Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The idea of the idea of a university and its antithesis
- 2 ‘Consult the Genius of the Place’
- 3 ‘The first undergraduates, recognizable as such’
- 4 Failure
- 5 Historical and comparative remarks on the ‘federal principle’ in higher education
- Interlude: General introduction to Chapters six and seven
- 6 Supply and demand in the writing of university history since about 1790: 1. ‘The awkward interval’
- 7 Supply and demand in the writing of university history since about 1790: 2. The market and the University of London
- 8 Alternatives: 1. The importance of being unattached
- 9 Alternatives: 2. Born to have no rest
- Index
Interlude: General introduction to Chapters six and seven
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The idea of the idea of a university and its antithesis
- 2 ‘Consult the Genius of the Place’
- 3 ‘The first undergraduates, recognizable as such’
- 4 Failure
- 5 Historical and comparative remarks on the ‘federal principle’ in higher education
- Interlude: General introduction to Chapters six and seven
- 6 Supply and demand in the writing of university history since about 1790: 1. ‘The awkward interval’
- 7 Supply and demand in the writing of university history since about 1790: 2. The market and the University of London
- 8 Alternatives: 1. The importance of being unattached
- 9 Alternatives: 2. Born to have no rest
- Index
Summary
In writings about the history of British education, supply is easier to discern than demand. The actions of market providers – schools, colleges and universities, but also parliaments, cabinets, prominent politicians, civil servants and leading academics – leap from the pages of the past to provide a fairly obvious account of the facts at major turning points. Demand, especially if it is mass demand, is more difficult to explain. The indicators are harder to interpret. In crude fashion, enrolments are at least one tangible measure of the existence of market pressures. The causes of a sudden rise or fall may not be readily explicable, but the consequences have measurable effects on such variables as space use and the quality of facilities, size of teaching and support staffs, institutional income or curricular diversity. Student numbers affect housing, the provision for recreation, commercial activity and transportation. A ‘critical mass’ of students influences teaching relationships. Several of these variables are also affected by supply irrespective of demand, since curricula, to take only one example, can be altered even if there is no increase in numbers or shift of interests within existing markets. Staff augmentation can similarly occur without apparent increases in demand.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Modern University and its DiscontentsThe Fate of Newman's Legacies in Britain and America, pp. 300 - 306Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997