SIX hundred years ago, 鈥渢he three pillars on which civilization rested were the Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Empire and the universities鈥�. This is how Bertram, Lord Bowden, principal of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in the UK, opened eight pages of coverage on 鈥淯niversities and Society鈥� on 26 March 1970.
He charted how universities came about, including a pivotal moment in 1415 when , and 鈥渟tudents fled in panic 鈥� to 鈥� Heidelberg and several other universities鈥�. The humanist, independent model they founded there was resisted in England. Bowden, developing the theme of independence, noted that 19th-century poet Matthew Arnold 鈥渄iscovered that Continental scholars refused to acknowledge that Oxford was a university鈥� It was no more than an expensive finishing school for the scions of the aristocracy.鈥� Its image 鈥渉aunts us in England even yet鈥�.
Into the 20th century many universities were loath to accept engineering and technology as subjects worthy of study, wrote Bowden. Again, he linked this to ideas of independence: 鈥淚t is just as wrong for universities to allow themselves to be dominated by industry or by the government as it is for them to ignore the problems with which industry and government are struggling.鈥�
Advertisement
Clues to what prompted our coverage are in another part of it, in which Jonathan Rosenhead , referring to 鈥渁llegations that local industrialists 鈥� have been monitoring the external activities of certain left wing lecturers鈥� at the University of Warwick, UK. The backdrop was a student . Reports elsewhere administration 鈥渉ad become so 鈥� enmeshed with the upper reaches of consumer capitalist society that they are actively twisting the purposes and procedures of the university鈥�, and that the occupiers found files on surveillance of staff.
Our coverage concluded with the inauguration of the UK鈥檚 innovative distance learning. It would, Geoffrey Hollister and Michael Pentz predicted, be the perfect setting to develop 鈥渃omputer diagnosis, computer-aided design, and automatic traffic guidance鈥�. Those topics have filled our pages over the half century since.
To find more from the archives, visit
