The method of teaching adopted was, in its principal traits, the same which has been pursued ever since. That method has four characteristic features,-the lecture, the class, the weekly paper-work, and the examination. The lecture presents the subject in broad outline. For each lecture a printed syllabus is prepared. This syllabus gives an analysis, a logical abstract, of the lecture, with such quotations or statistics as the lecturer thinks it expedient to print, and a list of text-books or other authorities on the subject. After the lecture the class is held, when the lecturer goes more into detail. Students are invited to ask questions, and the lecturer explains difficulties. The class enables the lecturer to become personally acquainted with some, at least, of the students, and to help them individually. At the class questions are given out by the lecturer, on which the students write short essays. These weekly exercises form an important part of the system. The lecturer revises the essays, and returns them with his comments at the next class. Lastly there is the examination. This is held at a short interval after the close of the course. The examiner is a different person from the lecturer, and is specially appointed for the purpose by the University. He issues a list of those who have passed the examination, arranged in alphabetical order. Those, however, who have gained distinction are indicated by an asterisk.

The experiment made by Cambridge in 1873 proved highly successful, and applications for courses of lectures poured in upon the University from other towns. Three years later, in 1876, a Society for the Extension of University Teaching was established in London, to carry on similar work in the metropolis. In 1878 the University of Oxford established similar lectures. After a year or two, the Oxford work was interrupted for a time; but in 1885 it was resumed, and has since been carried on with marked success. Other British Universities have also borne their part in the movement. Durham has been associated with Cambridge in the work. The Victoria

University has organised lectures in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The four Scottish Universities have united in forming a similar plan for Scotland. A Society for the Extension of University Teaching has been formed in the North of Ireland. In 1898 a Conference was held at Cambridge to celebrate the completion of twenty-five years' work. The statistics drawn up for that Conference showed that in the previous winter, under the auspices of Cambridge, London, Oxford, and the Victoria University, 488 courses of lectures had been given in different parts of the country, and had been attended by nearly 50,000 persons. Meanwhile the movement has spread to the British Colonies. Similar movements have been successful in the United States of America and in several countries of Europe.

In a general survey of English University Extension, the central fact is that the growth of the movement has been natural and spontaneous. It did not originate in an abstract theory of the duties incumbent on national Universities. It was a response by the Universities to a desire which actually existed in the country. It was their mode of complying with a demand which was urgently pressed upon them from various quarters. And the demand itself has been increased by the success of their missionary work.

Subsequent papers will deal in detail with special aspects of that work, and with the steps in its progress. The scope of the present paper is more general. And, in the first place, we may ask this question:-Why did the University Extension movement begin just at that time, in 1873? What were the educational and social conditions in England at that moment, which caused the new need to be felt, and which disposed the Universities to recognise it? The fundamental idea was not a new one. Three centuries earlier Sir Thomas Gresham, the founder of the Gresham College in London, had the same idea. He wished to provide lectures of the University type for persons engaged in business in the City of London. A similar scheme was propounded in 1650 by William Dell, Master of

Caius College, Cambridge, who wished to see a University or a College established in every large town of England, a wish which has been largely fulfilled in our own days. But such men were in advance of their age. Before the higher education could be more widely diffused it was necessary that the lower grades of instruction should be efficiently organised. It was only in 1870 that, after long efforts, England obtained a national system of Primary Education. Meanwhile the efforts and discussions which led up to that result had familiarised the minds of the people with the importance of the subject. The country was prosperous, and the working-classes had more leisure than formerly. The facilities for rapid locomotion had made it possible to have a system of itinerant teaching. These were some of the conditions which favoured the spread of a desire for higher teaching.

Meanwhile the old Universities had been passing through changes which rendered them more sympathetic with that desire. Between 1850 and 1873 a series of reforms had greatly widened the range of studies at Oxford and Cambridge, and had also opened them to large classes of the community which had formerly been excluded from them. The term "University Extension" first came into use at the beginning of that period, but was employed in a different sense from that which it now bears. A letter entitled "Suggestions for University Extension" was addressed in 1850 to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford by Mr William Sewell, of Exeter College. His proposal was, in fact, to establish Local Colleges which should be directly associated with the old Universities. This proposal met with no acceptance at the time. The more elastic and more comprehensive system now known as University Extension dates, as we have seen, from the action taken by Cambridge in 1873. But since that time the growing desire for higher education has led to the establishment of Local Colleges in many large towns. It has also led to the foundation of new Universities, viz., the Victoria University, the

University of Wales, and, more recently, the University of Birmingham; while the University of London has just received a new constitution, under which, instead of merely examining, it will also teach.

This growth of Local Colleges and new Universities may naturally suggest a further question:- Has the University Extension movement finished its mission in our country, or is there still useful work for it to do? It commenced, as we have seen, in a time of transition, when the need for higher instruction was beginning to be more strongly felt. It filled a gap in our educational system. It was a pioneering movement, which prepared the way for permanent local institutions. Can we now say that its task is accomplished; or can we point to valuable functions which it still performs?

Two such functions may be named. In the first place, the agency of University Extension has still a distinctive value as supplementing our system of Technical Education. Within the last ten years the movement for Technical Education in England has become vigorous. The Councils of Counties and Boroughs, aided by funds which the State has placed at their disposal, have covered the country with a network of classes for the teaching of technical and scientific subjects. Technical Institutes have arisen in the larger towns. The danger which besets this form of instruction is that of narrowness. There is a tendency to make the training too exclusively scientific or technical, and to bestow too little attention on the study of History, Literature and Languages. The most enlightened friends of Technical Education in England are alive to this danger, and are anxious to guard against it. Now, the University Extension movement has always rested upon a large and liberal idea of education. At the present day it is one of the most vigorous organs of that idea. Thus it supplies a corrective to the narrowing tendency. Through the agency of University Extension, Technical Institutes can obtain teaching

in non-technical subjects. This, then, is one of the valuable functions which the Extension system still performs.

The second function to which I refer is of a different nature. In many an English town there are educational agencies of various kinds which arose quite independently of each other. But in several places the desire has been felt to co-ordinate such agencies, and to weld them together, so as to form a single institution. Thus in three towns-Reading, Exeter, and Colchester-a new type of Local College has arisen. In each of these cases the initiative has been taken by the representatives of University Extension. The process of co-ordinating the various local resources for education has been conducted under the direction of the Universities, acting through the Extension machinery. There are signs that such a result, so successfully obtained in the three towns above-named, will ere long be accomplished in other towns also. In this field, then, a most valuable work remains to be done by the University Extension system.

In conclusion, I would venture to say that the service rendered to England by the missionary enterprise of the Universities has been both intellectual and social. educational stimulus has been given to the country. Different classes of the community have been brought into sympathetic relations by fellowship in the elevating pleasures of study. And while the Universities have conferred benefits, they have also received benefits. This is strongly felt by many of our best University men who have been leaders and workers in the movement. At the centres of University Extension they have learned lessons not less valuable than those which they have imparted. The Universities themselves have acquired a new hold on the esteem, we might even say on the affection, of the nation at large. Nor are the Universities mere abstract names to the students in various towns where their lecturers teach. Their ancient buildings and their gardens are now familiar to thousands who, in former days, would never have seen them