tion. It had to compete with such places as the Bedford College, as the Birkbeck Institution, the City of London College, the College for Men and Women, King's College, the London Institution, Queen's College, University College, and the Working Men's College. It had to compete with popular lectures and with the thousand distractions of metropolitan life. It laboured moreover under the great disadvantage of having no common centre and no organic connection with either of the sister Universities. Over all these difficulties it has triumphed, and is now in the midst of a career as useful and successful as that of the Cambridge branch, and such as promises to lead to results even more important. Its history is soon sketched. It may be said to date from a meeting held at the Mansion House on the 13th of March, 1876. At that meeting a council, formed partly of people of distinction interested generally in popular education and partly of representatives nominated by various educational bodies in London, resolved to appeal to the Universities for assistance in organising courses of lectures. In the following autumn seven courses of lectures and classes, on the Camendja model, were, under the superintendence of the council, set on foot at certain institutions in London and in the suburbs. For these lectures and classes 139 students entered. In the spring of the following year other lecturing centres were formed, and the number of students rose to 222. In the spring of 1878 the number of centres had only increased to 8, and the number of students to 320. But though from a numerical point of view this was not encouraging, the reports of the examiners showed that the ultimate prospects of the movement were more than encouraging. The examiner, for example, in political economy at the Putney and Wimbledon centres, after observing that he had good opportunities of comparison, as he had just concluded an examination of the candidates for the Oxford B.A. degree in political economy, and an examination of the candidates for a fellowship, reported that 'the average level of the answers is considerably higher than that of undergraduates who pass the University examination, while several of the papers are distinctly better than those of the candidates for the fellowship, who are, I need not say, picked men.'

The council therefore resolved to make every effort to extend the movement, and to obtain that recognition on the part of the Universities which Oxford had declined to give and which Cambridge 'thought it best to delay until the adhesion of Oxford should have been obtained.' In November 1878, after the Society had been struggling on for two years on an independent footing, and had by its indefatigable efforts established a claim which it was now impossible to ignore, that recognition was granted. The necessary graces were passed. A Board, consisting of three representatives from each of the three Universities, Oxford, Cambridge, and London, was appointed; and to this body, under the title of the Joint Board, belong the func

tions of nominating the Society's lecturers, of seeing that their work is efficiently performed, of appointing examiners, and of advising the council generally on educational matters. It is through the medium of this Board, and through the certificates granted by them, that the Society is connected with the Universities, which thus become responsible for the maintenance of an academic standard of teaching on the part of the lecturers and an academic standard of attainment in the gainers of certificates in the examinations. From this moment the progress of the Society rapidly advanced. In the first term of the session preceding the nomination of the Board there were six centres, eight courses of lectures, and 284 students attending them. In the first term of the session succeeding the nomination there were thirteen centres, twenty-six courses, and 1,224 students. But financial difficulties were beginning to accumulat>. The council, naturally

anxious to extend the benefits of the scheme to students who were not able to pay more than nominal fees-at the Tower Hamlets, for example, the fee for three courses on physiology, English mediæval history, and political economy was fixed at five shillings, a course on geology at Hoxton at three shillings-soon found itself on the verge of bankruptcy. But, as the secretary of the Society generously refused to accept any remuneration for his arduous duties, and as appeals were made, not without success, to those who were interested in the movement, these difficulties were gradually surmounted. The following table will show the progress which the Society has made during the last five years :

Such has been the growth of a movement which began in the autumn of 1876 with seven courses of lectures and with 139 students attending them.

In almost every district in London and in the suburbs has the Society succeeded in establishing centres. Last year, for example, its lectures and classes were held, and its work tested by University examiners, in Whitechapel, in Bethnal Green, at Limehouse, at Poplar, at Ponder's End, in Moorfields, in the Strand, in Holborn, in Chancery Lane, in South Lambeth; in the suburbs, at Greenwich, Hammersmith, Lewisham, Putney, Wimbledon, Crouch End, Dulwich, Isleworth, North Hackney, Stroud Green; outside the postal district, at Croydon, Hampton Court, Kew and Richmond, Kingston, Surbiton, Sutton, Watford, Basingstoke, Bromley, Harrow, Sevenoaks,

Leytonstone, and Wanstead. In the poorer neighbourhoods fees little more than nominal have thrown open the lectures and classes to everyone who may wish to attend them. In Whitechapel, for instance, at Bethnal Green, at Limehouse, and at Poplar the fee has been fixed at one shilling for the whole course. A great step has recently been made towards extending the sphere of the Society's work. A special fund formed by a contribution from the Gilchrist trustees and from contributions made by members of the council enabled the permanent secretary to organise short courses of popular lectures under the title of People's Lectures. The design of these was to pave the way to the establishment of permanent centres and full courses of lectures and classes. These courses-they were ten in number-were attended by audiences averaging from 1,500 to 2,000, and the Society had thus a striking proof of the demand which exists among the masses of London, if not for a systematic course of higher education, at least for as much of that education as can be conveyed popularly through popular media.

But the council and the Board, while fully recognising the importance of the influence which may be thus generally exercised by University teachers, have very properly considered that their chief efforts should be directed to the furtherance of systematic education, and that the teaching which is not to be submitted to the test of examination should not only be purely subordinate but professedly preliminary to the teaching which is. Every effort has been made to make the local lectures and classes supply the place of a curriculum of higher education. A glance at the examination questions will show how high a standard is required from the candidates. In no case is a student allowed to enter for examination whose weekly work has not been performed to the satisfaction of the lecturer and whose attendance at the lectures and classes has not been regular. No pains have been spared to place the local lectures and classes on a permanent basis, and to secure sequence in the courses, that continuity of study may be provided for. Summer lectures and classes have been formed to carry on the work between the Lent and Michaelmas terms, when the regular courses are suspended. Certificates of continuous study have been awarded by the Board, similar to the vice-chancellor's certificates conferred on the students of the Cambridge extension. Nor is this all. The Society has at last the prospect of a great central institution for advanced students, and the lectures and classes last winter at Gresham College mark a new and important stage in the progress of this movement. Indeed, it is now more than probable that as the Extension movement in the provinces has led to the institution of permanent centres of higher education in the shape of local colleges, so the Extension movement in London will lead to the institution of a similar centre in the shape of a popular teaching University. That a teaching University will

eventually be organised, either by the reform of the University of London, or by the establishment of a new University with King's College and University College as its bases, there now seems little reason to doubt. And that this institution should undertake and conduct the work which is at present carried on by the Extension is clearly no more than might be expected. But, whatever be the relation in which the contemplated University is destined to stand to the work of the Extension, one thing is certain. In Gresham College exists the nucleus of the central institution so greatly needed. If it could be enlarged and expanded into a great College for evening students, could be endowed with permanent professorships-the professors mainly teaching in the evening to meet the needs of students, who, being obliged to pursue their education collaterally with the business of life, are unable to attend in the daytime-and if the curriculum for degrees could be arranged in such a way that the evening students could take a longer period, say six or seven years, to complete the work which day students complete in three, the one impediment in the way of the full development of the Extension scheme would be removed. What the experience of the Society has proved conclusively is this: that the demand for higher education among those who are engaged in the active business of life in London is great and is on the increase; that there are hundreds who have the energy and desire to pursue it as systematic students, collaterally with their daily work; that, as there are already upwards of 5,000 who assemble as regular attendants at Extension classes and lectures, the want of provision for advanced teaching must be much more widely felt than is generally supposed.

Last into the field came Oxford. Mismanagement or misfortune having caused the collapse of a former experiment, the real history of the movement on the part of Oxford dates from a meeting held in June 1885. The governing body is a committee appointed by the delegates for local examinations, whose functions are identical with those of the syndicate at Cambridge and with the Joint Board at London. Their aim is, like that of the syndicate and Joint Board, 'to bring the University to the people when the people cannot come to the University.' But this aim they attempt or are at present attempting to attain by sanctioning the adoption of more 'elastic' methods than are sanctioned by the Cambridge and London Boards. Short courses of six lectures and classes on subjects likely to prove attractive qualify candidates for receiving certificates from the University. And in these short courses there is too often very little system. A course on Byron and Shelley, for example, may precede a course on Chaucer and Wickliffe, or a course on the making of India a course on the Crusades. No sequence in the subject of the courses is necessarily observed. The Protective Value of Colour in Animals'

in the Lent term might be succeeded by 'Carlyle and Ruskin' in the Michaelmas term. In addition to these popular attractions a prize is given to the candidates who pass first in the examinations.

Travelling libraries accompany the lecturers, and such books as are necessary for the purposes of students circulate in rotation as long as the lectures last. The experiment has certainly succeeded. From April 1885 to April 1887 no less than 198 lectures were delivered on history, 191 on literature, 112 on political economy, 48 on physical geography, 27 on industrial history, and 20 on art, and these at 54 different centres. Between Michaelmas term 1887 and Midsummer 1888 the number of courses increased to 86, the number of centres to 53, and the number of students attending them to 13,116. In the session of 1888-9 the number of courses rose to 109, of centres to 82, of students to 14,351. No less than 465 lectures were delivered on history, 111 on literature, 80 on political economy, 42 on art, and 144 on various branches of natural science. But this experiment, however desirable it may be to enable the movement to make its way among the people, is obviously not without its dangers. Surely the first condition which the University, before recognising the work of students attending courses authorised by it, should require is security for thoroughness and system; neither of which is possible, neither of which is confessedly possible, in casual courses of six lectures each. It is one thing for a University to sanction teaching which, being 'stimulating and suggestive,' may be highly useful and even necessary as paving the way to serious study; it is quite another thing for it to fix its seal to certificates which appear to place a premium on superficiality and insufficiency.

But it would be doing a great injustice to the committee of the delegates and to the local committees in the provinces, as well as to the indefatigable secretary of the Oxford Extension and his equally indefatigable coadjutors, to suppose that they are not making every effort to remedy these defects. The necessity for lengthening the courses of lectures and for securing sequence of courses has been emphatically urged on the centres, and, as the latest statistics show, is being increasingly recognised by them. In many districts the courses have been supplemented by weekly correspondence with the lecturer. At several centres, in order to extend the time covered by the lectures, it has been arranged that they should be held at fortnightly intervals, the students occupying the intervening time in writing papers and in doing work prescribed by the lecturer. Reading unions have been formed and syllabuses have been prepared for their guidance. Several conferences have been held to consider the best means of meeting the difficulties which dependence on popular support necessarily entails on teachers and students. To encourage continuity of study the delegates have recently proposed to award, in addition to the certificates of which we have spoken, 'certificates of one year's