LONDON UNIVERSITY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 37, 12 August 1927, Page 2

LONDON UNIVERSITY

HUNDRED YEARS PROGRESS

KING AT CELEBRATIONS (From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 29th Jnne. A very cordial welcome awaited the King and Queen who drove in an open carriage through the West End of London to take part in tha inauguration, of the London University College centenary celebrations. Thousands of people lined the route, for Their Maiesties* outing had a double purpose. It was the official opening of the new Regent street as well. . . There was a wonderful, gathering of academic dignitaries in fhe Great Hall o£ the college, a building which" was once a church. The King and Queen were on a dais where they occupied two throne-like chairs carved by Chippendale himself. The Ambassadors ank: Ministers of several foreign Powers . i occupied the first seats, and behind them were the representatives of 157 universities and colleges from all parts of the world. Dr. James Highf, wKo" is attending the Imperial Education Conference, represented Now Zealand. The fine hall shone with the numberless sations and silks and furs. - -ViscountI Chelmsford, chairman of ..the. College | Committee, read an address to the King.■' I and Queen, in which he emphasised how ' University College represented the first of the^ popular universities which now; cover the world and "bring within! reach of the people at large teaching of the highest quality and the most advanced and comprehensive of its kind.'' On 30th April, 1827, the foudnationstone of the college was laid by the Duke of Sussex, and in the following years lectures were inaugurated in the Faculties of Arts and ''Laws and of Medicine. In 1836 a charter was grant--ed to the college by King William IV. The college was founded with the object of making advanced education accessible to all without religious tests or distinctions, and its basic principle, as adopted by its founders, was that 6£ complete impartiality among -different religious beliefs. That principle did* not pass without challenge at the time, but it was unnecessary to do more thaa indicate that fact, for the: principle, which was novel, nay, seemed almost re« volutionary in 1827, was a common, place to-day; the controversies of a hundred years ago had passed into tha limbo of forgotten things; and to-day h the ancient Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and their twin sister college in the University of London, King's College, were represented at their celebrations, and rejoiced with them in tha completion of a hundred years of fruitful existence. \ .......