The Organisation of University Education

Abstract

THE discussion that has been started by the Government's offer of the Bloomsbury site to the University of London has already opened up a bigger question, namely, that of the vital necessity for re-organising thoroughly the university system—or quasi-system—of this country. It is becoming clear that we must have a regional university system, such that every area of sufficient population shall be provided with a fully equipped and fully staffed university as its educational centre and capital; and more and more it is becoming evident that the duties and services of each university will not by any means be exhausted by the teaching and research carried on therein, but that it must undertake besides the tremendously important work of organising tutorial education for the adult workers hungering after knowledge and the work of aiding and leavening and guiding all the secondary schools in its area. If we take account (1) of these considerations and all that they involve in the way of extra-mural organisation and supervision and teaching, (2) of the demand that the Imperial College of Science shall be elevated to university rank, (3) of the objection raised to the Bloomsbury site that ten times its acreage would be required for a university, and (4) of the recent plea that universities should be decentralised and located in the open so far as possible rather than in a city; it seems to follow that very probably the existing University of London will have to be divided into, or replaced by, some half a dozen or so independent universities, one or two central—as, e.g., in Gower Street, etc., and Kensington—and the others in the outer ring to serve the large populations of the Kent and Surrey and Essex and Middlesex areas; and, if this necessity be made clear, no sentimental attachment to the old University of London ought to weigh against the unquestioned needs of education. Of course, millions would be required from the Government to carry out such a scheme; but perhaps one day we may have a Government that, instead of wasting many tens of millions on wild-cat military expeditions, will invest one or two tens in universities—to the incalculable gain of the country.