The University Grants Committee The Report of the University Grants
Committee, which surveys the effect of the State grants to the Universities in the past five years, is very encouraging. On the strength of it the Chancellor of the Exchequer has increased the grants from £1,550,000 to £1,800,000. When the older Universities first accepted State money they were alarmed at the risk of losing their independence, but evidently the alarm was for the most part baseless. The Grants Committee has no doubt that the State money, instead of causing private benefactions to dry up, has stimu- lated them. Independence is so necessary to the free intellectual life that it is good to know that the State money has helped these Universities to help themselves, and has not had an enervating influence. With the help of the grants it has been possible to raise most of the salaries—a very important matter, as the Committee points out. Intellectual work does not consort well with luxury, but it is equally true that it cannot consort successfully with a constant state of financial anxietyi * * * *
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