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'

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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

study' and 'higher certificates of a complete course of systematic study;' and a programme, arranging in due sequence the courses of lectures and classes necessary for carrying out such a curriculum, the dates on which such lectures and classes might be held, and the cost of each course, has been drawn up for the use of local centres. Nor is this all. Of the high standard of work required by the lecturers from the students, no further proof is needed than the questions set each week as subjects for essays. Of the high standard attained by some of the students the report recently issued by the examiners for the prize essays, announcing that the best essays would have obtained a high place in any University examination,' is conclusive testimony.

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There is, therefore, every reason to hope that Oxford's remarkable success in what may be called pioneering and mission work will be followed by success on a corresponding scale in establishing that work on a solid and permanent basis. It is in the achievement of this and not in the number and popularity of short, disconnected courses—-whatever may be the standard insisted on in the examination held on these courses-that she should recognise the true test of progress in Extension work. Where the choice lies, as often no doubt it must, between such courses and no courses at all, let them by all means be encouraged, but they should be encouraged not on the plea of intrinsic desirableness, but on the plea of necessity, on the plea that they may be a means to an end, the establishment, namely, of systematic local instruction, not on the plea that they are an end in themselves.

In any case a marked distinction should be made between the certificates granted by Oxford in examinations held on short courses of six lectures and classes and the certificates granted by the Syndicate and Joint Board of Cambridge and London on those held on long courses of ten or twelve lectures and classes. The first ought surely to be nothing more than a guarantee that a certain amount of work had been done to the satisfaction of the University and under the direction of University teachers, and to distinguish it from the certificate' another name, 'testamur' for instance, might be assigned to it. But as two short courses, if they are on the same subject and follow consecutively, will obviously be educationally equivalent to a long course, there seems no reason why a 'testamur,' obtained in the examination held on each short course, should not become by accumulation a 'certificate.' It is most desirable that courses of not less than ten lectures and classes should be maintained as the units, so to speak, in the educational system of the Extension.

We have now concluded our sketch of the history of this remarkable movement. That it is still in its infancy-though, as the latest statistics show, its influence has already extended to upwards. of 26,000 of our fellow-citizens-no one can doubt. Its future 4 In Michaelmas and Lent 1887-8 the average attendance at the lectures of the

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prospects become, therefore, a matter of serious importance. These prospects depend partly on the State and partly on the Universities. Up to the present time all that has been effected has been effected without any assistance from the first, and with comparatively little assistance from the second. On its own impulse and on its own strength has the movement made its way. Responding, and responding as no other institution has done, to a great national want, the Extension scheme has now established so firm a footing throughout the kingdom that there is little danger of its collapse. For good or evil it has become a great fact in education. The question now is whether, by having to remain wholly dependent on popular support, it is to lose half its efficacy as an educational agency, and to follow where it ought to lead; or whether, with the assistance of the State and the Universities, it is to become the basis of an organised system of higher popular education. The assistance which it needs from the State is very slight. In the first place the ordinary certificates granted by the Cambridge Syndicate and by the London Joint Board should be recognised by the Education Department as equivalent in value to the certificates granted at the ordinary examination at South Kensington, and the vice-chancellor's certificate and the certificate of continuous study should be held equivalent to the South Kensington certificate for the advanced course. The effect of this would be that large numbers of students, pupil teachers, Board school teachers, pupils in training colleges and the like, who would not only derive the greatest benefit from the Extension classes, but who would contribute more than any other section in the country to the possibility of their being placed at the various centres on a permanent basis, would be induced to attend them. Ast it is they can only attend them-and many do attend them even under such conditions—as a sort of luxury and at a great sacrifice. It is not pretended that the standard attained by successful candidates at the South Kensington examination is higher than that attained by successful candidates at the Extension examination. On the contrary, the acquisition of a vice-chancellor's certificate, or of a certificate of continuous study, is a more difficult and more creditable achievement than the acquisition of an advanced South Kensington certificate. This request, therefore, is surely a very reasonable one, and we agree with a wish lately expressed by Lord Ripon that the We would subEducation Department will favourably consider it. mit too that the Government might with propriety assist the movement in another way. In the interests of secondary education it has already made grants to the Universities of Scotland and Ireland, as well as to the Welsh colleges. It has now the opportunity of assisting a scheme to bring that education within the reach of all classes

Cambridge branch was 9,509, at the lectures of the London branch 4,193, of the Oxford branch 13,116, making a total of 26,818.

at home. Nor is it any mere experiment which appeals for its patronage. The examination reports of the Society are a sufficient proof of the solidity and usefulness of its work; its statistics conclusively show that there is a great and increasing demand for the instruction of which it is, so far as the general body of the people are concerned, the only medium. But no scheme of education can be wholly selfsupporting, and we have already seen how the necessity of attempting to become so has in some cases seriously impaired the educational value of the work. Now a very small grant from Government would not only do much to obviate this difficulty, but would in all probability enable the Society to establish and multiply permanent centres in the poorer districts. It might, as has been suggested, take the form of a grant of 5s. or 7s. 6d. a head on the average attendance at full courses of lectures and classes, given on three conditions: first, that the lectures and classes were held in the evening for the benefit of persons engaged in business during the day; secondly, that they were held under the immediate supervision of one of the Universities, or of the Joint University Board; and thirdly, that an examination, the results of which had been declared satisfactory by University examiners, had been held at the end of the course. No subject can be of greater concern to a State than the education of its citizens, and secondary education is surely as much entitled to its recognition and assistance, where such recognition and assistance may with propriety be extended to it, as primary. What is certain is that, in response to a popular demand for superior instruction, a scheme admirably adapted, as its growing success has proved, to supply that want has been formulated. What seems equally certain is that with the judicious co-operation of the Universities, and with a little assistance from the State, that scheme might develop into a great national system of higher education, a system coextensive with the population of England.

But the question of University extension and its possibilities has another aspect. At the beginning of this paper it was suggested that the movement of which we have been speaking might react on the Universities themselves. It is to be devoutly hoped that such will be the case. Nothing could have revealed more strikingly the radical defects of our academic system than the call which has been suddenly made on it to put its results to the proof. We are simply repeating what is notorious when we say that, except in the case of science, history, and political economy, none of the subjects which the Universities are chiefly occupied in teaching appear to possess the smallest vitality. It might have been expected that men familiar with the Homeric poems, with the Attic dramatists, and with the Roman poets, would have been eager and competent to interpret the wisdom and beauty of the ancient masterpieces to a people who have been described by one little given to flattery as 'a people not dull VOL. XXVI.-No. 152. Q Q