vii WORK AT MANCHESTER 167 



is not yet. For no sooner had Owens College risen 

 to a point of eminence after years of struggle, than the 

 interests of Liverpool were aroused, and through the 

 liberality and open-handedness of its citizens, a college 

 second only to that of Owens was founded. A like 

 action was taken by Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, 

 Sheffield, Wales, and Nottingham. All these pro- 

 vincial university colleges were established and long 

 entirely maintained by private effort. It took years 

 for the Government to understand that these were 

 essentially national institutions, upon the development 

 of which the prosperity of the country depends, but at 

 the present day ,100,000 a year is voted by Parlia- 

 ment towards their support. After a while the several 

 communities also became aware that their individual 

 progress was intimately connected with that of their 

 colleges, and municipal aid is now freely voted. 

 With many of these university colleges I have had 

 the honour to be connected as a member of the 

 Governing Body. That of Liverpool had, of course, 

 a special interest for me from the connection of my 

 family with that city. A chair of Modern History 

 (Civil and Literary) was founded in memory of my 

 grandfather, William Roscoe, and it is also of interest 

 to remember that a lectureship in Italian was estab- 

 lished concerning which Mr. Gladstone wrote the 

 following letter : 



HAWARDEN, October 31, 1891. 

 DEAR SIR, 



Special obligations under which I have come to this place 

 oblige me, as a general rule, to decline all local contributions, 

 which are numerous. Nevertheless, I cannot avoid sending 

 you a small sum in token for it is only a token of 

 the lively pleasure with which I have read your letter, and 

 learned that an Italian professorship is to be founded in the 

 Liverpool University College. At the present period, when 



