ABSTRACT
IT is not easy to divide the later history of English adult education into chronological periods. The modern movement belongs to the twentieth century, but it has its roots in the century before; and the forces which stimulated it into growth belong also to the later years of the nineteenth century. Yet it is not until the present century that it is possible to speak of an adult education movement; in the previous century, there had been more or less isolated experiments. As far as can be seen, there were no new elements to account for this new, more vigorous, and more purposive growth. Lectures for the people were characteristic of many organizations before the beginnings of University Extension and there were even full-time lecturers serving Mechanics’ Institutes. Discussion groups were a familiar feature of working men’s societies throughout the century, and they had their earlier prototype in the Methodist class meetings, while Canon Barnett had clearly foreshadowed the later tutorial class. 1 University men had taken part in working-class education before University Extension or the Workers’ Educational Association were thought of. Popular movements to provide libraries antedated by many decades the more organized efforts of the later period. It might be claimed that previous experiments had remained as isolated local ventures and for that reason could not give rise to a national movement in the modern sense. But Mechanics’ Institutes in certain regions of the North had come together in Unions of Institutes. The Society of Arts provided an important although not an organic link between the various Institutes and other societies which catered for the further education of adults; and the revived Adult Schools of the second half of the were organically linked with the Adult
