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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVII. No. 425 



routine of lecture, syllabus-reading-, exercise, and class goes 

 on for a period of twelve weeks. There is then an "exam- 

 ination'' in the work of the course held for students who de- 

 sire to take it. Certificates are given by the university, but 

 it is an important arrangement that these certificates are 

 awarded jointly on the result of the weekly exercises and the 

 final examination. 



The subjects treated have been determined by the demand. 

 Literature stands at the head in popularity; history, with 

 economy, is but little behind. AU the physical sciences have 

 been freely asked for. Art constitutes a department of work; 

 but it is art-appreciation, not art-production. The movement 

 has no function to train artists, but to make audiences and 

 visitors to art-galleries more intelligent. It will be observed 

 that the great study known as "classics" is not mentioned 

 in this list; but it is an instructive fact that a considerable 

 number of the courses in literature have been on subjects of 

 Greek and Latin literature treated in English, and some of 

 these have been at once the most successful in numbers and 

 the most technical in treatment. I am not without hope that 

 our English university extension may re act upon our Eng- 

 lish universities, and correct the vicious conception of classi- 

 cal studies which gives to the great mass of university men a 

 more or less scholarly hold upon ancient languages, without 

 any interest whatever in ancient literatures. 



This university extension method claims to be an advance 

 on existing systems, partly because under no circumstances 

 does it ever give lectures unaccompanied by a regular plan of 

 reading and exercises for students. These exercises, more- 

 over, are designed, not for mental drill, but for stimulus to 

 original work. The association of students with a general 

 audience is a gain to both parties. Many persons follow 

 regularly the instruction of the class who have not partici- 

 pated in the exercises. Moreover, the students, by their con- 

 nection with the popular audience, are saved from the 

 academic bias which is the besetting sin of teachers: more 

 human interest is drawn into the study. The same effect 

 follows from the miscellaneous character of the students who 

 contribute exercises. High university graduates, experts in 

 special pursuits, deeply cultured individuals who have never 

 before had any field in which to exhibit the fruits of their 

 culture, as well as persons whose spelling and writing would 

 pass muster nowhere else, or casual visitors from the world 

 of business, or young men and women fresh from school, or 

 even children writing in round text, — all these classes may 

 be represented in a single week's work; and the papers sent 

 in will vary in elaborateness from a scrawl on a post-card to 

 a magazine article or treatise. I have received an exercise of 

 such a character that the student considerately furnished me 

 with' an index. I remember one longer still, but, as this 

 hailed from a lunatic-asylum, I will quote it only for illus- 

 trating the diversity of the spheres reached by the movement. 

 Study participated in by such diverse classes cannot but have 

 an all-roundness, which is to teachers and students one of 

 the main attractions of the movement. 



But we shall be expected to judge our system by results; 

 and, so far as the unit courses are concerned, we have every 

 reason to be satisfied. Very few persons fail in our final 

 examinations; and yet examiners report that the standard in 

 university extension is substantially the same as that in the 

 universities, our pass students being on a par with pass men 

 in the universities, our students of " distinction " reaching 

 the standard of honors schools. Personally I attach high 

 importance to results which can never be expressed in sta- 

 tistics. We are in a position to assert that a successful 



course perceptibly influences the tone of a locality for the 

 period it lasts. Librarians volunteer reports of an entirely 

 changed demand for books, and we have even assurances 

 that the character of conversation at "five o'clock teas " has 

 undergone marked alteration. I may be permitted an anec- 

 dote illustrating the impression made upon the universities 

 themselves. I once heard a brilliant university lecturer, 

 who had had occasional experience of extension teaching, 

 describe a course of investigation which had interested him. 

 With an eye to business, I asked him if he would not give 

 it in an extension course. He became grave. " Well, no," 

 he replied, " I have nol thought it out sufficiently for that;" 

 and when he saw my look of surprise, he added, " Tou 

 know, any thing goes down in college; but when I have to 

 face your mature classes, I must know my ground well " I 

 believe the impression thus suggested is not uncommon 

 among experts who really know tlie movement. 



Our results ai'e much less satisfactory when we turn to the 

 other side of our system, and inquire as to curriculum. It 

 must be admitted that the larger part of our local centres can 

 only take unit courses. There may be often a considerable 

 inte. val between one course and another; or, where courses 

 are taken regularly, the necessity of meeting popular interest 

 involves a distracting variety of subjects; while an appre- 

 ciable portion of our energies have to be taken up with pre- 

 liminary half-courses, rather intended to illustrate the work- 

 ing of the movement than as possessing any high educational 

 value. The most important advance from the unit course is 

 the affiliation system of Cambridge University. By this a 

 town that becomes regularly affiliated has arranged for it a 

 series of unit courses, put together upon proper sequence of 

 educational topics, and covering some three or four years. 

 Students satisfying the lecturers and examiners in this ex- 

 tended course are recognized as " students affiliated " (S.A.), 

 and can at any time enter the university with the status of 

 second year's men, the local work being accepted in place of 

 one year's residence and study. Apart from this, the steps 

 in our educational ladder other than the first are still in the 

 stage of prophecy. But it is universally recognized that 

 this drawback is a matter solely of funds. Once let the 

 movement command endowment, and the localities will cer- 

 tainly demand the wider curriculum that the universities are 

 only too anxious to supply. 



The third point in our definition was that the movement 

 was to be organised on a basis of itinerant teachers. This 

 differentiates university extension from local colleges, from 

 correspondence teaching, and from the systems of which Chau- 

 tauqua is the type. The chief function of a university is to 

 teach, and university extension must stand or fall with its 

 teachers. It may or may not be desirable on other grounds 

 to multiply universities; but there is no necessity for it on 

 grounds of popular education, the itinerancy being a suffi- 

 cient means of bringing any university into touch with the 

 people as a whole. And the adoption of such a system 

 seems to be a natural step in the evolution of universities. 

 In the middle ages the whole body of those who sought a 

 liberal education were to be found crowded into the limits of 

 university towns, where alone were teachers to listen to, and 

 manuscripts to copy. The population of such university 

 centres then numbered hundreds where to-day it numbers 

 tens. The first university extension was the invention of 

 printing, which sent the books itinerating through the coun- 

 try, and reduced to a fraction the actual attendance at the 

 university, while it vastly increased the circle of the edu- 

 cated. The time has now come to send teachers to follow the 



