554 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



VmVERSITY EXTENSION AND TEE 

 STATE. 



THE writer of the able article on 

 university extension which ap- 

 peared in the November Monthly, does 

 well to come forward in the present 

 number and further develop his views 

 as to the best means of securing the suc- 

 cess of the university-extension move- 

 ment. He does not agree with the opin- 

 ion we expressed in the " Table " for 

 November, that the movement in ques- 

 tion should be carried on in entire inde- 

 pendence of Government assistance. He 

 thinks, on the contrary, that, unless the 

 national Government comes to its aid 

 with a grant of money, the work which 

 is proposed " can not be thoroughly or 

 systematically done as regards the coun- 

 try at large " ; and he takes occasion to 

 indicate what he considers to be the true 

 theory of the state. The arguments of 

 our valued contributor, we must say, 

 have not convinced us ; and, consider- 

 ing the importance of the subject, we 

 feel sure that we shall be excused if we 

 say a few more words upon it from our 

 own point of view. 



The university-extension scheme, 

 we must assume, has been called into 

 existence to meet a public demand. 

 Prof. Henderson says : "The work 

 promises to be much too large for pri- 

 vate enterprise." "We interpret this to 

 mean that there is a great and growing 

 interest in the extension movement — 

 that the public are, to an encouraging 

 extent, alive to its importance ; but, if 

 such is the case, instead of saying that 

 the work promises to be "much too 

 large for private enterprise," we should 

 say that private enterprise bids fair to 

 cope most successfully with the work. 

 If public interest has not been awakened 

 in an encouraging degree, we fail to see 

 the force or propriety of the word 

 "promises" as used by Prof. Hender- 



son ; if it has been so awakened, we say, 

 let us wait and see what public interest 

 and private enterprise will do before we 

 dream of asking for a share of the taxes 

 to support the movement. We are 

 strongly of opinion that people should 

 pay for the bread of intellectual life. 

 If they pay for it they will value it, and 

 not scatter it by the roadside, as beg- 

 gars do bread given in alms. There is 

 invariably far more intellectual interest 

 in a class all the members of which pay 

 the full amount of their own fees; the 

 attendance is more regular, the attention 

 is more keen. Every one can verify this 

 from his own experience. A traveling 

 teacher or professor visits a town or vil- 

 lage and offers to teach a class of so 

 many some particular subject at so much 

 a head. If the class is formed, every 

 one, as a rule, does his or her best to 

 get the most out of it. Nobody goes 

 there to trifle, nobody cares to miss a 

 lesson. Now, what university extension 

 has got to do is to offer the people what 

 they want in the way of instruction and 

 invite them to pay for it. If it offers 

 the people what they do not want they 

 will not take it ; and here we see one of 

 the mischiefs of Government interfer- 

 ence. "Why have the old universities of 

 the world been so slow to move out of 

 their ancient ruts, so slow to adapt 

 their teaching to the new requirements 

 of a new age? Simply because they 

 have had large endowments and have 

 been to that extent independent of pub- 

 lic opinion. If a certain subject declined 

 in interest, the university could go on 

 teaching it to all but empty benches. 

 The endowment was there, the chair 

 was provided for, and why should any 

 change be made? Precisely so with our 

 university-extension movement : backed 

 by Government money it would inevita- 

 bly be less swayed by considerations of 

 public utility, and more by the estab- 



