Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/892

Rh 854 UNIVERSITIES Univer sity of London. King s College. Uni versity College. Victoria. Students who had passed the required examinations were made admissible as associates in physical science of the university. There is also a medical college which stands in similar relations to Durham, of which university Cod- rington College, Barbados, and Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, are likewise affiliated colleges. The university of London had its origin in a movement initiated in the year 1825 by Thomas Campbell, the poet, in conjunction with Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham, Mr (afterwards Sir) Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, Joseph Hume, and some influential Dissenters, most of them connected with the congregation of Dr Cox of Hackney. The scheme was originally suggested by the fact that Dissenters were practically excluded from the older universities ; but the conception, as it took shape, was distinctly non-theological. The first council, appointed December 1825, comprised names representative of nearly all the religious denomin ations, including (besides those above mentioned) Zachary Macaulay, George Grote, James Mill, William Tooke, Lord Dudley and Ward, Dr Olinthus Gregory, Lord Lans- tlowne, Lord John Russell, and the duke of Norfolk. On llth February 1826 the deed of settlement was drawn up ; and in the course of the year seven acres, constituting the site of University College, were purchased, the found ation stone of the new buildings being laid by the duke of Sussex 30th April 1827. The course of instruction was designed to include &quot; languages, mathematics, physics, the mental and the moral sciences, together with the laws of England, history, and political economy, and the various branches of knowledge which are the objects of medical education.&quot; In October 1828 the college was opened as the university of London. But in the mean time a certain section of the supporters of the movement, while satisfied as to the essential soundness of the primary design as a development of national education, entertained considerable scruples as to the propriety of altogether dis sociating such an institution from the national church. This feeling found expression in the foundation and in corporation of King s College (14th August 1829), opened 8th October 1831, and designed to combine with the original plan instruction in &quot; the doctrines and duties of Christi anity, as the same are inculcated by the United Church of England and Ireland.&quot; This new phase of the movement was so far successful that in 1836 it was deemed expedient to dissociate the university of London from University College as a &quot; teaching body,&quot; and to limit its action simply to the institution of examinations and the conferring of degrees, the college itself receiving a new charter, and being thenceforth designated as University College, London, while the rival institution was also incorporated with the university, and was thenceforth known as King s College, London. In the charter now given to the uni versity it was stated that the king &quot; deems it to be the duty of his royal office to hold forth to all classes and denominations of his faithful subjects, without any dis tinction whatsoever, an encouragement for pursuing a regular and liberal course of education.&quot; The charters of the university of London and of University College, London, were signed on the same day, 28th November 1836. In 1869 both the colleges gave their adhesion to the move ment for the higher education of women which had been initiated elsewhere, and in 1880 ladies were for the first time admitted to degrees. The Victoria University took its origin in the institution known as the Owens College, Manchester, so called after a wealthy citizen of that name to whom it owed its founda tion. The college was founded 12th March 1851, for the purpose of affording to students who were unable, on the ground of expense, to resort to Oxford or Cambridge an education of an equally high class with that given at those centres. The institution was, from the first, unsectarian in character. In July 1877 a memorial was presented to the privy council praying for the grant of a charter to the college, conferring on it the rank of a university, to be called the &quot; university of Manchester.&quot; The localization implied in this title having met with opposition from the Yorkshire College at Leeds, it was resolved that the uni versity should be called the &quot;Victoria University.&quot; Under this name the foundation received its charter 20th April 1880. &quot; The characteristic features of the Victoria Uni versity, as compared with ottier British universities, are these: (a) it does not, like London, confer its degrees on candidates who have passed certain examinations only, but it also requires attendance on prescribed courses of academic study in a college of the university ; (6) the constitution of the university contemplates its (ultimately) becoming a federation of colleges; but these colleges will not be situated, like those of Oxford and Cambridge, in one town, but wherever a college of adequate efficiency and stability shall have arisen. University College, Liverpool, and the Yorkshire College, Leeds, having fulfilled these requirements, have become affiliated with the university. The university, like the older bodies in England and Scot land, is at once a teaching and an examining body, and there is an intimate rapport between the teaching and the examining functions. To give it a general or national character, the governing body consists partly of persons nominated by the crown and partly of representatives of the governing and teaching bodies of the colleges and of the graduates of the university. External examiners are appointed, who conduct the examinations in conjunction with examiners representing the teaching body. The grad uates of the university meet its teachers in convocation to discuss the affairs of the university. Convocation will elect future chancellors, and a certain number of representatives on the court&quot; (Thompson, TJie Owens College, &c., p. 548). Like the Johns Hopkins University in America, the Vic toria University has instituted certain fellowships (styled the Berkeley fellowships) for the encouragement of research. In Scotland the chief change to be noted in connexion with the university of St Andrews is the appropriation in 1579 of the two colleges of St Salvator and St Leonard to the faculty of philosophy, and that of St Mary to theology. In 1747 an Act of Parliament was obtained for the union of the two former colleges into one. Glasgow, in the year 1577, received a new charter, and its history from that date down to the Restoration was one of almost continuous progress. The restoration of Episcopacy, however, in volved the alienation of a considerable portion of its revenues, and the consequent suspension of several of its chairs. In 1864 the old university buildings were sold and, a Government grant having been obtained, together with private subscriptions, the present new buildings were erected from the joint fund. The faculties now recognized at Glasgow are those of arts, theology, jurisprudence, and medicine. At Aberdeen an amalgamation, similar to that at St Andrews, took place, by virtue of the Universities Act of 1858, of the two universities of King s College and Marischal College. In conjunction with Glasgow, this uni versity returns a member to parliament. The peculiar constitution of the college at Edinburgh, as defined by its charter (the government being vested entirely in the lord provost, magistrates, and council, as patrons and guardians), involved the senate in frequent collisions with the town council. The latter, being a strictly representative body, included elements with which the senate of the university sometimes found it difficult to work harmoniously, and its disposition to dictate was strongly resented by the dis tinguished metaphysician and professor Sir William Hamilton. On the other hand, the council sometimes Changes in uni versities of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. Changes in univer sity of Edin burgh.