14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



versity extension. We should then be committed as a people in 

 very practice to what we now profess only in theory, to the en- 

 lightenment and elevation of the whole nation. There are doubt- 

 less difficulties and objections in the way of carrying out the sug- 

 gestion here brought forward ; but, when the evidence for and 

 against is duly considered, I believe that the balance will be 

 found much in favor of such a nationalization of the extension 

 movement. 



As I set down in formal order these statements concerning the 

 achievements and potentialities of university extension, I feel 

 again the deep enthusiasm which was aroused by a first acquaint- 

 ance with that large idea for which the movement stands. The 

 attempt to realize this idea has had mixed with it somewhat that 

 was unworthy. There has been a manifest tendency to estimate 

 its worth by the common American standard of numbers. That 

 thousands should listen to a popular extension lecturer was count- 

 ed success ; and men have gone into the work for the admitted 

 purpose of advertising themselves and their branches. But these 

 are the accidents of the movement. Under them there is an es- 

 sential principle, a working idea, which has in it immense 

 promise. 



As a people we greatly need the leaven of a higher purpose. 

 The ideal of life most current has in it much that is sordid and 

 mercenary. Here is an opportunity to present a more worthy 

 ideal, to substitute for the popular self-assertion a spirit of greater 

 teachableness. We have not yet reached a point where we can 

 impose our ideas upon the world-spirit, however vaingloriously 

 we may try. They are not worthy. They must needs be reno- 

 vated and transformed before they deserve permanence. The 

 greatest claim which the extension movement can have upon 

 thoughtful people is that it is an organized crusade against that 

 current Philistinism which devotes the social opportunity known 

 as America to lower motives and ends than are worthy of it. It 

 is a mistake to suppose for an instant that the public schools of 

 the country will ever save us from the utterly commonplace, or to 

 fancy that the higher education is an expensive luxury which we 

 can quite as well do without. On the contrary, it is just as much 

 a necessity as the elementary training. It is essential to have 

 good foundations, but, if we all went to building cellars and 

 stopped there, we should never have any cities. We need the 

 higher education in America, and we need it in large measure, for 

 we are a people with a large opportunity. And we need it par- 

 ticularly now, for the grave problems which press upon us for so- 

 lution will demand a tolerance and large-mindedness which come 

 only when the human spirit is well disciplined. We have here a 

 great and busy people, but a people too unimaginative and too 



