Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-08-21
THE COWNSMAN
The Summer School

has il been more frcQucnted and in the work
which It has undertaken more successful
HundIeds of teachers and others have found
in it On opportunity to continue their pur
suit OF knowledge under conditions of com
petent guidance and likewise that assoca-
tion with those of like pursuits, the environ
ment of books and laboratories, all Of which
count so much on the practical side of edu
cation. 1t is difficult to think of so es-
tablished an institution as that of the sum-
mer school as thing of quite recent growth.
But less than n generation has known 1t
and it is still not wholly accepted by those
who find in precise adherence to what they
knew in boyhood the only safe conditions.
TNHE summer school is part Of the re-
markable development of popular cdu-
cation in America. n development logical
and in n line toward the realization of
that more actual democracy toward which
we are politically and socially tending. A
university used to be thought of as n place
in which any subject in it's higher reaches
and larger applications might become topic
for investigation and study by select body
of investigators and students. mcasurably
drawn apart from the practCalities of the
world. Now, without losing in the least the
idea of multiplicity of subject our thought
a place in which anybody may study any
thing-or at least we tend at times perilously
near to this reductio dd dbSurdum. But the
Gownsman is not in mood for casting
stones and he has not even his sling about
him; so such Goliaths may stalk on in un-
regarded grandeur. The diffusion of knowl-
edge is ms necessary and as dignifed pro-
ccdure as the garnering Of it and its pres
ervation in private granarcs and diffusion
nfne lNya fnr tbo s,,,, oto
eral good and therefore more Immediately
democratic. LET no man, woman or child
go untaught' is at least as reasonable
slogan as Let not n triviality escape the
sleuth hounds Of research
COME thirty years ago the English sent us
~ the idea of what was called university
extension" This idea in its inception, was
the reaching out of universities to lhrger
usefulness among those who had not en-
ioyed university educational advantages. It
had in it the elements of condescenson. and
of popuarization. Our American people re-
sented the first; the second element defeated
the initial purpose, so that latterly such
courses are mainly for diversion and uni
vcrsties have little to do with them. 1t is
said that nice distinction can be drawn
between university extension as Amer
lea now knows the remnant of 1t, and a
popular lecture bureau. If so. this subtlety is
beyond the Gownsman. But English university
extension found a well established rival in
the American Chatauqua and its like, which
beginning in the camp meeting. the motives
of which were religion and sociabilty, soon
added educational features which have de-
veloped into surprising proportions and use
fulness.
TNHE summer school is really only one Of
l. several university extensions which the
necessities of a wider Usefulness and the
democratic trend alluded to above have
brought about. University opportunities
have long since been extended to teachers
at hours when they can attend and not dis
turb their own teaching night schools reach
those employed all day many colleges are
conducting what they call extra mural
courses in which a teacher is sent out to
a group of students, unable to come to the
institution by reason of distance; and in all
serious work is done with view to practi-
cal ends. The summer school adds to the
features of these various extensions a GER
tain compression. That is in five o: six
weeks is traversed the range of work to
which a term is devoted in the usual college
curriculum This is effected by larger
number of hours devoted to some one sub
jcct ard an endeavor to keep the interest
of the student centered in a few subjects
instead of diffused in many. "Educators'
and teachers are still in question over the
advantages of this kind of concentration,
which, it would appear. is dependent on the
nature of the subject in hand rather than
on some more general pedagogic principle.
WILL it be too harsh to say of all these ex-
w tensions of education that they are not
unlike the case of the lfmade man? AS
somebody once put it: "a self made man!
,By all means get made that way, If you can
not manage any other" And what the
effort of self making has accomplished in the
turning out of successful men and women
no one acquainted with biography need be
informed The idea of "A university as a
cloistpred place of refuge from the noisy
world, the idea of select guild of learning,
aloof, authoritative, self centered, conde
scendng, to impart to a limited number Of
acolytes the mysteries of the learning of the
past-all this must go: in point of fact, it
has long since vanished to exist only in the
halIowed recollection of those who are hon
ored in being called reactionaries, for of
action, even backward. they know nothing.
THAT university is best performing its
i functions which reaches out most widely,
which aspircs to the largest usefulness,
which meets the wants of the largest, the
most varied number OF men ana women VINO
are equipped to benefit by its services, pro-
vided always that it does not give to these
services false value. In a short cut over
the fields there are many compensations be- p.
sides shortness; but it is possible to lose
something in deserting the highway, along
which, after all, it is most expeditions for
the majority of us to travel. So all of
these extensions serve useful purpose and,
if the mere acquisition of knowledge is the
soul of education, they possess that soul.
If time for growth, associations, protracted,
not momentary, influences, often uncon'
scious, that sink in, penetrate and have their
part in the making of educated men and
women be not all of them fancies, then all
these extensions must stand for what they
are the best way, if there is no other.
owe eat srloins and porterhouse steak