Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/519

Rh all its own direct expenses. But the central office must meanwhile be sustained. At present this is done in most cases by private subscription. It is a benefaction, and bounded by all the limitations of a benefaction. Under this arrangement it is quite clear that a center can only be established where there are people of means willing to make themselves responsible for the local expense in case the sale of lecture tickets does not provide sufficient funds. The freedom of the individual to avail himself of university extension is, therefore, limited by the double contingency of local conditions and the facilities possessed by the nearest central office. In no case, it is to be observed, does the central office suggest courses, or pay for them.

Now, it was not proposed that Government should assume the paternal duty of establishing lecture courses in the arts and sciences here and there over the country, like so many intellectual post-offices. But it was proposed that the establishment of local centers should be left, as now, to private initiative and enterprise, while the Government should simply assume the duties of the central offices on a larger and more liberal scale. The work promises to be much too large for private enterprise, and since it does not pay for itself, it can not, in private hands, be thoroughly and systematically done with regard to the country at large. The movement would not be pauperized or degraded by such nationalization. There would be the same play for individual zeal and public spirit as now. But there would be this difference: it would everywhere find established and adequate co-operation where now it finds only special and metropolitan co-operation.

I think that the experiment would not be very dangerous, and it need not be very expensive. Once established, these district central offices of the Department of Education might with perfect propriety go a step further, and provide, under suitable conditions, for part of the expense of an extension course where the proceeds from the sales of lecture tickets were not sufficient. With the people themselves directly creating each center, electing their own subject, choosing their own lecturer, and paying for all or part of the local expense, I really do not see how the movement could become commonplace or mercenary in its character by being systematized under national auspices. There would be room here for an enthusiasm which could be followed by performance.

Like most lovers of freedom we are often too jealous of it to use it. The chief incapacity for greatness in republican administrations is that we are at heart cowards. We make our own government, and are then very much afraid of it. It is as if we feared that this thing which we have ourselves created should turn and devour us; and this distrust is everywhere fostered by the current belief that American politics is very corrupt.