BY PROF. WILLIS BOUGHTON, OF OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY.

University extension is a movement intended to bring the people at large into closer communion with the college and the university. Though it had a lowly birth in England, it has become a great institution permanently wedded to Oxford and Cambridge. For some years the idea has been growing that our American colleges ought to be doing something in this same line. The world is full of students who are unable to attend the university; some are prevented by family ties, and some by business relations; but mature though they be, there are everywhere real students who are lamenting the fact that they seem forever shut out from the light of knowledge as it is shed abroad from our higher educational institutions. To such are added those young people who have been by circumstances early forced into industrial pursuits, but who are hungry after such training as will enable them to command better situations and better salaries. The success of the Chautauqua movement indicates how many there are that are bent upon improving themselves.

This Chautauqua movement is only an attempt to Americanize university extension. In various ways, however, it fails to perform the full function of the latter institution. While Chautauqua work is carefully planned, it is elementary; the student is left almost entirely to his own, often misdirected, efforts; and there is little or no chance of his coming into personal contact with the experienced educator and specialists. Though the circles have, through lack of direction, sometimes neglected education for entertainment, the organization as a whole has accomplished a wonderful work in the elevation and the instruction of great numbers of people.

University extension, on the other hand, profiting by the experience of Chautauqua, proposes not only to plan courses of study, but to direct, supervise, and test the work of its students as well. In doing all this, it employs the lecturer, the syllabus, the class, the travelling library, and the examination. It has adopted methods whereby it can reach people of as varied occupations as those reached by Chautauqua, and it can thus furnish them with information having a positive educational value.

The lecturers are college-bred men or women, and specialists in different lines of educational work. If actively engaged in teaching at some reputable college or university, their chances of success are greater, and the character of their work is of a better grade. It promises well for the future of university extension to record that some of America's most popular and celebrated professors have added to their already heavy duties the burdens of some line of extension teaching. But all college professors are not adapted to this work. The successful extension lecturer must be of a versatile nature—a good lecturer, an earnest student, a practical teacher. It is his duty to interest a mixed, popular audience in an educational subject, and to inspire numbers of his hearers with a determination to enter upon a systematic and thorough course of study. The teacher who can do so must have within him the spirit of the reformer, and the earnestness that will enable him to arouse and to enthuse to action the numbers that are dying of lethargy and ennui. The teacher who can do this has here a field of labor extensive enough for the highest ambition, and may be repaid by a success grander than can be attained in the limited circle of the college or the university.

The work of the lecturer arranges itself into unit courses. The unit course consists of a series of six related lecturers, so arranged that they will cover a definite field of study. Though less comprehensive, the unit course may be compared to a course of study in a college curriculum. As extension students are the busy people of this world, these lectures occur only at intervals of one week, thus giving the student time for the extra reading and study that he is asked to do. A unit course, then, will cover a period of six weeks; and four unit courses, extending over a period of twenty-four weeks, constitute an extension year. It is superfluous to attempt to estimate how much the earnest solitary student may accomplish in a year through the assistance and the impetus thus given his efforts. Much, however, depends upon the personal effort of the student, and the syllabus is intended to direct his private study.

The syllabus is much more than a carefully prepared outline of a unit course. It must form a skeleton for the student's diligent work; it must recall and elaborate the points brought out in each lecture; it must give a comprehensive list of reference books upon the course—a bibliography of the subject—with information as to the best editions and as to how to use the books to the best advantage; it must suggest lines of research—comparisons and parallelisms; it must outline for the student paper work with full instructions as to how to write upon the subject; it must, in short, be a sort of teacher, full of methods and of suggestions, supplementing the work of the class.

The class immediately follows the lecture and is conducted by the lecturer himself. It is here that the student comes into the most direct contact with the educator. Just as the lecture is for the popular audience, many of whom seek pleasure rather than information, so the class is preeminently the earnest student's workshop. It is here that he has the privilege of turning questioner and of putting to the lecturer such queries as have puzzled him in his private work. The papers that have been prepared during the week are criticised and discussed, and experienced lecturers claim that some extension students can and do prepare papers which show as deep an insight and as broad an understanding of the subject as are manifested by the ordinary college student. The class then is, from the student point of view, the select portion of the audience, and still it often happens that only a small proportion of this class even can be induced to do systematic and thorough work; they are regarded as the fruit of the lecture and measure the speaker's ability to interest a popular audience.

As an adjunct to class work, the travelling library is proposed. In order to do effective work, the student must have books, and university extension proposes to arrange with public libraries so that the necessary volumes can be furnished the isolated student at a cost little in excess of that of transportation. There is such competition among express companies that there will be little trouble in getting rates of transportation which will render this feature of extension teaching practicable. What Mudie's Circulating Library is to England, the extension travelling library may be to America. The result will be to place in the reach of all the best copyrighted books, and to strangle the reprints of worthless publications that are bought only because they are cheap.

Finally there comes the examination. For the assurance of timid and sensitive persons, it may be stated that extension work is optional, and may be carried to any desired stage of completion. The many enter upon the work because it is popular and interesting; and as soon as it assumes the character of study, the class will often dwindle down to a small portion of the audience. The requirements for an examination will weed this remainder until there is found but a handful that will submit to the test. These workers are usually mature, and often prove themselves to be thorough and proficient students. The examination is intended to be a thorough test, and if it proves the work to have been creditably done, a certificate to that effect is awarded.

Any community that arranges for one or more unit courses is termed a local centre. In order to introduce and conduct this plan of work, there must be some kind of a local organization. Often there already exists, even in a small town, some literary club or other society organized for purposes of education or culture. Such societies, if in a thrifty condition, may be utilized for extension purposes. If they prove to be responsible for the expense of one or more unit courses, no further organization is needed; but in towns where no such society exists, a local centre may be formed by the co-operation of a few citizens. A public meeting may be convened or other means taken to elect a local committee consisting of a half dozen members, with at least a chairman, a secretary, and a treasurer as its official board. The first work of the committee is to raise a guarantee fund to cover the expense of one or more unit courses. Responsible persons are willing enough to subscribe to such a fund upon the assurance that it will not be used except in case of a deficiency caused by a limited sale of student or course tickets. Experience in Philadelphia has proved that, ordinarily, enough tickets will be sold to more than cover the expense of the course.

The guarantee fund raised, the local committee is ready to secure the services of a lecturer, and is brought into business connections with the nearest branch, as the next higher stage in the system is denominated. The branch is located at a railroad centre, and in the vicinity of some college or university. For example, the Philadelphia branch is the business centre for the entire region within a radius of fifty miles. It draws its lecturers from the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore. The branch acts as the middle man between the college and the local centre. Its functions are to supply a competent corps of lecturers, to systematize the work within its jurisdiction, and to organize new local centres. Already the Philadelphia branch has formed twenty-five local centres, some of which another season will give a full year's work consisting of four unit courses.

Located in Philadelphia in the midst of colleges, this organization is purely national in its aims. It brings with it system out of chaos. While university extension was groping aimlessly about, it came to the attention of one of the leading educators of our country. As provost of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. William Pepper has proved himself to be a man of great executive ability. Comprehending to the fullest extent the future of our educational system, with wonderful foresight, he saw in the extension movement a future far more important than for a mere matter of missionary diversion for certain charitably inclined professors. He at once suggested plans for uniting the efforts of those engaged in the work and of harmonizing them throughout the country. Accordingly Mr. George Henderson was sent to England to study the movement in all of its bearings, and to gain a thorough insight into the English system. Upon his return the American Society was organized with Dr. Pepper as president, and Mr. Henderson as Secretary. But Dr. Pepper, already burdened with the executive duties of a great university, as well as with the labors of an extensive profession, was soon obliged to withdraw from the active presidency, and Dr. Edmund J. James was elected to that office. Such, in brief, is the origin of the National Society.

This American Society comes in as a helpmate to the local centre, the branch, the college, and the university. Its functions are distinct and various. Coming forward with the accumulated experience of a quarter century in England, it can enable extension workers in this country to profit thereby. It has employed a corps of practical business men to systematize the work, and to attend to the necessary details; it is publishing a monthly journal called University Extension, for the purpose of gathering and disseminating information regarding the movement; it publishes syllabi and furnishes them to the student and to the public at the lowest possible cost; and employs organizers to help in the formation of local centres, and to get them in working order. It must be recognized at once that no single educational institution can do this general work, and that the American Society, instead of becoming a competitor with the university in extension work, renders it practical for even the smaller colleges to enter this field of usefulness.

In the performance of its functions, then, the National Society must ordinarily deal with the greater centres of organization; still when it is impracticable to form a branch, it may deal directly with the local centre. Nor is its influence bounded by any conventional barriers. It can enter the home where the solitary student sits by his evening lamp, and direct his work. In this home work, of course, the student rarely comes into direct contact with the educator, but through systematized correspondence his work may be directed and finally tested. It can thus be given a true educational value. It must not be ignored that a startling proportion of our great business men are what are termed self-educated. So will it be in the future; but it is far from visionary to believe that university extension will open paths whereby the solitary student need no longer employ an expensive tutor nor waste his time, groping in the labyrinth paths of knowledge, without a thread, at least, to direct his wanderings to pleasanter fields of light and learning.

While this system of study is popular, and has all the glitter of novelty, many insincere persons will enroll their names. Some will seek only entertainment, and will be satisfied with the popular lecture alone. Others, through timidity and lack of self-confidence, may attend the class but will not attempt the paper work or the examination. But in every community are scores of earnest, hungry students anxious to learn but knowing not how to get the knowledge that they crave,—mature students settled in homes and in business,—to such university extension offers chances for improvement and refreshing labor that were never known before. Then it is no longer imperative to reside in the vicinity of the university, or to forever remain ignorant of university learning, for wherever a score or more of students may congregate, there can be brought from college halls a master workman to direct the work.

It is easy, then, to realize the scope of the American society. It can stretch its influence into every corner of the country; it can enter every town and city; it can enter even the isolated home. Ordinarily colleges and universities of the country are anxious to work with the National Society, for in this way even the small college becomes a link in this great chain of organization, and the efforts of its faculty may bear fruit, whereas unsystematized work is little better than a failure. By such co-operation the work of extension teaching may have come to have such a positive educational value that its certificates, when awarded by the members of a college faculty, may, in that institution, at least, pass current for a definite amount of the work required for a degree. At Cambridge, England, students from centres that are in affiliation with that institution can thus save one year's residence at the university. Is it, then, visionary to expect as much here?

University extension, however, offers no royal road to learning; it is as yet, as it were, laying the ties for a broad gauge track where only those that have the strength to work their passage may travel. But when operated by the American Society, it is far in advance of the overland or Panama routes of the forty-niners in extension travel. This society seems to have solved the problem, and promises to become the great American University that Washington proposed, Jefferson planned, and scores have, since the founding of our government, prophesied and awaited.