II.

The practical man, that petted dogmatist of the age, if faced with the problem of relationship suggested by the foregoing recital, is likely to take a short way with it. Summoning proverbial philosophy to his aid, he will remind us that he who pays the piper calls the tune, and that if the Universities cannot tolerate the State music they must pay the piper themselves. Not even the brigaded intellect of eight Universities, he will continue, can compass the feat of eating a pudding and having it too. The Universities, in short, cannot have it both ways. If they consent to do State work for pay, they cannot help becoming State servants. If they become pensioners upon the State's bounty, they cannot claim the privileges of independence.

Nevertheless, though policy often exemplifies truisms, truisms, even when they hail from the market-place, are less often a guide to policy. If the question really were one of common bargaining, we might capitulate to the dogmatism of the business man. But it is nothing of the kind. 'Education,' as Sir Robert Morant so well said, ' is different from providing trams'; and University education in particular not only differs from the provision of public conveyances, but, as the present Minister for Education has lately pointed out, it differs also from those other branches of education subordinate to itself. Unless we grasp the fact of this difference, and its consequences, we shall make no progress towards a solution. An administrative system, for instance, which applied the same methods and brought the same spirit to the treatment of problems essentially different might enjoy the glow of vigorous exercise, but in the long run its efforts would be likely to prove as disappointing as those of a physician who treated all maladies with the same drug. There is a risk lest having called into being a number of Universities, we should proceed to treat them as if they were something else.

The present argument endeavours to show that no policy towards the Universities can be trusted unless it rests upon three propositions of demonstrable validity. The first is that the Universities and Colleges can no more dispense with the co-operation of the State than the State can dispense with theirs. Withdraw the co-operation of the State, and these institutions must stop valuable work, lose many of their best students, and be deprived of about one-fourth of their revenue. It hardly requires an intimate knowledge

of the internal economy of a University or College to appreciate the effects of such a blow. A University, as Cardinal Newman has told us, 'is not a foundry, or 'a mint,' one part of which can be destroyed without detriment to the others. Rather, a University is an Alma Mater, knowing her children one by one,' a living society whose being is organically one, so that if a limb be cut off the rest of the body may bleed to death. Not long ago, for example, the University of Manchester, the strongest and wealthiest of these corporations, was compelled to take vigorous steps in order to prevent the injury which must have resulted had the comparatively small sum of £2000 a year been withdrawn from it, for administrative reasons, by the Treasury. The truth is that the Universities and Colleges have had and still have a hard and anxious struggle to pay their way, and assuredly they cannot afford to imperil the advantages of co-operation with the State. On the other hand, the State and the nation more and more look to them to make good what is perhaps, by comparison with other countries, the weakest spot in our educational armament. There are many ways in which the new Universities benefit the people. They are centres of liberal culture, diffusing influence among populations immersed in the toil of business or industry. They are in a peculiar degree the Universities of the poor and less prosperous. They treat women no less liberally than men. These are great services. But their distinctive service, the service which commends them to the statesman and gives them, from the point of view of utility, a strong position in any scheme of national education, is that they are fitted to give under liberal conditions that specialised scientific and technical training which, as Germany and America so well understand, is necessary to modern industrial and commercial efficiency. There is not one of these institutions which does not associate with the older studies, the humanities, instruction and training in applied sciences. In April 1909 the Prince of Wales, now his Majesty the King, pointed out, when opening new buildings at Sheffield University, that during the latter part of the nineteenth century our important 'industrial centres recognised that there were problems to be solved differing widely from those dealt with in the more 'ancient Universities'; and in the same year he declared at the University College at Cardiff that we must look ahead ' and endeavour to be ready to meet all the requirements of 'scientific and intellectual progress. The imperative necessity 'for higher education and research is becoming more and more

' recognised.' The King's words must be endorsed by every far-seeing statesman, every educational authority, and every reflecting citizen. A modern nation must command trained intelligence for the conflicts of peace as well as for those of war. If there is any scandal about the State and the new Universities, it is not that the State has been too forward in its advances but rather that it has been too coy.

The second proposition is that freedom is the life-blood of a University. For what is a University? Most men would perhaps face with a more tranquil courage the task of defining a Dreadnought, which baffles the Times,' or that of defining the duties of an archdeacon, which once baffled the House of Lords. We may hold with Cardinal Newman that the true function of a University is to impart liberal culture, or with Huxley that a University should be a factory of new knowledge. But whatever our idea of a University may be, 'whatever theory of University education we adopt, whether we 'hold that it should aim at a complete training of the faculties, for that it should prepare the student for the pursuits of later life,'* we shall no more conceive of a University in chains than we shall conceive of a Dreadnought climbing the Himalayas. Nature is opposed to it. The very name of University,' says Newman, in his immortal treatise,† speaking of the range of its teaching, is inconsistent with restrictions of any kind.' A University may be large or small, rich or poor, old or new; but a University which is not free sails under false colours. 'Academical institutions,' says Newman again, are living ' and energising bodies, if they deserve the name of University 'at all.' In this country, at least, there is no organised intellectual unit higher or more comprehensive than a University. What an Empire is in political history, such is a 'University in the sphere of philosophy and research. It is the high protecting power of all knowledge and science, of fact and principle, of inquiry and discovery, of experiment ' and speculation.' § These are high claims, but education ' is a high word']] and among the objects of human enterprise, none higher or nobler can be named than that which is con'templated in the erection of a University.'¶ A University must be free to govern itself; free to receive or reject proposals made to it; free to develope and control its schools and its

6

*Seeley, Liberal Education in Universities' (1867).
† Idea of a University, p. 20.

+ Ibid. p. 216.

§ p. 459.

discipline; free to cherish and express its own faith, purpose, and ideas in the stronghold of its home. It may co-operate; but, without betrayal of trust, it must not abdicate. It cannot barter away the immediate jewel of its soul. If it is not to be suffered to take its own way to perfection,' to pursue of its own will and motion the great University ideals, it ought never to have been chartered by the Crown. Parliament, indeed, is above all persons and causes'; but Parliament, having sanctioned the creation of Universities, can have no object or desire except that Universities may fulfil themselves in the best possible way. If freedom is the life-blood of a University, if a sacrifice which compromises freedom can be shown to be a mortal blow, then Parliament would be unlikely to favour an administrative policy which, let us suppose, should harass Universities with restrictions, and try to squeeze them into conformity with an official pattern. The danger may seem fanciful; but administration, even when it is wellintentioned, is under temptation to mistake uniformity for symmetry. Uniformity means the repetition of a pattern and is the opposite of variety. But that' goodly and graceful symmetry which commends the whole pile and structure is the outcome of many moderate varieties and brotherly 'dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportional.' Milton's imagery gives us in embryo the ideal of a symmetrical scheme of English Universities, and it is at once apparent that without liberal freedom of self-developement for each the ideal is irrelevant. Let us not be seduced from the true principles which alone can guide us by any quotation of precedents from France, Germany, or the United States. Such precedents, in so far as they would advise us to jeopardise or diminish freedom, are recorded for our warning. In devising a policy for national institutions, our first duty, as Disraeli told us, is always to 'consult the genius of the people.' The genius of the English people, in spite of the onward rush of bureaucracy, is not yet subjugated into preferring bureaucratic decrees to independent initiative. It is possible to seize able Englishmen by force, thrust them into a narrow alley between high walls, and compel them to carry a heavy burden along it until they drop. But the testimony of a self-governing empire exists to prove that far more and better work will be got out of them if they are treated as responsible creatures. The Universities in claiming freedom are only claiming the English birthright. It is reassuring to find that the present Minister for Education and the present Chancellor of the Exchequer are in accord with the general principle here advanced. In answer to a

deputation from London University in July 1910, which pleaded for a simplification of the conditions attached to Board of Education grants, Mr. Runciman expressed his belief 'that grants to Universities should be administered with a 'degree of independence different from that which obtained ' in the case of other educational institutions.' He added that he realised the importance of giving to Universities and University Colleges a considerable amount of freedom in instruction. And in November 1910 Mr. Lloyd George expressed his concurrence with the view advanced by a Committee representative of the English Universities and Colleges, that while the fullest expert inspection' of the work of the institutions receiving State aid would be welcomed, it was essential for them to have complete freedom as to 'the mode of expenditure of grants.'

The welcome words of these Ministers inspire confidence that our third proposition will be given the mild reception of a platitude. It is that the exercise by the State of administrative vigilance is quite consistent with the admission of the propositions that the Universities and Colleges cannot afford to dispense with the co-operation and help of the State, that the State in turn depends upon them as allies in its great enterprise of national education, and that the proper freedom of Universities should be preserved in its integrity. The administrative exigency must not be overlooked. Nothing is gained by questioning or minimising the fact that the State is the guardian of the taxpayers' interests. Put the case for University autonomy as high as we please, we beat the air if we argue that the State can fling public money to these institutions without asking and ascertaining what becomes of it. Government would compromise its honour if it demanded less, and the Universities would only stir up ridicule if they pretended to be exempt from human frailty. When, therefore, a University accepts State grants it concedes to the State the right of access to its books and accounts. It cannot demur if the State should require that the return of annual receipts and expenditure should be presented in a particular way, nor if the State should insist that, apart from minor reservations, the facts should be published for the information of Parliament and the public. The expedient of publishing the returns from the several institutions according to a common schedule was adopted in the Universities' Bluebook for 1910. Its adoption, which has greatly facilitated comparative study,

*Times Report, July 20, 1910.