Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/654

648 to classes of the community against which they had formerly been closed. But meanwhile the growing desire for higher education—a result of the gradual improvement in elementary and secondary training—was creating new institutions of various kinds. The earliest of these arose while access to Oxford and Cambridge was still restricted. The University of Durham was established in 1833. In 1836 the University of London, as an examining and degree-giving body, received its first charter. A series of important colleges, giving education of a university type, arose in the greater towns of England and Wales. The next step was the formation of federal universities. The Victoria University, in which the Colleges of Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds were associated, received its charter in 1880. The Colleges of Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff were federated in the University of Wales, which dates from 1893. The latest development has been the institution of the great urban universities. The foundation of the University of Birmingham hastened an event which other causes had already prepared. The federal Victoria University has been replaced by three independent universities, those of Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds. Lastly, a charter has recently been granted to the University of Sheffield. Then the University of London has been reconstituted; it is no longer only an examining board; it is also a teaching university, comprising a number of recognized schools in and around London. Thus in England and Wales there are now no fewer than ten teaching universities. Among the newer institutions there are some varieties of type. But, so far as the new universities in great cities are concerned, it may be said that they are predominantly scientific, and also that they devote special attention to the needs of practical life, professional, industrial and commercial; while at the same time they desire to maintain a high standard of general education. It may be observed that in some points these universities have taken hints from the four ancient universities of Scotland—which themselves have lately undergone a process of temperate reform. The Scottish universities are accessible to every class of the community; and the success with which they have helped to mold the intellectual life of a people traditionally zealous for education renders their example instructive for the younger institutions. With reference to the provision made by the newer universities for studies bearing on practical life, it should be remarked that much has been done in the same direction by the two older universities also. At Cambridge, for example, degrees can be taken in economics and associated branches of political science; in mechanism and applied mechanics, and in agricultural sciences. It certainly can not now be said that the old universities neglect studies which are of direct utility, though they rightly insist that the basis and method of such studies shall be liberal.