168 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



fashion, which governs so much, has set its face against the 

 general teaching of Italian in this country, and when, in con- 

 sequence, it has come to be confined within the narrowest 

 limits, I think it a real and very high honour to the town of 

 Liverpool that it (and, for all I know, it alone) should have 

 made this effort, and brought it so nearly to success may be 

 both speedy and permanent, and that in that great community 

 you may be enabled to bring back the days of Roscoe and 

 Shepherd. I am, dear Sir, 



Your very faithful and obliged, 



W. E. GLADSTONE. 

 Professor E. Londini. 



As time went on, and the importance of these 

 colleges was more fully recognised, they blossomed 

 into Universities, and now Manchester, Liverpool, 

 Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield have each received 

 a University Charter, whilst Wales boasts also of a 

 University containing three university colleges. And 

 this great movement, certainly one of the greatest 

 educational movements of our time, received its first 

 impulse from John Owens' gift. 



The difficulties which are met with in delivering 

 experimental lectures at a distance from his own 

 laboratory are only fully realised by the lecturer him- 

 self. Probably these difficulties were never more 

 acutely felt than by myself in giving lectures on 

 spectrum analysis. For these lectures my friend and 

 assistant, Joseph Hey wood, and I had to carry about 

 with us a whole paraphernalia of batteries, acids, 

 electric lamps, RhumkorrT coils, and a host of minor 

 breakable articles, for this was before electricity could 

 be had by pressing a button. It frequently happened 

 there was no convenient place where I could set up 

 the battery of some forty or fifty Grove cells which was 

 needed. If it was placed near the lecture-room, the 

 smell from the fumes was something unbearable ; if it 



