St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-09-20
EDUCATION FOR ALL.
The Academy Of Science Pre-
pairing for It's Second
Session.
How the University Exten-
sion Movement Was First
Started.
Instructive Address by DR..
Sam Smith, Of the Peo-
pies Church.
An Opportunity for Every
Person to Study the
Sciences.


q. Smith, d. D., of the Peoples church,
lecture Oh the subject. They remained
after the lecture to show their interest
in the movement. Prof. George n. Car
man, principal of the high school. pre-
sided at the meeting, and introduced
the speaker of the evening in grace
full speech, in which he spoke of the
success the efforts for university extern
sion had met with since the beginning
last spring.
DIR. Smith was listened to with close
attention, and was heartily applauded
at the conclusion of his address, the
substance of which is:
University extension is such capital
idea | could wish it bad been born here,
but we must acknowledge that it was
born in Engla I'd. and find what con-
ISOLATION We c;ll in the fact, that the
tight little island has proven to be for
some centuries beck a most excellent
place for the birth both of ideas and of
men.
| could even wish that the idea were
new and untried, for | confess to enough
for the purposes of benevolence toward
new schemes which have in them any
sort of promise of good. Slow-going
conservatives and skepticS will be1com-
fOrted to learn that the university eX-
tension movement began in Cambridge
university, England, some twenty years
ago, that it has been adopted by
the leading universities of England and
Scotland; that it has made progress
among the Eastern colleges of our own
country; and has even made a begin
ming in that far-off Anglo-SaXon Aus
tralia of which we are some day to hear
a great deal more. The extent and sue
cess of the movement can be approx
mately measured by the fact that dur
ing the past year some 10000 students
were enrolled in England alone. But,
explicitly, what is university extern
sion? 1t is an effort to give every town
college of its own. This is to be done,
not by the difficult process of erecting
great buildings and amassing huge edu-
catlonal foundations, but it is by apply
ing the itinerant method to college pro-
fesSorS and sending them around a Cir
cult to promulgate the gospel of
culture. University extension proposes
that every town where there are stu
dents within easy reach of a college
shall have the benefit of the best in
struction that can be found anywhere.
The plan generally adopted proposes
course of lectures upon the subject i'll
hand, let it be mathematics. science or
history. In addition to the lecture
there is further conversation between
instructor and class, in which difficult
ties are cleared away aud the subject is
calculated. There is also printed Syl
labus placed in tine hands of the student,
giving him for further reflection an
analysis of the address. The student is
also asked to prepare a paper upon what
he has heard. At the close of the term
there follows regular examination.
This work was begun in st. Paul less
than one year ago, under the auspices
of the st. Paul Academy of Science.
One hundred and ninety persons were
enrolled as students, and classes were
formed in history, mechanics, electric
ity, geology, botany and mathematics.
Teachers were provided from the Uni
yersity of Minnesota, Carlton and
Manchester colleges. and you meet to-
night to hear plans for the ensuing
year.
What classes of persons are to be
helped by this new scheme OF
higher education In the first
place l should say, young high
school graduates who are not immedi-
ately able, if at all, to pursue further
studies in college. Public school teach
erS and college men and women. The
sciences have been created in the last
thirty years. The old graduates Of the
best colleges VINO have not kept up their
studies are not wellinfOrmed in present
knowledge. Men and women in all
classes who have leisure. Mechanics
and workingmen. The workingman is
specially fitted to be scientific man.
;. f., \, HI
tivated his perceptions He needs only
application and guidance to have easy
mastery in physics, chemistry and biolo-
gy. have been, and still am, a strenuous
advocate of the eight-hour movement.
l have never meant by my advocacy
either to further the idea of working by
the houI and paying by the hour, but
rather to establish the conviction that
eight hours constitutes, at least in many
employmentS, normal days work.
But what shall be done with the extra
two hours which are added by this re-
form to human life? And here comes
in the university extension scheme.
with its travelling college, its studies
and its lectures, to point out to the
working man the wise use of the leisure
he is certain to gain.
The money which is needed for this
work arises from the fees of the stu
dents-S2 for each course of lectures.
But these fees must be supplemented
by private contributions, for no scheme
of public education of wide extent and
of great value is likely to be Self-sup-
porting. The question arises whether
this movement should not be aided by
the state. 1t would seem that if the
state has right to tax the people for a
university in one particular place, it has
far greater right to use public money
for the purpose of sending its university
to every considerable center of popula-
ton in the commonwealth. In that case
the work would need TO be under the
direction of the state university, and
this is question that may be safely re-
ferred to the regents of that Institution.
We ought to have in connection with
this work in our city a special library.
The public library will not do, both
because there is need of technical books
such as do not properly belong to a
public library, and because there is need
of several copies of the different authors
required by the classes. Then there
should be some scientific apparatus, al
though if the collection of the public
schools is at our disposal the further
small expense. Then it would be very
be established by which superior ability
and devotion might be rewarded with
free tuition, Further, our colleges
might well take into consideration the
recognition of the work done in the uni
yersity extension classes by some suit
able di ploma, and also by credit in the
work OF regular college course under.
taken subsequent to the university extern
sion study. Cambridge university gives
credit for one year of residence on the
completion of three years course in
the extension classes.
The last 600 years have created the in
situations of our present civilization. 1t
is the work of the present to make those
institutions a universal JOY of our COM
mon humanity. An itinerant univerS-
ity points in that direction, for it pro-
claims that college culture is possible
to all. The wide range of studies is not