SCIENCE 



NEW YORK, JANUARY 1, 



A NEW PHASE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 



Just at the present critical stage of the Aniericai! movement 

 for extension teaching the practical pedagogy of this imviorted 

 phase of educational activity is up for sharp and earnest discus- 

 sion. It is agreed that however properly the system may have 

 been been reared in England, American methods must be applied 

 to its life if it is to become a recognized force in American educa- 

 tion. The naturalization of University Extension must therefore 

 pre-eminently mean its further organization toward useful ends. 



The recent article of Professor Willis Boughton on ' Graded 

 Work in Philadelphia,'' strikes the key-note for an earnest and 

 scientific discussion, which we hope may be continued until the 

 American society shall have nurtured extension teaching into one 

 of the most vital forms of educational activity. Professor Bough- 

 ton has outlined the plan for graded work to be pursued at certain 

 centres, and has, moreover, called attention to the division of the 

 Philadelphia work into "departments," although a thorough or- 

 ganization of these "departments'" has not as yet been distinctly 

 mooted. It is also here pertinent to note that the president of the 

 American society. Dr. Edmund J. James, has in Philadelphia in- 

 troduced the excellent plan of faculty meetings of the lecturers, 

 with the view of eliciting the practical pedagogics of the subject. 



As an attempt to continue a discussion looking toward efficient 

 organization of university extension, the writer presents for can- 

 did criticism tlie following somewhat comprehensive suggestions. 

 Stated with almost dogmatic brevity, the scheme is submitted, 

 none the less, in the scientific sp'rit,' and expects no other mark 

 of favor than that derived from its accordance with the experi- 

 enced facts. 



The scheme proposes to establish in each great university centre 

 extension faculties and sub-faculties of the various departments 

 of knowledge for the development of real class-work and individ- 

 ual study, alongside the present lecture system. Each faculty 

 shall in itself form a complete organization, with ofiicers of good 

 executive talent and broad sympathies. The presidents of the 

 faculties, together with the president of the centre, shall form a 

 bady advisory to the executive committee of the centre. 



It shall be the duty of each president, in concert with his fac- 

 ulty, to develop the best methods of exciting popular interest in 

 the special subjects, and especially to determine upon the peda- 

 gogic inethods best adapted to the particular subjects and to the 

 various grades of students seeking the extension classes. 



Each faculty shall, as far as practicable, arrange for class in- 

 struction continuing during eight or nine months .of the year, or 

 at any rate for courses of sufficient length to meet some tangible 

 purpose. 



Each faculty, and finally each professor, shall aim to carry 

 along the individual in bis work, rather than aim to pi'esent finely- 

 wrought lectures — the latter being used as accessor^' only to the 

 main pui-pose. 



Inasmuch as such proposed instruction would of necessity be 

 more expensive and demand a closer relation between the profes- 

 sor and the student than the present methods of extension organi- 

 zation seem to encourage, it would seem desirable that these spe- 

 cial extension, classes bo sharply distinguished from the general 

 extension classes. The latter are and should be open to all mem- 

 bers, but the former only to such members as meet the terms for 

 the special tuition, and are willing to engage in regular student 

 work. 



It would also seem proper that the tuition for each special 

 class course should, to some extent, depend upon the number of 



students applying, as well as upon the nature of the subject de- 

 veloped. 



The eventual outcome of such scheme of instruction would 

 doubtless be the award of highly-prized certificates of the work 

 done, or what comes to the same, the conferring of degrees, either 

 through the universities or through the extension society itself. 



As an application of this scheme of organization to a particular 

 department, let us suppose the mathematical professors, say of 

 the Philadelphia extension course, to be organized as a unit fac- 

 ulty. The courses they should propose would range from algebra, 

 through a goodly variety of applied mathematics, to general, or 

 even practical astronomy. Each course would be carried on in ■ 

 some relation to the other courses. The most cordial co-operation 

 would exi^t between tlie several classes and professors, and both 

 students and professors work in one or the other class, as the 

 furtherance of the most efficient work and teaching, might de- 

 mand. 



As an example of the method suggested, when carried down to 

 an actual class course, the writer may be permitted to instance a 

 course in the theory and practice of surveying, intended as one 

 element of a school of mathematics recently proposed by him to 

 the Philadelphia Society for University Extension. The course is 

 based on a demand for such instruction coming to him from two 

 classes of students, viz., (1) practical surveyors ill equipped in the 

 mathematics of the subject, and (2) young men, who, although 

 busily engaged during the day in other employments, desire, if 

 possible, to equip themselves for the life of a surveyor or civil en^ 

 gineer. The instruction is to be given in class, by correspondence, 

 and in the field. The class instruction, given one evening each 

 week for eight months, embraces text-book work pursued under 

 direction, and as rapidly as each student is able lectures on in- 

 struments, their construction, adjustment, and use, and on meth- 

 ods of field and office work. Correspondence is encouraged for 

 the purpose of eliciting a better knowledge of each man's difficul- 

 ties. Replies are to be given through the medium of a specially- 

 trained stenographer or in class. Field instruction is necessarily 

 limited to occasional work of Saturday afternoons. Practically 

 every student is also his own class, pursuing his own work, and 

 receiving help according to his individual needs. The method of 

 learning by doing — ever a good one provided it is doing by 

 method — meets also, as thus guided, the requirements of the 

 ungraded mass of students seeking the special knowledge. 



The writer would violate the very spirit of his suggestion were 

 he to attempt to show in detail how it might apply to well-organ- 

 ized evening schools of chemistry, or biology, or history. But he 

 ventures to suggest the pedagogic purposes must in these subjects 

 diifer i7iter se and from those of mathematics, and that here the 

 chemical laboratory, the museum of natural hi.-^tory, and the 

 seminar method might find interesting and useful extension. 



A fair appreciation of the occasion for the above suggestions 

 requires a concise statement of some of the assumptions made in 

 reference to the aims and ends of university extension. It has 

 been assumed that the final aim is to bring as much of each sub- 

 ject attempted, to each individual student, as the nature of the 

 subject, the time, and the capacity of the individual student may 

 warrapt. 



It has been assumed that the extension society, as the popular 

 representative of the university, is jealously alive to the danger of 

 indirectly promulgating false conceptions concerning the higher 

 education, of placing mental intoxication on the same plane with 

 mental work, or of discrediting university training, either by un- 

 suitable methods of popular instruction, or by appearing to give 

 all of the university training in twelve easy evening lessons. 



It has been assumed that there is a popular demand, active or 

 latent, for highly specialized information fully up to date, and 



