Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/99

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and its Green Border-Land.
85

pendent body; and it has sent out many able preachers and teachers who have made their mark, and a good and deep one. It was first opened in 1838, in the private mansion of the family of George Storer Mansfield, who founded it with certain landed estates he devoted to the object. It soon outgrew its limited and inconvenient accommodation, and a new and noble edifice, larger than any one conected with Harvard University or Vale College in New England, was erected on a beautiful and picturesque site near the village of Moseley, called Spring Hill. The expense of the building, land, and furnishing amounted to about £18,000, raised by the voluntary contributions of friends. It has an able corps of professors, not only of Theology and Ecclesiastical History and Polity, but of Philosophy. Classical and Oriental languages. It supplies studios and dormitories for thirty-six students, and, adopting a figure pertaining to water-works, it acts as a very important feeder to the pulpits of the Independents throughout the kingdom.

The Queen's College, almost facing the Town Hall, is another foundation institution, for which the town is indebted to the munificent generosity and public spirit of Mr. Sands Cox. The building itself is worthy of the object of the College when realized to the full wish and expectation of the founder, a consummation not yet attained.