With love, ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
You should see the place I am claiming for Art in the University. I do believe something will grow out of my plan, which has made all the dry bones rattle. It is coming on for discussion in the Senate, and I shall be coming to you to have my wounds dressed after the fight. Don't know the day yet.
[This allusion to the place of Art in the University refers to the proposed reorganisation of the London University.
Since the year 1887 the question of establishing a Teaching University for London had become more and more pressing. London contained many isolated teaching bodies of various kinds—University College, King's College, the Royal College of Science, the Medical Schools, Bedford College, and so forth, while the London University was only an examining body. Clearly these scattered bodies needed organising; the educational forces of the metropolis were disintegrated; much teaching—and this was especially true of the medical schools—that could have been better done and better paid in a single institution, was split up among several, none of which, perhaps, could offer sufficient inducement to keep the best men permanently.
The most burning question was, whether these bodies should be united into a new university, with power to grant degrees of its own, or should combine with the existing University of London, so that the latter would become a teaching as well as an examining body. And if so, there was the additional question as to the form which this combination should take—whether federation, for example, or absorption.
The whole question had been referred to a Royal Commission by the Government of Lord Salisbury. The results were seen in the charter for a Gresham University, embodying the former alternative, and in the introduction into Parliament of a Bill to carry this scheme into effect. But this action had only been promoted by some of the bodies interested, and was strongly opposed by other bodies, as well as by many teachers who were interested in university reform.
Thus at the end of February, Huxley was invited, as a Governor of University College, to sign a protest against the provisions of the Charter for a Teaching University then before Parliament, especially in so far as it was proposed to establish a second examining body in London. The signatories also begged the Government to grant further inquiry before legislating on the subject
The protest, which received over 100 signatures of weight, contributed something towards the rejection of the Bill in the House of Commons. It became possible to hope that there might be established in London a University which should be something more than a mere collection of teachers, having as their only bond of union the preparation of students for a common examination. It was proposed to form an association to assist in the promotion of a teaching university for the metropolis; but the first draft of a scheme to reconcile the complication of interests and ideals involved led Huxley to express himself as follows:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 27, 1892.