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saw those about her, especially in relation to herself, with desolating clearness. She was never able to deceive herself for a moment, as most of us habitually do, with regard to the quality of the love bestowed on her. Walpole so far acknowledged the claim her affection for him gave her, that four times, in spite of gout and kindred infirmities of age, he journeyed to Paris to see her. But they did not meet at all for the last five years of her life, and there is something acutely sad-what the French call déchirant-in the opening of one of the very last letters Walpole ever received from her: 'Le proverbe dit, "Qui bien aime bien châtie." Ah! Ah! que de preuves je reçois de votre amitié! Je n'ouvre pas une de vos lettres que je n'y trouve quelques réprimandes. La dernière a été longue et peu méritée.' And yet, at last, something like response, or at least something like gratitude, awakes in his heart, the heart which was not so much withered as ignorant that there could be blossoming, for within a few days of the end he writes to Thomas Walpole, then in Paris: My dear old friend's last letter shocked me as much as possible; it was a kind of taking leave of me, when I had no notion of her being ill.... Should she be capable of hearing it, when you receive this, I entreat you to tell her-but I do not know how to express how much I love her and how much I feel.' This letter-this message-arrived too late, and one can but hope that Madame du Deffand, wandering about as a newcomer in the Elysian Fields, with the glorious, celestial gift of sight restored to her, was given the privilege of doing what we feel sure she must often have longed to do-of reading extracts from Walpole's intimate letters to his other familiars. He was kinder, far kinder, to her in death than he had been in life. And then, if never before, the two might have said, the one to the other:

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'Ne pleure pas, toi que j'aimais:
Ce qui n'est plus ne fut jamais.' . .
'Laisse couler ma douleur sombre:
Une ombre peut pleurer une ombre.'

MARIE BELLOC-LOWNDES.

Art. 12. THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN LONDON.

It is generally understood that the Royal Commission on University Education in London, which has been sitting for four years under the Chairmanship of Lord Haldane, is about to issue its final Report. The secret of the conclusions at which the Commissioners have arrived has been well kept, but, whatever those conclusions may be, the publication of the Report will unquestionably mark a new stage in the history of the evolution of the metropolitan university. Whether that stage is to be the beginning of another controversy, and is to lead only to the adoption of some piecemeal reforms, accepted out of weariness of an apparently interminable dispute, and generally admitted to form merely the basis of a halfhearted truce; or whether it will prove to be the longdesired solution of the problem of the constitution of the University of London, will depend very largely on the amount of popular approval which the Report receives.

The problem, however, is not and cannot be made simple, and public opinion cannot be usefully exerted if it is based on an assumed but unreal absence of complexity. Something more is wanted than a blind adhesion to party ideals. The question at issue must be approached from the point of view of the educational statesman trying to lay foundations broad and deep; not that of the mere politician anxious only to produce a showy exterior, which he hopes will last his time and which will, at all events, last till it collapses. Least of all will general opinion be useful if it is based on false analogies with Oxford and Cambridge on the one hand, or with the modern provincial universities on the other. It may therefore be useful, before the Report is issued, before great principles are obscured by controversy over details, to state shortly the main points which have to be decided, and the matters to which attention should be principally directed. Few will be able to read the Report with an expert knowledge of the problems to be solved and of the difficulties to be encountered. Fewer still will be ready to wade through the 15,223 questions and answers which have already been reported in the published evidence.

Thus many, to whom university education in London is an interest, though perhaps only a secondary interest, may possibly be aided in forming their opinions by a brief outline of the primary problems with which the Commission has to deal.

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With this object in view it is unnecessary to discuss at length the early history of the University. Suffice it to say that down to the end of the last century it had been, since its foundation in 1836, an examining university only. It was actually prohibited from teaching. At first, indeed, the examinations were limited to candidates from colleges which were empowered to grant certificates of attendance, so that collegiate instruction was required, although it was not given by the University; but in 1858 the degrees were thrown open to all comers, and were given on the results of examination only. This type of university originated in and is peculiar to England, except in so far as it has been copied in some of our dependencies. Scotland has never adopted it. Ireland adopted and, after trial, abandoned it. Its opponents urge that it is based on the negation of the principle and hopes which led to the original establishment of universities. The desire to sit at the feet of great teachers filled the older universities with students in the Middle Ages; the desire to secure the presence of the best teachers in their midst led to the establishment of universities in our modern centres of population; but the examining university, prevented from teaching, had nothing to do with the actual work of education, and indeed claimed only to provide such impartial tests of the results of that work as examinations can supply. Thus it may be said that the University could do nothing to help education; it could, at the best, only detect the work of good and cast discredit on that of bad teachers.

On the other hand, it may be urged by the supporters of 'examining universities' that they meet the wants of a class for whom the large multiplication of teaching universities does not altogether provide. The impecunious lad who has developed late, and thus failed to secure any of the numerous scholarships which enable so many of the poorer students to enter a university, may and often does manage, at a later stage, to reach a relatively high standard of knowledge. To him the attainment of a

recognised hall-mark of that standard may make all the difference between success and failure in life. The admirably impartial tests of the external university give him just the chance he seeks; and it may be contended that the high standard of the examinations of the University of London is a protection against misuse of that chance by the unworthy. It would be impossible in this article to follow the argument into its numerous ramifications, but it will be conceded by all that, whatever the merits or demerits of the examining system may be, once teaching universities were established in the provinces it was impossible to refuse the same boon to London, merely because the headquarters of the greatest examining university were then situate in Burlington Gardens.

More than one Commission has considered the questions of the establishment of a teaching university in London and of its relations to the external system. The plan approved by the last Commission was the subject of bitter controversy for years, and was modified in important respects by the compromise embodied in the Schedule to the University of London Act, 1898. It was under the limitations imposed by this compromise that the Statutory Commission appointed by that Act worked out the scheme, which has been in active operation for little more than a dozen years; and for the best part of four of these years the whole matter has been threshed out again by the Commission which is about to report.

In considering the questions before them it is necessary to describe the conditions under which the work of the University is at present being carried on. The teaching university was established, and the constitution of the University as a whole reorganised, by a Statutory Commission, the statutes having been approved by Parliament in June 1900. The new governing body-the Senatemet for the first time on October 24 of the same year. This supreme body consists of the Chancellor, Chairman of Convocation, four nominees of the Crown in Council, sixteen representatives of the graduates elected by Convocation, sixteen representatives of the teachers elected by the Faculties, two representatives of University College

and two of King's College, and fourteen others, representing the County Council (2), the Corporation of the City of London (1), and various learned and educational bodies-fifty-six members in all.

The control of both the external and internal sides of the University is vested in the same body; and if the two sides are included in the same university, this is probably inevitable; but it is certainly open to question whether it is the best arrangement that the supreme Senate should be constituted so largely of two groups of representatives of opposite schools of thought. In broad outline, the representatives of Convocation regard examinations conducted by external examiners, without reference to the previous careers of the candidates, as the true method of testing the qualifications of those candidates for degrees. They regard difficult examinations as the best means of securing a high standard of learning, and, as a consequence, the high reputation of the university. The representatives of the Faculties, on the other hand, are, as a whole, supporters of the view that examinations, though necessary, are at best a necessary evil, and that that evil becomes very serious if it interferes with the freedom of the teacher, and diverts the attention of the students from the lines of thought to which he would lead them, by rigid regulations laid down without reference to the particular courses of study which they have followed. The possibility of collision between these two schools of thought is increased by the fact that the Senate is the sole executive of the University, and has no power to delegate its functions. Every regulation, however minute, as to the conduct of the external examinations has to be decided by a body, of which more than a third consists of representatives of teachers and teaching institutions. Every item in the courses of study for internal students can be criticised by sixteen supporters of a system which is logically compelled to ignore courses of study and to depend on examinations only.

Such a constitution of the supreme administrative and legislative body could only be justified by success; and a perusal of the evidence raises doubts as to whether the requisite standard of success has been obtained. It is stated in evidence (First Report, 30, p. 137) that the term •External Party' had 'come to be used.' An ex-Vice

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