PREFACE 



THE following pages contain a record of lectures which 

 I delivered in August, 1891, in Edinburgh, before the 

 very cultivated and attentive audiences afforded by the 

 Summer School of Art and Science which Professor 

 Patrick Geddes is evolving with great expense of 

 energy and devotion to science, aided by some 

 personal friends whose interest he has well awakened 

 in the organisation and diffusion of knowledge. I 

 wish to be reckoned among these ; and I took part 

 with much pleasure in the proceedings, while on 

 a visit to Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge, and 

 London, where the French Government had com- 

 missioned me to investigate the University Extension 

 Movement. 



These lectures do not cover the whole ground 



o 



of the subject : I have purposely given most 

 attention to documents and facts of French origin, 

 as they are certainly less familiar to an English 

 audience, although the similar facts and documents 

 of English origin are, if anything, more familiar 



