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THE MIDLAND NATURALIST. 
“ Come forth into the light of things, 
Let Nature be your teacher.” 
Wordsworth. 
MASON COLLEGE, BIRMINGHAM. 
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION LECTURES SCHEME. 
The year which has just ended has witnessed two remarkable 
developments of the great Midland University College, the effect of 
which, especially upon the scientific education of the Midlands, will 
probably be deep and far-reaching. In the first place, we have to 
record the amalgamation with Mason College of what has heretofore 
been known as the Medical School of Queen’s College. For ten 
years past the purely scientific portion of the training of the medical 
students of this College has been carried on, by arrangement, 
within the walls of Mason College, and by her professors. This 
tentative “ engagement ” has led to a complete union, and, dating 
from 1st September last, Queen’s College as a School of Medicine 
ceased to exist, the whole constituting what, for the present at 
least, is known as the Queen’s Faculty of Medicine in the enlarged 
Mason College. Extensive premises are being erected for the ac¬ 
commodation of the new school upon that portion of the site of the 
College which lies between the present buildings and Great Charles 
Street, half an acre in extent, and consisting, in part, of adaptations 
of what was formerly the Ear and Throat Hospital, and, in part, of 
a new block, containing two large lecture theatres, each capable of 
accommodating upwards of four hundred, and fitted with the latest 
appliances for oral teaching. The other development, with which 
our present purpose more particularly is concerned, is the promul¬ 
gation of a system of University Extension Lectures and aids to 
higher Technical Training, partly by Mason College in association 
January, 1893, 
