King's College London

“ One woman's college in London has started courses of its own in "Home Science and Economics," and awards a three-year certificate to its students; also a diploma for science graduates who take a year's course, and a certificate to Domestic Arts teachers who take a closely related year's course. This is King's College for Women, which has just obtained the formal approval of London University for its three years' curriculum. In a very short time arrangements will be made to grant a University Diploma to the students who have taken this course, the fee for which amounts to 30 guineas a session. ”

“ These collections include Jeremy Bentham’s library, Morrison’s Chinese library, Barlow’s Dante library, collections of law, mathematical, Icelandic, theological, art, oriental and other books, some of them of great value.
King’s College Library, founded in 1828, has over 30,000 vols. chiefly of a scientific character. In close association with the university of London is the London School of Economics and Political Science in Clare Market, in which is housed the British Library of Political Science with 50,000 vols. and a large number of official reports and pamphlets. ”

“ The college of petty canons there was founded by King Richard II. in honour of Queen Anne his wife, and of her progenitors, in the 17th of his reign. Their hall and lands were [293] then given unto them, as appeareth by the patent; Master Robert Dokesworth then being master thereof. In the year 1408, the petty canons then building their college, the mayor and commonalty granted them their water-courses, and other easements.
There was also one great cloister, on the north side of this church, environing a plot of ground, of old time called Pardon churchyard ”

“ The staff of the College includes professors of mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, and various branches of industrial teaching; and also of classics, history, and modern literature, and languages. The celebrated Leeds School of Medicine has been affiliated to the College. For special departments of practical instruction provision has been made, the Clothworkers' Company of London undertaking to support that which pertains to textile industries, and the Drapers' Company that of colliery management and mining engineering. ”

“ Anthonies Hospital and to his brethren and their successors for ever his manor of Ponington, with the appurtenances” and other property “towards the maintenance of 5 scholars in the University of Oxford to be brought up in the faculty of arts, after the rate of 10d. a week for every scholar, so that the said scholars before their going to Oxford, be first instructed in the rudiments of grammar at the College of Eton, founded by the same king. ”

“ The University of London has no colleges directly connected with it, but confers degrees, upon examination, to students of nearly all the institutions of learning in the country. Oxford has twenty-three colleges and Cambridge eighteen. This college system distinguishes the universities of England from those of the continent. A student must connect himself with a college before he becomes a member of the university. The teaching in these colleges is done almost entirely by tutors, and the professors of the university only deliver lectures on special subjects once or twice a week. ”

“ And as though to emphasize beyond dispute the Collegiate nature of these Societies, we find that each one of them made haste to provide itself with buildings and surroundings, which still present to us, in the midst of the dirt and turmoil of busy London, something of the charm and seclusion and self-sufficiency of an Oxford College, with its Hall and Chapel, its residential buildings, its Library, and grassy quadrangles, and its Gateway to insure its privacy. ”

“ LIFE AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. Amongst the scientific societies of Great Britain, the Royal Institution of London occupies a conspicuous place. It has had many imitators in its time, yet it remains unique. A “learned society” it may claim to be, in the sense that it publishes scientific transactions, and endeavours to concentrate within itself and promote the highest science, within a certain range of subjects. In some respects it resembles a college; for it appoints professors, and provides them with space, appliances, and materials for research, and a theatre wherein to lecture. ”

“ It is impossible not to regret the fine old College, with its spacious courtyard and physic garden and its historic associations. But it would seem as if no purely educational establishment81 can flourish in the City of London. The Royal Society, the College of Physicians, and the College of Surgeons have all moved away, and Gresham College alone is left, as if to show the impossibility of flourishing in the richest city of the day. ”

“ As London University grants degrees to all capable persons whether educated in Academic haunts or private homes, there are no Colleges that can be said to be “affiliated.” But there are several Colleges that prepare students definitely for the London Examinations. Chief of these is University College, London. There, since the opening of London University, women have been freely admitted to all the instruction in the Science and Arts Classes, with their prizes and honours. ”

“ The University of London, however, was intended to promote the education, not only of gentlemen, and of persons who could afford to live for several years at a college, but of all classes of her Majesty's subjects, without any distinction whatever ”

“ They were of opinion that if the College were in a position to enable the students to obtain the science degrees of the University of London its usefulness would be considerably increased, and the wider curriculum might be expected to result in an augmentation of the yearly entry. ”

“ In a word, an academical education is so much wanted in London, that everybody of ability and figure will readily come into it; and I dare engage, the place need but be chosen, and tutors approved of, to complete the design at once.
It may be objected, that there is a kind of university at Gresham college, where professors in all sciences are maintained, and obliged to read lectures every day, or at least as often as demanded. The design is most laudable, but it smells too much of the sine cure ”

“ Childers, like the young Marquis of Lorne, is a Trinity College, Cambridge, man, but not an Eton boy like the former.
FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY.
The next noticeable person on the ministerial bench, and by all acknowledged to be one of the ablest men in Parliament, [Pg 299] is the Right Honorable Robert Lowe, member for London University, an Oxford man, and son of a Church of England clergyman. London University, which Mr. Lowe represents, is the most liberal educational institution in England, and grants University degrees to students, irrespective of their religious belief. ”

“ The examinations of the Society of Arts, being primarily intended for artisans, are manifestly inadequate; and the University local examinations are limited to students under eighteen. The University of London, having adopted the principle of making its examinations simply a test and standard of acquirement, without enforcing upon students that their knowledge should have been acquired by attendance at college lectures, or under any particular system, is in a peculiarly favourable position for giving assistance in this matter. ”

“ In these days, when education is so much thought of, and when meetings in every part of the kingdom are continually taking place for the purpose of getting still higher standards of education, it is naturally difficult for institutions of old date to keep up with the times; but I do not think or fear that this college will have any reason to fear competition from others, as it already stands as one of the second or third great educational colleges in the kingdom. ”

“ A number of foundation scholarships for King’s College, Cambridge, are open for competition amongst the boys; and there are besides several other valuable scholarships and exhibitions, most of which are tenable only at Cambridge, some at Oxford, and some at either university. The teaching embraces the customary range of classical and modern subjects ”

“ By the middle of the fourteenth century, then, we find the students of what we may call a London University of National Law established in their Inns or Hostels, which clustered about the boundaries of the City, from Holborn to Chancery Lane, from{9} Fleet Street to the River. The Schools of Law, of which this University was composed, were distinctively English, and the University itself developed upon the peculiarly English lines of a College system, closely similar to that of Oxford and Cambridge. ”

“ The Corporation and the Mercers’ Company were the trustees of this fund. There were seven endowed professorships—viz., astronomy, physic, law, geometry, divinity, rhetoric, and music. Gresham’s house in Bishopsgate Street appears to have been admirably adapted for a college. It was105 quadrangular, and had a garden and planted walks, so that the quiet and seclusion which are essential to study might have been obtained there. Be the cause what it may, the College, which escaped the fire, did not flourish. ”

“ Major scholarships are open to undergraduates, not being of standing to take the degree of bachelor of arts, as well as to non-members of the university under nineteen years of age, while minor scholarships and exhibitions are open only to the latter. There are valuable exhibitions appropriated to certain schools, of which the most important are those confined to Westminster school. Trinity College is entered from Trinity Street by the King’s Gateway (1518–1535) preserved from King’s Hall, but subsequently altered. The principal or Great Court is the largest in Cambridge and very fine. ”

“ It was resigned voluntarily by New College in 1834; but the distinction is still observed (or should be) that a Fellow of the College needs no grace for his degree, or if one is asked, 'demands' it as a right (postulat is used instead of the usual supplicat) . I have adopted Dr. Rashdall's explanation of the origin of this strange privilege. It is curious to add that King's College, Cambridge, copied it, along with other and better features, from its great predecessor and model, New College. ”

“ The accounts of the institution remain, and point to a style of living which would not be very highly accounted of now, but was positively luxurious for medieval Cambridge. The scholars attended chapel at St Mary’s by the Market and All Saints’ in the Jewry, until, in Edward IV.’s reign, they obtained leave to found a chapel for themselves. King’s Hall naturally became the nucleus of Henry’s college, and the lesser buildings found their centre in its court, enlarged and beautified. John Redman, the last master of King’s Hall, became the first master of Trinity College. ”

“ But the truth of it is there are too many old women at the head of the Universities. What you want are keen-headed men, men of experience in the world, who would move with the times, and get Oxford and Cambridge to move with them. I am so convinced I am right in this opinion, that if it were not for the cares of business, to which I must return when I have finished with Cambridge, I should apply for a Trinity fellowship after I have taken my degree, and try to infuse a little spirit into the counsels of the college and through it into the University. ”

“ And if a University is to be joined for enjoyment and pleasures, of course London University would lag far behind. Oxford and Cambridge would win the palm. There is no, what is called, University life in London of which there is plenty in Oxford and Cambridge. London University is an examining body merely and does not require candidates to have kept any terms. There is no doubt an opportunity of mixing with Professors in Oxford and Cambridge which is not to be found in London. It is said that education in Oxford and Cambridge is very costly. ”

“ The characteristic peculiar to Cambridge and Oxford, and which distinguishes them not only from American but also from all other universities in England and elsewhere, is the college system. Thus Cambridge is a collection of eighteen colleges which, though nominally united to form one institution, are really distinct, inasmuch as each is a separate community with its own buildings and grounds, its own resident students, its own lecturers, and Fellows—a community which is supported by its own moneys without aid from the university exchequer, and which in most matters legislates for itself. ”

“ Milton, whose life is very largely bound up with Cambridge, brings us to another critical point in University history. It is difficult to estimate the attitude of Cambridge as a whole to the Civil Wars. Oxford remained faithful to the King, but, while Cambridge possessed no college so unanimously loyal as St John’s at Oxford, there were one or two colleges, such as Sidney and Emmanuel, whose sympathies were undeniably Puritan. An University cannot help a certain amount of conservatism, and Cambridge sacrificed a great deal in the Stewart cause. ”

“ Of his previous life nothing has as yet been discovered. The accounts of King's College show that he was frequently employed on important business, and in 1447 he became overseer of the building works ('magister operum') . In 1448 he was made warden of King's Hall in the same university. In 1449 (10 July) he appears as one of the English commissioners for proclaiming a truce with Scotland, and is described in the letters patent as chancellor of the university of Cambridge. ”