MR THOMAS HOLLOWAY'S MUNIFICENCE.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1968, 26 April 1875, Page 3

MR THOMAS HOLLOWAY'S MUNIFICENCE.

The Manchester Guardian's London correspondent writes :-—" A scheme for the Education of Women has been undertaken by a private gentleman on a scale which I believe to be unprecedented in either this or any other country. After building' a sanitarium for the insane at a cost, if I remember rightly, of more than £150,000, Mr Holloway, the maker of a well-known patent medicine, has embarked upon a much greater and more important project. He has purchased for gome £25,000 the Mount Lee estate, at Bgham, and. on this he" purposes to erect an enormous building, to be called a ladies' university. More accurately described, it will be a college for the education of women. The institution is intended to accomodate 400 students, under at least twenty professors, and will hold the same relation to the higher education of women as do the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge to the education of men. The place^will not have any chartar, and students will be prepared for the Cambridge examinations, tfor will there be any endowment beyond the rents to be produced from the building land of the estate on which the university will be erected. Though the scheme of Government—like many of the details—is not yet developed, I shall be accurate in stating that tbe control of the place will be vested in a board of governors; and it is hoped that the assistance just referred to, the pupils'fees, will be sufficient to make the place self-supporting, It is intended that the instruction shall be of the highest kind that can be obtained, and the

fees willbc as low a& that object willpermit. There will be no effort to work the place for a money profit. Though the clerical element may not be entirely absent, it will be far less prominent than at Oxford or Cambridge, and the education will be almost exclusively secular. The scheme is not sufficiently ripe for the selection of professors but I understand that Mr Fawcett, M. P., is one of Mr Holloway's chiet adviser, in this undertaking, so that those who are likely to avail themselves of its benefits may rest assured of a good choice of instruction. The size of the building will give our readers some idea of the magnitude of Mr Holloway's undertaking. It will be built in the style of tbe French Renaissance, and c ( onsists,of one great quadrangle 550 ft. by 400ffc., having projecting wings. The library, the large lecture-room, and the dining-hall will each b® 100 ft. long by 40ft. w%, and the chapel will be 140 ft. by 40it.; and 60ft. high. There will also be thirty-six class-rooms, each 24ft. by 20ft., and three dormitories each 120 ft. by 40ft. Each of the latter will be divided into single rooms 14ft. by 12ft. I can only state the estimated cost of this great scheme in general terms, but I should think that it will be quite £200,000."