The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-04-10
A BIG INSTITUTION
History Of the Celebrated
University Extension.
Twenty Five Years Old-Forms a Permanent
Part in Educational Activity
The Work.
(By Henry w. Rolfe.)

celebrated last June its tWenty-fifth
| birthday. In this country the work
has been going on for nine years only.
1t is not to be expected that in that
shorter period we should have accom-
plished quite so much as England has
done, even though we have had the
benefit of her experience. But some
thing should have been effected in
these years, and something has been
In England University Extension
may fairly be said to have become
| permanent part of the educational ac-
tivity of the nation. No well-informed
| Englishman is ignorant of it or indif-
| ferent to it, No one believes that the
universities will ever drop it, Or ever
devote anything less than their best
lefforts and their best scholarship to its
furtherance. England has accepted it
and adopted it.
Of course the facts here in America
are quite different. Many parts of the
United States have never heard of
University Extension Other sections
know about it. but look askance. Still,
the regions that have really tried it be-
lieve in it; and all of their lecturers
and organizers, and many of their
students have the same faith in it that
lis found in England. This is sig
nifcant and encouraging fact, which
more than offsets all that can be said
on the other SIDE
The first experiment in this country
was made in the winter of 1S90-91, in
Philadelphia. Provost Pepper, of the
University of Pennsylvania, invited
Professor Richard G. Moulton, lecturer
on literature for the Cambridge Univer-
sity Extension Syndicate, to come to
Philadelphia and give an object lesson
on the possibilities and Importance of
this kind of teaching. Philadelphia be-
came so enthusiastic over Professor
Moulton's work, and over the move
ment for which he stood, that it was
found easy to organize a committee of
prominent citizens and secure from
| them guarantee fund, for the support
| of further experiments. Thus the so
called American Society for the EXten-
sion of University Teaching came into
being. It's efforts have never tagged,
| from that day unto this. Year after
iyear men and women of wealth and po-
sition have given money and labor free
| ly, in the attempt to create demand
for these lectures throughout the COM
munity and to supply that demand.
Each fall and winter scores of courses
are given in Philadelphia and its SUI
burbs. all through Pennsylvania and
New Jersey, in New York City, and
sometimes as far away as in New Eng
land and Virginia and Ohio. Several
staff lecturers" are supported, men
who give all their time to this work
Other lecturers are found in the fac
ulties of Princeton, Lafayette, Column
bia, Johns Hopkins, Haverford, Swarth-
more and the University of Pennsyl-
vania And almost every season some
famous English Extension lecturer is
brought over for few months. The
subjects are of the greatest variety:
history, literature, sociology, political
economy. mathematics, astronomy, ge-
ology, physics. and the history Of paint
ing and architecture and music. Phil
adelphia, and the region of which it is
the intellectual center. would be al
most as reluctant as England to let this
extension of the Universities cease.
| Thousands have found that it adds
greatly to the pleasure and value of
their lives It probably is safe to
prophesy that it will be a permanent
part of the higher life of that section.
| Just a little while after the Philadel-
phia Society was organized, DR.. Harper
announced that the reconstructed Uni
versity of Chicago would devote part
| of it's large resources to the develop
~e N0t
only that, but he enlarged the concep-
| ton of Extension, as he has SO many
other conceptions of an educational
kind. He established a distinct extern
| sion department, and arranged to pro-
vide not only ''lecture-study' work. of
the English type-(c courses of not less
than six lectures, all by the same man
and on the same subject with study
| features added. but also correspond
ence courses and special classes, too.
wherever there were little groups of
students who desired TO carry on care
| full work with an instructor from the
University. Soon DR. Edmund J. James.
of the University of Pennsylvania. who
had been the director of the Philadel-
| phia Society. was called to preside over
this new department at Chicago. Under
his guidance the work has grown until
HOW IL covers Il large part or the terri
tory within 800 or 400 miles of Chicago,
Iexcept TO the north, where the condi-
ton of the country is unfavorable and
where, moreover, the University of
Wisconsin is in the field About 40
| full courses are given now each year in
eight states. There are six staff lee
turers, some of them giving their en-
| tire time to the work, some lacturing in
the University also during the spring
or summer terms. And some forty or
more of the professors stand ready to
give occasional courses, as their intra-
mural teaching will permit
| Concerning the results of this work.
the same thing may be said as above Of