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(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.
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