I.U. AND SULGRAVE
SIR,—In the article which appeared in The Spectator of November 20th, entitled " I.U. and Sulgrave," there are the names of many people whom I have never seen, and of whom I have never heard ; both they and their alleged performances bear no relation to me. It is time that your readers should be acquainted with the following facts: During the regime of the one-time President' of the Intercollegiate University, Dr. Ghurchill Sibley, I took no part whatever in the administration. In 1938 the University officials insisted on the resignation of Dr. Sibley. These gentlemen approached me and invited me to become Vice-Chancellor. I declined. Again an approach was made and I accepted office. In doing so I laid down the following terms and conditions, amongst others, viz.: (a) That my services should be rendered gratuitously ; (b) that an autonomous British Division should be formed ; (c) that its government should be democratic ; (d) that Dr. Sibley should' cease-to take any part whatever in the conducting of University affairs (by request and courtesy he retained the title President to his death in the same year); (e) that all net income be devoted to needy students and development ; (f) that the standards be raised ; (g) that all ecclesiasti- cal and other extraneous allegiances be abolished.
To all these reforms (and others) the Senate agreed unanimously. My mission of reform was not without good results, and during my period of administration attacks upon the University ceased. During the present year, at my instigation, and with full concurrence of the Senate, for perfectly proper reasons, the British Division closed its doors and the Senate was dissolved.
This, briefly, is the substance of my official connexion with the Inter- collegiate University, and will you pardon me when I say that I review it with some satisfaction. " Janus " asks whether the University of Sulgrave "is taking over students who have not completed their courses
in the other University." The answer to this is set out in my reply to Dr. Barker to the same question in the Cambridge Review of Novem- ber. 21st. Here it is: "The University of Sulgrave neither has nor had any connexion with the Intercollegiate University either in America or Britain ; it has, however, expressed its willingness to receive any under- graduates of the Demised Division provided that they can and will satisfy the conditions laid down for their reception ; they will receive no pre- ferential treatment of any kind." For those who would attempt to connect the above extinct institution with the -University of Sulgrave, allow me to quote from the letter which has been sent by its solicitors to certain people who have made misstatements: "The University of Sulgrave is not whether directly or indirectly a continuation of the 'Intercollegiate University or of any other body."
When the University of Sulgrave begins to produce results, criticisms of its work will be welcomed, and I have little doubt but that they will be in pleasant contra-distinction to the vapourings of uninformed critics who expressed their disapproval of its birth, in a compound of insinuation, suppressio yeti and suggestio falsi. Meanwhile the workers of the University of Sulgrave will go forward with a trowel in one hand and [Was Dr. Crossley-Holland the Vice-Chancellor, and the bogus " Archbishop " Sibley the . President, referred to in the following para- graph from the Intercollegian of the Michaelmas Term, 1938: "At the close of his speech, which was warmly received, the Vice-Chancellor referred feelihgly to the recent illness of the President, and thanked him for his long and devoted services to the cause of the University. In handing to him a silver-gilt loving-cup, suitably engraved, he trusted that the recipient would regard it as a token of affection and esteem from all the graduates and members " ? Dr. Crossley-Holland's anxiety to dissociate his new venture from his old—identical in origin, identical in professed purpose and method, and identical in their principal per- sonnel—is significant—ED., The Spectator.]
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