HC Deb 14 June 1898 vol 59 cc233-304

Order for Second Reading read.

SIR J. GORST

The Bill of which I now rise to move the Second Reading has grown out of the necessity for the establishment in London of a teaching university. There has long been teaching of a very high order in London, but that teaching has been unorganised and it has been in many instances overlapping, and the want of some central body around which this teaching may be grouped has long been felt. The teachers have, I believe, for the last quarter of a century been agitating for the establishment of a university, and I think, among those who have given attention to the subject, the necessity for some kind of teaching university in London, is established as entirely common ground among all who discuss the question, and it would be wasting the time of the House to endeavour to give reasons for this. I therefore pass on to the question how this teaching university may best be established. There are two methods—definite methods—by which the desired end may be attained; the first is by the establishment of an entirely new university for London, and the second is by modifying the existing University of London in such a manner as will meet the wants of the case. Efforts have been made during the last 20 years, and many schemes have been brought forward by bodies possessing more or less public authority for establishing a new institution or modifying the existing university. Finally these efforts found expression in the year 1887 in a petition presented by University College and King's College for the establishment of Gresham University, and in the same year a petition was presented to the Privy Council from, various medical schools in London asking for the establishment of a medical university. To consider these petitions a Royal Commission was appointed in 1888, and in the following year that Commission reported against the formation of any separate medical university, and with regard to the petition for Gresham University that there should be delay in order to allow the existing university to propose of its own accord such modifications in its constitution as might render any second university unnecessary. In 1891 the attempts at such modifications had practically failed, and thereupon the proposition for Gresham University again came before Parliament. Then there was a Motion made for the rejection of this charter, and after discussion in this House the House resolved by a considerable majority that the charter should be rejected. Upon the rejection of the charter another Commission was appointed, known by the name of the Cowper Commission, presided over by Lord Cowper, which considered, not merely the question of the charter which had been propounded, but the whole subject of London University education. This Commission reported in 1894, and their Report unanimously recommended two propositions; first, that there should be no second university in London, and secondly, that the necessary modification of the London University should be carried out by means of a statutory Commission. A Bill was brought in in the same year by Lord Playfair to give effect to the Report of the Commission. That Bill was lost by the premature dissolution of the House on a change of Government, and since the present Government has been in office it has every year brought in a similar Bill—this being the third—to give effect practically to the recommendations of this Commission. The present Bill, it is true, is somewhat modified from the Bill that was brought in by Lord Playfair and as it was originally brought in by the present Government. It is modified with the view of meeting some of the objections which have been raised, and also of recognising the progress and development in education which have taken place in London since the Report of the Cowper Commission, because the progress of higher education in London is very rapid, and events have occurred since the Cowper Commission reported which made it desirable to somewhat modify the scheme. It would be quite hopeless in educational matters to propound any scheme of development or improvement to which some objection cannot be taken. There are vested interests which grow up around the existing system. These vested interests are extremely nervous as to the effect which any change might produce upon them, and they are very timid and reluctant to accept any change. After a series of very long negotiations and very considerable discussion among the different bodies, the scheme embodied in the Bill has practically been accepted by all the public bodies in London which are connected with higher education. I should like to inform the House of the various bodies by which this scheme has been considered and accepted. It has, first of all, been accepted by the senate of the University of London by a majority of 22 to 2—practically a unanimous acceptance by the senate of the University of London. It has been accepted by the Royal College of Physicians, by the Royal College of Surgeons, by the Society of Apothecaries, by University College, by King's College, by the Bedford College for Women, by the 12 medical schools which exist in London, by six theological colleges, by the Society for the Extension of University Teaching, by the Technical Education Committee of the London County Council, by the Corporation of the City of London, by the City and Guilds Institute, by the Polytechnic Council, by the Royal Society, and all the other learned societies in London; and, finally, it has been accepted by the convocation of the university. I say it has been accepted by the convocation of the University of London because, by the charter of the university, a particular mode is specified in which the convocation of the University of London shall express its opinion on the subject. The convocation expresses its opinion by a meeting at which discussion takes place, and at which a vote is given by the persons there present. Such a meeting of convocation has been held, and this present scheme has been approved in that legal and formal manner in which the charter of the university requires the opinion of convocation to be expressed—by a majority of 460 to 239. But it has been said that this legal expression of the opinion of the University of London has been overruled by the result of a contested election. An election was recently held in London for a member of the senate. A very distinguished member of my own university, a senior wrangler, was one of the candidates, and in his candidature declared himself hostile to the present scheme. He was opposed by another gentleman of considerable eminence who announced himself favourable to the present scheme, and the result of the voting—which was not conducted by persons who had heard the arguments for and against—was that Mr. Fletcher Moulton was elected by 1,300 odd votes against 1,100 odd votes given for his opponent. He was elected by a majority of 200, the numbers voting being something like 2,600 out of a total number of graduates of 4,000. That has been put forward, not only as entirely doing away with the formal and regular expression of opinion of convocation, but as a reason why this House should proceed no further with the present Bill, and I really should like the House to consider that we have no evidence before us as to how far those who voted in this election at all appreciated the necessity for a teaching university in London, nor how far they were animated by the mere conservative desire to be let alone, with a kind of timid apprehension that it was possible that their degrees or position or interests might by the change be in some way affected. Nor have we any informa- tion as to how far voters were influenced by those misstatements of fact which are inseparable from contested elections, and which, I am informed, in this particular election, were particularly rife. And, lastly, there is no evidence as to how far they were affected by personal predilection. I should go a little further and say that, even assuming that the existing graduates of the University of London were unanimous in their objection to the present scheme, I do not know why the personal feelings of London graduates should stand in the way of a great national reform—of a national development of higher education—when in the scheme, as I shall presently show, their rights and interests, such as they are, are most carefully and most securely preserved. There is a further objection brought forward which we shall no doubt hear of from the right honourable Baronet the Member for the University of London, and that is a claim that the Convocation of London should have a veto upon any scheme which Parliament may enact for the purpose of developing the University of London. That claim is based upon Article 21 of the charter, which says that if a new or supplemental charter is given by the Crown to the University of London the power of accepting it shall be exercised by the convocation of the university. The answer to that is, first of all, that this is a restriction which applies to the charter and not to the action of this House. The Crown may very properly restrain its own power of granting any further charter, but it cannot restrain the power of the Houses of Parliament. This power of accepting or rejecting the supplementary charter is to be exercised by convocation in a certain legal way—that is, by local meeting held, at which arguments are advanced for and against, and by the decision of those present at the meeting who have heard those arguments. So far as that power goes, as I explained before, the convocation of the University of London by a large majority accepted this scheme; and what my right honourable Friend is asking for is not the power contained in the charter, but an entirely new power which is not in the charter, enabling the university to do what no university has ever been allowed to do—to express, by voting paper, its opinion, for or against. I will proceed to point out to the House how carefully the objections and fears of those who are opposed to this Bill have been met in the scheme which has been laid before Parliament. The great fear which has been expressed is that teachers may preponderate in the new university; and it is supposed that if those who are engaged in university teaching were to gain command in the new university they would exercise their powers to examine their students, then they would lower the standard of the degree, and they would finally injure the rights of the external students. I should like to protest against the sort of character which the opponents of this Bill endeavour to fix upon teachers. I do not think that university teachers are, of all people, at all inclined to lower the standard of the degrees and faculties which, they represent and teach. On the contrary, I have always found, in every case, that teachers are desirous of raising the standard; and I should think that, if left to themselves, and if they were to take charge of the university, the danger would be that they would make the degrees too difficult. At any rate, you cannot prevent teachers having some voice in the examinations of the university. You could not find a body of examiners unless you accept the assistance of those who teach, and everybody knows that in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge the examinations are almost exclusively conducted by those who have been actively engaged in teaching; and the mathematical tripos at Cambridge, which has always been considered an ex tremely good examination, is always conducted by men engaged actively in teaching, and I have not heard that they lowered the standard or made the examination more easy. The existing senate of the existing University of London, which appoints examiners, is out of touch with teachers, and, even if there were no necessity for a teaching university in London, in the interest of the examining university itself, it would be expedient to make some arrangements by which the senate which appoints examiners should be brought into closer touch and relations with those to whom they give instruction. The senate has hitherto settled the subjects of examination and curricula without any reference to the teachers; and the remarkable result is that up to last year the syllabus of examination in the faculty of science, the most progressive subject of examination, had been unrevised since 1876, so that up to last year people had been examined in chemistry and physiology—progressive and advancing sciences—in entire neglect of the great discoveries of the last 20 years. The inconvenience was so great that the university had to extemporise 13 boards for the purpose of bringing their curriculum and examination into harmony with the scientific advance of the present day. That was an expedient that was adopted once, but which could not be used again, and I have no hesitation in saying that unless in some way or other the examining body of the University of London is brought into relation and touch with the teachers the examinations themselves will suffer. I am informed that there is a general agreement among learned and scientific men, not only in this country but in the whole civilised world, that in the highest parts of progressive science the attainments of students cannot be tested unless the teachers have some voice in setting the subjects of examination. That being the danger to be guarded against, the Bill appoints seven Commissioners by whom the statutes of the new university are to be framed. The Commissioners are Lord Davey; the Bishop of London; Sir William Roberts, a medical doctor and a Fellow of the University of London; Sir Owen Roberts, who is well known as having taken an active part in the spread of modern education; my honourable colleague the senior Member for Cambridge University (Professor Jebb); Michael Foster; and Edward Henry Busk, chairman of convocation of the University of London. These Commissioners are constituted to frame the statutes for the purpose of carrying out the general scheme of the commission—that is, to so modify the existing University of London that it may fulfil the functions of a teaching university. I think the House may very well trust men like those I have named to frame statutes that will be in accordance with the best interests of education. But they have not got unlimited power in the framing of the statutes. The statutes will have to be laid before Parliament, and therefore Parliament does not give up its power of accepting or rejecting any statutes the Commissioners may frame. Besides that, the senate or convocation, or any persons or anybody affected by the statutes may appeal to the council to do them justice. Besides that, the Commissioners are instructed in the second part of the schedule of the Bill as to what they are to provide for. They are to provide, first of all, for the adequate protection of the interests of all classes of students, whether external or internal, whether collegiate or non-collegiate. They are to provide for the recognition as teachers of the university of all persons duly qualified to be teachers. Then they are to provide for the inclusion, under proper regulations, as internal students, of those qualified to be internal students; and they are to provide for the due representation on the academic council of all sections of teachers in the university. I think it will be admitted that a scheme which in this way has been the subject of long controversy and of long negotiations and compromise among the various bodies concerned ought not to be lightly overruled by the Government or by Parliament: and that primâ facie the scheme which they have agreed to ought to be accepted. But in order to meet objections and in order to secure the interests of all the existing graduates of the university and the external students of the university, in the schedule of this Bill the powers of the Commissioners are very greatly curtailed. Part 1 of the Bill really does by Parliament a considerable portion of what might be left to the Commissioners themselves. The senate is not left to the Commissioners to appoint. The senate is appointed in the schedule of the Bill. It consists of 17 members appointed by convocation, of 16 appointed by the teachers, and of a number of other members appointed by various public bodies, the majority of whom have no connection with teaching, and therefore the constitution of the senate ensures that the direct representatives of the teachers shall always be a minority on the senate. Then there is the academic council appointed by, and consisting of, teachers, which is intended to manage and supervise the internal students of the university. But even this body has three official members representing convocation, and one other member who is to be elected by the senate, so that, although the teachers have undoubtedly a majority on the academic council, they have not the exclusive control of the council. The council of external students, by whom the work of the external students is to be supervised, are entirely appointed by the senate, with the exception of threes ex-officio members, the chancellor, the vice-chancellor, and the chairman of convocation. Finally, there is the board for the extension of university teaching, perhaps the most important of the boards; but as there is no controversy about it I will not trouble the House with any remarks in regard to it. Now as to the question of the general examinations. Remember the senate, in which the teachers are in a minority, has supreme authority; and that there are several bodies which advise the senate in the case of external students and internal students. But in both cases the senate is supreme, and the senate is enjoined by statute to see that the decrees which are conferred on external and internal students are to represent the same degree of knowledge and attainments. The senate can only alter this regulation after communication with the convocation, with the academic council, and the council of external students, and they are also enjoined always to appoint one examiner who shall not be a teacher; so it seems to me that every possible care is taken in the provisions of the schedule—a schedule agreed to by all these bodies, a schedule which is the result of long controversy and long compromise—that neither shall the degree of the London University be lowered nor shall any injustice be done to the external students. Just consider for a moment how the standard of degree can be lowered. Suppose that some of the teachers of some faculty desire to lower the standard. What do they do? First of all, they have to consult their brother teachers who form the academic council, and must convince the whole body of teachers of the university that the standard must be lowered. Suppose they succeed in convincing the academic council that the standard must be lowered. They must then obtain the consent of the senate, and the senate cannot consent to the lowering of the standard for internal students, unless the committee of external students agree that it should also be lowered for them. Therefore it is practically impossible that the standard of degree can be lowered unless the external students and those who represent the interests of external students are parties to the matter. There is one other opposition which has been raised to the Bill which I must notice, and that is the opposition of the Inns of Court. Now, it never was intended that in this Bill the Inns of Court should be affected without their consent; it was never intended to give power to the Commissioners against the consent of the Inns of Court to turn them into a school of the university; and I should certainly have thought from the reading of the Bill that there was no such power in it; but I speak with great reluctance in the presence of those high legal authorities who represent the Inns of Court. All I can say is that, if there is any ground for supposing that any power is given in this Bill to the Commissioners to affect the Inns of Court without their consent, the Government will have no objection whatever to the introduction of a saving clause to protect the present rights of the Inns of Court, and I hope that after that assurance any opposition there may be on the part of the Inns of Court to the further progress of the Bill will not be persisted in. On the whole, the Government recommend this Bill to the House. It is not their scheme; it is a scheme which is the result of a very long controversy and of a great deal of compromise, of give-and-take on the part of the various bodies, and they think it is a satisfactory conclusion of a very long discussed question. It will give a teaching university to London in the only way in which it can be given—namely, by a modification of the constitution of the existing university, and in doing this, so far from injuring the existing university, it will, so the Government believe, increase its utility and reputation. I hope the House will give a Second Reading to the Bill, and that we may succeed during the present Session in passing it.

* MR. HARWOOD (Bolton)

Mr. Speaker, I desire to preface my remarks with one observation. The right honourable Gentleman has introduced this Bill with such calmness and clearness that, speaking for myself, I cannot attempt, in any light-hearted way, to attack its provisions. I recognise, in the first place, the position of the Government in the matter, which happily lifts this question quite out of the atmosphere of party politics. The Government were bound to do what they have done. They had received a Report, and they were bound to act upon it. They did not seem to be very particularly keen in that action—there may have been some distrust in their proposals—but now, at last, we have the matter fairly and squarely before the House as a business matter. I would like to assure the right honourable Gentleman that, as far as I am concerned, I do not approach the question from the point of view of Convocation. Though I happen to be a member of that body, I recognise that the rights of Convocation with this matter are very secondary, and I am almost sorry that the right honourable Gentleman troubled himself to fight these creatures of air whilst there were creatures of more substantial quality he might have attempted to grapple with. I quite recognise the immense care that has been bestowed upon this question. To my own knowledge, for 12 years at least this matter has been debated, and debated with great ability and great spirit and tact; but, Mr. Speaker, it seems to me to have shared the fate of many movements of the kind which are debated and compromised from year to year. Three or four contending parties or causes begin to compromise and compromise, and gradually they come to agreement amongst themselves and forget the true relationship of the public to the question as a whole. They move gradually. That has been the case with this Bill. I think the right honourable Gentleman said that this question originally arose on the matter of founding a separate university for London. This movement led, as I shall explain, to an amalgamation with the present London University. We had incidents of compromise even across the floor of the House of Commons in regard to the Incorporated Law Society only a short time ago. There has indeed been compromise and compromise. But the two main points which I want the Committee to consider in regard to these contending parties and interests are, firstly, the question of a teaching university for London, and, secondly, the welfare of education in general throughout the whole country; and, therefore, I will not dwell in any degree upon any minor points. As to the matter of the charter, as to the personnel of the Commission, and other small issues, I have nothing whatever to say. But I venture to protest against the charge of the right honourable Gentleman, that those who take the same view as I do speak slightingly of the teachers. We do not assume for a moment any hostile attitude against them, and I say at once that I entirely disclaim anything of the kind. There is nothing in the nature of animus in our opposition; it is general, and is founded solely upon principle. Now, the matters which I would venture to bring before the House come under two heads. In the first place, I say that this Bill does not do what it ought to do, and, in the second place, it does what it ought not to do. I would first ask the attention of the House as to what it professes to do, but what I say it does not do. It professes to found a teaching university for London. It is stated that those of us who are opposed to this Bill are opposed to the idea of a teaching university for London. Nothing of the kind, Sir. We oppose this Bill because Government does not seem to realise the great importance and the great difficulty of what I may call the supreme problem. What does the Bill do? It takes 25 institutions. In one of the Reports upon which the Bill is founded they are called colleges of the university. What are they? Now, I do not wish to speak in any degree invidiously of any institution in London or elsewhere, but the House is bound to ask itself: Are these the sort of institutions of which to form a Teaching University of London? In this Report 25 schools are enumerated; of these 25—and they are all what I should call technical schools, and technical schools only—10 are medical schools, six are theological colleges, and four are teaching colleges of music, leaving only five which have the slightest claim to university character in any sense of the word. Now, I do not wish to speak slightingly of these institutions, but I do not think their combined existence can be said to solve the problem of having a teaching university for London. Even the best of those institutions falls very far short of what I may call a university character. To say, therefore, that 20 out of 25 of such schools are anything more than technical schools is what I would venture to call a misstatement. Now, secondly, what do you do? You recognise the teachers of these schools as teachers of the university. You allow those teachers to examine for degrees, and you allow those teachers practically to give degrees to each other. Now, I do not wish to labour that point, but I want the House to see what the Bill involves. Now, what are the objections to these proposals? Obviously the first objection is that the Bill gives you no power over these institutions if you put them in this position; indeed, you will have no power of control whatever. It seems that the only thing you propose to do—the only thing you ask Parliament to do—is to give the institutions money to use for their own purposes. There is no mention of money in the Bill, but it is obvious that if there is to be a teaching university for London worthy of the name it will cost money, and the money will have to come from Parliament, or, in other words, the nation, and therefore the nation has a right to inquire what will be the conditions under which you ask for the money. Now, I say in the first place that, although you expect to give money to them, you take no part whatever in controlling these institutions. It is confessed in this Report that these institutions are poor. But what is still more serious, Mr. Speaker, with regard to these institutions, which are constituent elements of a university in a material sense, is, that you have no power to control them, and therefore no power to improve them. There is no provision for professorships, endowments, apparatus, or for a central place where teaching can be carried on. Now, the right honourable Gentleman has spoken of a teaching of a "university type." What type does he mean? He has referred to Oxford and Cambridge. Most people know, however, that the teaching there most worthy of the name, is that of coaching. Take another type Take the type of Scotland. The type of Scotch universities is teaching by lecture. Large gatherings of students are brought into one hall to listen to one famous man. How do you get such teaching? No doubt you can find plenty of men in London, but you have no provision for them, no place of teaching for them, nowhere that they can gather. There is no proposal of anything of the kind in the Bill. The Government have no right to come before the House and ask their sanction to a proposal for a teaching university when they have not dealt with the primary factors of the problem. Well, I have been told that these teachers will be scattered about. Mr. Speaker, I think this Bill will be setting up a sort of peripatetic university. Students will go to Hackney for their theology, to South Kensington for their chemistry, to University College for their mathematics, and they will spend a considerable time in rushing about all over London in order to get to the various institutions. The thing is simply absurd. You are providing nothing. What does the Bill provide but the machinery for conducting the different examinations? Nothing. I have had some experience of former universities. We are not simply speaking from abstract theory, but from practical experience. I myself have been connected with the Victoria University, which has been a most successful university from the first stage. But what did we do? We believed—and I venture to say that Parliament ought to act upon that belief—in the principle that God helps those who help themselves. We began to raise money. We went about the country speaking—I with others—though I took a very small part. But we recognised two things, and those two things I will mention to the House, because they are most likely to be found in your problem. You must find money, and you must from that money find buildings and apparatus But what does London give? London, it seems to me, is demoralised by the fact that everything is done for it; it does nothing for itself. You get your buildings and museums out of the national purse, and, though I am not objecting, I say that it does not realise the first duty that it ought to perform. If Londoners are really in earnest in trying to establish a teaching university for London, then they ought to put their hands into their pockets and show that they are in earnest by giving something, and then come to Parliament and ask for assistance. But, I venture to say, Parliament ought not to display any enthusiasm for the cause if the people are not prepared to put their hands in their pockets to some degree. All we have is this thin, shadowy creature of a Bill—I was going to call it invertebrate, but it has not enough members even to suggest a backbone. You have no money, you have no apparatus, you have no building, and yet you want to establish a teaching university, and tell Parliament that you are dealing seriously with one of the greatest problems of the age. I venture to say that it is we who oppose the proposal who realise the importance of the problem of a teaching university for London. In my small way I am much interested in it, and it is because I say you are bringing up a sham Bill that I object to it, and appeal to the House to throw it out. Do not let the problem, be dealt with in this mean, attenuated, half-hearted manner, but throw the Bill back until the House can deal adequately with the problem. There is another thing that this House ought to beware of. It ought not to allow the ground to be taken up by an institution unworthy of the name. We had far better leave the site vacant until a suitable building can be erected than allow the position to be taken up by some wooden shanty of this kind, which can only be removed by another Act of Parliament, and after another 20 years' discussion both inside and outside of the House. I object to the Bill, therefore, because it does not do what it intends to do, and because it does what it should not do. It does not in any sense establish a teaching university in London, and therefore the House ought to reject the Bill if only on that ground. But I come now to a second ground of objection. I venture to say that the Bill does what it should not do. The House has heard that a London university already exists. I am quite ready to recognise, Sir, that the name is an unfortunate one. But it is not really a London university in the strict sense of the term. It has become an Imperial institution, and I venture to suggest to the right honourable Gentleman that if it had not been for the unfortunate appropriation of the name of this institution, we should not have had the difficulties which we now have, and we should not have had this Bill before the House now. The Bill is an attempt to steal the name and the good repute of the London University. I have always found, in my experience of the House, that it is very keen on the subject of vested interests. There is a vested interest in the name of this Bill, and the present London University has a right to the name. You will form some idea of the importance of the name when you consider the great success this university has had. In 1897 the university examined over 6,000 candidates, or, roughly speaking, twice as many as those in residence in Oxford and Cambridge put together at any particular time during one year. Now, during the year 1858 there were only 466 examined, while in 1897 the number had risen to 6,294. Now, a Bill of this description ought to be very carefully considered by the House before it interferes with an institution which is doing such a great work in the country. Its examinations are held all over the country. I want the House to realise that they are not dealing with a London university, but with an Imperial institution, and one effect of this Bill would be to Londonise a national institution. I see that examinations for matriculation at the London University are held at Liverpool, Northampton, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dumfries, and other places. I only mention this to show to the House the extent of the operation of this institution, and that it is not in any degree a London university. It is called the London University, I grant, but it is an unfortunate title, and possibly some compromise might be made upon that word, but it is a national institution, and the House ought to regard it in that way. Then I would remind the House that this institution costs nothing. This House votes about £17,000, but that is repaid, and more than repaid, by the teaching. Then, again, the degrees stand very high. I believe I am only stating what will be allowed generally by those who know anything of such matters, that the degrees stand in a most eminent position. But I do not wish to press that matter. Well, what is the intention of the Bill? The London University is doing a national work; here is a proposal to found a teaching university for London, which is quite another thing. It seems to me that the promoters propose to come into the possession of wells that they have not dug, and of orchards which they have not planted. This teaching university is a sort of cuckoo bird, which does not build its own nest, but occupies the nests that have been laboriously built by other birds. I am not saying that it should not be so—I hold no brief for the London University. I will explain what will House ought seriously to consider whether the change will not materially affect the great work which, is now being done by the London University. It is said that it is not intended to interfere with the work. But the London University is practically an exclusively examining body, and the whole question hinges upon the point of the examinations. The examinations are admitted to have certain qualities which are thought by men who understand the matter to constitute the chief elements of their real value. The examiners are independent of the teachers; they axe uniform and certain. Everybody knows what a degree of the London University means. It means one thing, and one thing only. There are not two voices, as sometimes is the case in this House. But what do you propose to do in this Bill? You propose to start two kinds of examinations for the same standard of decree. Why should they not be the same? Then another thing is that you have to have certificates in lieu of the earlier examination. I would venture to suggest to the right honourable Gentleman that if it is desirable to make any variation it should be made in the later examination, and not in the earlier. If your university teaching is to specialise, and to have any particular value, the most natural result would be a variation in your late examinations, but the proposal is quite the reverse. Now, this is an attempt to square the circle; it is an attempt to do the impossible; it is an attempt to make one examination test two things—culture and knowledge. I do not know exactly what university culture means, beyond being able to wield a bat or pull an oar; but, whatever it means, it does not mean knowledge as outside an examination. I venture to say that, if you attempt to make the degree have a double meaning, you knock the bottom out of the degree itself, and deprive it of its value. The Report of the Commission shows that both Bishop Barry and Professor Sidgwick are emphatically of the same opinion. Their remarks are entitled to great weight, particularly knowing that they heard all the evidence submitted to them. Well, there is another question. Not only are you going to spoil the value of the degree, but you are going to assume control of the London University. I will explain what will be the effect of this Bill upon the management of the university. The supreme body, as the right honourable Gentleman has told us, is the senate. What does the senate consist of? Turn to the schedule on page 5, and you find that there are 55 members to constitute this senate. Sixteen of these are appointed by the faculties, 17 by Convocation, two each by the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, four by the Inns of Court, two each by University and King's Colleges, one by the Corporation of London, one by the Council of the City and Guilds of London Institute, and two by the London County Council. In other words, 34 out of 55 are connected with London institutions. You have a clear majority of those who are going to manage this institution coming from distinctly London institutions. Now, why should these institutions have this power that you propose to give them? You propose, as it were, to make these institutions constituent elements of your university. But I find in the examinations that the chief number of candidates have not been supplied by your institutions. Between 1889 and 1893 only 27.6 came, including those for medicine and surgery, from the London colleges. Why should they, then, be put in this position when you have other institutions in the country quite as good as they are, and which have sent more students to the university? Why are they not to be recognised? Why place these London institutions, which only supply a quarter of your students, in this position of pro-eminence? The right honourable Gentleman has explained that the academic council shall have control of the examinations.

SIR J. GORST

I did not say the academic council would have control. I said the senate would have control.

* MR. HARWOOD

I quite understand that, as a count of appeal; but if it is not going to manage it, I fail to see what, as practical machinery, it is going to do. Of the 20 members of the academic council 16 are teachers, three are ex-officio members, and only one person is an outsider. How can you see, therefore, how the internal students are treated? But when you come to the external students, the body managing them consists of 28 with nine outsiders. I object altogether to London seizing this national institution and using it for its own purposes and governing it in its own way. I ask the House to reject the Bill, because it does not create a university for London, and because it spoils a university which acts as an examining body for the whole of the nation. Well, it may be asked, what do I propose? The right honourable Gentleman said, I think, that eight years ago Parliament decided that there should not be a second university for London, and that, therefore, that was to be conclusive. But why conclusive? Parliament has frequently gone back on its own decisions, and I do not, see any difficulty in this direction. In Scotland, where you have a population of three-and-a-half millions, you have four universities. Surely, in London, with a population of five-and-a-half millions, with two universities, one of which is not a university at all, but an examining body for the whole country, there ought to be no difficulty in founding another university. In conclusion, I should like to say one word on behalf of the London University as it at present exists, for the sake of those whose voice cannot be heard in this House, and whose votes cannot make themselves felt in Convocation. I know that the London University may be regarded as a mere field for the crammer. But let me tell the House that it has been an inspiring influence to thousands of lonely students in all parts of the country. In my own experience I must say for myself that I owe to that university much that was the solace of my lonely youth, and it has contributed much to the joy of my life ever since. I may, therefore, be pardoned, perhaps, if I speak somewhat warmly, and if I appeal to the House somewhat strongly, against doing anything to damage an institution which has done such a great educational service for the masses of the people who could not afford to go to other universities. But great as has been the work of the London University in the past, that work will be still greater in the future. The right honourable Gentleman, we all know, is in favour of a great development of secondary education. Most of us hope to see the time come when secondary education will be a very different thing from what it is now. What will be required as the top-stone, the consummation, of education will be a university like this—catholic and impartial—which gives its candidates a certificate without any regard to the teacher, and without any regard to local influence whatever. I beg the House, therefore, to reject this Bill. I ask them to reject it in the interests of a teaching university for London, because, I say, you are founding nothing of the kind. You are playing with a great problem, you are playing with the House of Commons; for the institution you propose to give us is not a reality. I ask you, in the second place, to reject the Bill, because it will do a great injury to an institution, which has done an immense service in the past, and which will do far greater service in the future.

* MR. YOXALL (Nottingham, W.)

The powerful speech of my honourable Friend has assured the House, I think, that those of us who oppose this Bill do so with good reason, and not in any spirit of enmity towards a teaching university for London. We feel as strongly as anyone possibly can do that there ought to be in London a proper university, worthy of this great metropolis, but we point out that this Bill does not provide for that institution. Where are the lecture halls? Where are the examination schools? Where are the professorial chairs? Where are the pecuniary foundations upon which the university is to be built? The foundations upon which it is proposed to build this university are entirely inadequate. There are certain buildings near the Royal Academy which are the property of the present university. They are quite inadequate at present for their purpose, and therefore will not suffice as the buildings of the greater university the Bill proposes to set up. The funds of the present university are £17,000. How far will that go towards the pecuniary foundation of a university worthy of the name of the University of London? This Bill is an attempt—an honest attempt I believe—on the part of the Government, and of those immediately connected with the Bill, to achieve the impracticable. You cannot, out of the existing materials, construct satisfactorily a university upon the lines of this Bill. There are two plans available for the Government. One is to do for London what the German Government did for Strasburg, when, from Imperial sources, a sum of about £700,000 was spent in founding a university with proper buildings and proper chairs. The other plan is to create for London a new teaching university distinct from the examining university, leaving the examining University where it now is, untouched and unimpaired. In the Report of the second Commission, in 1888, you were told that you could not combine these two points. The Commission said that the present University of London has done a great work, and has established for its degrees a high reputation, and they told us that you could not unite with the existing university a new teaching university, but that you must set up a teaching university by itself. As the right honourable Gentleman has told us, Parliament rejected, 10 years ago, a charter for a separate teaching university. Sir, I hold that it was a mistake on the part of Parliament; but because that mistake has been made I do not see why we should go on 10 years afterwards perpetuating that mistake. There are now reasons why a teaching university should be set up which did not exist 10 years ago. As far as the name itself is concerned, there may be a difficulty, but why not call it the University of Westminster, which is, perhaps, as famous a name as that of London? But do, I beg of you, insist that this Bill shall go back with a view of enabling the friends of it to bring up next Session a scheme for a separate university in the metropolis. Why should we cast into the melting-pot the existing institution? Bishop Barry, a member of the last Commission, says— The present university has taken up and discharged with signal ability and success the founding of an examining university, in no exclusive relation to London, but having to do in a great majority of cases with candidates from other parts of Great Britain and even of the empire. It is an Imperial institution. It receives students from all parts of the Empire, and in some cases students from countries which are not included in the Empire; and, so far as I know, the university has never before been attacked, has never before received criticism, until this afternoon, when we are told that some of the chemical examinations are 20 years behind the times. Well, Sir, I do not know whether the right honourable Gentleman has spoken from his own knowledge.

SIR JOHN GORST

I did not say that. I said that the curriculum had not been altered since 1876.

* MR. YOXALL

As a matter of fact, I believe the curriculum has not been brought up to date in quite the usual fashion, though the tests founded on the syllabus have been regularly brought up to date; but if that applies to any institution, it applies with double force to the great examining institution for which the right honourable Gentleman is responsible—the Science and Art Department. That, I say, is the only argument used against the existing university. But what has it done with its degrees? It has made them unassailable. We are told by some friends that if you set up in London a teaching university, leaving the examining university untouched, the examining university will fade away and decrease in importance, and that the teaching university will eventually occupy the ground now occupied by the examining university. If that be so, I am quite prepared to take the risk of it, and to see a teaching university set up and the other fade away, on the principle that the better of the two will survive. But what I want to know is why the promoters of the Bill desire to depreciate in some way or other an institution which has given acknowledged benefit, and to create and maintain an institution which is not likely to be of such benefit, so long as it be not properly constituted with buildings, with funds, with chairs, and all the paraphernalia of a great university. If a teaching university can stand alone, let it do so; if it cannot stand alone, I object to it leaning upon the existing university as a prop. I suggest that the best thing to do is for the Bill to go back again and come up next year in a new form, based upon proposals which will enable a teaching university to stand alone. We are told that, in the case of Dublin, we have an instance of successful co-operation between the examining and the teaching branch of the university; but those who enter into that argument hereafter will remember, I hope, that there the examining is practically dependent on the teaching university. I do not think it is possible to associate the examination of internal students with the existing system of examination of external students without prejudice to the latter. I know the nature of the Report of the Commission on this subject, and I am reminded of the fact that Bishop Barry and Professor Sedgwick both signed the Report. I have had experience myself of a unanimous Report of a Royal Commission, and I know how anxious a Royal Commissioner is to be in unison if he possibly can with his colleagues, and how many qualifications and expedients he resorts to in order to maintain that courteous relation towards those with whom he has spent many happy months of work. Therefore, I will not deal with the importance or unimportance of the fact that this Report is said to be unanimous; but I do point out that the Report itself is not the basis of the Bill. I want the House to note that in the speech of the right honourable Gentleman there were important omissions, due to his desire to confine his remarks within the usual brief space, and to give them their accustomed point and conciseness. But those omissions ought to be brought before the attention of the House. There are proposals in the Commission's Report which are not embodied in the schedule of the Bill, and there are recommendations in the Report which would no doubt be adopted by the senate should this Bill become law. One suggestion by the Commission is that the test for the higher medical degrees should be lowered. The right honourable Gentleman has told us that teachers are not in the habit of lowering tests. I quite accept that position, but there are several ways in which the examination might be lowered. It is in human nature, and in the very nature of things. Some criticisms were advanced as to the questions set to pupils. To me, it seems impossible for a teacher who has taught a set of students to avoid setting those students questions along the line of his teaching. If you were setting up a teaching university alone, not open to external students, that would be a proper and fair thing, for it would depend upon the university to see that the examiners were men of high ability; and although the examination might be on the lines of the teaching, it might be of the highest possible order. But when you are going to put the village cobbler and the private student side by side at an examination school with the students of King's College, or University College, and you set before one student a series of questions upon the same syllabus placed before him by the man who has taught him in the University College, or King's College, and you set before the other a series of questions founded upon the same syllabus, you do not give the two students the same chance. If you thus make it easier for the internal student, you are unjust to the external student in one or two ways: either the degree depreciates, because of the easier method of obtaining it, or else you make for the external student a severer test if the award for passing is the same. It is said by the promoters of this Bill that a difference can be made upon the face of the diploma, by stating that the holder is an internal, or an external, student; but they are both to be described as of the London University. Now, I contend that if, in any way, you water down the value of that degree henceforth you do a standing injustice to all present and past holders of that degree, and I admit that, by the association of the new University with the existing University, you cannot possibly avoid watering down in one way or another the value of this degree. If you set up two standards, one for the internal, and the other for the external, students, you keep for external students a higher standard than for internal students, and you then do an injustice to the external students of the future in competition with the internal students of the future. This thing is impracticable. The Bill itself is sure to be unworkable, and after long and weary hours of consultation and compromise, which have been gone through during the past 10 years, we regret that all this labour should have borne no present fruit. We do feel, with regard to this university, that this great Imperial examining body, which has done so much good in the past, and which, if left alone, can accomplish greater things in the future, should not be interfered with. We feel that this change would weaken the zeal of the English people for education in London, and what does exist now is a monument of the zeal of the men who, sixty years ago, founded this university upon unsectarian lines, in the time when all other universities were sectarian; and the value of the degree up to the present has been beyond all criticism.

* MR. HALDANE (Haddington)

My honourable Friend who has just addressed the House, and the honourable Member who preceded him, have spoken in much the same vein. They have begun by proclaiming themselves friends of the principles and objects of the Bill. But they have gone on to say that it is unworkable, frivolous, and impossible; and they have each of them concluded by making a pathetic appeal on behalf of the privileges and position of the existing University. Well, Mr. Speaker, as regards the last and concluding appeal, it will be well to say at once that, so far as I understand, this Bill—and I speak after having had something to do with the negotiations which led to its preparation—will preserve intact the position of the examining side of the old University, so that its position and influence will be exactly the same as at the present time. The University as it at present exists will retain all its privileges, and, as I shall show the House in a few moments, it will be in this position, that it will be more free from the control of the outside teaching element than it has ever been under the existing constitution. What is the use of my honourable Friend making an appeal to the House to protect from any change at all an institution which is in the position of peril which this old University is in? Why, its own governing body have half-a-dozen times within the last few months asked the Government to pass this Measure; and its own Convocation by two to one have approved not only the principle but the details of this Bill. There has been, it is true, voting by postcards amongst the members, many of whom took their degrees a long time since, upon the affairs of the university, and even these gentlemen, who at first opposed the scheme, are now showing a diminishing majority. The other day a very full poll of 2,500 votes was recorded, and the successful candidate, who is a very distinguished man—as to whom it is by no means to be taken that he was elected with sole reference to the issue of this Bill—only succeeded in obtaining his place at the head of the poll by 200 votes. In the face of that what is the use of appealing on behalf of this old University of London, as if it were a body subjected to some outside machinations or influence? Now what is the gist of the argument of my honourable Friends about the teaching of this university? What were their propositions? They said, first of all, as was stated by the honourable Member for Nottingham, "You have not gone about it in the right way; you ought to have gone to the Government and asked them to give the same as the German Government did to the University of Strasburg—that is, £700,000." No doubt it would be a most admirable thing if the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give that amount for the constitution of a university, but he is not likely to give £700,000 for a university in London, and we have to do the best we can as matters stand. I hope to show the House that we have got the materials we require, which will be made use of under this Bill, and which will give us every advantage enjoyed by the University of Strasburg, to which reference has been made. There was another suggestion made by both my honourable Friends, and that was that there should be two universities. This is hopeless; in fact, two Royal Commissions have reported against it, the second one unanimously. This House has also pronounced its opinion against it, and nearly all of the leading teaching bodies in London have pronounced themselves against it. There was an attempt made recently to start an institution to be called the Teaching University of Westminster, but there was no support for that. Now, the whole body of teaching experts in London and round and about the metropolis are in favour of this Bill, which will reconstitute this university whilst preserving intact its examining board and leaving it to do its useful work as at present, and adding a teaching university which will discharge those functions now discharged by the universities in Berlin, Vienna, in Paris, and in every capital of Europe except in London. Mr. Speaker, what is the proposition of this Bill? What does it propose to do? If any honourable Member will take the pains to turn up the useful little map published by the Technical Education Board in London, showing the distribution of all sorts of teaching centres throughout the metropolis, he will find that that map shows the distribution of education which is of a university type. He will find that all through and round and about London there are scattered a number of bodies, some of which he may not have heard of, but others which are very well known to him. He will find such well-known institutions as King's College and University College, the Royal School of Mines, South Kensington; he will find institutions such as the Bedford College, and various other bodies where science is specially taught, and he will find a large number of minor colleges and schools in which education, sometimes of a special kind, and sometimes of a general character, is given in almost all cases of a type approaching to the university kind of teaching. There are laboratories, and there are places like the Royal Institution, where scientific investigations and research and lecturing take place, but over and above these he will find a number of institutions which are rapidly springing into life, and increasing their number, such as the polytechnics, in which there is beginning to be given teaching quite of a university kind, attended by men who are earning daily wages, such as clerks, who are unable to attend ex- cept in the evening, and the object of which institutions is to introduce amongst the poorer classes the beginning of a university teaching, with the opportunity added, where possible, of obtaining yet more systematic teaching. He will find that in these polytechnic institutions there is some teaching—which is rapidly growing—of a very high type, which a university might be ready to recognise. I know one case in South London where a polytechnic is teaching the application of mathematics to electricity in a way that would be worthy of the higher teaching of the university; in fact, it is given by a very distinguished graduate of Cambridge. Now, that is a movement which is coming into operation more and more widely. The Technical Education Board is spending £170,000 a year in technical education, and that Board is deeply interested in this university. If this university is placed upon a satisfactory basis, that board will come to its aid, and assist it in the development of its work. Now, Mr. Speaker, that being so, what is the object at which a Bill of this kind ought to aim? The object must be this: the teaching of which I speak is scattered, is heterogeneous, and is combined in no common whole, and has no common plan of action. There are, for example, lectures on law given at the University College by distinguished professors on the same topics and the same subjects as the lectures given close at hand at the Inns of Court. These compete, overlap, do the same work, and involve a large waste of educational force simply because there is no centre round which they can cluster and no co-ordination round which they can close. The London School of Economics—where there is some of the finest teaching of applied economics to be found in this country, and probably in the world—in its variety overlaps the work of King's College and University College, and other institutions, and there is no common centre through which that work can be focused and regulated to the best advantage. Well, obviously the first and primary function of this teaching university must be to do what it can to focus that kind of work and harmonise and distribute it so that it may be made to reach the largest number of students. Well, Sir, how is that to be done? There I think a certain amount of confusion enters the mind of my honourable Friend who moved the rejection of this Bill, and he supposes that our object is probably the same as it was in Manchester and Liverpool. Why, Sir, if we were starting colleges in London, if we were introducing education of a university type for the first time, it would be perfectly true that you would require a great expenditure of money to start erecting buildings and employing professors and so on. When he asks, "Where are the buildings and the money, and where are your professors to come from?" I venture to answer, "We have got the buildings, the professors, and the money, and all we want now is to organise and co-ordinate." We are not starting as they did in Manchester, founding university education for the first time, and what we want to-day is to make existing institutions efficient, and that would be impossible in the present conflict of interests in these bodies, with whose work no university would like to interfere. With all these bodies which you find in London, with objects and privileges of a heterogeneous and multifarious kind, I say that you cannot adopt the type of university which you have in Victoria, and which you have at Oxford and Cambridge, for it would be only mischievous if you tried to set up such a university. It would begin by running against the rock of vested interests; it would end by becoming a close corporation of privileged institutions jealous of new developments. Therefore the Bill proposes to act upon a different footing, and it does not propose to touch the colleges or interfere with their internal affairs. It does not propose to meddle with their schools, but what it does propose is this: the Bill practically says, "We do not want to interfere with you at all, but we have something to offer you if you will co-ordinate your work and raise it up to the high level we ask you to do. We will give your students and teachers the stamp of university recognition; to the students degrees; to the teachers the position of being teachers in a great university." Sir, that is the lever by which the machinery of this Bill is to be set in motion. It will recognise all duly qualified students who have been pro- perly taught and who have passed an examination at the university, and who are entitled to the degree as hall-marked with the university stamp, by the selection of the most distinguished teachers. Let me for a moment, if I am not wearying the House, give an illustration. Under the Bill, supposing it were passed into law, you would have your governing body on which, by the way, care has been taken to place the teaching element in a minority. You will have a governing body which I venture to say will be as impartial in its control of the whole matter as any governing body in London. You will have the affairs of the old university on the external side in the main managed by the existing examining body, and you will have them managed separate from the affairs of the teaching body, but both will be under the direction of the general governing body. In the case of the external university its affairs will be managed by the council for external students, which will be constituted with a majority, as honourable Members will see in the schedule, taken from Convocation, from the body which represents the interests of the old university, and free from the control of the teachers as at present constituted. In this way you give Home Rule, if I dare use the expression, to the old university, and you give it in that very complete manner, subject only to the control of this supreme governing body which has control over the whole matter. As regards the teaching university, that is under the academic council, on which the teachers are largely represented, because that is where their work lies, and there the students have to be mainly attended to. How are these teachers brought there? The council does not consist wholly of teachers, but they form a large element of it. They are elected from the élite and most distinguished of the teachers throughout the metropolis of London. Well now, under the control of that committee, the new examination and the new system of re-organising the teaching will be carried out. There will be meetings in which the teachers will discuss their studies; there will be a university extension committee for extending university teaching to evening classes. The student of the new university on its teaching side will be under the jurisdiction of the academic council, and when he wishes to enter the university he will have to matriculate, and he will have, in all probability, to pass a pretty stiff examination. He knows that he will not be a student of the university unless he satisfies the university authorities that he is pursuing a prescribed course of study. Members will find the definition in clause 9, which says— Internal students of the university are students who have matriculated at the university, and who are pursuing a course of study approved by the university in a school or schools of the university, or under one or more of the recognised teachers of the university. That means that he must be studying under a teacher, an individual teacher, or rather individual teachers, of the university, who may be of the professors of one of the schools of the university, or may be simply teachers of a public institution recognised by the university, but what this student will have to do will be to study under such teachers, and in the end satisfy the university authorities that he has passed proper examinations. Now I come to this. It was put forward by my honourable Friend the Member for Nottingham that the teachers would examine their own students. That is a most misleading statement and representation of what happens. The teacher does not examine his own students, for the examinations will be conducted as at present, not for University or King's College, but for the students of the entire university. They will be conducted by a body of examiners, probably, as at present. There will be two for each subject, of whom one must be a person who is not a teacher at the university at all. It may be that there are topics taught in connection with this university upon which there is not an expert examiner obtainable. Take for instance, original research in Oriental studies; that may be the most desirable thing in the world that a student should carry out under the instruction of a distinguished professor, but it might be difficult to get an expert outside examiner upon that subject. My point is that the student will not be examined by his own teacher under this Bill, for this is guarded against. The examiners, it is true, who may be appointed may be teachers, but they are not the teachers who have been teaching the students, for they are drawn from the general body of teachers of the university. They are not the teachers who have been teaching and "coaching" these students in their instruction, and, to say what has been said in some of the pamphlets which had been circulated, that the Bill was one to give the right to a teacher to examine his own students is to say the thing that is not true. Now I have shown that that contention is not true, and I have shown how this Bill works out, but there are one or two other objections with which I should like to deal on this point. It is said that the scheme under the Bill is to grant degrees without examination. Mr. Speaker, that is a monstrous thing to say. This Bill cuts down the existing right of the existing university to grant honorary degrees. It cannot grant such degrees except in certain limited cases under the existing constitution of the old university of which honourable Members are justly proud. Then it is said that it will lower the status of the graduates if this Bill passes. Now, Mr. Speaker, I own that I am very much astonished at this argument put forward, because it has been put forward as a most prominent argument, as one standing by itself, used in order to induce the House to reject this Bill. It is said that the status of the old graduate will be injured, because the degree hanging up in a frame in his house in some distant part of the country may not perhaps be of the same value in the eyes of their fortunate recipients of 20 years ago, in consequence of this proposal to make a London degree obtainable by study under London teachers. I was more particularly astonished at the quarter from which that objection proceeded. I perceived from the newspapers that this Bill was to be opposed by a body called the Radical Committee, which is, apparently, in its corporate capacity, more active in the Press than in this House. Surely this particular body must have forgotten that the movement for establishing a teaching university was initiated by such men as Bentham, Austin, Mill, and Grote. Is it not curious to have a Radical Committee of this day coming forward as the supporters of privilege, and asking the House to refuse to establish a teaching university for London because they think the prestige and privileges of the old-fashioned degree of the University of London would be impaired. Well, I confess I blush for them. That being the position of matters and the university itself, I am strongly in favour of the Bill just because the scheme is one which works out as I have shown. There are just one or two matters which I should like, in a very few words, to refer to before I sit down. Honourable Members will ask what is its relation as the Bill now stands to the Cowper Report. I venture to say something upon this because I took an active part in the negotiations on this subject. Thai Report proposed to found a university of the teachers, under whom the students of the university would study somewhat more exclusively in certain colleges than is provided for under this Bill. The aim of this Bill is to enable everybody to be recognised as a teacher of the university who lives within the radius which is described, and who is of sufficient university standing, and who is giving teaching of a sufficiently high standard in a proper institution. King's College, and other institutions, are not in any way interfered with in regard to their privileges and usefulness, but not they but their teachers as individuals are taken into this university scheme and made a constituent part of it, and thereby we get rid of all questions of tests which were suggested in the earlier stage of this Bill. The scope of the enlargement of the schedule which, this Bill proposes is to bring in the best teaching element wherever it may come from. Sir, I repudiate the phrase which has been used in this connection. We desire to make this a great university by faculties of the type of Paris and Berlin rather than Oxford and Cambridge and Victoria, for we wish to draw in the best individual teachers in London. My honourable Friend has spoken somewhat doubtfully of the kind of teaching. Well, the intention is to have men like Professor Ramsay, the discoverer of argon, men, too, like the late Professor Huxley, who was a distinguished advocate of this Bill, and who gave evidence before the Royal Commission, in which he laid down a scheme for a university which is now practically embodied in this Bill. In it we propose that you shall have all the best teaching elements in London. Not only this, but the students will have access to the great research establishments, and every inducement would be used to get their teachers to make their teaching such as to fit in with the hall-marking degrees of the university. This university will be in close relation with the polytechnics and the university extension movement, and you will be able to extend to the children of the working classes step by step the opportunity of receiving that cheap and efficient university education which is enjoyed in Scotland and in Germany, but which we know too little of in this England of ours. You will have a chance of dealing with the problem of technical education, and of giving to workmen that class of knowledge which it is absolutely necessary that we should give to them if we are to keep pace with the artisans of Germany and of France. Those interested in the passing of this Bill hope to see it applied, not only in the direction of stimulating lectures during the day, but also a system of evening lectures of a high university type, and in the nature of systematic training. At the other end you will have equal inducements of a different kind. Under the Bill power is taken by the university to pick out and select the most famous teachers and mark them as professors of the university. I know of no greater distinction that could be given to a man who has reached eminence in the profession of university teaching than to be marked as a professor of the great University of London, of that great metropolis which has the largest number of students to draw upon, and which has a scope and ambition such as is given to no other university, and which may be, and, I believe, will be, the greatest institution of its kind, if this Bill passes, in the whole world. These are the reasons upon which those of us who are interested in this Bill appeal to the House to pass it. We feel that it is a Bill which is required, and which is absolutely necessary, and a Bill without which university education in London can make no progress. We feel that it is a stigma upon this metropolis that it should, in this respect, be behind all the other great capitals of the world. We feel that we have no chance of reaching the vast public which is available for university teaching and training unless you put this instrument in our hands. Without it we feel that we can take no step forward. We feel that we have produced a well-considered and well thought-out Measure, the result of much consideration and negotiation by some of the most distinguished men who have ever taken part in an attempt to solve this problem. We feel that we have got here a Measure which in itself embodies the best traditions of the past, and which completes the work of Bentham and Austin, of Mill and Grote, of the men who were the pioneers of university education in London; and that it is a Measure which, if it is allowed to bear fruition, will place us in a position at least as good as that of any other metropolis in the world.

* SIR J. LUBBOCK (London University)

I have heard with interest the eloquent speech made by my right honourable Friend who has just sat down. He has spoken of the great advantages of having a teaching university in London, but he did not attempt to show how this would be effected by the Bill. It is, indeed, generally described as a Measure to create a teaching university for London; and much of the strength of the movement is due to the use, or the misuse, of the term "a teaching university." But there is no proposal that the new university should teach. The teaching would be done where it is now, by University College, by King's College, the Medical Schools, the Royal College of Science, the City and Guilds Institute, and so on. The new university will not be a teaching university any more than the present. No doubt the Bill provides that the senate may appoint professors. So we might now, but the Bill gives no funds to pay them with, nor to provide suitable buildings or appliances. In fact, the teaching will continue as at present, but the teachers are to have additional powers over examinations. Is this desirable? My pre- decessor, Lord Sherbrooke, felt very strongly on this point. He said— As people talk very much and understand very little about what they call university teaching, I will try and explain the subject. The word 'university' as used at Oxford and Cambridge has two distinct meanings. Its proper meaning is the body incorporated by the Crown, which has by virtue of that incorporation the privilege of conferring a degree. In this sense the universities are not teaching bodies at all. There is, however, another sense in which the word 'university' is used; it is used to include the colleges, and it is in this sense that the term 'university teaching' is used. Now, is the union of teaching and conferring degrees in the same hands a good or an evil? Lord Sherbrooke went on to argue strongly that the duties of teaching and examining should be kept quite distinct. No doubt a Bill which organised and co-ordinated the higher education of London under the university as its head would be valuable. But this Bill does nothing of the kind. It gives the London colleges indirectly some power in the university, but it does not give the university any real power over the colleges. On the other hand it would doubtless be an advantage to bring the university into closer relation with the colleges. This, however, may be secured at too great a cost. Those who have opposed the Bill have, I understand, done so on four main grounds: firstly, that the result might be to imperil the position of science; secondly, that it might put the country colleges and private students at a disadvantage as compared with the candidates from London colleges; thirdly, that it may tend to lower the standard of the degrees; and fourthly, that it takes away the right at present possessed by my constituents to veto any change which, in their judgment, would interfere with the great work being carried on in the university. We are assured that our fears are groundless. Is this so? Other universities are managed, as it is proposed that the London should be, by those engaged in instruction. And what is the result? Several of them have admirable science schools, but London is the only English university which insists that all candidates should be grounded in science. In the encouragement of science the University of London has exerted and is exerting, especially through its matriculation examinations, an influence upon secondary schools which can scarcely be overrated, whether we regard the subjects taught or the method of teaching them, and by doing so has determined the education of many times the number of its candidates. Passing on to the second point, it is possible that the provisions may be sufficient to secure the equality of the two sets of examinations, but I cannot say that I am satisfied. The proposal is very novel; there will be two lines of study and two sets of examinations, and yet the degree is to be the same. I admit that the London authorities seem to be satisfied, though I believe that is not the case with all. I am informed, for instance, that the Inns of Court have withdrawn their assent; but have the country colleges expressed any opinion? Those who are not fully conversant with the affairs of the university may not unnaturally ask, what have the country colleges to do with it? But, in fact, the University of London is an Imperial institution. The London colleges, however, send only a small minority of the candidates. No doubt, the Bill is introduced in accordance with the recommendations of a Royal Commission, but the Commissioners have by no means agreed on the question. In the first Commission three members had, to say the least, grave doubts. These three, Lord Kelvin, Sir George Stokes, and Mr. Weldon, said— Considering that the London University (in the capacity of an examining board) has established a high reputation, and is doing a useful work for the whole Empire, and considering the very large number of candidates who present themselves for the various examinations leading up to a degree, we doubt the possibility of effectually combining the functions of an examining and of a teaching university of London. Among the members of the second Commission, Bishop Barry entirely disputes— The assumption which has approved itself to the majority of the Commissioners, that it is possible and desirable to combine in one university two wholly distinct functions. The first is the function of a teaching university of London. The other is the function, which the present university has taken up and discharged with signal ability and success—the function of an examining university. With this assumption, however, and with the portion of the Report which adopts and defends it, I am obliged to express emphatically my absolute disagreement. A careful consideration of the additional evidence and arguments on the subject laid before us has only strengthened, in my mind, the conviction, expressed in 1888 by the three members of the former Commission, who had the greatest practical experience of education, that there is the gravest doubt as to the possibility of rightly combining these two functions. Again, Professor Sedgwick said— It appears to me impossible that examinations specially adapted to the work of the London teachers of science can also be used for external candidates without abandoning the strict and manifest impartiality towards all teaching institutions which it is the pride of the present University of London to maintain. Separate examinations in the department of science will, therefore, be necessary for the two classes of students; and I believe that they will also be found necessary in some subjects at least in the department of arts, if the work of the university is to be maintained at a really high level. At the same time I think that the difficulty of securing an equality of standard in the two sets of examinations will be found very serious, and will, probably, be a continual source of complaint and friction. In short, a dual system of examinations will be tempting but disastrous—a dilemma which is the natural consequence of attempting to satisfy in one organisation two fundamentally different and incompatible views as to the right relation between university teaching and university examinations. … If, however, in the face of this example, the senate and convocation of the existing University of London are willing to accept the transformation, it should be permitted to take place. But if they should not be willing to accept it, I trust that it will not be forced upon them. This suggestion brings me to my last point. Why should not the statutes, as Professor Sedgwick wisely suggests, be submitted to Convocation? This would give the country colleges, through their representatives, an opportunity of being heard. They are much mere likely to concur if they do so voluntarily than under compulsion. Moreover, it must be remembered that this would only be recognising the present right of Convocation. The charter expressly provides that no change shall be made without the consent of Convocation, and my constituents value this right very highly. They are proud of their university, and this provision gives them some voice in its affairs. I do not deny the power of Parliament. But why should the rights of my constituents be overridden? This Bill is brought forward on the allegation that everyone is satisfied. Then, why not submit the new statutes to Convocation? The plea alleged by the supporters of the Bill is that it is generally, if not universally, approved. Then, why refuse to put this to the test? The recent senatorial election shows that the majority of my constituents are opposed to the Bill. What have my constituents done that they should be deprived of their rights? My right honourable Friend will hardly say that they are not capable of forming an opinion. That would not be an attack on my constituents only, but would strike at the very root of university education. A charter granted by the Crown should surely not be abrogated, except for some strong reason. This change is not proposed in the interest of the university, but of certain colleges. No one will allege that the university is failing in its duty. I have incidentally quoted the strong approval of Lord Kelvin, Sir G. Stokes, and Bishop Barry. May I also refer to the late Lord Derby, a cool and sagacious statesman, not given to exaggeration or unmeasured promise? In one of the last of his wise and instructive speeches he said— The degrees of the London University never stood higher in public estimation. The number of our graduates is continually and steadily increasing, and if we were willing—which we are not—to lower in some measure the high standard of attainment which we require, we could easily raise our numbers to an infinite extent. But with us the main object has always been to keep up the reputation of our degrees. We think that a right policy, and shall persist in it. Our freedom from special connections and the absolute independence of our examiners give us a marked advantage in respect of the value of our degrees. People know that we are not auditing our own accounts. An examiner whose duty requires him to pluck his own pupil thereby, to some extent, seems to condemn his own teaching. He may act with perfect impartiality, but he has to combat a natural reluctance. It has been our aim to avoid all dangers on that score, and I think we have succeeded. Indeed, Lord Cowper's Commission in their Report say— The present University of London has done a great work, and has established for its degrees a high reputation. The number—the rapidly increasing number—of candidates coming up for examination bears irrefragable testimony to the high position of the university in public estimation, and the valuable services it is rendering to the country. This is, indeed, all the more remarkable as we have comparatively few material advantages to offer. The degree is its own reward. During the first 21 years of the work of the university, ending in 1858, there were 6,000 candidates, an average of less than 300 a year. During the next 37 years there were 100,000 candidates, an average of 2,700 a year. The numbers of our candidates have been: in 1850, 350; 1860, 800; 1870, 1,450; 1880, 2,570; 1890, 5,000; and last year there were 6,300, the largest number we have ever had. No one, then, can allege that the university has failed in carrying out the great work entrusted to it. The members of the Commission are no doubt all men of great eminence and ability. Three of them are well acquainted with the university, but this is not the case with the majority. My constituents cannot foresee on what lines they are likely to proceed. It is not from any personal or selfish view that they wish to preserve their present rights, but in order to secure the power of the university to perform those high duties to education which it now so eminently fulfils. I am satisfied that any wise scheme drawn up by the Commission would be adopted by convocation, and having regard to the constitution of the constituency, and the manner in which they are scattered over the country, I think they should in fairness be allowed to vote as at a senatorial election. I submit, then, to the House that there is no sufficient reason for withdrawing from my constituents the rights graciously accorded to them by the Crown. Those rights they value very highly, not from any selfish motive, but in the interests of the university itself. No one will allege that the university has failed in its duty. It is doing a splendid work, its degrees never stood higher, its numbers are increasing; and my constituents feel that by this Bill you are incurring an unnecessary risk, and taking a step which may involve grave consequences for the higher education of the country.

Mr. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with due attention to the speech of my right honourable Friend the Member for the London University, and I fail to see why his constituents should object to this Bill. My right honourable Friend did not address himself to the points made by my honourable Friend behind me. The only point which came out clearly from the arguments of my right honourable Friend opposite was that he conceived his constituents were entitled to have a decisive voice with regard to anything done to the University of London. I would, however, remind my right honourable Friend that Convocation has approved of this scheme, though I fail to see that Convocation has any more moral right than legal right to say what should be done with the University of London. I appeal to honourable Members who know something about the universities of Oxford and Cambridge to say whether strong opposition was not raised by the graduates to the reform of these universities; and I do not hesitate to say that, if the reforms passed some 40 years ago, and passed, as everybody now admits, to the greatest possible benefit and advantage both of the country and the universities, had depended on the graduates they would not have been passed at all. My right honourable Friend now takes up a claim which was not admitted for a moment in this House in the case of the ancient Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

* SIR J. LUBBOCK

The colleges were reformed—not the universities.

Mr. BRYCE

I do not mean that the universities got new constitutions, but the old hebdomadal board was abolished and a new board was established. Do you suppose that Dissenters would ever have been admitted to Oxford and Cambridge if the votes of the country clergy had been taken on that point? Now, let us see what this Bill is intended to do. It is intended to create a real university for London, because the existing so-called University of London is nothing but an examining board. That is a statement of fair fact. The honourable Member for Bolton is surprised that it should be called a London University, because it is an Imperial University. That is true. It ought not to be called the London University, or to be called a university at all. The name "university" is traditionally the property of the whole civilised world with the privilege to teach.

* SIR J. LUBBOCK

Yes; but the London University is a unique institution.

MR. BRYCE

I quite agree. It is a unique institution—an interesting experiment, and an experiment in many respects a great success. But it is not a university in the historical sense of the word, and in the sense that Oxford and Cambridge are universities. Its only parallel is the so-called Royal University of Ireland, which is just as feeble and ineffectual as the London University. The object of this Bill, as I understand it, is to give London a real teaching university—one worthy of London and the tradition attaching to London. As was well said by the Member far East Lothian, whose arguments I need not repeat, it is a scheme for organising the teaching of London, and to bring together the different factors now at work, and to correlate them, assigning different functions to each of these colleges by new organisations of faculties, and to re-distribute and re-arrange the large mass of teaching power already at work in London in such a way as to produce far wider and better effects than can be obtained under the present ill-organised and sporadic system. I must admit there is some force in the criticism of my honourable Friend the Member for Bolton. I should have been more satisfied if the Bill did more. I think it is an imperfect Bill, and I do not think it goes far enough in settling the lines on which the new central university should be drawn. In addition to bringing the different bodies together we want a central body invested with power to do many things which none of the existing bodies are strong enough to do. There are many respects in which none of the existing bodies are able to provide teaching of that high order which we ought to have in London; and I should like to say that it is to be the main function of the new university to provide and organise such teaching. But, after all, the Bill is only a beginning; it is beginning very properly by trying to organise existing forces before calling new ones into being. I agree with my honourable Friend that I should like the Bill to have gone further; but are we going to reject what we have got, especially as the scheme has been discussed for many years, and had among its warmest advocates scientists like Dr. Huxley and Lord Playfair, who spent many years of their lives advocating it, and died without seeing their hope realised. When I remember all the hope, the energy, and the earnestness that has been thrown into this scheme of a London university, I beseech the House not to lose this opportunity of passing the Bill into law. We have now a chance which may not recur, and we will be making the greatest possible mistake if we lose this Bill, because it is not all that some of us desire. What are the objections taken to the Bill? It is urged that it does not do enough, and that it would injure the existing university. I have said only a few words about the first objection, because it was adequately and fully dealt with by the honourable Member for East Lothian; but I will say a word or two with reference to the harm it is alleged the Bill would do to the existing university. I cannot see in what possible way anybody connected with the present University of London, from the chancellor down to the latest B.A., will suffer from this Bill, or how the graduates can be injured. What were the associations of the honourable Member for Bolton with the university? His associations were merely examinational. For most of us the memories of examinations are not the most pleasant of our university life. I think a bare room and a small table are the things which we may look back upon without resentment, especially if one achieved the class he aimed at; but they are not the most pleasant associations of university life. What we value in our universities is the teaching they gave, the stimulus they imparted to our minds, and the company of our friends, who drank in the same draughts of knowledge from the lips of the same eloquent teachers, and afterwards helped one another to build up our minds. That is what we want to give London, and with every respect for my honourable Friend's sympathies, I think he will find that the London graduate of the future, will be able to look back upon something far better and more inspiriting than even the recollec- tions of the examination hall. I submit that we will not injure the existing graduates. We will make the university to which they belong a far more powerful and dignified body, and incidentally enhance the value of its degrees. Why should the degree fall in value? As far as I know, the tendency of a degree is always to rise. I have been myself an examiner of the London University, and Dr. Carpenter, who was then registrar, instructed me at all hazards to pluck as many men as possible to keep up the standard of the degree. I did not take his advice. I did not try to raise the standard of the degree, but to keep it where I found it. Everybody who knows Oxford and Cambridge knows that the standard of the degree is higher than it was. The standard is now higher at all our universities. The tendency of these standards is to go on rising, and I should be extremely surprised if, as a result of any change made in the London University, there should be any decline. I certainly do not see what the existing graduates have in the way of vested interests to entitle them to be heard. Why are they to be allowed to deprive London of higher degrees because they entertain a fear, for which there is no ground, that the standard of the degree which they had 30 years ago may sink lower than it is now? That is an untenable pretension altogether. Then I come to the question of examination by teachers. Now, it is said that these examinations would be conducted by teachers; but they would not be conducted by teachers in any other sense than that recognised at present. I happen to be a senator in the University of London, and I know that a large number of the examiners are persons teaching in the colleges which sand up candidates for examination, and nobody complains of it. It will be in the future, then, as it was in the past. The House is no doubt aware that this system was in force in the Scotch universities. The professors alone examined. That was a perfectly fair system of examination, and I never heard anything against it. Some years ago a new plan was introduced, under which external examiners were associated with the professors, and the best results were obtained. That is the plan which will be adopted under this scheme. The same plan was introduced into the Victoria University, the latest born of British universities, except the University of Wales, and the satisfactory results achieved justify the assurance that there would be no risk on this account. You cannot have anybody except a teacher as an examiner. In most branches of study there are comparatively few qualified to be examiners except teachers, and not only are teachers the best examiners, but teaching is a qualification for examination, which is more difficult than is often supposed. You cannot keep abreast of a subject unless you are teaching it, and unless you keep abreast of it you cannot examine on it properly, and the knowledge gained by the examiner in teaching enables him to bring out the salient points of the subject. I therefore, think that the argument with regard to teachers acting as examiners really falls to the ground, and that the scheme proposed in the schedule is a very fair scheme. Of course, something must be left to the judgment of the Commissioners and the fairness of the senate. As pointed out by the honourable Member for East Lothian, every interest will be represented, and there appears to be every guarantee that the balance between internal and external students will be fairly kept. I venture to think, on a view of the whole, matter, that it cannot be shown that any injury at all will be done to the existing university. The work of teaching is incomparably more important than the work of examining. In fact, the degrees of all our universities are of less value than the work which contributed to them. Degrees, as I can say from experience of several universities, are not so important as many people are inclined to believe. Much superstition attaches to them, but their real use ought to be to test teaching, and to ac as a stimulus to study, and the more they are made subordinate to teaching, and to help it, instead of prescribing what it should be, the better for the universities and the country. We have waited a long time for this Bill. We have tried many schemes, and several of them have failed, and we are driven to accept this scheme, which is the result of very long and painstaking negotiation. It has received the unanimous support of all the teaching bodies entitled to speak, and also the unanimous support—I venture to differ from my right honourable Friend the Member for the University of London—of the leading scientific men. I have been talking to many of them, and there is not one of them who is not anxious to have a teaching university set up in London; and some of them, who are men of great scientific eminence, cannot conceive that there is any foundation for the fear that science teaching, or science examination, would suffer under the proposed university. That is the last danger into which the new senate is likely to fall. I believe, Sir, that the people of London, the teachers of London, and all who have the well-being of London at heart, and who desire the extension of technical education, and who would like better facilities given to the humbler classes, are all united in desiring that we should have some scheme of this kind passed. I earnestly hope that this scheme will have the support of both political parties, because we on this side brought in a Bill in 1894, and a Commission to carry it out was contemplated. I earnestly hope the House will pass the Second Reading.

CAPTAIN NORTON (Newington, W.)

Mr. Speaker, I desire to take part for a few moments in this Debate, partly because I am a London Member, and partly because I have had the honour of gaining some distinctions in the University of Dublin, which in many of its methods is not altogether different from the university now under discussion. At that university—the University of Dublin—it is customary to enable students who are unable to attend all the lectures, owing to want of means, to substitute for certain lectures examinations, and that has been followed with very valuable results—namely, that large numbers of students who would otherwise be deprived of receiving a university education are enabled to secure it. It is a method which is advantageous in the hands of a self-made man who would be otherwise debarred from receiving that university education. It has been dwelt upon by almost all the speakers that there is a great necessity for a teaching university for London. In that we all cordially agree, but I fail to see why this teaching university should be brought to life by strangling the existing University of London. That university can in no way interfere with the great teaching universities. I venture to assert that no student who could by any possibility enter Oxford or Cambridge would dream of going to the University of London. No one who requires the advantages of culture and companionship would dream of entering London University when he has Oxford or Cambridge. Therefore this London University stands upon a different basis to almost every other university. This has been stated to be a purely examinational board, and as such it should be maintained, because I ask, has it, or has it not, fulfilled the purposes for which it is intended? Has it not been the means of furnishing a large number of competent men to almost all the schools and colleges, not only throughout the country, but throughout the Empire? I venture to assert—in fact, I think it is acknowledged—that these schools and colleges that are unable to afford men from Oxford, Cambridge, and other universities, with honours and degrees, invariably select London men. Where a schoolmaster requires a good all-round man, I think it is counted that the London pass degree is superior to all other pass degrees. Well, Mr. Speaker, if you attempt to build up a sham teaching university on the ruins of this educational University of London, or this educational board, as I am prepared to call it, you then destroy its value as an educational board. Now, this university has been founded upon two great principles. The first principle is that they do not ask where that knowledge which is necessary for the degree has been obtained. In fact I think it was stated, I believe publicly, by those who are in favour of this Bill—by some advocates of this Bill, at any rate—that when this Bill had passed we should see no more of the cobbler from Cornwall presenting himself for a degree. Well, Sir, my view is that the more cobblers from Cornwall we get to present themselves for the degree of the University of London the better. It is stated that these educational establishments throughout London will benefit. Why, Sir, of course the Bill is made for these institutions. You are going to destroy the other great principle, you are going to destroy the independence and impartiality of the examining test, for it cannot be denied that a certain number of the teachers in these favoured institutions, like University College, King's College, and the City Guild Schools, and others—that a certain proportion of the teachers of these schools are to be on the Board of Examination, and it may be supposed that at some time they may preponderate. Now, I ask, what would be thought of the suggestion that for the open competitive examinations for the Army a certain number of distinguished crammers for the Army should be placed on the Board of Examination? Why, Sir, the result would be that the schools of these particular professors would be filled. And that is exactly what this Bill is promoted for. It is promoted in the interests of certain London institutions which provide altogether not much more than 25 per cent. of the students. It is a manœuvre in their interests, in order that they may fill their classes by getting their pupils to pass an educational test on a lower standard than that passed by their predecessors. I admit that it is a very good and a very useful thing to sit at the feet of Gamaliel, but that Gamaliel should himself afterwards become an examining party is, I think it will be admitted, a somewhat large order. Again, much has been said about convocation, and it has been attempted to show that there was a consensus of opinion with reference to this change. Now, Sir, I am disposed to think, and more especially when we see my distinguished Friend Mr. Fletcher Moulton elected at the head of the poll, upon an occasion when this was made the test, that it cannot be said that there is a consensus of opinion. What does this Bill go to do? It does not improve in any way the education of London; it simply baptises it. We are all proud and are glad, that so much good and valuable work should be done by the Polytechnic schools and other institutions throughout London, but I fail to see in what way the education now given in any of these schools will be improved one particle by the passage of this Bill. It has been suggested that the existing institutions should be utilised. Well, Sir, these institutions are being utilised for the pur- pose of converting the existing London University into a teaching university. If it is desired to establish a teaching university for London, that teaching university should be a real, and not a sham, teaching university. It should be, so to speak, an Imperial university. It has been pointed out how large is the number of those who pass through the University of London, namely, some 6,000 annually—more than double the number passing through the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge combined. Therefore the London University has not failed in any one purpose for which it was established; and it has furnished large numbers of teachers to the Colonies. Now, I ask, will the teaching be more effective when this Bill has passed? On the contrary, you will find that the degree will be lowered, the university will be degraded, and you will be robbing the former graduates of the university of a vested interest. These men have passed difficult examinations, for the most part with great self-denial. I myself have personal recollections of being deeply indebted to a man of most humble origin for a training in Oriental languages. This man was nothing but a schoolmaster in an infantry regiment in India. He passed the highest examinational tests in Oriental languages, came back to Aldershot to continue his duties as regimental schoolmaster, and he has now risen to occupy the distinguished position of Inspector of Her Majesty's Schools. That is only one example you will find among scores and hundreds and thousands of men right throughout the country, nay, I will say right throughout the Empire, who, from the humblest origin, have, by means of this university, by the degree they have obtained at this London University, acquired this hall-mark, if I may so speak of it—this stamp—as regards their educational capabilities, and have been placed in the position of being able to earn their bread honourably and with great distinction. I am altogether opposed to this Bill, because it is in all respects anti-democratic. It is against the interests of the poor man. It prevents mien of humble origin, from showing of what metal they are made, and of obtaining a worthy means of so doing; for if you rob them of this degree, or of the possibility of getting this degree without residence, you are placing them at a disadvantage as compared with the man whose parents or friends are in such a position as to enable him to attend one of these favoured institutions in London. You are placing all those who are removed at a distance from the metropolis in the worst of positions. We, I say, as a people are the last people who ought to do anything to frustrate any of the aspirations of the humbly born man. Is it not a fact that some of the great mechanical contrivances, and the contrivances which have revolutionised the world, have been done by men humbly born and self-taught? Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning jenny, Stephenson, Watt, all these men were self-made men; they were men who acquired their own knowledge. And what does this London University do? What is it established for the purpose of doing? What but to enable such men, when they have acquired knowledge, no matter by what means, to receive a degree which enables them to prove, so far as it can be proved, that they possess certain qualifications? I do not for one moment mean to underrate the value of high teaching. I have been fortunate enough to have had the advantage of being educated at three of the most important training institutions this country, and therefore I do not wish in any degree to make light of valuable teaching. But I do say that it is not right, nor just, to prevent the man who has not the good fortune to be born in that position from obtaining, as it were, an imprimatur for the knowledge he has obtained. I will venture to assert that men who have acquired this knowledge by self-denial, and only with great difficulty, and under the most disadvantageous circumstances, in nine cases out of 10 are superior as teachers to men who have acquired their knowledge otherwise. I hope most sincerely that all those who are interested in giving that chance to the self-made man which the self-made man ought to have will oppose this Measure.

MR. H. C. RICHARDS (Finsbury, E.)

With some of the arguments which my honourable Friend has addressed to this House I am in entire accord, but I venture to say those arguments should have been addressed to the House in favour of the Bill. I have good reason to support this Measure, because I have had some practical experience of the necessity of some such Measure to benefit the education of the middle classes of London. I thoroughly agree with all that has fallen from the last speaker with regard to the advantage of helping self-made men, but I fail to see that this Bill in any way prevents that work being accomplished; on the contrary, I think it rather widens and extends it. I speak as one who has not had the advantage of a university education, but I speak with some feeling, because, having been a member of the society of which my learned Friend the Member for Plymouth [Sir Edward Clarke] is the most brilliant student, I feel that many of us who have achieved whatever position in life we have secured through the education we received at that college have been deprived by the present position of the University of London from having that hall-mark of which the last speaker has spoken. So far from this Measure being anti-democratic, in my humble opinion it is, as all democratic Measures should be, truly democratic—because there are two aristocracies, an aristocracy of birth and an aristocracy of learning. Fortunately in this country, the aristocracy of learning can always acquire for itself a place alongside the aristocracy of birth. This Measure gives to London what Wales already enjoys; and I fail to see that when we have granted to Wales a university of her own, we should refuse to give this great province of London, with its five millions of people—who, at all events, would be able to make use of the educational system which this Bill establishes—what has already been given to Wales. Mr. Speaker, it is extraordinary to argue in this House that because the members of the Convocation of the University of London have elected Mr. Fletcher Moulton as their representative, this House is to reject this Measure. Mr. Fletcher Moulton was, of course, at one time or another a brilliant Member of this House. He has represented several constituencies, but on no occasion for more than one Parliament, and the reason is not far to seek. Mr. Fletcher Moulton is one of those brilliant minds who affect democratic principles in politics, but fail to realise what are the real wants of the Democracy itself. I think this Bill does a good deal for the profession of which I am a humble member, in following out the line which Lord Russell sketched out for a teaching faculty for the study of law. The very fact that it incorporates in the senate body representatives from the four Inns of Court and from the Law Society, does a good deal to supply what Lord Russell has been so strongly urging for a long time past upon the members of his own profession, namely, the necessity of making the study of law more a science, and the profession of law something of that hall-mark which the honourable Member has said, and said very properly, members do desire to secure for themselves. Well, now, what are the arguments against this Measure? They are arguments which I could understand if they were addressed from this side of the House by old-fashioned Members of the Party to which I belong, but they cannot be arguments which should have any weight in this House when addressed from that side from Members who believe in an equality of opportunity. That is one portion of the programme of my honourable Friend opposite to which I always wish to bear my tribute of support, and I venture to say this Measure of the Government is one which, though to some extent it is in the nature of a compromise, does offer that equality of opportunity to the five millions of the people of London which hitherto has been denied to them. I know why some of this opposition is levelled against the Bill. I am one, perhaps, of a very few Members who read certain so-called religious papers which appear in the interests of gentlemen on the other side, and there seems to be a fear that there is to be a theological faculty. Well, I do not think this House will trouble itself upon that matter. But I do appeal to this House, as one who has been personally associated with the City of London College now for 30 years, first of all as a student, then as a member of the committee, and now as one of the vice-presidents, on behalf of 2,000 students who year after year are entering that college, who are devoting their evenings to the work of higher education, to grant them that which they ardently desire—namely, the same opportunity of obtaining university training and a university degree that is given—and given very justly—to the fortunate residents of the Principality of Wales. Now, Mr. Speaker, what is it that the Convocation of the University of London objects to in this Measure? Their policy is one of intellectual selfishness, and nothing else. The members of the Convocation of the University of London are doing what I was brought up to imagine the universities of Oxford and Cambridge would have done one hundred years ago. They are showing that a body which was created in opposition to spiritual tests and to theological narrowness is pursuing a policy of intellectual narrowness which, in my humble opinion, is far worse than any policy of opposition to reform of which the universities of Oxford and Cambridge have been guilty. The honourable Member who has just sat down has dwelt with great eloquence upon the example of a teacher of Oriental languages, who has risen to his present eminence as an inspector of schools from being a regimental schoolmaster in one of Her Majesty's regiments. But, Mr. Speaker, whilst that one brilliant character, by his opportunity of being in an Oriental country and being gifted with the power of acquiring Oriental languages, has so risen, how many are there in this great city who might have been able to follow his example if the University of London had been a teaching university instead of only an examining body, and have been able to lift, as they could lift, the bright and brilliant students from our different polytechnics in this Metropolis to that position which by university teaching they might obtain? I can speak in this matter from personal experience; I can recall men who were my fellow students, some still in this country and others scattered over different countries of the world, who in my humble opinion are much more brilliant than myself, but wh oave remained in the walks of business because opportunities have not been afforded to them. Well, I am not ashamed to own that I have seen better men than myself passed in the race of life. But I do say this: it is for that very reason that I contend a Measure like this should have the support of those Members who pose as friends of the people. I know that year after year in this great city of London, and in Greater London outside, there are young men who are willing and anxious for this university teaching, which at present they are unable to receive. It is because this Measure brought forward by the Government provides that university ladder which I believe is so greatly desired, and because, in my opinion, it is one of a strongly democratic character—for all good democratic Measures should be eminently conservative when they are applied to the arts and learning—that I appeal, at all events, to Members on this side of the House to support the Second Reading, and not to be frightened by suggestions that the self-made man will be effaced. The self-made man will be helped, and in place of one self-made man who, by his own intellectual capacity, has been able to secure the university degree, I venture to say we shall have hundreds. We shall, at all events, have done this: we shall have provided that opportunity for ascending the ladder which many earnest members of the middle class community in London have had denied to them, simply because they lived in London and had not the means of pursuing a university career at the more ancient seats of learning. For that reason I appeal to the members of the University of London in this House to give this Measure loyal support, because it is really a democratic Measure, and because it attempts, and I believe will secure, that intellectual equality which, in my humble opinion, is far better than a mere political gain.

* MR. BRYNMOR JONES (Swansea District)

As a member of the Convocation of the University of London I desire to make a few observations upon the topics suggested by this Bill. I intend to be as brief as possible, because many points that had occurred to me have been anticipated by the preceding speakers who spoke in support of the Measure. But there was one point which struck me, in listening to the speech of the right honourable Gentleman the Member for the University of London, which took me by surprise. He rather indicated that, in his view, this is a Bill introducing some great change in the constitution of the University of London and something which conflicted with the objects of the promoters of the institution. I do not think, Mr. Speaker, it has been mentioned to-night—certainly not in any speech that I have heard—that the University of London was started as a teaching university. A sum of £160,000 odd was subscribed, chiefly by people living in London, or whose business interests were centred in London, and the original institution was of a purely voluntary character, and has since developed into a chartered institution. The University College of London was started, I think, in the year 1828, as a teaching university or college. It was not incorporated; it had no power to grant degrees. It was in 1835 that, in consequence of a Minute issued by the Privy Council, the University of London as a degree-granting body was founded, and before that change had taken place King's College had been started, upon somewhat different lines, and somewhat different principles, from the institution in Gower Street, London, as a chartered body. The University of London was founded shortly after this Minute of the Privy Council was issued, and it was started with the idea of only conferring degrees upon persons who had received a proper training, either in University College or in King's College, or in some college affiliated to the university; and from the year 1836, when the university became a practical and working institution, down to the year 1858, the degrees were only conferred upon candidates who could show to the university that they had attended two years' course of study of an approved kind either at King's College or University College, or one of the other affiliated colleges. It was in 1858 that the change took place in the university, and, in consequence of the new charter granted in 1858, the university developed into what it has been, as I unhesitatingly say, a mere examining board. Now, I am not, Mr. Speaker, concerned to deny that the University of London has been a university of great public utility. It would be certainly very ungrateful on my part to do so, but some of those who have spoken to-night in its favour have, I think, shown a tendency to exaggerate the utility of the university in its present form. I have read the pamphlets referred to by a preceding speaker, and I have heard, both in public and private, a great many reasons urged against this Bill; but it seems to me, Sir, that much of what the opponents of the Bill say is vitiated by a wholly false theory as to the true aim and function of a university. They talk of a degree—I think my honourable Friend behind me [Captain Norton] referred to it in that way—as if a degree were an object in itself, as if the object of a university were merely to hall-mark its men. I take quite a different view. In my view, if the qualities which a degree should denote are absent, its possession is, from the point of view of the general community, utterly valueless, and if it is valuable to the individual it is only by a species of subtle imposture. The true aim of a university is not to turn out men who have answered a certain number of questions in a particular way, or to give degrees to men full of somewhat undigested information—walking encyclopædias. The true object of a really genuine university is to turn out men who have been, trained in the different faculties or departments of learning, who are able, in consequence of their training, to form sane and reasonable judgment upon problems of life as they arise in different businesses and in different professions, and in the rarer case of those who can devote themselves to a career of study—men competent to advance the sum of human knowledge by properly directed research, and by wise and scholarly speculation. I may not perhaps have expressed myself with the elegance which some of those who are actually concerned in teaching work would be able to do, but I think I have put such persons interested in this question in the possession of the sort of idea I have as to the kind of university we ought to have. The London University has not been performing this work in any conspicuous degree. It has been giving these degrees merely as the result of examination. I should have much preferred myself if the Government had the courage—though I am not blaming the Government for not having done it—to adopt for London the same method adopted in the case of Wales. The Government, as the result of the investigation which took place in regard to higher education in Wales in the year 1881, established three colleges, and those three colleges are now State-aided. But the colleges rebelled against the London University. The colleges demanded that they should have a freer hand in regard to their teaching than was possible under the ironbound system of the London University. The Privy Council accepted that. The decision of the Privy Council, after some legal negotiations and discussions, was endorsed by the Government of the day. Well, precisely a similar question, raised in regard to Wales, is now raised in regard to the metropolis and the home counties. We took the trouble to enter into these negotiations and consider all the complicated questions in regard to the founding of a new national institution, and we came to the conclusion that there was no real and substantial demand in the 13 counties we call Wales for a mere examining university. Our point was that you should do everything to encourage men to go to these national colleges. All sorts and conditions of men subscribed exhibitions and scholarships in order to send people to the colleges. Our view is that the purposes of higher education are best served by giving every encouragement to men to go to such institutions and come into contact with good teachers day after day. It is true that they do not have all that amenity of life which is ordinarily associated with our ancient universities. In that respect we could not compete with Oxford or Cambridge. We felt that in starting a university it was worth while doing it on lines similar to those which, on the whole, have secured the admiration of the civilised world. I want to say one or two words on another point, but still in the way of criticising the system of the London University. There are evils connected with it. I assert—and I have not heard any answer to what has already been asserted to-night—that the London University in its present form hampers the education of students of the different educational institutions of he metropolis and neighbourhood. I will give you an instance. I think the honourable and learned Gentleman who spoke before me referred to law. Now, I was a student—I am bound to give concrete illustrations—I was a student of law in University College. With regard to jurisprudence, which is in many ways the most interesting part of the curriculum, and which affords the best discipline for any young man who proposes to enter the legal profession, the curriculum is absolutely the same as it was in 1863. When I first attended classes I found that Professor Sheldon Amos was desirous of initiating us, by giving lectures, into some of the Continental systems of law; but he knew the very suggestion of it would ruin the classes. We wanted to work for this examination of the London University; we had no option; we had to read "Austin's Jurisprudence." I will not say anything as to the advantages or disadvantages of reading "Austin's Jurisprudence." You have here the evil of this examining board system in a concrete instance. Here was an eminent teacher, ready and willing to give a course of lectures to students who would be willing to listen to them if by doing so they could improve their minds, yet he could not do so because the rigid regulations of the London University. It is said further that vested interests are attacked. Of course it is agreed that this is not at all the case of a Bill that is interfering with a college university corporation which has property, and the income of which is divided according to its statutes among its members. The only vested interest is the general status or consideration or worth that is attached to its degrees. That is what my honourable Friend on my right suggested. Well, how are the rights of the present graduates of the university in any way affected? I never understood the market value of a London degree. My experience on more than one educational board is that the market value of a London degree is not of itself very high. The question was always asked with regard to a man who was a graduate of the university: "Yes, but where was he educated? Was he educated at University College or King's College, or was he at Oxford or Cambridge?" That is a question which practical men to my knowledge have been asking. Supposing that this Bill passes, a person with a London degree applying for an appoint- ment in one of our teaching institutions can always say, "Why, I became a graduate of the University of London before the Bill passed; the value of its degree is immense; I am one of its old graduates." So far as the present graduates are concerned, I cannot see how their position or status or privileges are in any way affected. The only other persons affected are those who intend to come up some time or other to take university degrees, and they have no vested interests at all in the matter. What I say is that people who have no vested rights in the educational system have no reason to complain. But there is a similar answer to it under the Bill which my honourable and learned Friend near me has pointed out as far as external students are concerned. The Bill will make no serious practical alteration whatever in regard to persons coming for degrees after private study. The Bill on the whole seems to be an honest and practical attempt to introduce a better organisation of higher education in the metropolis, and it is for that reason I support it.

* MR. ERNEST GRAY (West Ham, N.)

I want to mention what appears to me a serious difficulty. I cannot altogether subscribe to the view placed before the House earlier in the evening by the honourable and learned Gentleman opposite, though I do agree that the Bill is likely to do much to intensify the educational forces in London and the neighbouring district; and that is a great advantage. The Bill if it ended there would have my whole and hearty support. But without going into details on the general question I must confess that there is a very great difficulty. I will give you a concrete example. My trouble is with reference to the relative positions of the external and the internal student of the future. I do not myself believe that the graduates of London are likely to be injuriously affected by this Bill. Those who have already attained their degree are not likely to be injured; my fears on that point are altogether removed. Let me take this illustration. A special examination is set up by the Education Department for school teachers, and there are a large number of training colleges who send their students now annually to London to matriculate for the intermediate and final degree examination as a complete qualification for the work of school teachers. Of these students who come from training colleges within a 30-mile radius, many will sit for one examination and hold one qualification as internal students. The majority of the students who matriculate at London are external students; they are not provided with residence. The persons mainly interested are outside the 30-mile radius. If this Bill passes, and there seems every reasonable prospect of its being passed, what will be the position of the students who come from, say, Cheltenham or York or Brighton, or any of those colleges outside the 30-mile radius? The students are working for one examination; they are qualifying for the holding of one office. Those who are beyond the 30-mile radius will sit for one examination, framed by one examining board, and they will sit as external students. Those who have the good fortune to find a residence in training colleges, formed on exactly the same lines but within the 30-mile radius, will sit for another examination framed by another examining board and will sit as internal students. I am afraid there will be a double standard set up—a standard for external students and a standard for internal students. Under one clause of the schedule the students who seek to qualify as internal students may elect if they think fit to take examination as external students. Now, why on earth may not the external students have the same opportunities granted to them? In fact, why may not the whole of these students, whether internal or external, sit for one examination under one examining board, so that there will not be any possibility of anything being set up between students trained outside the 30-mile radius and those trained within the 30-mile radius. That is a great difficulty I have in dealing with this Bill. As was pointed out by the mover of the Amendment the majority of the persons sitting for the London examination are persons who have not been in residence within the metropolitan area; they are people who come up from the districts outside, and so far as one can see into the near future, the majority of persons who take their de- grees in London will be external students. There is the danger that they will be placed in an unfavourable position. I want to press this upon those who are supporting this Bill. Is there any reason why one examination should not be the examination both for external and for internal students? I cannot relieve my mind from the uncomfortable feeling that there is something behind this double examination. It may be to set up a more favourable condition for those who have the good fortune to reside within the metropolitan area. What is really the object of this double examination? You ought to bring your examination into harmony with your teaching by all manner of means. I dislike very much indeed the cramming for mere passed and the overestimate that is attached to them rather than to the actual work. The latter ought to be the object aimed at by all. I therefore should favour very strongly indeed the teaching university rather than the mere examining board, and I am hopeful that when this Bill passes the number of students resident within the London area will very materially increase, and that greater opportunities will be afforded to them. I am not prepared to buy that advantage at the cost of the larger number who will seek their degree at the London University from beyond the 30-mile radius; and I strongly impress upon those in charge of this Bill the practical difficulties which lie there. I am perfectly certain that a large amount of opposition to this Bill arises from the dread that the external student will in the future be placed at a very serious disadvantage, that he will have to take another examination, and probably a more difficult one than any taken by the internal student; and the chance of his taking his degree in London will be diminished thereby. This perhaps might rather be pressed in Committee, for it may now be regarded as detail. But it is detail of such great importance as may make or mar the success of the Bill. I attach a very considerable amount of interest to it, because I know that in these training colleges the passage of this Bill is regarded with grave apprehension. They conceive that if this double standard is set up it becomes evident that the internal student will have a greater advantage. There will consequently be a rush to the London colleges. There would, in that event, be a destruction of the colleges beyond the metropolitan area, which, I believe, the country would very much regret, because one does not want to concentrate in London the advantages of university education, but to extend it as far as possible. You have by a special clause included the Wye College. Why not go beyond that and include other colleges as well? Why not abolish this double examination and include both external and internal students? I do not desire to repeat my arguments on this point, but it is the only difficulty which bears upon my mind in regard to the Second Reading of the Bill. I conceive the Bill will not only do very much for university education in London, but the impetus that will, be given to education in the metropolitan area will probably react on primary and secondary education, which will be of very material advantage to the country generally. If the difficulty with regard to external students can only be got over, my belief is that a very large amonnt of opposition will melt away.

* MR. CARVELL WILLIAMS (Notts, Mansfield)

During this Debate many and warm encomiums have been pronounced on the University of London, and in my opinion one of its greatest excellences has been its perfect freedom from sectarianism. I therefore approach this Bill with a jealous desire to maintain that most honourable tradition, and to a certain extent the Measure satisfies my requirements, while in other respects it falls short of them. For instance, the schedule of the Bill provides that no religious test shall be adopted. Nothing could be better than that; but in the third clause there is a curiously contradictory provision. A sub-section of the Bill states that— The statutes or regulations, whether they are made by the Commissioners or by the senate as hereinafter provided, shall not authorise the assignment of money for any purpose in respect of which any privilege is granted or disability imposed on account of religious belief: Provided that they shall not prevent the university from allocating funds, on such conditions as it thinks fit, for the payment of any person appointed or recognised by the university as a university teacher, or for his laboratory expenses, or for apparatus to be used by him, notwithstanding any conditions attached to any office held by him in any school of the university. I cannot but think that this is a saving clause which has been inserted in the Bill for the benefit of King's College. I heard with great surprise the statement of the honourable and learned Member for Haddington that King's College was not to be a constituent of the university. What are the facts? In my opinion King's College is too strongly represented in the Commission which is to be appointed under this Bill. The Commission is to consist of seven members, and two out of the seven are officially connected with King's College. One is life governor, and the other is a member of the council. Why the Bishop of London, or any bishop, should be a commissioner, when Nonconformists are not represented, I do not know. Then, in addition, King's College is to appoint two of the members of the senate of the university; and it is probably the only sectarian institution which will have that right. I venture to say that it would not be allowed to possess it at either Oxford or Cambridge. What is the constitution and character of the college which is thus specially favoured? Its charter originally provided that all its studies should be in conjunction with instruction in the doctrines of the Church of England, and every professor, except the professors of Oriental literature and foreign languages, is obliged to be a member of the Church of England. Indeed, I think that every official in the college, down to the beadle at the gate, must be a Churchman. It may be further said that the college is obstinately sectarian; for many years ago the Duke of Devonshire's Commission on scientific instruction recommended the college authorities to obtain a new charter and abolish the religious test. They went still further, in expressing the opinion that the Parliamentary grant ought not to be continued unless that step were taken. Instead of adopting that course, the college obtained an Act of Incorporation which maintained the exclusive system without any alteration. What has the college done to entitle itself to this exceptional treatment? The inquiry is partly answered by a Report of the Committee appointed by the present Government to inquire into the condition and working of the several colleges receiving the Parliamentary grant. That Report spoke in high terms of all the colleges with one exception, and that exception was King's College. The Report damned the college with the faintest praise. If you doubt that, listen to this single passage from the Report— On the arts side it cannot be said that at present any amount of work of a high standard is being done in the college. In arts proper we found practically no honour work being done. Most of the work, both in arts and science, is of an elementary kind, although it is very difficult to form an estimate of the results of the work in arts and science. If honourable Gentlemen opposite need any more of the like kind, I can give them further extracts. The only department of the college of which the Report speaks, highly is the Theological Faculty, and the fact is that King's College is mainly a training school for theological teaching of the Church of England. Well, that is a legitimate object; but if the Church chooses to have a strictly denominational college it cannot claim for such an institution national support. Further, King's College may be described as being obstinately sectarian, because some years ago the Duke of Devonshire's Commission recommended that King's College should obtain a new charter abolishing religious tests; and, further, they recommended that the Parliamentary grant's continuance should be made conditional on the college adopting that step. But, instead of doing that, the King's College authorities obtained a new charter of incorporation, in which all the old tests were maintained in their integrity. The college has had the opportunity of freeing itself from these ecclesiastical restrictions, and it has thought fit not to avail itself of them.

SEVERAL HONOURABLE MEMBERS

Hear, hear!

* MR. CARVELL WILLIAMS

Honourable! Members say "Hear, hear!" Of course, King's College has a right to maintain its position as a strictly sectarian institution, but it ought not to come to Parliament for advantages which accrue to strictly unsectarian institutions. I have too painful a remembrance of the difficulties which had to be encountered in the abolition of the ecclesiastical tests in the ancient universities not to watch with, jealousy any step in a wrong direction in newer institutions, and my opinion is that in proportion as the influence of King's College prevails in the councils of those who bring this university into existence public confidence will be impaired, and the fear will be entertained that the London University of the future will not enjoy the just reputation it has had in the history of the past.

MR. E. ROBERTSON (Dundee)

So many Members on this side of the House have taken part in this important Debate that I should hesitate to add to their number were it not that I mainly wish to speak from a point of view which, so far as I know, has not yet been taken up by any speaker. We have heard the views of gentlemen who wished to speak as members of Convocation of the University of London, or as members of the Senate of the University of London, or as graduates of the University of London. I am going to speak from the standpoint of a much less attractive personality—that of the university examiners. A good many Member's of this House have from time to time served in the University of London. I myself happen to have served as an examiner in the University on eleven occasions for a period of eleven years. Mainly—in fact, entirely—in the University of London I have been confined to the subject of law; but it so happens that I am able to compare my experience of the University of London with a similar experience in a good many other institutions of a similar kind. I have discharged the same functions in the University of Oxford, in the University of New Zealand, in the University of Durham, in Victoria University, and in the Inns of Court. My experience throughout, with the single exception of Durham, has been confined to the law schools. In Durham it was confined to theology, but I am afraid that was a very long time ago. I know that I was an impartial judge on that subject. May I contrast my point of view with that of my honourable Friend the Member for Bolton, who moved the rejection of this Bill in a speech to which I wish to do all justice? I think it was the most able speech from that side of the House which has been made in the course of the Debate, and I confess I was somewhat astonished to find that so strong a case could be made out against the Bill by my honourable and, I will add, my learned Friend. His experience is different from mine. He speaks from the opposite side of the Table. He has a passion for examinations. To most of us examinations have come as a sad experience in our lives, but my honourable Friend has sought examinations for the love of them. In the intervals of business, he has told us, he qualified not only for the University, of London degree, but for distinctions of a still higher character. I venture to think that if my view may be considered somewhat biased, his may be considered so from the other side. Before I proceed to tell the House what I wish to say about the University of London system from the inside, let me say that I agree, to some extent, in what was said by the Member for West Ham as to the difficulty of a system of external and internal examinations. That is, no doubt, a serious difficulty, but I think the danger he apprehended is the result of a misapprehension. He seemed to think that if you have an external examination and an internal examination the internal examination would become the lower standard and the external the higher. If I may speak from my own experience, I say that if there be a danger it is precisely in the opposite direction. It is, in fact, probable that the examinations ever which the professors have some control would have the higher standard. But I think it would be an awkward thing to have the possibility of a double standard set up for the same degree, and I therefore hope that in Committee some Amendment may be introduced dealing with that matter. There is another matter, and that is the objection taken by the Member for Nottingham, who has just sat down. I entirely agree with the spirit in which he has spoken, but I do not believe that at this time of day it is practicable to exclude theology as a scientific subject from the scope of university education. There are those who say that theology cannot be a scientific subject at all, but it may be a subject of scientific study, and I think it would do more harm than good if it were now excluded from the scope of our university system. The subject of theology is recognised in Scotland, without much damage to anybody. It is a subject in which degrees are taken by students who compete against each other, although their ecclesiastical connections may be hostile. I do not think any harm has happened in Scotland from that state of things. There is a still more recent example. In the University of Wales theology has been deliberately admitted. I have every reason to believe that the experiment in Wales has been entirely successful. But the practical question, on the Second Reading of this Bill, of course, is this: is it desirable to have a teaching university in London at all? It seems to me that that is the question which the House has to decide. In other words, is the existing University of London sufficient for the higher educational needs of London? Now, I have noted with the utmost satisfaction that even on the part of those who say they are going to oppose this Bill there has been the strongest expression of desire for a teaching university in London. Another small point is this: in some way or other it is conceived that the existing University of London will be injured by the institution of this new body. Well, the alternative of that—which must be accepted by those who declare that they are in favour of a teaching university—is to have two universities; but if you have two universities in London, one consisting entirely of internal students, and another of external students, the result, undoubtedly, would be a degradation of the present position of the University of London. Therefore, I think the Senate and the Convocation of the university have been wisely advised in assenting, as I believe they have done, to a proposal which now comes before the House, not merely on the authority of the present Government, but with the full weight of authority of the last Government, with the support of the Liberal Party. I hope, therefore, that the Measure will not be regarded as a party one at all, but one in which both sides agree. Now, to come to my experience as an officer of the University of London. I think no one who knows that institution, can help asserting, with perfect confidence, the value of the work which it has done for London and the Empire. My experience, as I have said, has been confined to one great school, but I do not know that my experience is different from that of examiners in other schools; and I will tell the House what I conceive to be the characteristics of the work of the examining board. The standard of the pass degree in the University of London is very high. Comparing it with Oxford, there is no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the pass degree in the University of London is of more value than the corresponding pass degree in the University of Oxford. The uniformity of thought and expression in the University of London is striking. I do not understand how it comes about, because the men are trained by a great variety of teachers, but the curious thing is that they answer the same questions in the same way and in very much the same words. You do not get in London the brilliant blunders which you sometimes get in other places. I only remember one exception—I remember an examinee who said, in answer to a question about the Estates of the Realm, that they were Grown lands. Another point I wish to press upon the House is this: that, while the pass degree at the University of London stands higher than the corresponding degree at Oxford or Cambridge, the honour degree is certainly much lower, and, as far as that degree is concerned, a London man is not in it with an Oxford man. The same thing prevails in what may be regarded as part of the honours examination—the examination for the LL.D. degree. I was going to mention the University of New Zealand, because, to some extent, the system there corresponds with that which you want to establish by this Bill. That university is one of the most remarkable in the British Empire. The students, I believe, are nearly all taught in different colleges in New Zealand, and the examiners are nearly all in this country, and the papers are sent out from this country. I regret to say that I cannot give the results of the last examination, because I believe the papers are lying at the bottom of the ocean, and will never be recovered, but the papers of former examinations which I have seen justify me, I am sure, in the conclusion to which I have come. So much for examinations. We have now a proposal to convert the University of London into a body which will continue examination, work and will also take upon it the control of teaching. I have said that a disproportionate number of Members from this side of the House have spoken upon the Bill. That is not to the discredit of Members on this side, but I should certainly regard it as most unfortunate if a Bill of this nature should meet with anything like formidable opposition from any honourable Friends below the Gangway. There are three things which have an enormous influence on the minds of young men in universities. One is the examination itself, for the examination system, in a properly conducted university, has the greatest possible influence in controlling and influencing students. In the next place I should put the question of teaching, and in the third I should put the mutual influence which undergraduates have one on the other. On this point, I think most honourable Gentlemen who have come from the universities will agree with me as to the great influence which is exercised upon students by their fellow-men. But the influence is one which needs control, and it specially needs the control of the examination system on the one hand, and of the tutorial system on the other. These requirements fulfilled, you have a fully-equipped university, and these requirements, I believe, you have provided for in the present Bill. I do hope that the grace of passing this Bill will not be marred by any opposition, but that it may go to the country with the imprimatur of the unanimous judgment of Parliament.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY

I am emboldened to make the appeal which I propose to make to the House by an observation which fell from the honourable Gentleman who has just sat down. He stated, and stated truly, that by far the larger number of speeches in favour of this Bill had been made from the other side of the House. That is not because my honourable Friends on this side are less zealous in favour of the Measure. I have every reason to know that the supporters of the Government almost to a man are supporters of the Bill, but they feel, and I think with some justice, that the arguments for the Bill have, as far as they are concerned, been exhausted by previous speakers, and they are naturally unwilling to take up time in dealing with topics on which everything has been said that deserves to be said. I quite feel that this is a Bill to be threshed out in Committee, and only after it has gone through the Grand Committee will the House be in a position finally to decide whether it should pass or not; but I do venture to suggest to the House that we might now bring this Debate to a conclusion, reserving anything further that has to be said upon it until the later stages of the Measure.

MR. R. WALLACE (Edinburgh, E.)

I shall carefully remember the appeal which has been made by the right honourable Gentleman the Leader of the House, and I should not have ventured to intervene in the Debate if I were not convinced that the passing of this Measure would have a salutary effect upon the educational institutions of the country to which I have the honour to belong, and a portion of which I have the honour to represent. About 10 years ago, I think, the constitution of the Scotch universities was under the consideration of this House, and I then ventured to lead a cause which was connected with the present movement—a cause dealing with the Scotch universities, which was then much ridiculed. The Scotch universities are somewhat narrow in their constitutional regulations. They will grant degrees only to those who have been taught in universities. For myself, I think that the personal influence of the teacher is at least one-half of what may be called the battle of university education, and on the occasion to which I refer, while recognising the value of teaching in the preparation of a university degree, I yet thought that a poor man who could not pay for residence at a university and the fulfilment of its requirements with regard to fees—but who could prove his knowledge and capacity—whence ever he had derived it—should be able to earn university recognition in the shape of a degree. Unfortunately, I was ridiculed on that occasion by authorities who, to my surprise—though I do not know why I should be surprised, since no one in this House would be surprised at manifestations of inconsistency—are taking a favourable view of the present proposal. Our great national poet himself would have been denied a degree because he had not the opportunity of attending a university. I welcome the idea of a teaching university in London. I am not going to dwell upon the importance of teaching as compared with examinations, but I think the University of London, if this Bill be passed, will present the notion of an ideal university which, while it encourages teaching, will not deny to self-taught men the opportunity of being recognised as such. I hope that when this great metropolis has a university of that character, it will have some effect upon the narrow ideas which prevail in my own country, and it will be then to my humble self a sort of compensation for the ridicule to which I was exposed when I suggested that the idea now promulgated in respect of the London University might also be a Scotch ideal. Now, Sir, I promised to be brief, but I should like to say that I do not see much that is formidable in the conceived danger of a definite standard of education. The valuable point in the matter is that a man of merit, wherever he has derived his capacity, shall be put forward to the public as having the stamp of a recognised educational institution. I leave it to the public to single out the deficient and the useless man from the perfect and the useful man. I will take as an illustration the hall-marked degree that is given to members of my own profession. I do not suppose that the examination for a barrister in the legal university of London is a very high or difficult one. If it had been I do not suppose I should have had the felicity of possessing that stamp myself. But the public single out the useful man from the useless man. I do not suppose—and I see the Attorney General in his place—the right honourable Gentleman will dispute the remark that very often the men who do not stand out the most prominent in examinations are always the unsuccessful men. I shall only make one other remark with refer- ence to an observation which fell from the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty, who said that he saw no objection to including theology as a branch of science in a university examination. That may be advisable, provided it is not put in a sectarian or denominational sense. I think it is a perfectly scientific question to be examined in the history of theology, but as to the belief in any particular department of theology, that is a separate matter of inquiry and detail.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Bill read a second time without a Division.