r fall
with its teachers. It may or may not be desirable on other grounds to
multiply universities; but there is no necessity for it on grounds of
popular education, the itinerancy being a sufficient means of bringing
any university into touch with the people as a whole. And the adoption
of such a system seems to be a natural step in the evolution of
universities. In the middle ages the whole body of those who sought a
liberal education were to be found crowded into the limits of university
towns, where alone were teachers to listen to and manuscripts to copy:
the population of such university centres then numbered hundreds where
to-day it numbers tens. The first university extension was the
invention of printing, which sent the books itinerating through the
country, and reduced to a fraction the actual attendance at the
university, while it vastly increased the circle of the educated. The
time has now come to send teachers to follow the books: the ideas of the
university being circulated through the country as a whole, while
residence at a university is reserved as the apex only of the university
system.

An itinerancy implies central and local management, and travelling
lecturers who connect the two. The central management is a university,
or its equivalent; this is responsible for the educational side of the
movement, and negotiates for the supply of its courses of instruction at
a fixed price per course.[53] The local management may be in the hands
of a committee formed for the purpose, or of some local
institution--such as a scientific or literary club or institute--which
may care to connect itself with the universities. On the local
management devolves the raising funds for the university fee, and for
local expenses, as well as the duty of putting the advantages of the
course offered before the local community. The widest diversity of
practice prevails in reference to modes of raising funds. A considerable
part of the cost will be met by the tickets of those attending the
lectures, the prices of which I have known to vary from a shilling to a
guinea for the unit course, while admission to single lectures has
varied from a penny to half a crown. But all experience goes to show
that only a part of this cost can be met in this way; individual courses
may bring in a handsome profit, but taking account over various terms
and various districts, we find that not more than two-thirds of the
total cost will be covered by