666
EDUCATION
founded in London, under the presidency of Mr (afterwards Lord) Goschen, for organizing, with the help of representatives of the three Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, the scheme of University extension lectures for the metropolis and its neighbourhood. At the second Oxford University Commission in 1877 evidence was given by Dr Jowett, afterwards Master of Balliol, in favour of the establishment of an office, and the appointment by the University of a secretary for University extension. He further suggested that the tenure of nonresident fellowships should be extended in the case of persons taking or holding professorships in the large towns. In the following year, 1878, the scheme was formally established, and Mr Arthur Acland, afterwards Vice-President of the Committee of Council, was appointed as the first secretary to the Delegacy. From that time the system has continued to develop steadily, with increasing public favour and usefulness, and with friendly co-operation and division of labour on the part of the two Universities. By degrees lectures became supplemented by class-work and the systematic direction of private reading. In 1885 travelling libraries were formed; and in graduates to lodge in private houses, and to become mem- 1888 the first of a most successful series of summer meetbers of the University; and the admission to professorial ings, to assemble at Oxford and Cambridge in the long lectures of persons not matriculated members of the vacation in alternate years, was held at Oxford. At two or University. On these points the recommendations of the three centres—notably at Exeter and at Colchester a Commissioners were favourable, and had the effect of leading strong local desire has had the effect of establishing a. speedily to desirable reforms. On the thorny question of permanent college in connexion with the University. In the abolition of religious tests at matriculation and gradua- a single session 192 courses of lectures were delivered in tion the Commissioners abstained from direct recommen- connexion with Oxford, 135 with Cambridge, 130 with dation, although they expressed their “ conviction that the London, and 7 with the Victoria University, giving a total imposition of subscription in the manner in which it was of 464 courses, the number of lectures in a course varying then imposed in the University of Oxford habituates the from 8 to 12. The total of lectures in that session was mind to give a careless assent to truths which it has never 4408. In the same session 20,148 persons attended the considered, and naturally leads to sophistry in the interpreta- Oxford courses, 10,947 the Cambridge courses, 12,923 the tion of solemn obligations.” It was not till 1871 that full London courses, and 910 the Victoria courses. Besides legislative effect was given to these views by the abolition the 1100 members who attended the Oxford summer meetof religious tests for the higher degrees, except theology, ing, there was thus a total of 46,028 attendants at the the obligation to sign the Thirty-nine Articles at matricu- courses, the number of lecturers employed being 88. To this record of increasing activity in the older lation having been previously removed in 1854. Another proposal by Mr Sewell for founding, by way of experiment, Universities is to be added the remarkable growth of at Manchester and Birmingham, and in conjunction with local colleges of University rank in some of the prov}nclal Cambridge, local centres of academic teaching for persons most important industrial towns. In 1846 Mr collegeSi who resided at a distance from the Universities, was con- Owens endowed with nearly £100,000 the sidered by the Commissioners, but was not embodied in college at Manchester which bears his name, in 1874 the their recommendations. The project, however, was not Yorkshire College of Science at Leeds, and in 1878 allowed to drop. Lord Arthur Hervey, afterwards Bishop University College at Liverpool, were founded; and these of Bath and Wells, put forth in 1855 a pamphlet urging three institutions became federated, and received in the University to supply the literary and scientific and 1880 a Royal Charter under the name of the Victoria mechanics’ institutions of Great Britain and Ireland with University. The Durham College of Science was founded lecturers from the Universities, and so to furnish to the at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1871, and has since become incorstudents more systematic and more continuous courses of porated with the University of Durham. Mason College, instruction than the isolated popular lectures commonly Birmingham, was founded in 18/5, and has been given in these institutions. But it is to Professor Stuart absorbed in the new University of Birmingham, which of Cambridge that the honour of taking the first practical received a charter of incorporation in 1900. University step in this new direction must be ascribed. In 1867 he College, Bristol, was established in 1876; Firth College, gave several courses of scientific lectures to ladies at Leeds, Sheffield, in 1879; and University College, Nottingham, m Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield, on the invitation of 1881, the last two owing their origin in large measure to the North of England Council for Promoting the Higher the stimulus afforded by successful courses of local Education of Women, and in 1871 he addressed a letter to “ extension ” lectures. No one of these institutions was the resident members of the University of Cambridge founded by Government. All of them owe their origin to describing his experience, and urging strongly that the local patriotism, and to the large gifts which have been Universities were not local clusters of private establish- made to them by rich citizens; the equipment in Manments, but national institutions, and that they should seek chester Liverpool, Nottingham, and Newcastle being on to enlarge the scope of their intellectual influence by taking an exceptionally liberal scale. But a Treasury Minute up the question of “University extension” in a serious was issued in 1889 containing a provision that £15,UUU spirit. A syndicate was appointed in 1872 to consider a year should be distributed among these and similar the whole subject, and in the following year it reported in colleges in sums varying from £1200 to £1800 a year favour of adopting for an experimental period the proposed each. King’s College and University College and Bedford new scheme of local lectures. In 1876 a society was College for Women, in London, were admitted to participate
Universities for awarding to a scholar in a secondary or higher school a leaving certificate, which may be regarded either as a terminus ad quem, testifying that the scholar has reached a fair standard of general proficiency, or as a terminus a quo, serving as an entrance examination to the University, and accepted by nearly all the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge as an equivalent for a matriculation test. These particulars do not, however, furnish an adequate estimate of the influence which the ancient Universities have exercised on schools at a distance from academic centres. That influence has helped largely to widen and improve the standard of education in the schools, to encourage students, to give them a truer estimate of their own acquirements, and to give new suggestions and stimulus to teachers. The general confidence in the fairness of the examinations may safely be said to increase year by year. The Oxford Royal Commission of 1850, which reported in 1853, discussed several schemes for extending the usefulness of the University—e.g., the establishUniversity ment 0f new hallS) as independent societies or in extension. connex^on wph colleges; the permission to under-
