2 
MASON OOLLHGlS, BIRMINGHAM. 
with the University of Cambridge, partly by the College upon its 
own responsibility. 
Few things in modern educational change in England have 
a greater inherent interest than has the spread of the scheme of 
“ Lectures and Classes in Populous Places,” as University Exten¬ 
sion Lectures, as they are now popularly called, were known to 
their founder ; and it is given to few men to witness, while still in 
the prime of life, so huge a development of a pet idea, as Mr. 
(sometime Professor) James Stuart, M.P., has seen since the 
University of Cambridge first put his views into practice, not quite 
twenty years ago. To take, for instance, the last ten years : in 
1881-2 forty-three courses of lectures were delivered under the 
authority of the Cambridge Syndicate, with an attendance of 8,406 ; 
in 1891-92, 816 courses were attended by 18,105 students. And 
this is only a part of the tale ; for the Oxford system of lectures, 
commenced in 1878, has a greater collective attendance than that 
of Cambridge ; the lectures of the London Society for University 
Extension (an off-shoot from Cambridge), a total but little smaller ; 
and the Victoria University, Manchester, last year carried on nearly 
a hundred courses of lectures, about forty of which were of the 
type known as “ University Extension,” and the residue lectures on 
higher technical subjects. Two University Colleges—those of 
Nottingham and Sheffield—originated out of the University Exten¬ 
sion system ; the Colleges at Leeds and Bristol started, to all 
intent, in the same way ; and it is by no means improbable that the 
spirit which this movement wakened up, and of which it was like¬ 
wise the expression, was at the root also of the foundation of Mason 
College. 
But though Mr. Stuart’s lectures to a North of England 
association of ladies, in 1867, were the real beginning of this modern 
movement, and the acceptance of his scheme by the University of 
Cambridge in 1873 its official start, it does not appear that the 
idea originated solely with Mr. Stuart; since so long ago as the 
year 1850, a well-known Oxford tutor, Rev. W. Sewell, of Exeter 
College, had published a remarkable pamphlet, entitled “ Suggestions 
for the Extension of the University,” in which he proposed a 
January, 1893. 
