the world. Cambridge would tempt many to
devote themselves to mathematics and astronomy,
but it is in the schools, museums, and
libraries, of London, that they would find the
opportunities of study which they hold to be
essential to life in a true university town. There
are no public disputations here whereby poor
scholars can show their learning; but, there is
opportunity as good, of proving competence, by
facing the examinations, strict and long and
frequent, theoretical and practical, through
which, and through which only, in the People's
University an honour can be won.

For, that is really the essential fact. Nobody
ever ridiculed the test of intellectual competence
through which only, men can arrive at association
with the University of London. Having passed
by a light examination to the degree of Bachelor
of Arts in one of our old universities, the graduate
may advance without any examination at all
through the series of higher terms of honour.
They belong to a question of little more than
time and money. In the People's University
every degree has to be stoutly fought for.

At the outset, there is a Matriculation, which
entitles those who pass it to be entered on the
books of the university as undergraduates.
When the London University began its work,
the general standard of school education in this
country was very low, and this examination,
which was to be considered as a test of the
proper school training of candidates, might not
be made too difficult. But the university asked
as much as it dared—asked, indeed, enough to
make a certificate of having passed its matriculation
test, desirable evidence of good school
training. It was a little degree, in fact, which
schoolmasters were proud to see their pupils earn
with any honour. Much school teaching was
expressly adapted, therefore, to meet the
requirements of this test. And then the trial was
made stricter; evidence of a wider and more
liberal school cultivation was from time to time
demanded. Whenever the test was in this way
made more severe, the number of the candidates
in that particular year would decrease. The
schoolmasters were not prepared. But, in the
year following it was invariably found that they
had again adapted their work to the higher
demand made on their exertion, and there was
a full return to the old growing pressure of new
candidates.

This morsel of firm help to an assured
position, has been free to all. There has been
a Welsh miner, to whom, by reason alike of
his place in life and place of residence, few
aids to study were accessible. He struggled
with the strong will of a Stephenson, and
conquered knowledge enough to endure the
test. There has been the hard-worked and
ill-paid master of an elementary school, poring
over his books at the close of every day of weary
toil. He was compelled to drudge at his school-
keeping, without rest to his anxious and over-
burdened mind, up to the very day on which he
presented himself for examination. Then, he
was plucked. But, he went back to his work,
not in despair; still fighting against difficulty
on and on, still able to take no rest from daily
drudgery, again compelled to toil at his school-
keeping to the very day when he presented
himself for examination, and a kind physician gave
him medicine to calm his palpitating heart.
And so he passed. Surely the noblest and the
wisest may be proud to be affiliated to an
university that has a helping hand and a firm
grasp to give to men like these.

It might have been thought that the recently
established examinations of young men for the
title of Associate in Arts, of Oxford or
Cambridge, being less stringent, having the credit
of the names of the old universities to recommend
them, and also giving a sort of visible
rank, as A.A., would draw away some of the
men who seek in the London University only
to matriculate. This has not been the case.
The Oxford and Cambridge work—excellent
work it is—proves to be all additional, and the
London matriculation lists maintain their
annual increase. Having matriculated, it has
hitherto been necessary that the student who is
candidate for a London degree should produce
certificates of attendance at one of the affiliated
colleges. The virtual abandonment of this
demand by the terms of the recent charter, hurt
the dignity of some of the existing graduates.
The senate was, in fact, more liberal than the
majority of graduates, and held to its belief that
it was governing an university which is to keep
pace thoroughly with the requirements of the
time. The graduate has no just and true respect
for himself who thinks that, because he was
sent to some sort of a college in his youth, he is
too good to sit beside a labourer who has done
all his work with half the help.

The college certificates meant little, and the
colleges themselves differed a good deal in their
views of discipline. One student, bringing a
certificate of two years' attendance from a
midland or northern college, honestly told the
registrar that he had never seen the place.
Another, bringing up a similar certificate, was
therefore questioned, and acknowleged that he
had just shown himself at the place, and that
was all. The authorities of this college being
written to on the part of the university, justified
their course by one of those pious evasions
which make wrong right in the eyes of men who
strain at gnats and swallow camels. There was
true security in nothing but a thorough test.
The gentleman who frankly confessed that he
had received his certificate without having gone
near his college—for he lived in a remote
county—turned out to be undeniably, in the
particular examination he came up for, the best
man of the year. His degree was held in
suspense for about a fortnight, but was not
refused him; it is now open to all men who are
in any such way unable to go through the mere
external formalities of study.

The degree of Bachelor of Arts in the
University of London is obtained only by passing—
after matriculation—two strict examinations,
each of them lasting four days, or four-and-