none of the advantages attendant upon union
with a college. There are evening lectures
given to the Young Men's Christian Association;
but these do not attempt systematic
instruction, or the formation of classes in
which there can be established any close
personal relations between those who teach
and those whom they are teaching. Mr.
Maurice's Working Men's College, in
Great Ormond Street, is a true college
by gaslight. It led the way to broader
views of the nature of an university,
widened the field of labour for the highest
class of teachers and demonstrated how
possible it is to do good work outside the
pale of old collegiate prejudices. The Working
Men's College happily prospers. It
is admitted into union with the University
of London, and it is doing noble service to
society. The evening classes at King's
College were not designed to occupy its ground,
and are not occupying it. They offer help to
a distinct section of students; which includes
chiefly the sons of persons in the middle rank
of life, who are compelled to begin for
themselves early in life, at the office desk or
elsewhere, the toil for a livelihood. Into a clerkship
in a government office it is desirable to
enter while still young; and there are not a
few ways in which an abrupt stop may be
put to the training of youths who have
received, with little or no stint, up to a certain
point, the usual middle-class school education.
They form a community in which there is
contained a large number of young men who
are at the level of the general public in
intelligence, and whose intelligence, helped by
their share of schooling, has enabled them to
create for themselves, with information picked
up on the roads of life, unsorted heaps of
knowledge. They have, in very many cases,
excellent capacity and great desire for learning
steadily and systematically what, until
within these last few years, there was nobody
in London offering to teach at hours when
they could learn. It is chiefly for this class
of students that King's College has become
an evening college; but it aims also in every
possible way to regard the individual
requirements of each man who comes in search
of help. The fees asked from the students
are in moderate accordance with their means;
but are beyond the means of working men.
The greater part of the instruction given to
them is based on the understanding that they
come prepared with an average amount of
preliminary education not to be expected of
the working man, and that they bring with
them a readiness in the use of their wits that
it must often take the working man at least
a twelvemonth's training to acquire. Thus
it occasionally happens that a young man
earnestly desirous to improve his education,
but below the common level of his class in
general ability, finding that evening lectures
at King's College put too great a strain upon
his power, goes to Great Ormond Street, and,
in the Working Men's College obtains the
facilities that he wants. It is always
desired to help also the brave efforts of such
students as these, and for that purpose the
teachers not seldom impose extra labour on
themselves. The want of their class,
however, is the particular system and tone of
instruction that King's College offers, carefully
tempered and adjusted in accordance with
experience obtained among the men
themselves.

The evening lectures at King's College,
whatever may be the class of students more
especially appealed to, are open to all comers
who believe that they can profit by them all,
or by any single course. There is no
exclusion; no question of rank or of religious
creed. The theological instruction given in
these classes is not imposed on anybody. It
consists of a weekly lecture by the Divinity
Professor, on the Wednesday evening which
is otherwise, like Saturday, a holiday in all
the classes. This course of lectures none are
required, but all students of the other classes
are invited, to attend, exempt from the small
fee payable by those who happen not to be
attending any other class. The subject of
the lectures never has been technical or
controversial. They have, hitherto, followed
the course of Church History from year to
year, beginning with the Gospel History,
passing on to the History of the Apostolic
Church, and now dwelling upon Church
History from the second to the end of the sixth
centuries. They are evenings with Tertullian,
Clement, Origen, descriptions of the
rise of monasticism, the age of councils, the
last struggle of heathenism, the beginning of
Mohammedanism, the careers of Chrysostom,
Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great.
Substantial knowledge of this kind is given freely
and is freely sought. The interest shown in
the current course is great, for there are
seventy or eighty students in attendance
on it.

The general subjects of instruction in these
evening classes correspond with the usual
course of college education. Latin is taught
and the students of Latin are arranged in
two divisions. The lower of these works at
grammar, elementary exercises, and a piece
of Virgil; the upper is now reading books of
Cicero and Horace. Of the Greek class also
there are two divisions; one engaged on
grammar and delectus, and the other upon
Xenophon and Homer. It is worthy of notice
that there is, in these classes, a tendency to
increase of attendance; while there are
symptoms of a decrease of regard for German
literature, though that class (also in two divisions)
is in the hands of a teacher who is very popular
and skilful. The French class is a large and
increasing one, taught in three divisions. The
lowest of them is engaged upon elementary
grammar and exercises, reading and translation
out of French. The middle division
works at grammar, reading, idiom, conversation,