Volume 2

Report of the royal commissioners appointed to inquire whether any and what kind of new university or powers is or are required for the advancement of higher education in London, together with an appendix.

  • Great Britain. University for London Commission.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the royal commissioners appointed to inquire whether any and what kind of new university or powers is or are required for the advancement of higher education in London, together with an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    39/318 (page 31)
    Chamberlain, speaking at Birmingham the other day in reference to the colleges there, distinctly expressed his desire to see the foundation of a great Midland University. At all events, the danger is sufficiently great at present in that respect. 330. Your next head, I think, is as to the difficulties entailed upon educational work; what have you to say upon that subject ?—The main point there is what has already been in some respects anticipated, that there is a dislocation between the actual work which the teachers find it practicable to do with the students and the standard imposed upon them by an external body. What can be done with students depends upon the students ; it depends upon their constitution; it is a mere matter of practice how much you can get into or out of a youDg man at various ages; and a body of men who are not in continual contact with students are apt to set, and do practically set, standards which it is extremely difficult to follow. 331. Do you mean which requh-e a greater age and maturity of intellect ?—Yes, and which have too much multiplicity. The latter is a very serious point, because certainly, at some ages, according to my experience, far more education is given by teaching two or three subjects very thoroughly and carefully, than by giving a general knowledge of a great number. I think the matriculation examination of the University of London alone includes some 10 subjects. 332. I suppose some option is given among a num- ber of subjects ?—Amongst some of the subjects, but the mere list of necessary subjects is very consider- able. At all events, the practical work and the externally imposed standard are dislocated, and I think we have suffered perhaps at King's College rather more in that respect than they have at Uni- versity College. At the matriculation examination at the University of London candidates must show a competent knowledge in Latin ; in one of the following languages, Greek, French, German, Sanskrit or Arabic; in the English language, English history and geography; in mathematics and natural philo- sophy ; and in chemistry, or heat and light, or mag- netism and electricity. 333. A young man cannot be matriculated, for example, without a competent knowledge of mathe- matics ?—Of all those subjects. The regulation is: Candidates shall not be approved by the examiners unless they show a competent knowledge in each of the following subjects. 334. {Di. Ball) It depends upon the interpretation of the expression competent knowledge ?—Exactly so. 335. {Chairman.) The absolute requirement of competent knowledge, whatever the standard may be, say in mathematics, or say in chemistry, would exclude those who, whether from want of natural capacity for the particular study, or from any other cause, had not acquired it ?—Certainly. 336. I remember cases of men highly distinguished, who were said not to be able to acquire mathematics. Dean Stanley, I think, was one ?—I believe so. 337. {Dr. Ball.) But I think there is a doctrine of compensation applied to our programme at the Royal University in Dublin which we borrowed from the London University programme, the examination pre- scribed by its rules requires a knowledge of several distinct subjects, but that does not operate as a deterrent, for I think that several hundred gentlemen passed the very last matriculation examination. We shall hear from the representatives of the University of London how many pass their matriculation exami- nation ?—No doubt. 338. {Chairman.) At present what you state is, that in the University of London there is a con- siderable number of subjects in which it is necessary for the student to show a competent knowledge before being matriculated. I suppose matriculation is neces- sary for any more advanced degree ?—Certainly. I should like to remark, with respect to what Dr. Ball says, that there is a compensation in this matter, which I fully recognise, and that is the very result that I complain of. If you set up all these subjects, and Rev. H. Wace, require men to be examined in them, you may be quite D.D. sure that the compensation will be that they will know lg june j88g none of them well. 339. {Dr. Ball.) I do not see that this follows on the compensation principle at all, because, in order to get in, a man must know some subjects well, if he is bad in others. For instance, if a man answers imper- fectly in mathematics, and is a first rate classical scholar, you would have some compensation in his competency in classics for his failure in mathematics ? —I hope you will understand that that is not allowed in the University of London ; but that the candidate must know all the subjects, so far as the matricula- tion examination is concerned, and that there is very little compensation at any rate. The fault I think is rather in the multiplicity of subjects than in the amount of knowledge required in each. 340. {Chairman.) Have you anything to add upon that subject?—I think we have been, though perhaps not so much in science as in other things, at a greater disadvantage than University College, because those who founded us, and all our early teachers were more closely associated with the old system of teaching at Oxford and Cambridge than they were at University College, and there was at first less sympathy between us. I am sorry to say (I must notice it in passings that the University of London in its present proposal) still displays lack, I will not say of sympathy, but of inclination to meet us in such a very important point as this. I have here a proposal which was made to the senate last year for alterations in the Univer- sity, and one of them is that the University of London should have power to hold real property for the establishment of professorships and lectureships, provided that no professorship or lectureship be established in the University of a kind likely to com- pete with any teaching that is given in University College, London, or to injuriously affect the reason- able prospects of that college. But there is not one word said about its injuriously affecting the interests or prospects of King's College. 341. That you would probably not lay much stress upon, because it may be presumed that if the autho- rities of the University of London were cross-examined upon that point, they would say that they were quite willing to be as liberal to King's College?—I hope they would, but I am not so sure of it. It may be only an oversight, but if so, it is one of those over- sights that indicate lack of touch. 342. Or it may be that they had specially in view something which had proceeded from University College, and which they were answering ?—That is possible ; I am not aware of anything of the kind. What we so strongly desire at King's College is not that our particular system, which we inherited, and which grew up with us, should be asserted as against the other, but that we should be brought into line, into co-operation and consultation with the other. 343. That is an important matter, no doubt ; but I infer from what you have already said, that you would not feel satisfied if that were done in a manner which did not give to the colleges, taking them as an aggregate, a predominant influence ?—Certainly not, if a predominant influence were not given to any colleges that may be incorporated in the university. That is part of our difficulty at King's College. The next head that I have put down on the paper which is in your Lordship's hands, is the general disad- vantages to education of the existing system ; and they rest in our view mainly on this: that the existing system gives undue prominence and undue importance to a degree, as something absolutely dis- tinct from the course by which it is gained. A degree as given by the University of London is a testimony to the amount of knowledge which its possessor has at the particular moment at which he is examined, that and no more ; and is no test whatever of his having gone through a regular and systematic eourse of instruction in the subject, and not merely of in- struction, but of training in the subject. The con-