Volume 3

An account of the reconstruction of the University of London / compiled by W. H. Allchin.

Date:
1905-12
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: An account of the reconstruction of the University of London / compiled by W. H. Allchin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    18/440 (page 6)
    the petitioners ; that the teacher-examiner system which formed the foundation of the demand for a new University would not apply to these students ; and that the only result would be a competition with the present Univer- sity in the granting of medical degrees, which would be injurious to the interests of sound medical education. Having regard to the whole circumstances it cannot be said that the case was either a very strong or a very dignified one. Retaining their objection to the creation of a second University in London, which they had urged before the Royal Commission, and having failed to carry their own scheme of reconstruction, they were now emitting a feeble plaint on the grounds of self-interest against any other body attempting to provide a remedy for the inevitable defects that ensued from their own persistently maintained policy. And when unwilling to accept to the full the consequences of Convocation's veto, they embarked, as will be seen, on a series of futile proposals to come to terms with the Royal Colleges and Medical Schools (pp. i8, 19), and to form Boards of Studies of doubtful constitution (p. 7). Thus they were neither maintaining the position that Convocation insisted on that the University should be an examining one only, nor so altering their procedure as to make a really satisfactory teaching University for London. Un- certain in their own minds as to what they wanted, yielding to almost any demand if only squeezed suffi- ciently, as their rejected scheme showed, and fearful that another University would injure them in pocket and in influence, the Senate offered a sorry spectacle as the governing body of the University of the metropolis of the Empire. Although somewhat anticipating the course of events, it will be convenient here to point out that among other results which would have followed from the establishment of the Albert University, was the exclusion of the Univer- sity of London from any possibility of co-operation with the higher educational institutions of the metropolis for the formation of Faculties, Boards of Studies, and other