British universities [antikvár]

BRITISH UNIVERSITIES i. THE DISTRIBUTION OF BRITISH UNIVERSITIES A little over a century ago, at the end of the Napoleonic wars, there were only two Universities in England (the old Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which go back to the year 1200) ; there was none in Wales; there were already four in Scotland, as there still are four to-day ; there was one in Ireland, at Dublin. To-day there are eleven Universities in England ; there is a federal University in Wales, with four constituent colleges ; there are still the four Universities of Scotland, but they are greatly increased in size; and there is a University in Northern Ireland, at Belfast, over and above the two Universities which now exist in the rest of Ireland, or Eire, which became a self-governing Dominion in 1922. It will be seen that the great increase in the number of Universities has come about in England ; and it has come about very recently—indeed we may almost say that it belongs to the twentieth century. Seven of the eleven English Universities (Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Reading, and Sheffield) all date, in their present form, from 1900 or afterwards, though several of them had an earlier nucleus in the shape of ' University colleges' ; but even that nucleus was in no case earlier than 1850. The only English Universities, other than Oxford and Cambridge, which go back to the nineteenth century, are the Universities of Durham and London ; and even these, in their present form, belong to the twentieth century, for Durham, founded in 1832, was reconstituted in 1908, and London, founded in 1836, was reconstituted in 1900. England is thus very largely a home of what may be called ' Universities of the Twentieth Century'. The federal University of Wales is almost equally modern. It was founded as recently as 1893 ; but three of its four constituent colleges—one in the North, one in the centre, and two in the South of Wales—had a slightly earlier origin. The four Universities of Scotland—Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St. Andrews—have a very much greater antiquity. Three of them go back as far as the fifteenth century ; and the fourth and most recent—the University of Edinburgh— was founded by the Edinburgh Town Council as long ago as 1583. The Queen's University of Northern Ireland, in the city of Belfast, became a University as recently as 1909, though the college from which it developed was as old as 1849. It is a curious thing that in England, an old and traditional country, the bulk of the Universities should be so recent and novel. It ceases to be so 7