard of requirements for de- grees, and thus make up for her want of prestige and of sympathy in high quarters: but there is snore than this needed for a system that desires to fight its way in England in the nineteenth century. Men's tastes have be- come fastidious, and those tastes must be complied with. You cannot hope to raise your age to the high point of view from which you may be able yourself to look at the object and reality of an academical institution you must, therefore, bring your institution to the level of men's preconceived ideas and partialities, and without this your task is a hopeless one. I might allude to the fact that her College par excellence—University College—has degenerated into a large assembly of overgrown schoolboys, which, while de- void of all the esprit de corps that regulates most public schools, "cannot claim the advantage of that individual surveillance which rules private aca- demies.
I might allude to the fact, that a student, having once taken his degree, is instanter as much isolated from his Alma Mater as if he had never been under her motherly guidance. There is, indeed, a society of Graduates, ori- ginated by themselves and unrecognized (save as antagonists) by the Senate ; but the governing body of the University gives us not the least encourage- ment to range ourselves under any banner, and does not in the slightest de- uee keep before our eyes the fact that we belong to a class, the body of London Graduates. There is no annual, triennial, quinquennial meeting, no converaaziones, no commemoration ; we having nothing to do with the internal government of the University ; but we take our degree and our leave of those who confer it at the same moment. But perhaps this is in- evitable; and the very fad which chiefly induced me to address you may explain why when we once part it is "to meet no more." The Senate cannot invite us to a reunion, for they have no place to invite us to. The London University has -no -fixed building wherein to hold its meetings, to examine its members, or to confer its degrees. It is in that lamentable condition, that could it be -brought up at Marlborough Street it would be committed as a vagrant For some time we maintained some ap- pearance of respectability under the wing of Government at Somerset Home, though even then the offices at our disposal there were by ninety-nine out of the hundred considered as mere appendages of King's College. "Did you take your degree at King's College, or the London University ? " is a question I have had put to me a score of-times. But this year, -Sir, we have sunk lower far. Alas ! must I divulge it ? The examination for the degree of Bachelor of Arts was held in Willis's Rooms, while the Honour Examina- tion was conducted with still greater felicity in the Thatched House Tavern. Really, Sir, I do think this is a disgrace that-ought-at once to be remedied. If the upholders of the liberal system cannot support their own peculiar pro- tegee, let us at least give it a decent Christian burial, and not permit its skeleton to wander for shelter from dancing-room to tavern : but it should be otherwise if the University would be respected even by its own constitu- ents.
You may imagine, Sir, how highly we value such degrees, and how mu- sically those laurels rustle on our -brows which were wreathed under the -presiding influence of the genius of the Thatched House Tavern.
Hoping you will excuse my troubling you, I remain, dear Sir, yours obe-
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