Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/572



HE writer of the able article on university extension which appeared in the November Monthly, does well to come forward in the present number and further develop his views as to the best means of securing the success of the university-extension movement. He does not agree with the opinion we expressed in the "Table" for November, that the movement in question should be carried on in entire independence of Government assistance. He thinks, on the contrary, that, unless the national Government comes to its aid with a grant of money, the work which is proposed "can not be thoroughly or systematically done as regards the country at large"; and he takes occasion to indicate what he considers to be the true theory of the state. The arguments of our valued contributor, we must say, have not convinced us; and, considering the importance of the subject, we feel sure that we shall be excused if we say a few more words upon it from our own point of view.

The university-extension scheme, we must assume, has been called into existence to meet a public demand. Prof. Henderson says: "The work promises to be much too large for private enterprise." We interpret this to mean that there is a great and growing interest in the extension movement—that the public are, to an encouraging extent, alive to its importance; but, if such is the case, instead of saying that the work promises to be "much too large for private enterprise," we should say that private enterprise bids fair to cope most successfully with the work. If public interest has not been awakened in an encouraging degree, we fail to see the force or propriety of the word "promises" as used by Prof. Henderson; if it has been so awakened, we say, let us wait and see what public interest and private enterprise will do before we dream of asking for a share of the taxes to support the movement. We are strongly of opinion that people should pay for the bread of intellectual life. If they pay for it they will value it, and not scatter it by the roadside, as beggars do bread given in alms. There is invariably far more intellectual interest in a class all the members of which pay the full amount of their own fees; the attendance is more regular, the attention is more keen. Every one can verify this from his own experience. A traveling teacher or professor visits a town or village and offers to teach a class of so many some particular subject at so much a head. If the class is formed, every one, as a rule, does his or her best to get the most out of it. Nobody goes there to trifle, nobody cares to miss a lesson. Now, what university extension has got to do is to offer the people what they want in the way of instruction and invite them to pay for it. If it offers the people what they do not want they will not take it; and here we see one of the mischiefs of Government interference. Why have the old universities of the world been so slow to move out of their ancient ruts, so slow to adapt their teaching to the new requirements of a new age? Simply because they have had large endowments and have been to that extent independent of public opinion. If a certain subject declined in interest, the university could go on teaching it to all but empty benches. The endowment was there, the chair was provided for, and why should any change be made? Precisely so with our university-extension movement: backed by Government money it would inevitably be less swayed by considerations of public utility, and more by the