The importance of universities for national progress can not be too often emphasised. In all advanced countries they form the focus-centre of national life where the best men of the nation are engaged in preparing the flower of its youth for the future work of the country. Hence the supreme necessity for the expansion of the sphere of University education and the popularisation of the University idea among the people. Mr. H.A.L. Fisher Minister of Education recently delivered an informing lecture on the “Place of Universities in national life” wherein he deals with new opportunities opening before Universities. He speaks of the cardinal requirement of modern civilisation that a career should be open to talent and says that this could be achieved only if our Universities are made to play a much larger part in the life of the people than historical accidents had hitherto assigned to them. The expanding curricula of the Universities and the increased demand for the University education in Britain, from all classes of people is, according to him, but a sign of the new life opening for the Universities there.
