Opinion: People's Poly

Institutions, like Topsy, tend to just grow. And the more hectic the pace of growth the more unlikely it is that anyone within them will find the time to sit back and take stock either of past achievements or of plans for the future. One gets the impression that the polytechnics are just emerging from one period of such frantic growth with barely time to take breath before plunging into the next which will, this time, treble their size. It is all the more surprising then that staff at Manchester Polytechnic have found the time to come up with what is promised as the first in a series of statements on their development, a ‘credo’ whch is not far off doing their adopted patron, Francis Bacon, justice.