(3-5) "On the Organization and Extension of the
Universities—Three Letters"
Bagehot first expressed his views on the universities in mid-Victorian
Britain in the essay which he published two years before this series of
letters: "Oxford," Prospective Review, VIII (August, 1852),
347-392. That essay was a commentary on the Royal Commission report on
Oxford, a commission established by Lord John Russell; the letters
represent Bagehot's response to Lord John's bill which sprang from the
report, and gave him an opportunity not only to repeat his remarks on the
nature and function of universities in a complex, modern society, but also
to recapitulate his ideas on the organization and administration of these
institutions. Not surprisingly, then, we find in the letters passages which
closely parallel remarks in the essay. And Bagehot being Bagehot, we not
surprisingly also find in the letters something of the humour which enlivens
the essay and other writings.