Los Angeles herald., 1909-05-03

they had sohleoHe " uiSNs
studies.
To these, twenty years ago came the
city board of education, and opening
six schoohouses during an evening
each week gave free lectures on 'Ihe
Chemistry of What We Eat and
Drink" illuminating Cas-" American
Poets" How to Study Science at
Home" constitutional Law and THE
Human Machine Shop" That the
neighborhood people were hungry for
such instruction and diversion was
proved by an aggregate attendance OF
ovsr $4,000. The next year more CEN
tiers were opened and the same type OF
lectures offered, but these people of the
professional world, of the shops, of the
factories, of the trades, wanted some
thing more on the university extension
line, and beginning then regular courses
in the arts, sciences and literature
have been mapped out, and under COM
petent lecturers have been followed
with gratifying success.
In the twenty years the lecture cen
ters have grown from six to 17S; the
six miscellaneous lectures have ex-
banded into three groups comprising
ZIG courses of 707 subjects, and the at
tendance of $4,000 has grown to over
200, 900. The audiences have passed
with the times from the small upstairs
rooms where unillustrated lectures were
held, through successive stages of pub
lie halls hired for that purpose by the
board, to the free halls of the public
libraries and social organizations and
museums and school auditoriums of
the most modern kind, all fitted with
platforms, good seats and stereopticon
outfits to illustrate the talks
Who go to these lectures? Note some
of the letters written the department of
education to in answer to the question
why they came to the lectures and if
they enjoyed them. A very old man
writes: "Dr. Osler's theory don't worry
me. / work all day at manual labor,
but in the evening feel like a child at
tending school with regard to attending
these grand instructive lectures" A
woman write: MY husband and take
it turn about staying with the children
so the other can attend the lectures.
1t is our only diversion One writes
he attends the lectures for two rea-
sons-first for pleasure and second to
listen and learn new subjects never
heard in a school. Another couple re-
ports they have attended the lectures
for fourteen years. another for sixteen,
and a lawyer of n adds his testimony
and tells that he has attended almost
every lecture given in his neighbour
hood A man in the iron business
writes gratefully of the lectures on
metallurgy, another shows how the
centers are more attractive to him than
the cheap shows, and scores of other
letters show the writers to be students
of some certain branch, pursuing the
lecture course either to benefit them
selves in their careers or for the gem
eral culture and education given.
In New York the great polyglot city
of the world, the educational work is
the prime factor in doing away with the
confusion of tongues and making of
the 100 different nationalities gathered
there intelligent and reliable American
Icitizens. In London the school instruc-
ton is in English for the English. In
Paris it is for French people. In
New York, the largest Irish and Jewish
city on the globe and one of the largest
italian and German, the instruction
must be for all peoples, and toward the
one end--perfect assimilation. In one
east side school there are twenty-three
nationalities represented, and the jan
itor of many schools has to be a man
of several languages.
The public school reaches the child
population in a thorough way, the city
of New York spending twice sa much
on it's educational system as any other
CITY in the world. Over $4,000 teachers
offer instruction to the 1000 or more
children, and the cost of it all to the
city this year was $500, 900. The pub
lie lectures reach the adults at an an
nual cost of 100000. Six years ago
three centers were opened where the
lectures were given in Yiddish, and
three where they were given in Ital-
ian. The lectures in the foreign tongues
are chiefly on American institutions
and history; the rights and duties of