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This Series is primarily designed to aid the University Extension Movement throughout Great Britain and America, and to supply the need, so widely felt by students, of Text-books for study and reference, in connection with the authorised Courses of Lectures.

Volumes dealing with separate departments of Literature, Science, Art, and History have been assigned to representative literary men, to University Professors, or to Extension Lecturers connected with Oxford, Cambridge, London, or the Universities of Scotland and Ireland.

The Manuals are not intended for purposes of Elementary Education, but for students who have made some advance in the subject dealt with. The statement of details is meant to illustrate the working of general laws, and the development of principles; while the historical evolution of the subject dealt with is kept in view, along with its philosophical significance.

The remarkable success which has attended University Extension in Britain has been partly due to the combination of scientific treatment with popularity, and to the union of simplicity with thoroughness. This movement, however, can only reach those resident in the larger centres of population, while all over the country there are thoughtful persons who desire the same kind of teaching. It is for them also that this Series is designed. Its aim is to supply the general reader with the same kind of teaching as is given in the Lectures, and to reflect the spirit which has characterised the movement, viz. the combination of principles with facts, and of methods with results.

The Manuals are also intended to be contributions to the Literature of the Subjects with which they respectively deal, quite apart from University Extension; and some of them will be found to meet a general rather than a special want.