The Albert University

Abstract

MR. THISELTON DYER has done good service in pointing out the nature of the proposed Albert University, which, unfortunately, seems not unlikely to be the result of the discussions that have been going on for the last six or eight years with respect to a “Teaching University for London. Should the charter petitioned for by the Councils of University and King's Colleges be granted, it will not constitute a teaching University in any real sense, but, as Mr. Thiselton Dyer says, an institution very similar to what the present University of London was as constituted by the original charter of 1837. There are, of course, differences of organization and machinery, such as the institution of Assemblies of Faculties and Boards of Studies (which the existing University might institute next week, if it saw fit), but there is little or nothing that can be looked upon as a difference of principle. The nearest approach to this are the provisions: (1) that the Colleges whose students are to be eligible as candidates for degrees shall have a certain amount of representation on the governing body of the University; (2) that the claim of additional Colleges to enter the University shall be decided by the governing body of the University, subject to appeal to the Queen in Council (instead of, as in the charter of 1837, being decided on directly by the Crown); (3) that “the University may appoint lecturers independently of a College or medical school to give instruction in any subject, whether it be or be not included in a Faculty.”