The origins of Continuing Education in Montreal universities are interesting and very much a part of McGill's own history.
"Extension" and "extra-mural" education, as continuing education was once described, started as off-campus courses intended for the community at large and developed with the community's needs in mind.
In the early 1800s Professors Alexander Skakel and A.F. Holmes, both affiliated with McGill College, began offering "experimental lectures" in chemistry, in Skakel's home. The earliest official reference to true continuing education courses can be found in McGill's 1853 prospectus in a statement that read, in part: "by which young men in business may attend the College sessions as their other engagements will allow and thus complete a University course and be entitled to rank with its other graduates."
As the demand for continuing education grew, "extension", "extra-mural", and "adult education" courses became more readily available. In 1899, McGill University first introduced summer school for regular McGill daytime students, providing off-session regular program classes administered by the university's Extension program.