It is common currency, when it comes to university extension, start by taking as a starting point "experience” of the University of Oviedo, and its history which, in my view, are: part of the theory, the Free Institution of Education, and in practice, education movements, cultural workers, parallel to the Asturian mining industrialization.

Rafael Altamira, at the opening of the course of Oviedo University Extension (1899), said: "The University Extension includes: conferences that vulgarize the scientific knowledge, artistic and archaeological tours, courses for workers in rural and mining centers, festivals of fraternization between teachers and workers, colony school, school, etc. [...] Not only it tries to give a different answer to the social question, but to raise the domestic level of the University; to educate to be a human rather than a wiseman. "

This work is also a part of those principles, like the other authors in different studies published so far (the model seems to be a valid and accepted), but using them as practice support. It will also discuss the activities from which originated the name, linking them to the points that define the Free Institution of Education (FIE) parael development as necessary elements: the renewal of cultural life, scientific and training the citizen.

The study was conceived as a journey through three centuries of our history, from XVIII to XX, noting the commonalities between the points , we have defined as "university extension" within the different institutions, whether academic or not, and that are related to: the movement of popular education and social education, the extension of scientific or professional education, cultural activities relating to them clearly and the University.

This descriptive tour will allow us to know the activities that have been developed these days, considering its concomitants and analyzing in them in their historical evolution.