STOKE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
Snt,—Your kind note about the projected university college at Stoke-on-I Trent is not entirely correct. The approval of the University Grants Committee to the proposal is not unconditional. The college is to be allowed to grant the B.A. degree if it can arrange to be " sponsored " by one or more universities. We are hoping that one or more universities will appoint a board of academic advisers who will be some guarantee of our academic standards. The college does not propose to avoid the period of apprenticeship which is implied in the title " university college," nor does it for a moment dispute the priority of existing univer- sity colleges. The interest of our experiment is that it implies a new form of apprenticeship.
We do not propose to be primarily technical. Our first endeavour will
be to break down the existing departmentalism of British universities by organising an all-round B.A. degree course which will combine science and the humanities. Such specialisation as we may develop will be related to the distinctive characteristics of the district, including its remarkable record of social services. There is already an excellent technical college at Stoke whose relation to the proposed university college is not yet worked out.
We do not expect, even if all goes well, that the university college will start before the autumn of 1950, so that I hope I may be able to have a share in its planning, and be there to help in-starting it without leaving Balliol before my statutory time, namely, July, 1949.—Yours, &c.,
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