EDUCATION COMES HIGH IN BRITAIN
Cranston, Maurice
Education Comes High In Britain By MAURICE CRANSTON London AN urgent job before the Right Hon. Miss ("Red Ellen") Wilkinson, Minister of Education, is the reform of the English university system....
...An external student may be Jack the Ripper for all the faculty knows or cares...
...There are 11 English universities...
...When the voice ceased, Dr...
...If the provincial universities were rather richer, and Oxford and Cambridge rather poorer, it would be excellent to let different systems continue side by side...
...The older universities are the home of reaction...
...OXFORD and Cambridge, founded in the 12th and 13th Centuries, are still run on the assumption that class barriers are absolute, that breeding accompanies wealth, and that young gentry should have the chance of improving their minds between the ages of 18 and 22, but not be compelled to do more than lead healthy Christian lives...
...All three systems, in their way, have something valuable to offer...
...Then there are the provincial universities, drab buildings in dismal cities, controlled by small-minded local plutocrats, but giving—what the older universities make no pretense of giving—a higher education to the intellectually gifted sons of the people...
...There is the University of London, of which the American Professor Flexner said he could not understand in what sense it was a university at all, where you could graduate by passing (stiff) examinations alone...
...It is not for nothing that Oxford, Cambridge, and London have returned their Blimp M.P.'s to Parliament, while the provincial universities have returned liberal Independents, and the country generally, Socialists...
...Cash and snobbery play a much greater part...
...When demobilization gets into full swing, there will be a tremendous rush of applicants for admission to the universities, and unless something is done to change the present organization, many of these aspiring students will be turned away...
...At present it is twofold: you can pay fees or win a scholarship...
...Unless it carries high honors, it is not a certificate of learning...
...The undergraduate must go regularly to lecture, behave himself, and pass the appropriate examinations...
...A. L. Smith used to tell the story of how he once visited Dr...
...The Oxford and Cambridge B. A. remains what it has always been, a certificate that one has led a certain way of life for three or four years...
...Yes," said Dr...
...The advancement of learning is not at present the governing factor in the English university system...
...So long as he submits satisfactory work in the examinations, he will get his degree...
...What cries out most loudly for changes is the basis of admission...
...Oxford and Cambridge have an unparalleled prestige throughout the world, but money alone will gain admission to them, and the existence of Fourth Class Honours degrees permits the laziest, stupidest student to graduate...
...Scholarships are limited, and soon there will be far more suitable candidates than places available...
...London represents the other extreme...
...You may go away now...
...The only solution is to exclude those with no qualifications for a university education but money...
...Here is one of the toughest nuts the Labor Government has to crack...
...Spooner of New College, Oxford, and found him shaving in his bedroom with the door open, while an undergraduate mumbled inaudibly in the next room...
...There is another reason for reform...
...Spooner said: "That's very bad...
...Spooner in answer to Smith's query, "that's how we conduct examinations in New College...
...Red Ellen" must persuade the universities to become genuine seats of learning...
...IF "Red Ellen" Wilkinson tries to enforce this principle—as ultimately, I think, she must—she will be up against powerful opposition...
Vol. 9 • October 1945 • No. 42
