The record-union., 1893-10-14
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION.
How It Originated, and Where---The
Fountain Head.
What Its scope-Education Not a
Thing for Youth Only, but for
Maturity as Well.

courses IN san francisco and the neigh
boring cities. and so soon as its facilities
will permit, viii do the same in our own
city, the following extracts, from an
article on the subject from the pen of
Professor Robert e. Thompson of the
University of Pennsylvania, viii be Of
interest:
Forty years ago there was great dis
lurbance among the working classes IN
England, responsive to the revolutionary
asltatlons on the continent More than
one plan was put forward among them,
and parties formed TO bring in the mil |
Iennlum by express speed.
Frederick Denison Maurice, graduate
OF the University of oxford and a Profess
sor In Kings College, London, invited
several of the leaders Of the working
mems movement to meet him and have
talk over the plans. He got each of
them to state freely what he thought were
the wrongs of his class, and what he pro-
posed by way of remedy. He then pro-
ceeded TO restate the mans views more
strongly than he had done for himself,
and aiterward to show him why it would
fail to accomplish what he expected of it.
IN every case be showed that the fault in
the plan was not that It was too radical,
but that it was not radical enough. 1t
occupied those who might adopt it in lOp-
ping Oft branches Of the tree that bore
evil fruit 1t did not lay the ak at the
root.
The less sincere men among them grad
uauy withdrew from the conference,
which was held on successive evenings
in one of the London ''taverns." The
better men stayed it out, and when all
had been heard they asked Maurice what
he proposed by way of remedy for the
evil. He answered that he thought the
first need of their class was educated
hrin fn n ictit ,,
what was practicable and what was i'm
possible in the work of social reform. He
cid not mean men whose chief ambition
would be to get out of the working into
the middle class, and achieve "a brass
door-bell on front street," but men who
would recognize the class to which they
belonged as that which furnished the
best field for their best abilities.
He said that If they would agree to that !
be and other graduates of Oxford and !
cambridge would be glad to unite with |
Shem in founding a workingmen's col |
lege, to teach them the b6st things they |
had learned. It's sessions would be held |
III the evening, and fee would be
charged for attendance on the classes,
Up to the founding of Workingmen's
College the universities were regarded as
having to do only with the wealthy and
the professional classes. In the middle
ages Oxford and Cambridge mum bered
their students by myriads. The long va
cation had been established to enable the
students to 60 home and get the harvest
in. Rich and poor met together in the
lecture halls as they met in the churches.
The whole body of society was leavened
by the teaching of really able Professors
like Wyclitfe. And as in the Scotch uni
Versities, old and young both came. 1t
was not assumed that when a man reached
maturity of mental power he had lost his
power to learn.
To bring the universities back to their
original position as in touch with all
classes was Professor Maurice desire. 1t
still more directly the aim Of Universi-
ty Extension on both sides Of the Allan
tic. A great city university should be
the intellectual focus of the whole COM
munity. The life of every resident Of the
city should be fuller Of interest, wider in
outlook, richer in color because Of his
having a university rs one of his neigh
bors. Indirectly this is true to some ex-
tent already. But it is not enough to
reach the people through the professional
classes who receive university training.
l. Not only the professional classes
need the best teaching the best teachers
can give. In democratic community
society makes the largest demands on the
Intelligence of the whole body of the
people. Nothing short OF the higher ed
I;cation will make it possible tor them
to meet that demand. Take, for instance,
the problems of economic policy submit
ted to the country within the last five
years. Nobody but man who has mas
tered the principles Of a somewhat COM
pick science is competent to vote with re-
gard to them.
Nobody who has not studied history to
some purpose can realize how futile are
many of the proposals to eliminate all the
evils of our social condition by some pet
reform" The same training will give
him juster appreciation of the dangers
to the public interest which attend a lax
moral judgment on public men and
measures. Universal suffrage does not
find its educational complement in the
spelling-b book. Society has grown far
too complex for that. 1t needs the en-
tightening, SOLDERING, steadying influence
of advanced study to fit men for the COM
mon duties Of modern citizenship.
2 There is no reason why the whole
body OF our people should not be edu-
Gated to point far beyond the possibili-
ties of the common-school system. What
was achieved in ancient Athens, in i'm
parting the best culture to the whole
body of tue people, is possible in Phila-
phia or in New Ork. 1t was not achieved
in Athens by assuming that those who
had passed the ''school-age" had no fur
ther ability to learn.
As Macaulay reminds US, the greater
part of an Athenian's education was re-
ceived in his years OF manhood. So it
was through all ancient history and in
the school of the middle ages. "School-
age' is q modern superstition, which has
grown out OF the greater attention paid to
the training of the young since the sew
enteenth century. Scotland never ac-
cepted the idea. It always was common
to see ful1-grown men, stone-masons by
trade, and the like, sitting on the benches
of the Scotch universities and taking a
college course in off years of their work.
Professor Maurice found this false no.
ton that education affair OF child
hood and youth very much in his way.
But his Workingmen'S College showed
how futile il was. Never were studies
more keenly enjoyed, he says, than by
men who came to his evening classes
after day eff toll.
3. Formerly industry supplied, to some
extent, the defects Of the workingman's
education. The man who made and did
everything for himself was an alI-round
man, an educated man in a true sense.
So the lourneyman, or the apprentice, in
the old workshop, when he had to learn
q great variety OF processes, got training
of both hand and eye, which gave his
work an interest and his life variety OF
educational worth.
But the division of labor has spoiled
that. The man who does nothing bat cut
out the upper of a shoe, the woman who
only files the notch in the head of q screw,
may do that one thing better than it ever
was done before. But the work is less to
the mind, the eye, the hand of the worker.
TO make up for what is thus lost, more
specific education must be furnished. II
II be not, every generation as 1t sees an
Increasing fineness in the division of
labor. will see also q more dwarted and
contracted manhood IN the laborer. The
1yorlxingman must use his leisure to bet
t,r-lI taav laT-