to our constituency, that is, to our whole corporation ; our accounts are minutely published; they are printed every year and audited. There is a statement of accounts of the minutest detail, and it is submitted to the main body of the corporation. We are responsible to our corporation and to the Charity Commissioners.

1664. Then in that respect there is really very little difference between you and a city company ?—I do not know what the position of the city companies is. We do not come here as complainants against the city companies.

1665. Are we to understand that the University College really contemplates the legislature bestowing so large an income as 25,000l. a year upon them, or nearly half a million of money, without making any provision for control and periodical inquiry into the application of that money; has that never occurred to you? We leave that to be suggested to us when the grant is made. Any fair condition of inspection and control we should of course not object to.

1666. Does it not seem rather inconsistent to suggest how the money should be applied (which you Lave done here in print with Lord Kimberley's name attached to it) without at the same time assisting us upon the point of who is to be the governing body?— The reply to that is that we should look to have the grant with the conditions upon which it would be conceded to us; the couditions should come together with the grant.

1667. So long as you got the money you would submit to almost any condition, would you ?—No, certainly not.

(Dr. Wood.) What we really always have felt has been that our history in the past is a guarantee for the future. We have raised this enormous sum of money (for it is an enormous amount that has been raised by the college), and with that we done a great work, and we consider that what we have done in the past is a guarantee for what we shall do in the future, in other words that we have earned a right to be trusted.

(Mr. Pell.) You have earned the right, but have you not failed in earning an adequate income; your students have increased very much in number, I think Professor Morley said, but still he said that that justified your asking for more material assistance from the outside.

(Prof. Morley.) We need more enlargement and the money; we are asking the public now for 100,0007. to enable us to complete our buildings.

(Dr. Wood.) I do not know whether the Commission are aware of what the constitution is. Under the present. Act of Parliament there is a large body of governors.

(Mr. Pell.) I think I gathered that from your

evidence.

(Dr. Wood.) Every year there is a general meeting of the governors; then the accounts are audited and submitted to them; they elect the governing body, the council, year by year.

(Mr. Firth.) Are all your funds under the control of the (harity Commissioners ?

(Prof. Morley.) All except the students' fees. (Mr. Firth.) How did they come under the control of the Charity Commis-ioners ?

(Dr. Wood.) As a lawyer I know, perhaps, more about that, if Professor Morley will allow me to answer. It is only the special funds that are under the control of the Charity Commissioners, not, of course, the general funds.

1668. (Mr. Firth to Dr. Wood.) Of course the

special funds come under their control; those bear but a small proportion to your income, do they not?Yes.

1669. Would you suggest that those funds if given to you should be under the control of the Charity Commissioners ?-If that were made a condition; if we are not thought worthy of more trust than that, we should not refuse it I have no doubt.

1670. The guarantee that would be wanted would be that of a continuous proper application ?-Quite so. 1671. Nobody doubts the proper application now, but three generations hence it might not be so ?-İ have no doubt we should not object to that.

(Sir G. Young) I would add one remark. I think it would be only proper in this connexion that a special reference should be made to the endowment which we are at present enjoying from the City and Guilds of London Institute to the extent of 2001, a year paid in support of each of two chairs for the purpose of extending our chemical and engineering teaching in the technical direction. Two chairs have been founded, which are called the Chairs of Chemical and Mechanical Technology, which have had considerable success and are very well attended.—With respect to the point which has just been the subject of inquiry I, myself, made a remark upon it. I do not know that it is necessary for me to sever myself from those present here with me; but so far as I am concerned, and I think I speak the general impression on the part of the Council, I may say that where public funds are paid, public control of an effective kind must be contemplated; and that if, as appeared to be Mr. Pell's opinion, our statement is defective in not containing anything as to the express mode in which that control should be exercised, that must rather be ascribed to the uncertainty we at present labour under, from what quarters we are to contemplate any such large increase to our funds. Although we have asked for 25,000l. a year, and although we are at present receiving support from the livery and city guilds, we hope to obtain large sums as we have done in the past from the public generally. It is, moreover, quite possible that we may yet obtain funds from the State. Therefore I conceive that it would be quite premature for us to suggest any plan for the exercise of that control. If we obtained large subsidies from the city and livery companies. then, no doubt, some control should be exercised on their part; if we obtain them from the State there should be State control. If we continue to obtain the funds that we require, as we require them, from the public at large, then some such control as we are at present subject to, namely, the control of public opinion, would probably be sufficient.

1672. (Chairman.) Let me ask you just one question upon that last remark of yours. In the event of your receiving large assistance from the State or from funds that formerly belonged to the companies do you not think that the effect of your being so provided for would be very much to diminish the flow of subscriptions and donations from the general public, would it not be thought that you were well enough off to do without them?-Quite the contrary. I am convinced that the position in which we should then be placed as a public institution,-I am not saying the fact that we were supported by public funds, but the public recognition which would be given to uswould at once enable us to surmount the great difficulty which has beset us since our foundation, namely, that we have to a certain extent the colour of a private institution.

quality of the instruction thus given, the association made it a principle of their action that their lectures were to be given by members of the teaching staff of University College. The work of the association began with two courses of lectures only, and was carried on for the first three years outside the college walls. In 1871 the classes of the association were transferred to University College by permission of the council, but they did not form any part of the college scheme. In 1878, however, the council formally adopted the education of women as a regular part of the college work, except in the classes of the faculty of medicine.

During the last three sessions the number of students in the college (exclusive of the boys' school) has been as follows:

:

1878-79 1879-80 1880-81 These members give an average for the three years of 1,142 for the total number of students in the college, and of 785 for the number attending the classes of the faculties of arts and laws and of science." Judged by this standard, University College alone is on an equality with all but a few of the largest British or Foreign universities, and surpasses many of great repute.

careers.

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*

As evidence of the quality of the instruction given in University College, we may refer to the names of those by whom the principal professorships have been held since the foundation, and to the large number of men who, having received a substantial part of their education in the college, have attained eminence in various Evidence to the same effect is allorded by the records of the degrees and other distinctions obtained by pupils of the college at the University of London; and testimony of another kind was borne by the Royal Commissioners on Scientific Education, especially in their fifth report, dated 4th August, 1874, who said that, after carefully reviewing the evidence laid "before them with regard to University College and "King's College," the Commissioners were of opinion "that they have established a claim to the aid of "Government, which ought to be admitted." They added, we think that such Government aid should be "afforded, both in the form of a capital sum, to enable "the colleges to extend their buildings when requisite, "and to provide the additional appliances for teaching "which the advance of scientific education has now "rendered absolutely necessary; and also in the form "of an annual grant in aid of the ordinary working expenses of the colleges."

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Almost without exception the Government of every European country but England has recognised it as essential to the national progress and welfare that there should be in the metropolis a teaching university. Picvious to 1826 London was without a university even in name; and it was remarked by Thomas Campbell (who, more than any other one man, has a right to be called the founder of the original university of London)

The average number of boys in the school during the same three years has been 798.

1

that London and Constantinople were the only two capitals in Europe that were in this case.

As already mentioned, the State-supported Univer. sity of London, founded in 1836, exercises no educational functions except those of examining and granting degrees. University teaching has not yet received any official support or recognition in Lonc cn, but has been left to the unaided enorts of the friends of University College and King's College. So great, however, is the public necessity for such teaching, that, even under these conditions and with their present inadequate means and appliances, the two colleges have an average attendance of more than 2,000 regular students.

To enable the two London colleges properly to do the work that lies before them as the teaching part of the University of London, the present income would require to be augmented to the extent of half its present amount by endowment. Such increase may be estimated at about 25,000l. annually for each college. This endowment should be so employed as to effect a considerable reduction of the present scale of fees, wherever it may be possible; to provide for largely increased aid to students; to improve the appliances for practica. teaching; to provide for the teaching of those higher branches of study which cannot be omitted from the curriculum of a university, although they cannot be made self-supporting; to supplement the emoluments of the teaching stati, and to provide for its extension.

Taking the sum of 25,000l. already indicated, the benefits of the endowment might be virtually divided between the students and the college itself, under something like the following scheme :

The 6,000l. thus assigned to scholarships should be applied chiefly or entirely in two ways:-(1) Entrance scholarships to poor students; (2) Scholarships to enable advanced students to prolong their university course. A certain number of the entrance scholarships might, probably, with advantage be onered specially to those who had been pupils in the Board schools of London or the Provinces.

It is thought that such an apportionment--assigning nearly half the total endowment through scholarships and reduction of fees to the direct benefit of the students-would provide adequately for the public interest; and that the City Livery Companies, to whose munificence University College is already indebted, would regard such an endowment as entirely consistent with the educational objects to which their resources are already in considerable measure devoted.

29th April 1882.

KIMBERLEY,

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD, K.G.

THE RIGHT HON. VISCOUNT SHERBROOKE.
THE RIGHT HON. LORD COLERIDGE.

THE RIGHT HON. SIR RICHARD ASSHETON CROSS,
G.C.B., M.P.

SIR NATHANIEL M. DE ROTHSCHILD, BART., M.P.

The following Gentlemen attended as a Deputation representing the City and Guilds Technical Institute :

The Lord Chancellor and Sir F. Bramwell, F.R.S. Mr. Watney, Clerk of the Mercers' Company;

Mr. Sawyer, Clerk of the Drapers' Company; and Mr. Roberts, Clerk of the Clothworkers' Company, Honorary Secretaries to the Institute. 1673. (Chairman to the Lord Chancellor.) We understand that you and the gentlemen who come with you, have done us the honour of appearing here, with a view to making a representation on behalf of the City and Guilds Technical Institute ?—Yes, that

is so.

1674. Then probably it will be convenient if you will kindly make the statement you wish to put before us in the form that you prefer?—I may first mention that the Royal Society is one of the different bodies who are represented on the government of this institution, and that Mr. Spottiswoode, the President of that Society, who has been associated with us, has unfortunately been prevented from being present here to-day. It was thought possible that the Commissioners might wish to have some skilled opinion as to the work which is being undertaken, and the results likely to flow from it when seen from a scientific point of view, and we trusted to him to give the Commissioners that information; and perhaps, if you should think it desirable, you would receive it from him on a future day on which he might be able to attend.

1675. We shall be very happy to do so?-Then with respect to those of us who are present, Sir Frederick Bramwell and myself, I propose, with the permission of the Commissioners, to make a general statement upon such matters, as I presume you would wish to be particularly informed about; and Sir Frederick Bramwell, who is more conversant than I am with the working of the Institution in detail, will be prepared to supply further matter. Perhaps I may be allowed at starting just to say how it is that I myself have the connexion which I happen to have with this institute. I am a member of the Mercers' Company by hereditary right. My great grandfather (who was the younger son of a Leicestershire gentleman) having come to London to go into business at the beginning of the last century, and then having been apprenticed, I rather think, to a member of a collateral branch of the same family, who was a mercer, the effect of that was to give all his male descendants a right at the age of 21 to take up the freedom of the company, which I believe they have none of them failed to do. I did it in my turn, and was in the course of time put upon the court of assistants of the company, though practically I was never able to attend there during the time of my professional practice. When I ceased to be Lord Chancellor after my former term of office the company was so good as to pay me the compliment of asking me to become their master, and free as I then was from public engagements, I willingly accepted that offer and served during the year when this scheme of technical instruction first became matured in its present

form. That was the cause of my being honoured with the position I now hold of one of its governing body. The beginning of the scheme may be carried back to the beginning of the year 1873, when the Clothworkers' Company who, perhaps, of all those deserving praise in this matter, deserve the most,-initiated a practical movement and began to incur very considerable cost for the promotion of it. They founded at that time, in the year 1873, a school for the promotion of textile industries on scientific principles in connexion with the Yorkshire College at Leeds, and their expenditure and engagements on that undertaking, and in connexion with the institute from that time to this, I am told is not much short of 90,000/. I think it is due to the Clothworkers' Company to state this at the outset, not only because they were the beginners in the work, but also because of their most liberal contributions to it. The next thing which I notice without any knowledge of the degree of influence which it may have had upon other people's minds, (I mention it because it had certainly some influence upon mine) was an invitation which the present Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, held out to the companies to undertake a work of this description, in his address upon education, when he presented prizes to the science and art students at Greenwich in 1875. I have here an extract of what he said in that speech. He said it was especially desirable that efforts should be made to give instruction in science so as to improve the knowledge of the British artist and workman, and enable him to hold his position in the markets of the world. That result (he added) could only be attained in the main through the agency of the individual mind and will, and then he said this: "All that others can do is to offer assistance, and who "should offer that assistance? I confess that I should "like to see a great deal of this work done by the "London companies. I have not been consulted by the "London companies, but if so, I would have besought "and entreated them to consider whether it was not "in their power to make themselves that which they certainly are not now, illustrious in the country by "endeavouring resolutely and boldly to fulfil the pur

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poses for which they were founded." And he went on to say that he understood the companies to have been founded generally for the purpose of developing the crafts, trades, or misteries, so-called, in the country. As I have said, I rather speak of my own attention having been directed by that speech to the matter, and I do not know at all to what extent, or in how many cases, the minds of other men may have been moved in the same direction by that invitation. However, in the next year, through the agency of the Clothworkers' Company, and I think the Drapers' Company also (in the year 1877 it was that it came to maturity) those companies proposed to the other companies to combine for this purpose, and an executive committee was accordingly formed. That, I think, was done in January 1877. The first step that was taken after the executive committee was formed was to endeavour to obtain the best scientific and practical advice possible, with reference to what was wanted, and what could be done; and they sent a circular paper (which I hold in my hand) to five gentlemen, of whom three even

Deputation from City and Guilds Technical Institute.

tually gave them reports, and two others were kind enough to take the places of those whose engagements prevented them from doing so. The gentlemen in the first instance consulted were Mr. Lyon Playfair, Mr. Lowthian Bell, Captain Douglas Galton, Major Don21 June 1882. nelly (The Director of the Science Department at South Kensington), and Mr. Wood, the Assistant Secretary at the Society of Arts. I will not trouble the Commissioners by reading the detail of this, but it is right to mention that it was placed before those gentlemen in such a manner as to leave their judgment entirely unfettered by any foregone conclusions as to the subjects on which they were consulted on the part of the executive committee. Two of those gentlemen, Mr. Lyon Playfair and Mr. Lowthian Bell, I think, were unable to give the assistance that was desired; but instead of them we obtained the assistance of Professor Huxley and Sir William Armstrong, and they gave their reports to the executive committee in the autumn and winter of 1877; that is, the same year. We have been favoured with a communication of the evidence, or some evidence already given before the Commission; and I observe that two of the witnesses who have been examined here seem to imagine that the scheme has been started upon an unsound basis, and that in particular Professor Huxley's judgment was not in the direction which the scheme has taken. I saw that with surprise. I am sure I do not know upon what ground anyone could have formed that opinion; but I have here Professor Huxley's report, and I venture to mention some passages (not troubling the Commissioners with extracts from any other) in which he both speaks most strongly of the want, and indicates those modes of supplying it, which it has been endeavoured to adopt. He says that a complete system of technical education should be directed towards these objects: "First, the diffusion among "artisans and others occupied in trades and manu

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factures, of sound instruction in those kinds of "theoretical and practical knowledge which bear upon "the different branches of industry, whether manu"factures or arts. Secondly, adequate provision for "the training and supply of teachers qualified to 66 give such instruction, and for the establishment of "schools or isolated classes to which the industrial

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population may have ready access, and further for a proper system of examinations, whereby the work "done in the schools and classes may be tested." Well, I could not in so few words have better summed up the work which has actually been undertaken, and which is now going on. Later on, at page 9, he speaks strongly of the importance of the system of instruction and examination which had been already begun in the Science and Art Department, with which he is himself familiar. He says: "That system has already effected an immense amount of good year by year; it is steadily widening the sphere of its operations, and I conceive that the livery companies "could not employ a portion of their funds better "than in aiding the extension and perfection of the "system independently of, but in harmony with, the "action of the Science and Art Department." And then, at page 11, he speaks of the great importance of the establishment of a central institution for the training and supply of teachers, and for the advanced instruction of students of exceptional capacity. "The "withdrawal of such persons from the centres of

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industry will not affect the supply of labour, and "it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a "sufficient number of instructors of a higher order to equip training colleges in every considerable manufacturing district. The more closely the matter is "examined the more clearly it will appear that the

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question of technical education turns mainly on the supply of teachers good enough, but not too good, for "the purpose. And I am of opinion that the greatest "service which at the present time could be rendered "to the cause of technical education in this country "would be the establishment in London of a training "college for technical teachers, fitted with the re"quisite laboratories, lecture rooms, and other ap

to

"pliances, and provided with a proper staff of "professors and other instructors." Then he goes on say in what branches of knowledge instruction should be given there, and that the building ought not to be too ambitious in its architecture, but should be constructed for practical objects; and he thinks, at page 15, that the current expense of such a college as he has suggested would probably amount to from 5,000l. to 6,000l. a year in salaries, wages, and material. "The number "of students," he says, "would not make much differ

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ence, except in the greater or less demand for assistant "teachers," and so on. I need not read more, but I think the Commissioners who are acquainted with what has been done will be of opinion that it is not at least to any want of an honest endeavour to act upon those suggestions that, if we have failed or are likely to fail (which I do not think), the failure will be due. Having got these reports, the executive committee set to work, and their first operations consisted in negotiations with the Cowper Street middle class schools in Finsbury, for the purpose of having temporary accommodation there to begin the work of a technical school there; and at the same time they negotiated with the Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851 for a site for the central institution. I see that doubt has been thrown upon the prudence of the selection of the site at South Kensington; but the Commissioners will understand that the class of students who are to be trained for masters and teachers, and superior foremen, and so on, will not be those who are carrying on handicraft industries in London at the time, so as to make the difference between the West End and the East End of material importance to them; while, on the other hand, the immediate neighbourhood of the great scientific museums and other institutions which are in the neigbourhood of South Kensington made that neighbourhood apparently very desirable in addition to which, I do not know that anywhere else, certainly upon such terms, a site so advantageous could possibly have been obtained. Those negotiations proceeded, and they ended in a lease upon very beneficial terms being obtained from the Commissioners of a very large and convenient site, where the building can be erected, and where there may be room for developing it, the rent being almost nominal, the term long, and the only stipulations such as the Commissioners most properly would make, namely, that the buildings should be erected and maintained, and that there should be a proper repre sentation of certain scientific institutions upon the governing body. That lease was settled, not, I believe, actually granted, in August 1880. In the meantime (on the 9th July 1880) the institute was incorporated, not by special charter, but under the general powers given by the Companies Act, the 23rd section of which abolishes the name "limited" where it is not a commercial undertaking. Perhaps I ought now to state what is the government. It might seem at first sight that, if looked at in detail, it was a cumbrous system of government. It does not work so, and I daresay those who are acquainted with the practical working of things can easily see why There is a large body of governors. The actual number at the end of last year or the beginning of the present year was 169, and they are constituted chiefly by a proportionate representation of the contributors to the undertaking, according to the amounts of their contributions. The city of London and the companies nominate governors upon this principle, and I believe any one who subscribes 1007. can nominate a governor. That is a sort of general meeting of the whole undertaking. Then under them is a council of 55. They are also chosen with some proportionate reference to the supply of the funds. Under that council there is an executive committee of 40, and that acts by four sub-committees, one for the central institution, one for finance, one for the Finsbury College (of which I shall presently speak), and one for the South Lambeth School of Art (of which I shall also speak), and for the technological examinations. The general body meets once a year, I think, not oftener,