vii WORK AT MANCHESTER 179 



sons who were well qualified for and desirous of 

 receiving University training, but who could not afford 

 to go to Oxford or Cambridge. Moreover, there is a 

 great deal in the genius loci. We knew, or we thought 

 we knew, what we wanted in this busy North of 

 England, and we were not quite so sure whether the 

 Dons of Oxford and Cambridge knew it as well as we 

 did ourselves. Our type of University culture must, 

 whilst providing in the fullest sense for a liberal 

 education, bear the impress of our local life and 

 requirements, and no one but ourselves could efficiently 

 direct or control that culture. This control is what we 

 asked for : we simply wished to work out our own 

 salvation in our own way. We were, we claimed, to 

 all intents and purposes, a University already ; our 

 students were University students both in age and 

 education ; our courses of instruction and our class 

 examinations were fully up to the University standard ; 

 and as regards numbers we did not compare un- 

 favourably with many Universities of high standing in 

 our own and in other countries. 



The full details of a story unparalleled in the 

 annals of English education will be found in Alder- 

 man Thompson's volume on the history of Owens 

 College, to which reference has already been made. 



To go back to still more ancient history, it is not 

 generally known that long ago unsuccessful proposals 

 to form a University in Manchester were made. 

 Thus, as early as 1640 Henry Fairfax wrote to his 

 brother Fernandino, the second Lord Fairfax, enclos- 

 ing a memorial from the public of Manchester praying 

 the Long Parliament to grant a Charter to a Northern 

 University, adding, " Posterity may bless you and the 

 work will speak for itself that the like hath not been in 

 England (if Cambridge be the last) not of twc. 



N 2 



