In London

The University of London has its business offices in South Kensington, a college in Bloomsbury, two colleges on the Strand. It is as if the University of Chicago were strewn about from Ravenswood to White City and out to Oak Park, or as if Columbia University were dissociated into Bronx, Battery and Brooklyn units.

Seeing the University of London's plight, the Government lately offered it an option on eleven acres of good Bloomsbury soil adjacent to its University College hospital site, right behind the British Museum, hard by a number of learned headquarters such as the Royal.. . .

Historical Society, the Bureau of British Universities, the American University Union. The district is quiet and dignified, well served by tram, tube and busses, seemingly an ideal spot for a concentrated university quarter. The option was to expire April 1, but up to last week the University of London had done nothing towards taking it up. A dozen reasons were given--the site was too cramped, too citified, too expensive. The real reason was concealed-- the "bigwigs" of the University's colleges were afraid of being nudged and bunted by one another's reputations and personalities if brought to such close quarters. With the option's expiration imminent, London alumni conducted dignified propaganda; London students--visualizing escape from "the merciless, grasping Bloomsbury landladies" into cloistered dormitories like those at Oxford and Cambridge--prepared a "rag" (street demonstration savoring of humor and earnestness).