98 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 812 



for 1900, ascribes the establishment and 

 spread of those summer assemblies, which 

 were the forerunners of the summer schools 

 of Harvard, Virginia, Wisconsin, and 

 many other state universities, to the influ- 

 ence of the old Lyceum and says further, 

 "It is no secret that the summer schools 

 of Oxford and Cambridge were suggested 

 by American experience." 



Correspondence-study, a method of pop- 

 ular education which has in the past de- 

 cade become an increasingly important 

 feature of university extension teaching, 

 was used in Chautauqua teaching as early 

 as 1878. It is interesting to note in pass- 

 ing that this method under the titla 

 "Printed Lectures" was used in England 

 in 1887, nine years later than its introduc- 

 tion by Chautauqua. These lectures are 

 sent to remote and isolated students and 

 were accompanied by lists of searching 

 and suggestive questions similar to those 

 which form an important feature of the 

 more modern correspondence-study. 



Chautauqua, like the Lyceum, has been 

 useful in spreading university influences. 

 Its summer schools are conducted chiefly 

 by college professors, who for many years 

 continued the instruction throughout the 

 year by correspondence. At one time it 

 was possible for the Chautauqua student 

 to aspire by this means even to a college 

 degree, the power of its granting being 

 vested in the University of the State of 

 New York. This privilege was withdrawn, 

 however, when other means for home study 

 became more generally available. 



The English system of university exten- 

 sion was first fully presented to an Ameri- 

 can audience by Professor Herbert B. 

 Adams, of Johns Hopkins University, who 

 delivered an address upon this subject at a 

 regular meeting of the American Library 

 Association in September, 1887. Mr. 

 Adams's address awakened prompt and 



fruitful interest among those who were 

 gathered at this conference, and an im- 

 mediate result was the introduction of 

 some extension work under the auspices 

 of public libraries in Buffalo, Chicago and 

 St. Louis. 



Four months later, in January, 1888, 

 Mr. Melvil Dewey, then librarian of Co- 

 lumbia University, addressed the regents 

 of the University of the State of New 

 York, and in July of the same year and 

 again one year later, university convoca- 

 tions, advocating the introduction of uni- 

 versity extension teaching in connection 

 with the public library work of New York. 

 In 1890 a committee of New York colleges 

 and universities urged the regents of the 

 University of the State of New York to 

 introduce university extension as a part 

 of the state university system of education. 



In the same year, 1890, Philadelphia 

 organized the American Society for the 

 Extension of University Teaching and sent 

 Mr. George Henderson, its first secretary, 

 to England to study methods. This so- 

 ciety was and is quite independent of uni- 

 versity patronage, being supported by 

 private contributions. Upon Mr. Hender- 

 son's return from England one center was 

 organized and in the course of the follow- 

 ing six months no less than twenty-three 

 were under way. 



The spring of 1891 brought the first 

 state appropriation for the organization of 

 university extension. This was in the 

 state of New York and the sum appropri- 

 ated was $10,000 to be used for organiza- 

 tion, printing and supervision. Mr. 

 Dewey's report to the regents of the uni- 

 versity remarks : 



The university extension law met witli opposi- 

 tion from the legislature till the clause was added 

 providing that in working out a system in which 

 one great essential was lectures, no money sliould 

 be paid to lecturers. Thus the opponents were 

 willing to have the play of Hamlet if the Prince 



