earnest, independent purpose that brings
these men into the class-rooms, animates
them throughout their attendance. They
mean work, and they do work. We understand
that there is literal truth in the assertion
that, since the evening classes at King's
College were established, no lecturer has
once been met with inattention, or has
received from any student even the most
insignificant discourtesy. Classes of this character
offer, of course, an Elysium to the
teacher. All their professors and lecturers
testify that the work refreshes and enlivens
them, that they go out of the lecture-room less
weary than they were when they went into it.
And well they may do that. For it is no light
pleasure to the lecturer, to be in fellowship with
eager and warm hearts of men who, in the first
years of their responsible manhood surround
him with inquiries of the road they are to
travel, asking for this or that little viaticum
of knowledge. Within the circle of their
friendly eyes, earning only too easily their
friendship and their thanks—for an Englishman,
we firmly believe, is in his youth of
all beings by nature the most generous and
trustful—you have a pleasant seat beside a
fresher spring than the Blandusian fountain.

At this time last year, after two years'
experience of the working of this enterprise,
there was held in the college library a
soirée of the members of the evening classes,
at which announcement was made of a
further development of the new system. The
classes were brought into complete union
with the general work of the college. Not
only were students entering to four evening
courses, entitled to matriculate as students of
King's College, but there was given to them
the right of competing with matriculated
students of the other regular departments
for the three open scholarships and the four
open prizes. There was then also established
in the evening classes an examination in
each class for prizes and certificates at the
close of the session. Such examinations
were accordingly held at the close of the
courses then current, and the prizes were
distributed by the Bishop of London; who
then first became acquainted with the real
character of the work that had been done,
It was always a pleasant thing, he said,
to gain new ideas; and, though in the course
of his life he had had a good deal to do with
education, yet he must declare that what had
been brought under his notice that night had
given him new ideas on the subject. He had
long known that there were efforts making
in various places, by means of evening lectures,
to enable those who were busily
engaged during the day to redeem a portion of
their time for the purposes of mental culture,
but it had always appeared to him that but
little could be done, because the knowledge
imparted was not sufficiently systematised.
Here, however, he saw not only young men
assembling together to listen to lectures, but
that the lecturers assumed a new character,
and approached to the position of tutors
rather than of professors, the classes
submitting to examination, the fruits of which
had been brought under their notice that
evening.

In the first year of these evening classes
the energy of some supporters gave them
an appearance of extraordinary success.
Influence from without on the part of
employers, and a belief then prevalent that
Government promotion was to be earned in
competition by those men who had most
knowledge, brought many to the evening
classes which are now subjected to no such
pressure. The London and Westminster
Bank sent forty or fifty gentlemen to profit
by the lectures of Professor Leone Levi, on
Commercial Law. Since the first year,
however, there has been only the pure desire for
better knowledge acting on the men
themselves to bring them to the lecture-rooms,
and the figures naturally showed an apparent,
though slight, decrease of attendance. The
artificial success of the first year is, however,
far surpassed by the real success of the classes
of the present session. There are always
many fresh entries for attendance during
the term that begins after the Christmas
holidays; we have obtained, therefore, the
numbers which alone can express fairly the
recent progress of the effort we are here
describing. Before Christmas, last year,
there were a hundred and thirty-two men in
attendance on the evening classes in King's
College, and of these twelve were matriculated
students in attendance on four courses.
Before Christmas, this year, there are two
hundred and nine men in attendance, of
whom three-and-thirty are matriculated and
attending on four courses. Last year the
average attendance upon lectures was of a
class and a quarter to each person entering.
This year, there is an average attendance of
each man upon two classes. So that not only
do many more come to be helped, but those who
come ask also for more help than heretofore.

For the full meeting of every fresh demand
upon them, all who are concerned in the
management of the classes frequently take
counsel together. At this time, the great
increase of the numbers in attendance leads
to a complete consideration of the adjustment
of the teaching to the wants of those who
come. There is a strong desire to establish,
not a mere routine of education, but a system
with life in it; having a quick power of
adapting itself as perfectly as may be to
every change in its internal conditions. At
the bottom of all, there is a vigorous
determination to receive every student entering,
whether to one class, or to more—not as an
unit in a sum of which the total only is
regarded, but as an individual, with powers and
wishes of his own—who is entitled to as
much direct help as it can be made possible
to give. Pains are taken to give to the