UNIVERSITY EXTENSION IN AMERICA.

THE first conscious attempts to introduce English University Extension methods into this country were made in 1887, by individuals connected with the Johns Hopkins University. The subject was first publicly presented to the American Library Association at their meeting upon one of the Thousand Islands in September, 1887.* The idea was heartily approved by Dr. W. F. Poole, of Chicago, and other librarians. It was at once taken up in a practical way by Mr. J. N. Larned, Superintendent of the Buffalo Library, which, with its admirable class rooms, is one of the best equipped libraries in this country for popular educational work. Mr. Larned obtained the services of a Hopkins graduate-student, Dr. Edward W. Bemis, now professor of history and political economy in Vanderbilt University. Mr. Bemis spent twelve weeks in Buffalo in the winter of 1887-88. gave twelve lectures in one of the class rooms of the library upon "Economic Questions of the Day." His special subjects were: (1) "Causes of Discontent"; (2) "Socialism and Anarchy"; (3) "Henry George's Theory of Rent Taxation"; (4 and 5) “Monopolies "; (6) "Immigration"; (7) "Education"; (8) "Labor Legislation"; (9) "What Determines the Rate of Wages under Perfect Competition"; (10) "Labor Organizations"; (11) "Cooperation and Profit Sharing"; (12) "Taxation in the United States."

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There was a printed syllabus, or subject analysis of each lecture, with suggestive references to books, magazine articles, labor reports, etc. All the library material recommended in the syllabus was brought together in a special room of the library, and there Dr. Bemis could be found for consultation at certain hours every working day for twelve weeks. He personified, for the time being, the economic section of the Buffalo Library. People

*See articles on "Seminary Libraries and University Extension,” in "Johns Hopkins University Studies," November, 1887.

came to him for further information upon topics connected with his lectures, and he gave them helpful suggestions as well as good things to read. His course of public instruction, instead of boring a long-suffering community twelve-times for sixty minutes, surprisingly interested and instructed them throughout a period of three months. Good citizens began to study political economy. Representatives of capital and labor sat side by side in the class room and asked the lecturer hard questions. It is a very good test of a public speaker if he can hold popular attention upon a serious subject for one hour. Dr. Bemis not only held his audience during that time each week, but he interested his hearers so deeply that, out of an average attendance of 250, more than 200 usually stayed after the lecture for a second hour to hear the class discussion, in which each participant was limited to five minutes. The city papers gave good reports of both lectures and debates; thus the chief lessons of an interesting public course were carried into almost every household in Buffalo.

At the end of the course the Buffalo "Courier" said: "It is a remarkable testimonial to the lecturer's ability and fairness, that without any attempt at rhetorical effect he has been able for twelve weeks to hold together an interested audience of considerable proportions for the discussion of subjects which are usually considered insufferably repelling. One speaker expressed the opinion of many others of the audience last night, when he said that he thought they knew about twelve times as much regarding the subjects discussed as when they began." Mr. Larned in an article on "An Experiment in University Extension," said: * "It was the peculiarity of the course that it brought together the most remarkably mixed company of people that we ever saw assembled in our city. The workingmen were fairly well represented, by the leaders of their organization more particularly; prominent business men and capitalists were usually present; professional men came in numbers; ladies were fully one half the audience. . . . The general result was to awaken in our city a degree of attention to these economic questions which they never received before."

It is important to observe that this lecture course was organ* "Library Journal," March-April, 1888.

ized upon a business basis and more than paid expenses. It led moreover to the formation in Buffalo of a local branch of the American Economic Association, composed of earnest students of economic science. These are the facts regarding one of the first and certainly one of the most successful attempts to introduce University Extension methods into this country. The experiment indicates that public libraries, with convenient class rooms, good management, and good lecturers, may become very efficient means of public instruction. A town library should be the highest of high schools, and may become a local branch of the People's University.

The Buffalo Library experiment was repeated in the winter of 1888-89 by Mr. Edward C. Lunt, a graduate of Harvard University, who gave an excellent course upon "American Political History," with a printed syllabus of topics and good references for the study of each presidential administration. The same winter Dr. Bemis repeated his course on "Economic Questions of the Day" in Canton, Ohio, where he lectured two evenings in the week for a period of five weeks. The course was organized by the Rev. Howard MacQueary and was attended by business and professional men, together with a fair proportion of wage-earners. The Canton experiment, like that of Buffalo, resulted in the formation of a local branch of the American Economic Association, but the course was not a pronounced success, partly because it was not sufficiently advertised, and more especially because it was organized by one clergyman, without the co-operation of others. It is essential for the large success of University Extension in our American towns and cities that it should avoid even the appearance of sectarianism. While class courses can undoubtedly be sustained in connection with individual churches, it is difficult for any such form of public lectures to command the attention of a large community where there are different religious interests. A neutral basis, like a public library, town hall, high school, or local college, should always be sought for University Extension lectures.

The Canton experiment was followed in February, 1889, by another course, conducted by Dr. Bemis, in connection with the Public Library at St. Louis. Mr. F. M. Crunden, the librarian of

that institution, had become interested in the idea of University Extension at the meeting of the American Library Association in 1887. Encouraged by the success of the Buffalo course, he invited Dr. Bemis, who by that time had become a member of the faculty of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, to make weekly trips to St. Louis, 318 miles each way, and give lectures on economic subjects in a pleasant room connected with the Public Library. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this course was that it actually was given by Dr. Bemis under the long-range conditions above described. This was University Extension in grim earnest. Experience proved, however, not that Vanderbilt University was too far from St. Louis, but that the library class room of St. Louis was too far from the residence portion of the city to attract a large audience in the evening. A class of moderate size was organized; an excellent class list of works on social science and political economy was printed; and a local branch of the Economic Association was duly formed. Nevertheless the receipts from the St. Louis course did not suf fice to pay expenses. It should, however, be observed that the higher education is rarely self-supporting. It requires either endowment or subsidies. In England it is not expected that local lectures can be supported merely by the sale of tickets. From one third to one half the necessary expenses are usually borne by capital and philanthropy. Popular educators should not A class of seventybe discouraged by lack of economic success. five or one hundred earnest students is an educational triumph. University Extension aims at good classes, not at mass meetings.

About the time when these various experiments were being tried in St. Louis, Canton, and Buffalo, individual members of Johns Hopkins University were attempting to introduce University Extension methods in connection with local lectures in the city of Baltimore. The first practical beginning was made with a class of young people who met once in two weeks, throughout the winter of 1887-88, in the reading room of a beautiful modern church close by the Woman's College. After an introductory talk upon "University Extension " by a Hopkins instructor, the class was intrusted to a graduate student, Mr. Charles M. Andrews, now professor of history in Bryn Mawr

College, who gave a series of instructive lectures, accompanied by class exercises, upon "The History of the Nineteenth Century," with Mackenzie for a textbook on that subject. A working library of standard authorities was collected by the joint efforts of the leader, the class, and the Rev. John F. Goucher, then pastor of the church. To the hearty and generous co-operation of this gentleman, now the president of the Woman's College of Baltimore, the success of this initial experiment, and indeed of several others, is chiefly due.

Following the young people's course, the like of which is entirely practicable in any church society with a college man for class leader, came a co-operative and peripatetic course of twelve lectures for workingmen on "The Progress of Labor," by twelve different men from the historical department of the Johns Hopkins University. These twelve apostles of extension methods swung around a circuit of three different industrial neighborhoods in Baltimore, each man repeating his own lecture to three different audiences. The subjects were as follows: (1) "The Educational Movement among Workingmen in England and America," by Dr. H. B. Adams, of Baltimore; (2) "What Workingmen in America Need," by C. M. Andrews, of Connecticut; (3) “Socialism, its Strength and Weakness," by E. P. Smith, of Massachusetts; (4) "Chinese Labor and Immigration," by F. W. Blackmar, of California; (5) “Labor in Japan," by T. K. Iyenaga ; (6) "Slave Labor in Ancient Greece," by W. P. Trent, of Virginia; (7) "Labor in the Middle Ages," by J. M. Vincent, of Ohio; (8) "Medieval Guilds," by E. L. Stevenson, of Indiana; (9) "Labor and Manufactures in the United States One Hundred Years Ago," by Dr. J. F. Jameson, then of Baltimore; (10) "Industrial Progress in Modern Times," by H. B. Gardner, of Rhode Island; (11) "Industrial Education," by P. W. Ayres, of Illinois; (12) "Scientific Charity and Organized Self-help," by A. G. Warner, of Nebraska, then General Agent of the Charity Organization Society of Baltimore.

Every lecture was accompanied by a printed syllabus in the hands of the audience, and was followed by an oral examination and a class discussion. Every man lectured without other notes than those contained in his outline of topics. The courses were