826 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXrV. No. 885 



ever late in life, upon serviceable courses 

 of study. 



It is a question upon which opinions 

 differ, whether or not the university is the 

 source from which extension teaching in 

 its present development should emanate, 

 but so long as there is no other agency pre- 

 pared to do the work, the question admits 

 of an affirmative answer only. 



There is much to be said in favor of a 

 policy which associates with the university 

 the work of extending educational advan- 

 tages to the people in their homes and 

 places of employment. A measure pre- 

 senting such immense possibilities of use- 

 fulness to the whole people, would seem to 

 belong as an organic part to the state edu- 

 cational work. In order to secure perma- 

 nence of establishment and growth, exten- 

 sion teaching must be given assured and 

 liberal support, and for reasons of economy 

 and convenience its central offices should 

 be placed where the resources of the great 

 head of the state system would be available 

 for its use. The value of this association 

 has been demonstrated in the success of 

 agricultural extension, which could not 

 have flourished apart from the agricultural 

 college, whose instructional force, facilities 

 for research and material equipment have 

 been essential to its usefulness. 



Although close affiliation with the resi- 

 dence work of the university is important, 

 this does not imply that extension instruc- 

 tion shall be limited to courses of study of 

 university grade, nor even that it shall con- 

 form necessarily to any conventional sched- 

 ule of studies. The range of extension 

 activities includes not only such courses as 

 entitle the student to credit toward univer- 

 sity or advanced degree, school teacher's 

 diploma or other certified recognition, but 

 also short courses and conferences not lead- 

 ing to a degree, and the promotion of a 

 great variety of interests that reach the 



people, both young and old, in the intimate 

 relations of their daily life. 



In this breadth of scope is seen the vital 

 spirit that animates the new conception of 

 university extension — the spirit of bound- 

 less liberality, which would make useful to 

 the entire people, in whatever place, in 

 whatever walk of life, that great fund of 

 knowledge which accumulates and is avail- 

 able at a university, be it the product of 

 research, scholarship or of great gifts of 

 mind and heart. 



Having conceded the point that the state 

 university is the natural and proper guar- 

 dian of the educational interests of the 

 whole people of the state, existing under an 

 obligation to those who can not enter her 

 walls similar to that she owes to her resi- 

 dent student body, we are confronted by 

 the paramount question of method by 

 which every part of the state shall be 

 reached by the university without duplica- 

 tion of machinery, yet effectively and thor- 

 oughly. In order to solve this problem of 

 covering the field without waste of effort, 

 it is probable that no method can be abso- 

 lutely successful which does not involve 

 division of the state into districts having 

 local headquarters, from each of which the 

 various activities of extension shall be pro- 

 moted within the limits of its territory. 

 The organization may then be compared to 

 a great wheel of which the hub is the uni- 

 versity, the rim the boundaries of the state, 

 and the spokes the lines which divide the 

 whole into districts. At the hub, or cen- 

 tral headquarters, will be located the dean 

 or director, the several secretaries of de- 

 partments and the specialists who offer lec- 

 ture courses, prepare correspondence-study 

 lessons, publish bulletins designed to aid 

 the student in the study of topics for de- 

 bate, or gather, classify and hold ready for 

 the applicant, instructive literature on a 

 wide range of subjects useful to the stu- 



