ABSTRACT
The Prescription The decade prior to the opening of Egypt’s ‘National University’ in 1925 seemed to be ideal for the establishment of the long-desired institution; namely, a comprehensive university with a liberal atmosphere and with direct relevance to the needs of the country, as well as to the problems of Egyptian educated youth. The two forces which in the pre-war period had failed in combining their efforts for this purpose-the liberal nationalists and the British-were ready now to take a serious initiative. Their united action culminated in accomplishing, in 1921, the formulation of a detailed prescription for a state university. But its actual implementation was again to escape them. For, as the politics of Egypt’s struggle for independence developed through the years 1919-25 into a Wafd-British collision, the matter of the university was pushed aside and fell again into the hands of Fuad and the French.
