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ENGLAND.—NORTH AMERICA. 527
The Report of the Royal Commission on Higher Educa­
tion in London gave official sanction to these complaints,
declaring that " the demand for degrees attainable in
London more easily than at present is a legitimate one,
and it is desirable to provide for that want in some
proper manner." The Royal Commissioners were of
•opinion that the doctorate of the London University is an
" honours" degree and that it is desirable that there should
be in London a " pass" degree attainable, while at the
same time they unanimously rejected the application of the
Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons for powers to
confer degrees.
The London student wants a " pass " degree granted on
terms similar to those on which such degrees are given in
Scotland and the provinces. It is quite easy to understand
that the Convocation of London University objects to any
measure which would tend in the slightest degree to
depreciate the value of the degrees of which the graduates
of that University are justly proud.
How the legitimate grievance of the London student will
ultimately be removed is not apparent. A joint request
from such powerful Corporations as the College of
Physicians, the College of Surgeons, and the Society of
Apothecaries, for a Charter empowering them to grant
medical degrees could hardly be refused by Government,
and would solve the difficulty : this combination, is, how­
ever, just what it is difficult to secure. The exclusion of
the Society of Apothecaries in any scheme for securing to
the London Medical Corporations an extension of privileges
in the way of granting degrees is to be deprecated as
unjust and impolitic : unjust, as taking no account of the
good work done by that Society in the past or of the
continually improving character of its examinations;
impolitic, for the inevitable result would be the competi­
tion, instead of the co-operation, of an examining body
entitled to grant licenses in the three chief branches of
practice.