2Ç4 ʌ League of Learning
students, and these only, in the main, having taken your
B.A., might come over to us for that period and might come
back to you and be examined for their M.A. or be tested
by ourselves on the honours standard. And similarly on the
other side: our young men and women might come over to
you for their advanced work, and come back to us either
certified by you or to be tested by ourselves for their M.A.
with honours.
Thirdly, there is the Ph.D. So far you have been getting
your Ph.D. in Germany, and it was like other things Ger-
many made. I will be quite explicit as to this matter, namely,
that while the universities in Britain are all eager to welcome
your aspirants to this degree and will gladly devote them-
selves to help them to gain the Ph.D., you will not get in
any one of them anything like the cheap degree that, as we
have been informed in America, was obtainable in Germany.
Nobody need come over with the idea of getting an easy
doctorate; and I don’t think I am wrong in saying that you
here do not desire it. But the way to the degree is, I repeat,
perfectly open to the men and women who are willing to
toil and capable of writing theses that are genuine contribu-
tions to any kind of knowledge. Your university would send
them over, with adequate credentials, for two years to one
of our universities, say Manchester, or Dublin, or St.
Andrews, or Oxford. And they would have to spend two
years in preparation for their degree. But not necessarily
at the same university. Candidates coming to Glasgow or
Manchester might spend part, if not even the whole, of their
second year in England, or on the European continent, in
other universities. Of course, I am speaking about a candi-
date for the Ph.D. who is a Master of Arts. At the end of
his two years he presents his thesis. His thesis is examined
by competent men. In Glasgow we have as examiners one