UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21989, 26 June 1933, Page 8

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

A GREAT INSTITUTION MR W. P. MORRELL’S IMPRESSIONS. A visitor to Dunedin at the present time, after an absence of 10 years inEngland, is Mr W. P. Morrell, who is spending a two months’ vacation with his family, his father being Mr W. J. Morrell, the rector of the Otago Boys] High School and chancellor of the University of Otago. In conversation with dn Otago Daily Times representative last evening, Mr Morrell said that seven of the ten years which he had spent in England were occupied in studies at Oxford University, while for the past three years he had been on the staff of the University of London as a reader in history. Discussing university activities at Home, Mr Morrell said that a very close university life existed both at Oxford and at London. Oxford University was many hundreds of years old, and until just recently when the great Morris motor works had come into being the town lived almost wholly for the university, while in London the university was only one of the many great institutions in that city. Nevertheless, the university played quite an important part in the life of London, many thousands of students being in attendance. Birkbeek College, the institution at which Mr Morrell was a lecturer, existed for the benefit of those who were employed during the day time, and all lectures and other activities took place during the evenings. It was only in recent years that it had been a college of the university, but prior to that it had a long existence as Birkbeek Institute, and was attended by many men who afterwards became famous, amongst its past students being Lord ‘Passfield, then Sidney Webb and Mr Ramsay MacDonald, the present Prime Minister of England, There was a very strong corporate life in the college, and not only were lectures given on a wide variety of subjects and a great deal of research work carried out, but many clubs and societies for both sporting and other purposes were also in existence. Its literary society every year produced a play, usually one of the lesserknown Elizabethan works, and much interest was taken in the production, favourable comment being frequently received from the critics of such journals as The Times and the Daily Telegraph. The University of London was now engaged in a great building scheme, and new university buildings were to be erected in Bloomsbury behind the British Museum and not far from the University College, while Birkbeek College was also to have a much-needed new building on the university site. The foundation stone of the university building either had been or was about to be laid by his Majesty the King.