20 MARCH 1897, Page 17

THE WORKING MEN'S COLLEGE, GREAT ORMOND STREET.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

Sin,—Since your pages are likely beyond others to be read by those in England and America who revere the memory of Frederick Denison Maurice and are imbued with something of his spirit, will you kindly allow me to tell them that one of his most fruitful works is in danger of declining from want of the power to advance ? He, with Thomas Hughes and others, founded the Working Men's College in Great Ormond Street in order to vindicate for all the right to an education based not on class, but on citizenship, and to vindicate for education its due connection with corporate spirit and social life. The College, which has risen from one hundred and thirty students at its opening in 1854 to an average of eleven hundred class entries in the October term, has outgrown its accommodation, while it is bound no less by duty than by competition to meet the continually increasing requirements of modern education. We want more and larger class-rooms, a chemical laboratory, a museum with proper fittings, a gymnasium. and more paid teaching, though we by no means intend to abandon the unpaid work which maintains our tie with the Universities and our own old students. Our own property in Great Ormond Street furnishes ground enough ; £15,000 would furnish the necessary Building and Maintenance Fund. For this sum an appeal has been issued, with the name of the Principal, Sir John Lubbock, at the head of the signatures. May we not hope for that not very large amount, to perpetuate one of the best influences which have been exerted in our time, and to which the working men of London have so well responded that their very efflux causes our difficulty?— Thanking you for the hospitality of your journal, I am, Sir, &c.,