92 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1838. had been called the London "University took the name of 

 University College. There were then two Colleges in 

 London affiliated to the newly established university, 

 which bore that name with more propriety, its object 

 being not to give education, but to examine and confer 

 degrees upon the pupils of Colleges. 



This lecture, given nine years after his first, shows the 

 working of the same thought developed and extended over 

 a wider field. He disclaimed being in any way the organ 

 or representative of the College. The ideas were his own ; 

 and the principles he laid down upon public education 

 might be consulted now with advantage in this present 

 stage of opinion on academical training. 



Our eldest child was born the year after our marriage. 

 In the autumn of that year Lady Byron lent us her house, 

 Fordhook, near Acton ; and for the ten weeks of our 

 stay my husband was able to go on with his writing more 

 easily than he could have done at a greater distance from 

 London. During the years 1836 and 1837 he had been 

 Theory of engaged in writing his Theory of Probabilities. This is the 

 biiities. description taken from the agreement made with the pub- 

 lishers of the ' Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, 5 published in 

 January 1838. <A Mathematical Treatise on the Theory 

 of Probabilities; containing such development of the 

 application of Mathematics to the said Theory as shall 

 to him (the Author) seem fit, and in particular such a 

 view of the higher parts of the subject as laid down by 

 Laplace in his work entitled Theorie des Probabilites, as 

 can be contained in a reasonable compass, regard being 

 had to the extent and character of the Mathematical por- 

 tions of the said work.' * 



During the time which we spent at Fordhook, he 

 completed the small volume entitled ' Essay on Probabi- 



1 From a pamphlet published in 1838, hereafter mentioned. The 

 extract is given here for the same purpose for which the pamphlet 

 was written, to show the difference between the scientific treatise and 

 the popular Essay on Probabilities, in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia. 



