Whatever happened to the CATS?

‘A good trade union’, says Lord Bowden, ‘would revolutionize British education.’ As principal of Manchester University's Institute of Science and Technology (big sister to the eight technological universities), he has a point. For nowhere is it clearer than in the present monofaculty separation of the applied sciences in British universities, and in particular in the hiving off of technology into specific foundations. Far from erasing the Snowite two‐culture boundaries, Britain's ex‐CATs inevitably preserve them, and the Platonic tradition that no gentleman ever goes into a work‐shop continues.