Fortunately the professoriate was of one mind on this question, and their unanimity was not without influence on the policy of the College. They recognized, of course, that there is no necessary antagonism between the two aims. Both should be developed pari passu: that is a condition demanded by modern necessities. It is the essential and characteristic feature of the higher education of the present time. The difficulty was to give practical effect to these views under the restrictions imposed by the financial circumstances of the College. But the fact that the Staff held them and not only gave expression to them, but sought to realize them so far as lay in their limited power secured for the Professors the appreciation and confidence of the governing body, and ultimately obtained for them a responsible share in its counsels.
In the first few years of its existence several circumstances conspired to enhance the public reputation of the College and to consolidate its position. In its second session the teaching staff received a great accession to its strength by the appointment of Mr. Louis C. Miall as Lecturer in, and afterwards as Professor of Biology. Mr. Miall had already established a reputation as a man of science, as an able and attractive lecturer and a sound and experienced teacher. He brought to the aid of his colleagues a wise judgment and a knowledge of local conditions which under the special circumstances proved most helpful. His appointment at this period was not without its significance as an indication of the broad and liberal views which the majority of the Council entertained as to the scope and functions of the College. It was a wise policy to attach to its fortunes all who could in any way serve its true interests, whether in teaching, in enlisting public sympathy, or in the management of its affairs.
At the beginning of the following session (1876) the professors, who had now formed themselves into an Academic Board holding regular meetings in order to discuss the educational affairs of the College, addressed a memorandum to the Council inviting them to consider the advisability of extending the curriculum so as to include Literature and Classics. They pointed out that they had frequent applications from students for advice as to obtaining the degrees of the University of London, or as to complying with the requirements for open science scholarships at the other Universities, but that, as at present constituted, the College was unable to afford the necessary facilities. They were of opinion that if the College were in a position to enable the students to obtain the science degrees of the University of London its usefulness would be considerably increased, and the wider curriculum might be expected to result in an augmentation of the yearly entry. The Council, on the whole, were not indisposed to consider the suggestion benevolently, but they regretted they were unable to take any action from lack of funds. The matter, however, was not allowed to drop. At that time Mr. Stuart and his syndicate at Cambridge were busy in their attempts to spread culture among the hives of industry, and their missionaries were at work in Leeds under the auspices of a committee of which the late Bishop of Truro (Dr. Gott), then Vicar of Leeds, and the late Sir Edward Baines, one of the truest and most zealous friends the College ever possessed, were active members. These gentlemen approached the governing body with a view of ascertaining whether some arrangement might not be possible whereby the work initiated by the University Extension Movement could be conducted by the College in a more systematic and permanent manner than hitherto, and they undertook on behalf of the Committee to be responsible, for a term of years, for a considerable proportion of the money that would be required to give effect to the suggestion. The result of the negotiation was the establishment of Chairs of Classical Literature and History, and Modern Literature and History, which were filled, respectively, by the appointment of Professor John Marshall, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford, afterwards Rector of the High School, Edinburgh, a distinguished classic, and author of an English rendering of the “Odes and Epodes of Horace,” “Xenophon Memorabilia,” and other works; and Professor F. S. Pulling, B.A. (Oxon). This enlargement of the educational work of the College necessitated a slight but significant change in its designation: henceforward it became known simply as the Yorkshire College until it was raised to the rank of a university, when it took the name of the town in which it was situated.
The executive of the College now publicly expressed their conviction that there is no good reason against grouping in one institution the studies belonging to liberal culture, and systematic instruction in scientific and artistic principles and methods as applied to staple industries.
An event of hardly less importance in public estimation at this period was the purchase of a considerable fraction of the site upon which the handsome and extensive buildings of the University now stand. The decision to take this step was one of the most momentous departures in the history of the institution, and the writer well remembers how seriously and with what anxiety it was discussed by the small body which assembled in the office of the legal adviser to the College to confer with the Chairman of its Finance Committee on the subject. Mr. Francis Lupton, who at that period held the office, was an ideal custodian of its financial affairs. No man could be more prudent in their management: at the same time no one realized more fully that an ill-judged parsimony might be the worst form of economy, and that a timely expenditure might be the wisest investment. The two members of the Staff who were present at this interview, with the courage of faith and the enthusiasm of conviction, used their best endeavours to incline him to sanction what everybody who had knowledge of the financial condition of the institution could not but regard as a most onerous obligation. But in the end there was practical unanimity among those present as to the expediency and opportuneness of the step, and the event proved its wisdom.
The foundation-stone of the new College buildings was laid on October 23, 1877, by the Archbishop of York. As architect the Council had secured the services of the late Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., whose experience and success in the erection of Owens College seemed to them the highest possible qualification. By the generosity of the Clothworkers’ Company, who had voted the sum of £10,000 for the purpose, the authorities were enabled to take in hand without further delay the buildings designed for the Textile Industries Department.
The publicity given to these proceedings greatly strengthened the position of the College in the county, and especially in the West Riding. These events were no doubt such as must have come naturally and in the fullness of time, but their advent at this particular juncture was possibly accelerated by the action of Owens College in seeking for university powers. This movement on the part of Manchester had already engaged the attention of the Council of the Yorkshire College and was watched by them with no little apprehension. They realized that it was certain to have an important bearing upon the question of higher education in Yorkshire, both directly and indirectly, and that the future of the Yorkshire College was intimately bound up with it. It was therefore all the more necessary to prove to the world that Yorkshire men, in their own interests, were very much in earnest about their young institution; that they were determined to secure for it the fullest possible freedom of development and to extend and consolidate its position, unhampered by limitations to which it might conceivably be subjected by the presence of a relatively rich and powerful university close to its own area.
In the next chapter we purpose to indicate briefly the steps which led immediately to the foundation of the new university in Manchester and to show how the action of the Yorkshire College resulted in modifying its Constitution as originally contemplated.