Grove focused the college's attention on two main activities: practical training and examining. He was determined to raise the general standard of orchestral playing by replacing the existing "ad hoc" methods of apprentice-based training, private lessons, or study abroad. His second focus, examination, followed the Victorian trend to form professional bodies regulating and standardising the activity of members of each profession. An example is the Institution of Civil Engineers to which Grove had been admitted in 1839. When the Royal Charter establishing the college was being drawn up, Grove ensured that, unlike the Royal Academy, the college should have degree-awarding powers. Mackenzie, seeing the prospect that the new institution would overshadow the Academy, successfully proposed that both bodies should award qualifications jointly. Grove agreed, realising that this course would do much to dispel the damaging hostility that existed between the Academy and the college.