Ruskin gave his first lecture at Oxford on February 8, 1870. It had been announced for the Theatre in the Museum, but long before the appointed hour the room was so densely crowded, and there were so many disappointed of admission, that Acland begged the audience to adjourn, with the lecturer at their head, to the Sheldonian Theatre—the place where, thirty-one years before, he had recited his prize poem. There had been no such scene in Oxford since 1841, when Dr. Arnold gave his inaugural lecture as Professor of Modern History. The attendance remained very large, though Ruskin declined to repeat the experiment of lecturing in so large a room. At various times he made efforts to exclude the ladies, who threatened, by their greater pertinacity, to oust the University men, and many of his subsequent courses were delivered twice—first to the University, and then to a general audience.

The Inaugural Lectures were published shortly after their delivery by the Clarendon Press. Ruskin not unjustly regarded these Lectures on Art as being one of his principal works. On the general topics treated in Lectures i.–iv.— the place of art in University education,