A PROPOSED MIDLAND UNIVERSITY. 
69 
the Queen’s College Medical School, with the addition of the 
well-known Midland Institute. It has culminated at present 
in a memorial to the Mayor of Birmingham, which is as 
follows:— 
“ To His Worship the Mayor. Sir,—Many propositions 
have recently been made respecting the way in which it is 
desirable to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee. We feel that none 
of these entirely appeal to our sympathy. On such a special 
occasion it is well to leave the beaten track and to accomplish 
some public act winch will for ever emphatically recall and 
emphasise the present year of our town’s history. Birming¬ 
ham, with its well-organised system of primary and secondary 
education, is yet far behind many other towns in the way of 
higher University education. We form the centre of a 
population larger than that of Wales, and nearly as large as 
that of Scotland, yet our youths have to go elsewhere for their 
degrees, and often for their training in science, medicine, and 
arts. Manchester and Liverpool have already their University, 
and Leeds will shortly follow in their wake. Are we to 
remain stagnant and alone ? In Birmingham students have 
been prepared for obtaining degrees at distant Universities ; 
but the work has been arduous and heavily handicapped by 
the want of a local body exercising University functions. 
The three institutions which we possess—the Mason College, 
the Queen’s College, and the Midland Institute—are the 
products of individual public spirit. Those who are aware of 
their individual fitness know how little, both in the way of 
funds and of organisation, would be sufficient to found by their 
co-ordination a great Midland University, where our people 
could obtain that knowledge which means bread at their very 
doors, without having to go for it to Germany, to Scotland, 
or to London. We would suggest that that portion of the 
town’s Jubilee Fund which it is decided to use for local 
purposes shall be converted into a University Fund, as an 
expression of the desire of the town to see in its midst a 
University which shall be in sympathy with the wants and 
requirements of the inhabitants, and shall rival the Victoria 
University.” 
Amongst those who have signed this memorial are the 
following:—Messrs. Follett Osier, F.R.S.; Bichard Chamber- 
lain, M.P.; H. W. Crosskey, LL.D.; E. F. M. MacCarthy, 
M.A.; Osmund Airy, M.A.; Professors Bridge, Poynting, 
Lapworth, Hillhouse, Haycraft, Heath, Sonnenscliein, 
Dammann, Smith, Windle, Loreille, and Woodward, together 
with some fifty others. 
