The development of lifelong education in England has been slow due to the dualist educational philosophy characteristic of the English middle and upper classes. The two governing characteristics of British adult education have been its predominant concentration of provision for the working classes and its preoccupation with the liberalizing role of adult education to the exclusion of its role as an instrument of social and occupational mobility. Substituting "education for adults" for "adult education"--to include all learning activities adults engage in--would lessen the confusion and prejudices associated with the latter term. The shift of public educational provision toward the adult life-span for both basic and continuing education is likely to continue. But the expected expansion in education will be financially supportable only if the cost to the public purse is reduced, either by fees provided by users or by reducing the non-educational content of educational expenditure. Continuing education has become necessary because of: (1) the expansion of educational opportunities at the basic and initial training stages of life; (2) the scientific and technological revolution; and (3) the increase of leisure and the associated increase in material standards of living. The Adult Education Department at Manchester University has two objectives: (1) to develop an anthropocentric approach to the education of adults in its teaching and research; and (2) to place adult education centrally within educational policy and practice as a whole. (KM)