Medical education : apprenticeship & university degrees : the annual oration delivered before The Hunterian Society / y P.H. Pye-Smith.

  • Pye-Smith, P. H. (Philip Henry), 1839-1914.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical education : apprenticeship & university degrees : the annual oration delivered before The Hunterian Society / y P.H. Pye-Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The Annual Committee, however, took up the question, and had begun to deal with it when the more pressing question of the admission of women to the University came on. It wns then postponed in deference to the wish of the Senate that this long pending question should first be settled, and with something like a promise that the other matter should not suffer for the delay. Its consideration was resumed in 1878, and a sub-committee appointed to consider and report “ by wbat measures the connexion of the affiliated Colleges with the University may be strengthened, and generally how the objects of the University in the promotion of sound learning and liberal education may be more efficiently attained.” The result was a Report to Convocation, from which the following paragraphs are extracted:— “ When, 40 years ago, the University was incorporated, two circumstances chiefly justified its foundation ; first and principally, the religious restrictions which excluded large classes of her Majesty’s subjects from the great English Universities; secondly, the unsatisfactory character of the examinations by which degrees were then obtained. “The religious disabilities which then existed have now been removed ; and the systems of examination, not only in Oxford and Cambridge, but also in Edinburgh, and other Scottish Universities, and in the legal and medical professions, have been gradually but largely reformed. “At the present time, therefore, the University of London can claim neither the exclusive honour of unsectarian liberality, nor that of unrivalled efficiency of examination. While the severity of our examinations has continually increased, and the estimation of our degrees has steadily and deservedly risen, it is not true that any considerable number of graduates from Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, or Edinburgh seek for the additional honour of a London degree. Nor is it true that our University is distinguished from others by its examiners being entirely unconnected with its teaching bodies. For in the older Universities examiners are sometimes chosen from beyond their pale, and it is notorious that in our own University a large number are annually appointed who are con- nected with its Colleges and Medical Schools. Indeed the boast, if true, would bo of doubtful value, since few who are practically acquainted with examining and with teaching would doubt that familiarity with the course and methods of study of a University