COLLEGE TRADITION.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 6 April 1927, Page 2

COLLEGE TRADITION.

PHANTOM SKELETON. For generations past there has been a tradition at University College, London, that a certain Jeremy Bentham, one cf the four founders, whose skeleton is to be seen in the clothes he wore in life, strolls occasionally at midnight through the cloistered rooms. Tho gilt-embroidered clothed beadles have never seen the apparition, end the eminent Provost, Sir Gregory Foster, told a press representative, with a merry twinkle in his eye, that he could not accept the story as correct. Bentham had a “dot and cany one’’ step, which Dr Spenser, a former headmaster, used to say he had heard at times in the stillness of the ( night. This, however, is only a romantic incident in the life of University College, which is far-reaching in its influence in the realms of medicine, science, arts, and engineering. This year it ia celebrating its centenary with a notable record of progress and a prospect of enlarged usefulness. The ideals which its founders formulated a hundred years ago are a singular example of foresight. To-day they form part of the ordinary university curriculum, and are the principles on which all the university institutions of the Empire have been founded. “When we are celebrating the centenary of University College,” observed Sir Gregory Foster (the Provost), “we are celebrating the centenary of the pioneer of universities of modem times. The ideals of our founders a century ago have been generally accepted in the foundation of modern universities. To celebrate our centenary we want to carry out extensive building improvements. We are appealing for £500,000, half of which will go to endowment, and the other half to buildings and equipment. The work of the college costs £lBO,OOO a year, and students’ fees cover only about a third of this amount. Students come from all parts of the world. In 1831 there were 420; to-day there are 3200. About 60 per cent, of the under graduates live with their parents in London or the suburbs, and the remainder include representatives of all parts of the British Empire and foreign countries. We started with two faculties—arts and law, and medicine—and a staff of 30. To-day we have five, with 75 departments and an academic staff of 254.’’ In the opinion of th* l professor the mixing of men and women students, of which the university was the pioneer, has not been attended by any unsatisfactory results.