^^ 0)^^^J^-^cNJiiM^yv\ I LC / THE PLACE OF University Extension. BY SIIVION N. F»ATTEN, University of Pennsylvania. Reprinted from University Extension, February, iS THE PLACE OF 2o'/ University Extension. SIMON N. FLATTEN, University of Pennsylvania. Reprinted from University Extension, February, i6 ks\: oi. \ ^^ THK PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. WHEN a new movement in education knocks at our door and demands recognition as an educational agency, it is natural and right that its adherents should justify its claims. Too often a seemingly new movement proves to be only a variety of some old agency dressed in a new garb, or what is worse, a subordinate element in education, pushed forward into a prominence which its intrinsic merits do not deserve. The new education has been heralded numberless times ; in fact, it is always with us, and yet the predicted revolution has not come, and we are still following the traditional lines of education with such slight exceptions, that it would be difficult to enumer- ate any clearly defined principle which our age has brought forth. It is easy to see many changes in the educational world. The interest in education has greatly increased ; the public are much more willing to support educational projects, both by taxation and by private gifts ; the public schools have become a powerful means of elevating all classes of society ; technical and secondary schools are abundant and efficient ; and the great ,uaiv;^rsitiesj State and 'private, ^ have acquired an influence, w^ic|i ;su'pl3e':i[n3j;|t^tjpns p^e^^"^ before exercised. While recognizing these improvements, and many more that could be nanlj^d,' /I' 'sta^lt affl^rip' that ouifja^fe has not been original in its 'fdethods khd ^tbat'it'has not 'departed widely from the educational traditions of the past. We have, to be sure, in a groping, unconscious way made many important modifications in our educational system, but the principles upon which they rest have not been enumerated, nor have they been j ustified upon grounds in harmony with the spirit through which the changes have come. Independent, therefore, of (2) t THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 3 the claims of a new agency, demanding recognition, it is important to survey anew the various forces active in our educational world, and to enumerate more clearly the prin- ciples upon which their efficiency depends. It would seem an easy matter to determine the leading educational agents, and to measure their relative importance. The theory of education should classify and discuss them, just as the theory of production in political economy presents and discusses the agents in production. The history of education, too, should be a ready source of material from which a comparative study of educational forces can be made. But, unfortunately, both the theory and history of education in the sense I have indicated are yet to be written. There is at hand nothing more than incomplete sketches of certain historic epochs in education and of the men who led these great movements. Even from an inductive standpoint we have no analysis of the leading educational agencies. The leading educational institutions have never been com- pared, their functions analyzed, and their scope and duties defined. The principles of education have not been isolated from the inductive material by which they are obscured ; still less have they been corrolated, so that broad general- izations can be based upon them. The theory of education, if such it may be called, is an aggregation of the most mis- cellaneous character, a combination of platitudes, adages, maxims and traditions of uncertain value mixed with crude generalizations, based upon the institutions of a given epoch or the tendencies of a given age. The hand of a master has never sifted this heterogeneous material, separating theory from practice, and thus creating a nucleus about which a true theory of education can grow up. It is necessary to make this preliminary statement, because so many talk and write as if thej'- knew exactly the functions of each educational institution, and its relation to other recognized institutions, as if they were able to map out the whole educational world, and could determine the manner in which a new claimant of a portion of the educational field 4 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. would come into conflict with established agencies for the same end. It is hardly necessary to repeat that the data for such conclusions are lacking. The public school, the academy, the technical school, the college and the university, have each worked at their problems in an inductive manner. They have shifted their bases, altered their courses, and changed the character of their teaching in an independent way, dictated by their own necessities, without regard to their theoretical relation to other educational agencies. It is still a problem to determine just what each of these factors in education can undertake best, in how far they conflict with or duplicate the work of each other, and whether between them all the whole field is covered without any gaps which new institutions could fill to the advantage of all concerned. There is another source of error that must be eliminated before a survey of our topic is possible. It is assumed that a new organization with a new name must represent a new idea, something foreign to the accepted methods ; and hence, that the new conflicts with the old, or at least implies a defect in the old system through the neglect of some educational principle. The defence of the old thus seems to demand an opposition to the new, and many are jealous of any new movement, largely, because of the implied defects in the institutions they have learned to respect and love, and whose efficiency seems to be questioned. There must of course, be a measure of truth in such charges if the claims of the new institution are to be justified, and yet the conflict usually lies in a difierent quarter from that in which it appears to lie. The new institution usually represents some new differentiation of old agencies. The ideas which it empha- sizes, are old truths isolated from some of their historical surroundings and made prominent and forcible by their new setting. Often the apparently new ideas held a dominant place in an earlier system of education, but through the necessary adjustment to new conditions, new methods came into vogue, leaving some important principle in the background until it THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 5 is again seized upon by a new group of reformers and restored to its old position of respect and importance. Such changes may easily take place unobserved, because of the mingling of two distinct elements in all education — the personality and the method of the teacher. In great teachers, the first element is so dominant that the second becomes absorbed in it ; and for the time being lost sight of. Under these conditions a break may easily be made in the continuity of method without attracting conscious attention.- The disciples of the new teacher follow his methods subser- viently, extol them unduly, and assume a much greater harmony and continuity between the new and old than reall}' exists. It is easy to see how under such circum- stances important ideas should sink into obscurity, and seem entirely new when they are rediscovered at a later period, put into new relations and given a new name. Another source of confusion is due to the undefined, shadowy boundary of the educational field. All knowledge is not preserved or transmitted to succeeding generations through the recognized educational institutions. It is often overlooked that much, if not the greater part of the acquired knowledge of a given age comes to it not from the profes- sional teacher, but from the many other educational agencies by which the citizen is surrounded. The home, the church, the newspaper, the club, social organizations, social inter- course, and a multitude of other agencies help to perpetuate the knowledge of the race and to determine the standard of each generation. These agencies, moreover, are never static. They are subject to the struggle for existence, and are con- stantly modified by the dynamic flow of the society of which they are organs. They grow at the expense of each other, and force new modifications through which they become more sharply differentiated and better adjusted. The pur- pose which one of them serves may in time be transferred to another, and its own existence be justified by performing new duties or at least some old duties in a new and more efficient way. 6 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. Take, for example, the development of the home in modern society. It has become a highly diflferentiated institution, serving aesthetic rather than physical ends. It suggests comfort and ease rather than food and shelter. A wife is a comfort maker more than a bread maker, and children are supported from love instead of from duty. These changes have cut down the size of families by excluding dependents and productive laborers. They have made the home exclusive, brought parent and children into more sympathetic rela- tions, cut out the disciplinary aspect of home life, and reduced its strictly educational function, or, at least, turned it into new channels where little conscious influence was exerted in earlier times. Similar changes have taken place in the church. It has, through the evolution of society, lost many of its former functions. At an early date the administration of justice became a function of the State, and later education became secularized . The protestant reformation took from the church its cosmopolitan character. It ceased to be the force which bound nations and communities together, and restrained egoistic action in international affairs. It took on, at least in protestant nations where communities were split up by denominational differences, a more intense social nature. It exerts its influence chiefly upon individual families and classes, binding their members by stronger ties, and holding them up to a higher standard than could have been impressed upon the whole community or nation. It has thus elevated our ideals, purified our life, and strengthened the moral standards, but it has lost much of that broad, unspecialized influence which the early church exerted over our whole civilization. In this way the influence of the church over individuals and certain sections of society has been strength- ened, and through them is more powerful in moulding society as a whole than ever before. It is not, however, a national institution, giving force and character to national life. Na- tions no longer appeal to their God, their church and their reUgion to arouse their citizens to heroic action, except in a THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 7 formal way. They now resort to economic, political, or even class motives to make the action of the people harmonious and energetic. This educational influence of the old national church has been lost, and the present church in its new form, while serving other higher purposes much better, leaves a gap in religious activity in which little or no work is done. In fact, both the family and the church, have ceased to be national institutions, and have become social agencies for doing a very important but highly specialized social work. The broader field which they have vacated has been partially supplied by other agencies. The club, the secret society, the many kinds of associations based on ties which bind men of similar temperament and habits together, the trades unions and other labor organizations, which appeal to indus- trial instincts and motives, have each secured a place for themselves, partly by occupying the field vacated by the family and church, and partly by ministering to new wants which arise in a highly differentiated society. The pulpit has its scope limited by the appearance of the newspaper, the periodical, the lecturer and the author. The family has had its field narrowed by the Sunday School, the kinder- garten, the manual training school, and other forms of public education. Each new institution has intensified the func- tional activity of every other institution, and created a need of new institutions to fill up the newly discovered gaps in the social and educational world. A new educational movement is not an isolated phenome- non, but comes in as a part of a great social upheaval. Social institutions are the means by which a society seeks to adjust itself to its environment. If this environment were unchanging, the adjustment would soon be complete. The environment is not wholly objective, but depends upon the wants of the society seeking adjustment and changes as they change.* Each new environment, with its corresponding * Patten, " Theory of Dynamic Economics." Chap. VII. 8 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. Standard of life creates a dissatisfaction with old institu- tions, and awakens a desire for new ones more in harmony with the complex conditions of the new society. The home, the church, the school, the many social and industrial organ- izations, the State itself, as well as the customs, habits and instincts which grow up around them are modified and differentiated so as to allow new institutions of co-ordinate rank to supplement them, and thus increase the adjustment of society to its environment. Bach added complexity of the environment, bringing with it new social institutions and a rise of the standard of life, makes existing educational institutions inadequate, tends to differentiate them, and thus permits the rise of new institu- tions to supplement those already active. The larger demand for educational work arises mainly from the increased consciousness of harmonious consumption and of the neces- sity of ejecting inharmonious elements from it.* If progress meant simply isolated additions to social welfare, with no elimination or subordination of strong feelings, the type of our civilization would be much simpler, and the need of conscious education much reduced. As it is, each age, if progressive, must tear down and rebuild much of the sub- jective environment ; f instincts, habits and customs must be reformed, and the educational institutions revised and extended to meet the new conditions. I shall not take time to prove that the great social re- organization of this century has fulfilled all these conditions for a new educational movement. If the changes of the last century created the need of a Rousseau and a Pestalozzi the more thoroughgoing revolution of this century demands a still more complete upheaval and overthrow of educational routine and tradition. While there has been a great exten- sion of education to all classes, the content and method of instruction have not been changed and the evils are increased . * Patten, " The Economic Courses of Moral Progress." Annals of the AmericuD Academy of Political and Social Science. September, 1892. t The term " subjective environment " is explained on page 20, THB PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 9 very much by the larger numbers whom this type ot educa- tion reaches. So firmly have the conventional ideas of education been rooted in our minds that the educational history of the race has been distorted and the reliance on certain questionable doctrines is so Complete as to obscure and narrow the whole field of education. Educational theory has been displaced by the maxims of the art of forcing boys to become premature men. It is the art ot impressing facts and details upon the growing mind rather than vital principles and related knowledge. Race knowl- edge, race traditions, and race ideals have been lost sight of, and adult education, upon which they depend for vitality has been eliminated from the field of educational activity. We emphasize and support the school for boys, but neglect those broader educational forces which sustain and elevate the normal and intellectual tone of the adult population. This concept of boy or school education is a recent inven- tion. Among primitive nations, almost all the education is for the adult. The child participates in it only as a member of the community attracted by prominent features of social life. Race knowledge, traditions and history are preserved by the old rather than by the young. Education thus belongs to the period after and not before the active portion of a man's life. In Homer, we have a typical case of an early educator. His hearers were not mere children, but the men and women of the active period of life. They were aroused and held by an interest in the events narrated, and made better citizens by their deeper knowledge of the great epochs of national history, grouped in a natural order and made vivid by the emphasis on the stirring facts. Homer could, with truth, be called the first extensionist. He was an itinerant teacher depending upon popular interest in the history of his race for his support. He intensified the national life by his vivid pictures of past events and thus helped to form the national . character of the Grecian people. All nations have not been so fortunate as to have a Homer to make their traditions an lO UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. essential part of the education of every race ; but, at least, humble workers filled with the same spirit and using the same methods have made the traditions and ideals of each successful race so vivid and instinctive as to be the means of sustaining the national spirit under conditions where an appeal to other motives would fail. Even in the later periods of Grecian history education was largely confined to the mature portion of the community. Public questions occupied the dormant place in the social life of the Athenian. The education which prepared for political life was received in public places by adults in ways not dissimilar from those through which the American citizen gets his knowledge of national events. Socrates taught in the market places and his hearers were beyond what we now regard as the school age. The later and better organized schools of philosophy were places of retreat for the mature and not an isolating environment for boys. This education of the adults was made possible through the separation of society into classes. The slaves did the work and the citizen was in many respects a man of leisure, whose time was free for the purpose of self-culture. Educa- tion was thus a recreation and a pleasure, not a discipline. It was an end in itself and not a preparation for something beyond. The social conditions of modern times destroyed this ideal of the ancient world. The great industrial changes created new ideals of life through which the boy instead of the man became the centre of educational activity. The prime cause this change was the breaking down of the privileges of the aristocracy by which a portion of society had leisure during their mature years, coupled with the rise of the industrial classes into an active participation in national life. The adult population engaged in bread-earning occupations, and gave to them so much time and energy that education ceased to be a matter of conscious consideration. The intensifying of business life leads to an intensifying of the pleasures of the few remaining leisure hours. Amusements THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. n tend to displace education, crowding it into an earlier period of life before the child is of much use in the industrial world. Two important events helped these industrial changes in forcing the child into the school. The first of these was the invention of writing and printing. Here was an occupation well fitted for the child. He would learn to read and write before the period of industrial activity began and thus the valuable time of the adult would be used for other purposes. The second event was the revival of learning at the end of the middle ages. The ancient languages were the only storehouses of learning. The I,atin also was the best and in many fields the only medium for the exchange of ideas. The ancient languages thus became indispensable for culture and it was advantageous to use the' boy's time in their acquisition. Language study is well fitted for boys and its necessity under these conditions did much to fix in the minds of the people the notion that 'education is a task for boys and not a recreation for men. This new concept of education was strengthened by cer- tain ideas prevalent in the religious world. The school and the church were parts of one institution, and educational ideas were colored by the ascetic notions prevalent in religious circles. The doctrine of natural depravity created a demand for an isolating environment for the boy at school, and a discipline to correct the evil tendencies natural to youth. The school was not made a vital part of each com- munity, but a distant place to which the boy was sent and in which he was free from the strong temptations of the external world. At a time when isolation from the world was deemed necessary for moral progress, and pain and privation the best means of creating a noble, lofty character, it was easy to remodel educational ideas, so as to emphasize these elements. The church attempted to form the char- acters of boys on the plan it used to reform men. Thus certain ideas secured a dominant place in modern education and have not yet been displaced although our religious life, X2 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. from which they were taken, has been modified by the quickening influence of higher ideals. The static condition of educational theory is largely due to the need of extending the advantage of public schools to all classes. Reformers have been desirous of giving to the lowest classes of society the advantages which were in earlier times the exclusive privilege of the higher classes. The lower classes, however, enter into the industrial life earlier than do the higher classes, and their education must be finished earlier if it is not to interfere with their indus- trial activities. The temptation to cram isolated facts is increased since they are the best means of giving to the child the appearance of mature thinking. Each extension of popular education has narrowed its scope and emphasized its mechanical features so as to utilize more fully the period of the boy's life before he becomes a worker. The conscious endeavor of educators has been directed toward forcing boys to acquire facts and ideas at a little earlier period than that in which they would be acquired through direct contact with nature and society. The result is that boys' education is badly overdone. If the eighteenth century reformer sought to isolate the boy from society, and let nature educate him, the reformers of to-day should be willing to let nature keep the boy as long as possible, and strive to educate the man. The rise of the modern universities opened up new avenues for adult education. There was at first no demand for pre- vious training and hence an opportunity was afforded every mature person to extend his knowledge in any direction. These conditions could not remain permanent, because of two disturbing factors. The rise of the boys' schools took the elementary work from the universities and caused them to set a high standard for admission. Of even greater import- ance was the growth of a purely scientific spirit of study due to the rise of the modern physical sciences. These stu- dies encouraged the growth of specialization, through which the closely related bodies of knowledge known to the ancient THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 1 3 world were broken up into many isolated parts. The student now acquired a definite, detailed knowledge of a narrow field, and a power of using this knowledge in the useful arts. A new ideal of scholarship was acquired through these means, which altered the character of work, not only in the physical sciences, but also in language, literature, and phi- losophy. The specialist has displaced the savant of the older times who emphasized the study of man, and the relation of all kinds of knowledge to him, and to the society of which he is a part. While the contrast I desire to make between these two ■classes of men is clear, the distinction is hard to describe, because of the lack of good terms. We all know what a specialist is, and what are his strong and weak points, but the other type of scholar, and the attitude from which he views life lack good terras to distinguish them. We recog- nize him in several particular relations as social philosopher, moralist, or reformer, but this type of scholar has been dis- placed by the specialist so completely that there seems little need of a term to describe him. That the term scholar now means only a specialist shows how fully the ideal of uni- versity life has strayed from what it was even a century ago. Perhaps the distinction I desire to emphasize can be made clear by presenting it in another aspect. A knowledge of facts and relations can be retained in three ways. The lowest form is memorized knowledge which holds isolated facts together by a purely mechanical association. The remem- brance of a list of kings, or of the spelling of given words is of this character. The second form is reasoned knowledge. In the form of the syllogism, two ideas are bound together by means of a third idea. This kind of knowledge is serial. Idea follows idea through their relation to some third idea. The feeling of certainty in a syllogistic argument is derived from an external principle, not a part of the phenomena present in the mind when the feeling of certanty arises. A series of ideas, only a part of which are in the consciousness at one time, cannot of itself create the feeling of reality which 14 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. a syllogistic argument produces in minds suited for such reasoning. In such arguments, the related ideas are stripped of every concrete relation except their serial order. There is, therefore, a complete divorcement of all elements of feeling and reliance on a single principle to produce conviction. This power to isolate ideas from feelings and to think of them as only a part of a single series bound together by an external principle is possessed by different individuals in very different degrees. Few, if any, can break up all their related ideas and reform them into a simple objective series, isolated from all the feelings which would naturally create other relations between them. Most persons have this power to a very limited degree, and in their case conviction usually arises from some other source. With them, conclusions based on formal logic, do not have the weight given to facts standing in more concrete relation to one another, through which much stronger feelings are awakened. It is often assumed that this serial reasoned knowledge is the highest type and the only form that knowledge can take if complete. Even if this be admitted, it is still necessary to correlate it with, and to distinguish it from, the more common type of reasoning through which the average man acquires his knowledge. I call this third kind of knowledge visual- ized knowledge, to contrast it with the serial knowledge due to formal reasoning. I call it visualized from its most promi- nent characteristic, and not because this is its only form. The touch, for example, gives us a simple series of phe- nomena from which all related knowledge must be inferred. The sight, however, places many objects in juxtaposition in one perception and enables us to see many relations which could be only inferred by the touch. The space relations given by the sight are more complex and concrete than are the simple time relations given by the touch. Visualized knowledge stands in much the same relation to serial reasoned knowledge as that in which space relations stand to time relations. Ideas when visualized assume a more or THE PI,ACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 1 5 less concrete form and are so definitely related to one another that they can appear simultaneously in consciousness. They thus form a related unit and have an air of reality which reasoned truths cannot have. Some simple illustrations will make my meaning clear. The success of the astronomical system of Copernicus depended not on the law of gravitation and its necessary inferences, but on the possibility of getting the average man to picture the definite relations which this system pre- supposes. The revolution of the world on its axis continued unreal until the individual could picture such a revolution without any disturbance of the concrete relations which exist on the surface of the earth. It was this concrete related picture of the relation of the earth to the sun, and not the possible inferences from the law of gravitation which brought a state of mind open to conviction. Only when it became possible to picture with equal vividness the two systems of astronomy could the reasoned evidence based on the law of gravitation have its due weight and create conviction.* The theory of rent, as enunciated by Ricardo, is a bold, brilliant piece of reasoning, and yet, but few of those who read of it were convinced. The writings of Heur>' George do not differ materially from those of Ricardo in their reason- ing about rent. By the former, however, the theor}' is brought into concrete relation with well known and striking facts, and a picture is formed of a simple economic world in which the theorj^ of rent has the importance of the theory of gravitation in the phj'sical world. Thousands have been convinced by this simple picture, who would have remained unmoved by the strongest of logic severed from any concrete relations. A similar condition has been a serious obstacle to the spread of the doctrine of evolution. The picture of a crea- tion is definite and is a type of a common event of every-day life. But the picture of an evolution has to the average man * In Adam Smith's essay on the " History of Astronomy " this fact is clearly illustrated. 1 6 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. no concrete reality, ^e cannot correlate it with other prin- ciples upon which he is accustomed to act. The evidence for an evolution fails to convince him until he can visualize it by putting it into definite relations with other parts of his concrete knowledge. The test of conceivability when made a standard for measuring truth depends upon this power to visualize. To conceive a truth is to put its different elements into definite relations to one another, so that they can merge into one idea and have an air of concrete reality like the facts of the objective world. Where the power to do this is lacking, no conviction follows, no matter how complete may be the serial reasoning by which it is enforced. To conceive is to visualize — to put ideas into space relations. To reason is to put ideas in a serial order, and bind them together by a higher principle. These two powers depend upon different psychical conditions and cannot be confused without a destruction of clear thin kins:. These facts are of importance in distinguishing the kind of knowledge with which the specialist deals from that which is the subject-matter of the social philosopher and other thinkers who deal with related bodies of practical knowledge. The specialist isolates the different parts of the subject, arranges its elements in a serial order, and depends upon reasoning alone to show the logical relations which exists between them. He studies abnormal conditions, things separ- ated from their natural environment by laboratory methods, and draws from them inferences as to how they act in the complex relations of the real world. The social philosopher, the moralist, the reformer, and like thinkers, who dealing with practical affairs, desire to create conviction and influence the conduct of men, cannot isolate the different parts of their subject without destroying the concrete relations which give it reality. And if they could, they would by the pro- cess, lose power to present the result in a way which would convince the public of its importance. It is not the wrong logic of the public which hinders their success. It is rather an THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 17 inability on the part of the public to visualize the facts received and thus make it a part of the concrete body of objective knowledge, which influences the conduct of each individual. Definite relations are not established between the new knowledge and the old, so that the new concept of the world created by these relations has the same reality as had the old concept. In the tariff controversy, for example, the difference be- tween the free trader and the protectionist does not depend in its final analysis upon the facts and the proper inferences to be drawn from them. Their opposition comes mainly from the different pictures they possess of the industrial world. Each visualizes a certain part of the known facts about trade and industry' and cannot make certain other facts a part of this picture. Change this picture and they change sides in the controversy immediately. The sudden conversions on this subject of which we often hear, are due not so much to logic as to a newly acquired power to picture the industrial world in a new way. They now relate all their other knowl- edge to this new picture and become zealous partisans of the new ideal. This race knowledge to which attention has been called should not be confused with that unrelated mass of facts acquired by each individual to which the name ' ' general information ' ' is usually given. In the special environment of each individual relations arise, events happen and facts are acquired, which are of sufficient importance to be remem- bered. They are of value to him alone and are of little or no value to other individuals when imparted to them, because the same relations do not exist between them and this knowl- edge, as existed between it and the first individual. Suppose, for example, a person sees a murder. It produces a vivid impression upon him never, perhaps, to be forgotten. But when he imparts this fact to other persons not directly related to the event, it has to them only a transient interest and is soon forgotten. Such facts are easily impressed, but the same vividness is not easily imparted to others. Gossip, the events l8 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. of the day, current history, and the mass of facts relating to our social and economic life having an interest to individuals and not to society, are forgotten when these individuals cease to exist. Race knowledge differs from this general information in that its parts are related and has, therefore, the same interest to the person who receives it as it has to the person who im- parts it. Each person finds in it a new source of pleasure. It is assimilated by him and becomes a motive for action. Our race knowledge on any subject is not due to any one event, but is created through a series of events, each of which furnishes some element to be transformed into an item of race knowledge. A plot, a hero or a social ideal results from the blending of many isolated facts and events. Much of each group of items is rejected and forgotten, but an element remains with which other similar elements can be related and formed into a harmonious group. The test of race knowledge is the power of the individual to make it objective, and have that reality to him which it would have were it an actual event of his special environment. There are therefore two distinct bodies of knowledge which it is the duty of the university to preserve, extend and impart. A great mass of scientific facts exists, which are gradually collected by specialists in each line of work. Much of this knowledge is in isolated forms and cannot be at present cor- related, so as to become strictly related truths. The amount is also too great for one individual to acquire, and as each part demands special training for its acquirement, the citizen is shut out from its direct use. It is necessarily the posses- sion of a class and can, with propriety, be called class knowl- edge. Out of this great body of collected facts, there are certain groups of facts, parts of which stand in definite relation to one another. They can become related bodies of knowl- edge and be put in a concrete form, which will make them appeal to the citizen. Not all facts can be so related, because at a given time the knowledge of a g^ven subject or its THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. I9 relations to other subjects may not be clearly seen. Such facts must remain class knowledge, and in the hands of specialists. The body of related concrete knowledge, however, continu- ally grows and when a subject assumes this form it is possible to impart it to the public and thus make it a part of the active forces in society which create the national character. This kind of knowledge may be called race knowledge, because it is either a part of the common inheritance of all, or might be made so if sufl&cient care was taken to put it in the proper form and to impress it upon the public. Specialized knowledge and race knowledge are distinct and depend upon different conditions for their growth. There is no necessary connection between the amount of one and the other. They are also possessed by different types of men — the scholar, whose life is given to research, and the citizen, whose avocation lies in practical affairs. Scholar- ship and citizenship are necessary ideals in any progressive society. The function of scholarship is to preserve and ex- tend knowledge and it has a range wide enough to contain all problems which engage human attention. No fact, however isolated or disconnected from other facts, can be neglected, or is less valuable to the scholar, because at present it has no practical importance. The function of citizenship is to preserve and defend the institutions, customs, and instincts of the race through which social progress is possible. It must represent the highest possibilities of social life under present conditions and as a means to this end the citizen should have a knowledge of all the problems of life, which have been well thought out and carefully correlated. The level of citizenship depends upon the quantity of race knowl- edge — that knowledge which can be visualized and thus made a concrete part of the social environment. The citizen is moved to action and has his life enriched, not by the isolated facts of interest only to the scholar, and having weight only when held together by the chains of serial reasoning, but by ideals, institutions, and customs due to the effects of the race knowledge which he has assimilated 20 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. and visualized. Specialized knowledge touches the citizen at too few points to be a reality to him, but race knowledge, when crystallized into social institutions, customs, and ideals, is as objective and real to him as any part of his environment. He accepts the conditions which flow from these facts as readily as he does the effects of the law of gravitation. He sees them and their effects as a present reality, and not as inferred existences outside of his prospective. It forms the subjective environment,* projected by him into the outer world and so blended with it as to receive its degree of reality. Like the panorama which combines a bit of real scenery near at hand with a painted background, so as to give the effect of reality to the whole picture, so the visual- ized race knowledge, creating the national character, becomes as real and objective to the citizen as the soil, mine or shop from which he earns his living. If I am right in this analysis, the educational field is divided into three parts ; preparation of the boy for industrial life, preparation of the adult for citizenship, and preparation of the scholar for specialized work. The boy and the * By the subjective environment, I meanall these habits, customs, institutions and race ideals, through which the actions of individuals in a given society are deter- mined. Were a Crusoe economy possible — a state of absol ute isolation — an individual would find his actions restrained only by the conditions of the objective world. An individual in a society with inherited customs, ideals, and institutions, finds in them as powerful restraints to his actions as are the restraints of the objective world. He accepts and adjusts himself to the one as readily and unconsciously as to the other. The bonds which unite a community into one harmonious body are strong when each individual forms and projects the same social ideals. They are, of course, a creation of the individual, but he acts on them as if they were in reality objective. It is a common sociological concept to think of a society as an organism. This concept is, however, defective. The members of a society act together, not because they are parts of an organism having an independent vital force, but because they project and visualize the same subjective environment. If the concept of a social- organism is a valid explanation of social actions, then we might also conceive the objective environment to be an organism and not a mere group of conditions. Groups of conditions, creating common actions, however, should be kept distinct from the living organisms which come in contact with them. The only organism is the individual man. There are, however, two environments, the objective and the subjective. The one is independent of man, the other is created by him. Both of them influence his conduct and seem to him to have equal objective reality. THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 21 scholar are provided for, but the citizen is neglected. The school teacher and college professor have clearly defined duties and recognized means of fulfilling them. What are the functions of the third kind of teachers ? How can they act efficiently, and what shall we call them? The University Extension movement seeks to answer these questions and to create a clearly defined agency, co-ordinate with other educational forces, which will do for the citizen what the school does for the boy, or the university for the scholar. It does not desire to make up for the deficiencies in boys' education by a kind of night school, nor to give to busy adults that specialized knowledge, which is the func- tion of the university. However fully the school and uni- versity may fulfill their recognized duties, there remains a field of equal importance for University Extension. In fact, the more fully they perform their functions, the more clearly will the field of University Extension be defined, and its need felt. Elementary knowledge, specialized knowledge and race knowledge are distinct in kind, and require special agencies for their preservation, promotion and enlargement. There is, however, in the present system, no means of acquiring race knowledge — that related, practical knowledge, which enriches and enlarges the life of the citizen. No educational agency impresses the functions of citizenship, or has as its conscious end the elevation of national character. The school drills the boy in the elements of knowledge, and relies upon the indirect effects of this knowledge to mould his character. It is assumed that if boys become efficient producers, their interests will be with the State and make them good citizens. This is a crude utilitarian attitude, which has no basis in the facts relating to the history of our civilization. Good citizenship is not due to material inter- ests, but to the instincts, feelings and ideals which are a part of our race inheritance. It is often forgotten that political instincts and national character were formed before the era of boy education began. Our present educational 2'2 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. methods are not more than two centuries old, and have become efi&cient only in this century. Our political instincts, however, are centuries old, and are too firmly inbedded in the national character to be materially weakened in so short a time by a change in the character of educational methods. Our present race knowledge also was largely acquired, and its eflFects in social institutions and ideals fully realized while adult education was still one of the conscious forces of our civilization. In earlier times, the university was a potent factor in extending race knowledge and forming the national charac- ter. The strength of the old college lay in impressing ideals. Its best teachers dealt with related bodies of practical knowledge more than with the theoretical specialized knowledge. Their aim was to show the unity of knowl- edge, and separate the details of history and experience from their principles and philosophy. They sought for heroes and epoch-making events, through which their students would be inspired with higher aspirations and greater self-sacrifice. Along these lines, Adam Smith, Mark Hopkins and other great teachers worked. Such work is fitted not merely for college students, but for the public as well. The old college professor combined lecturing or preaching to the public with instruction for his students, and found the same topics and methods efiicient in both cases. He really gave a series of Extension lectures, although not divided into regular groups of six or twelve. He simply clung to one topic until its lessons were thoroughly impressed, and passed on to another for like treatment. When this work was well done, a series of deep impressions was made on the hearers to have an abiding effect in after years. The complaint about the old college professor has its basis in the fact that he was in reality an Extension lecturer, dealing with related knowledge, and not with specialized knowledge. He lacked that detailed information about special subjects which is the strength of the modern specialist. THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 23 This weakness and the consequent lack of co-ordination of university work caused him to be displaced by the more efficient but narrower specialist, who fits better into the modern scheme for a division of labor in university work. Each department of knowledge is now better provided for than before, but an important function of university work is neglected, seriously marring the completeness of university life. The clergy also have been an efficient means of extending race knowledge and of elevating the standard of citizenship. In the good old days of long and frequent sermons, a large part of their content was not theological, but practical and historical. In an isolated community where books and newspapers were rare, the preacher stood between the con- gregation and the external world and interpreted its events to them. He was their teacher and historian, and exerted as direct an influence on citizenship as on moral character. The modern clergyman, by a natural process of differentia- tion due to the entrance of other educational agencies into the life of the community, has become a pastor or moral regenerator, and has lost, to a large extent, the function of teacher and interpreter of public events. His sermons are mere exhortations or short homilies on abstract, moral quali- ties, and lack that concrete presentation of prominent events of the secular world through which national character is formed and social institutions sustained. Thus a gap is made in the educational forces of the community which is not filled by any conscious agency. The family and social life of each community were also in early times a great educational force, and, perhaps, the main factor in keeping up the race traditions and in maintaining a high standard of citizenship. In an age of books and papers, we are apt to forget the importance of oral instruction to our forefathers, and its influence on the national character. Each locality had its traditions and heroes which were a part of the folk-lore of the people, and set the standard for heroic action. All the events of national or local importance 24 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. were in this way magnified and visualized until they acquired that vitality needed to keep them fresh in the minds of all, and to cause them to be transmitted from age to age. Politi- cal instincts and race ideals have been formed by these forces. But for the educational influence of family life and of local environment, the great institutions of the State could not have been formed, nor would the love of liberty and inde- pendence be so prominent an element of citizenship. The citizen was made by the oral instruction and traditions of the family and community, and not by books written in the great centres of learning, nor by public instruction furnished by the State. The isolated localities have been in advance of the great centres, and have determined the course of national events. The extension of elementary instruction, too, has tended to lower citizenship by displacing oral home instruction and local traditions. The history taught in the school is doubt- less more correct and extended than were local traditions, but it lacks that vital force so characteristic of foli5:-lore and other forms of race knowledge. The full written account of a great man or event is insipid when compared with the tale of a grandfather who took part in the event or followed the hero to victory. The one is a series of details, the other is, through visualization, a part of the living present. Com- pare the account of the late war in a school history with the thrilling narrative of an old soldier. Much more than these school histories are needed to keep fresh in the mind of every citizen the traditions of the Anglo-American race, the deeds of our forefathers, and the events of more recent times, thus making them a source of inspiration and a standard of political action. Both the university specialist and the Extension lecturer are engaged in adult education. They are also similar in that they are discoverers of new truths, as well as teachers of the old. The specialist isolates and analyzes phenomena and discovers new processes for investigating them. He adds new facts to what is known, and increases our theoretical THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. knowledge. These facts and theories are purely objective and show only the external relations existing between things and events. The lecturer, however, must take these facts and theories and discover the relations existing between them and the bodies of knowledge already assimilated by his hearers. The subjective unity of facts and events does not follow of itself upon the discovery of their objective rela- tions. Things may lie isolated in the mind, which are bound together by the strongest objective ties, or on the contrary, a vital connection may be felt between ideas, which have no objective relation. It is the function of the lecturer to develop the logic of conviction and to use it rather than formal logic in creating a vital relation between the facts he wishes to impart to his hearers and their previous knowledge. He must leave these facts in their minds, not as mere facts, but as part of their organized race knowledge. They must feel its reality as they do the parts of the objective world with which they come into contact. The subjective environment, based on visualized race knowledge, is projected into space and becomes as much a part of the environment of the individual as any material object. He acts in relation to this visualized knowledge as though it were a part of the objective world, and had its power of regulating and controlling his actions. Reasoned serial knowledge predicates time relations and creates a time conviction ; but absent time does not have the subjective reality of present felt relations. It is out of the existing world of feeling and is connected with it by a single chain of uncertain strength. Race knowledge creates the convic- tion of the actual presence of the object of thought, and binds it through strong feelings with other parts of the environment. It creates a space conviction through which subjective ideas appear as a part of the objective environ- ment, and have for the individual all its reality. To make his facts partake of this reality is the function of the lecturer. He must create from them social ideals through which an added force and objectivity is given to 26 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. social institutions, the standard of citizenship elevated, and the defects in national character rectified. In each group of events he must find a fit subject for an additional narrative in the folk-lore, and in each epoch he must discover the hero with qualities worthy of admiration and emulation. Out of the data which these facts give, must also come the practical principles and maxims, which the hearer can use as a guide in his own experience. The specialist finds facts in the external void of chaos. The lecturer loses them again in the narrative, the epoch, the plot, the drama, the hero, the ideal, and the revelation. They give up their isolated exist- ence and reappear as parts of the subjective environment. Facts as facts have no place outside of the specialist's labora- tory. They cannot become part of the race knowledge with- out a transformation into some higher form. They are only the oil lost in the flame which lights the world. It is evident, therefore, that university work divides itself into two portions, needing for its execution two distinct types of men, — the specialist as explorer and expounder of objective facts, and the lecturer as popularizer and creator of race knowledge. The work of one must be confined largely to the great centres of learning, where the proper facilities for work and study are to be found ; the other must come into direct contact with the public and carry to it the best products of our civilization. The university without efficient local organizations through which to impart culture to the adult population, is as defective as the church would be, having theological schools or religious papers but no local organizations or pastors. The work of the college professor and Extension lecturer overlap somewhat but not to any great extent. It is true that often much good can be accomplished by definite spe- cialized class work at the Extension centres. But the necessity of this is largely due to defects of early education. If our school system were as complete as it should be, the need of this work would disappear or would become a recognized part of the local school system. The true function of THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 27 University Extension should never be confused with the demand for class work, no matter how necessary it may be under existing conditions to supply it. On the other hand, the need of the lecturer in college, as contrasted with the work of the specialist, while vital, is not of necessity so great in amount as is usually assumed. By far the larger part of it is due to the lack of organized efforts in the localities to raise the standard of culture and to increase the race knowledge of their citizens. Because of these defects in civic life the quantity of race knowledge has lagged behind that of specialized knowledge. The gulf between them is ever widening, and thus obscures the natural relation between the different parts of university work. There has not been that transformation of scientific facts and objective events into those subjective visualized forms through which they become vital parts of our civiliza- tion. With the dawn of modern civilization, false ideas of adult education diverted the attention of educators from race knowledge and dwarfed its growth. The folk-lore has diminished rather than increased in quantity ; the popular heroes, losing their place at the fireside, are to be found only in books ; the epochs in natural history have become a mere skeleton to be memorized by school children ; political instincts and local traditions slumber from lack of well- directed efforts to sustain the spirit of patriotism ; our litera- ture does not influence the masses, because there is no conscious endeavor to interpret it to them or to raise them into an atmosphere where they could assimilate it ; our his- tories are not vivid enough to take the citizen out of his immediate surroundings and to make him feel the influence of the early history of his race and be in touch with its epoch-making events. Under these conditions, the student comes to college lacking the essential elements of general culture. He must be made a citizen before he can be made a scholar. Much of the work of the first years of college life is simply to supply these defects, and would not be necessary if the level of general culture were raised and 28 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. idce knowledge stood in its proper relation to specialized knowledge. The university must therefore increase its force of lecturers or diminish the usefulness of its specialists by requiring them to furnish the elements of general culture. When the university system is well organized, however, the lecturer will find his work almost wholly with the public and in the localities, thus enabling the specialist to secure his students at the great centres of learning fully prepared and eager for work, because the motive force is culture and not mere discipline. The most obvious difference between the Extension lec- turer and the college professor engaged in the same class of work, is that the former has a mixed audience, having no previous training for his work. In addition to his higher work, therefore, he must undertake a more modest task of hardly less importance. It must always be a function of University Extension to enlarge the vocabulary of the peo- ple and to give them the definite terms needed to express their ideas and to appreciate the ideas of others. Social bonds are much weakened by the lack of proper terms to express common ideas. Much of our best literature loses its force because the words of the author are not associated with the right feeling or condition in the reader and hence the word does not arouse the proper feeling in his mind. The use of slang, oaths and other crude forms of expression arise mainly from a lack of words to express different shades of feeling. A man who has only a few hundred words with which to name objects or to express feelings lacks the conditions essential to appreciate a worthy novel, poem, or essay, or even an inspiring narrative of deeds or events. The extension of scientific ideas is also much hindered by the loose popular terminology and the ignor- ance of the public of the use of scientific terms. The lec- turer must become the school master in this respect, and remove these initial difficulties. Words must be made to represent definite ideas, and be the vehicles through which the ideas, images, and feelings of the speaker or writer gain THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 29 admittance and find a response in the mind of the hearer. Simple lessons in the analysis of thoughts and feelings, objects and their relations must precede any valuable work in literature or science. Too often, the lack of interest which individuals show in higher matters, is due to these initial difficulties, which bar the entrance to every kind of serious study. Subjects which have inherently a self-sustaining interest are regarded as tedious because the style, termi- nology, and analysis of the author present insurmountable obstacles to the isolated reader. To remove these difficulties is the first duty of the lecturer and no function that he can perform shows more clearly the superiority of University Extension over other plans of increasing popular knowl- edge, which do not bring teacher and pupil into close contact. The great difference, however, between college students and an Extension audience lies in the different environment of the two classes and in the kind of knowledge with which the new facts must be associated in order to be thoroughly assimilated. The Extension audience must associate the new with the race knowledge, which is a part of their subjective environment and not, as a college class would do, with special- ized knowledge, the fruit of previous training. The inherent qualities of the race must be aroused in them and the new and the old must be blended into a higher type of race knowledge. The lecturer must rely wholly on present interest, keeping the thread of his di.scourse so prominent that the interest deepens as the body of related knowledge grows. The lecturer cannot create an environment for his students and isolate them from the world as the college professor can do. It is not so much that men are busy but that the enjoy- ment of the results of their greater productivity occupies their attention more fully during their leisure hours. When many pleasures are crowded into a given time a new claim- ant must present a .stronger case than is necessary if the 30 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. leisure time is not so fully occupied.* The busy adult differs from the college student, in that his temptation to- waste time is greater, or to use it in ways not productive of culture. Amusements tend to displace education when life is keyed to so high a pitch. This intensity of the social environment compels the lec- turer to follow the lines of public interest more closely than if his students were in the isolated environment of a college. The newspaper, for example, must compete with other means of creating interest and must to displace them, surpass the interest they create. Its news, its narratives, its register of crime and scandal must be more interesting than the oral gossip which would otherwise engage the attention of the community. Having the whole world to draw on for its material it can usually find more startling events than those which the local gossip can secure, thus diverting the reader from the local to the national or cosmopolitan events. The lecturer must also compete in the same arena but he does it by diverting the attention from present social interests to the great epochs of past history, to the causes of national pros- perity and to those related bodies of knowledge which help the citizen to interpret the events of his own life and age. The lecturer must find in his world heroes, plots, and dramas, surpassing in interest the material of his rivals. Gossip is limited to the events of the locality, the newspapers to the events of a day, but he can draw upon the whole his- tory of civilization, and bring its events into vital relation with the present. With such material he can construct epochs and heroes, plots and dramas, theories and ideals of" surpassing interest. He must put in the foreground, not facts, but ideals, not the connected history, but its great epochs, not the details of a narrative, but the plot, not the knave, but the hero. The lecturer thus becomes a living force with his hearers, and crowds out of their lives many * To use an ecouomic illustration : as the margin of the consumption of the- individual or of a community rises the less intense pleasures are cut out and a new pleasure must be more intense in order to divert the attention from oldeic pleasures. See " Theory of Dynamic Economics." Chap. VIII. THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 3 1 of its worst elements. The standard of excellence demands work of such a character that it would remain a living force if there were no printing, and events and ideas could survive only as folk-lore. Ideas and principles must be stamped upon character before they can survive on paper. The problems of the lecturer resemble those of the clergy- man, who also deals with the adult population in their social environment and has to struggle against the intense momen- tary pleasures which this environment affords. Religious principles and ideals must be presented with increasing vigor and be more closely related to the visualized race knowledge on religious topics, if the clergy maintain and strengthen the church in the more intense social environ- ment of the present time. In one respect the clergyman has a great advantage over the lecturer. Custom and law have reduced the intensity of social life on one day of the week, thus giving on this day an ascendency to religious forces. There is as yet no educational Sunday to aid the lecturer. He must face the most potent social forces and can succeed only by exciting a similar interest in his work. This increasing interest of social life also affects the standard of citizenship. In olden 'times the danger of invasion from without and oppression from within were ever present evils. Between them they kept the attention con- stantly directed toward political life and intensified the interest in it, while by checking industrial progress, they reduced the intensity of social life. The obstacles to national liberty and the means of national defence were vivid and objective. The encircling ranges of mountains shut out the foreign foe ; this swamp, that lake, yonder ridge or river, protected the flank from the enemy ; some well-known strait isolated the land ; the mountainous nature of the country made invasion impossible ; the castle on the hill afforded a safe place for refuge ; the wall of the city, or neighboring fortress, gave relief from oppression ; the hero who gave liberty, the king who oppressed, the conquering general, the .skillful statesman, were all present realities. 32 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. touching the life of the citizen on many sides. The smaller and weaker the nation the more objective does the environ- ment become and the more real are the forces which check or promote its welfare. They are all vivid realities, vitally connected with the interests of the citizen and impressed upon his attention by a continuous series of important-events. Under these conditions, there was little need of conscious political education, as it was forced upon him by the condi- tion of his environment. The citizen had become so adjusted to the local environ- ment that a large portion of his conduct lay within the region of instinct. The utilitarian calculus of pleasures and pains had been displaced in these cases by psychologic motives, demanding a conformity between his conduct and the customs and ideals formed through the concrete rela- tions between himself and the local environment. His morals, politics and social habits had a reason and a cause in these relations, but the reason and cause were not the conscious motive for action. When the conditions of the environment have continued long enough to become idealized strong feelings grow up around each ideal, thus creating a stronger motive for action than a reasoned calculation of results would give.* When some new condition in the environment first affects a man, he estimates its importance in the direct pleasures and pains it affords. This pleasure is its positive utility. f Longer contact brings the condition or some of its effects into harmonious relation with other conditions and their effects. Groups of related pleasures grow up forming com- pliments X in the consumption of the individual out of which he gets a greater pleasure than he could from the same * To understand fully this and the following paragraphs, the reader should study the essay already mentioned on the " Economic Courses of the Moral Progress," and also an article on the " Scope of Political Economy " in the Yale Revieiv, November, 1893. t See University Extension, Vol. II, p. 1S2, for the distinction between posttire and absolute utilities. |See University Extension, Vol. II, p. 213, et seq., for elementary discussion of the formation of complements. THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 33 elements iu isolation. He now thinks of each element as a part of this complement of pleasures and estimates its importance through the pleasure of the full complement of which it is a necessary part. This utility is its effective utility and is measured by what the consumer would lose if deprived of it. The calculation is still utilitarian but is modified by its complexity, a change being made from a direct to an indirect measurement. The lack of supply or the growing complexity of social conditions may relate an object not merely to a group of pleasures but to the whole life of the individual, thus making it an absohite utility. The utility of the necessary supply of food, for example, can- not be measured quantitatively by its possessor. Social progress by visualizing certain subjective conditions makes them as real and objective to the individual as the food supply and other objective conditions to existence. He can- not distinguish between the importance and reality of the two. They become blended into one unit of reality and are to the same degree absolute utilities to the individual and to the society of which he forms a part. They are, therefore, outside the realm of quantitative measurement and get their motive force from some other principle than conscious utilitarianism. Thus a realm for higher motives is formed by the growth of impulses having no quantitative relations. Through a visualization of the conditions creating the absolute utility, there grows up a corresponding ideal, and an impulse for its realization. These ideals form a part of the subjective environment and create motives which induce men to acquire the absolute utilities. Pleasures and pains are feelings which result from relations existing between the individual and the objective environment. Emotions are impulses arising from relations existing between the individual and his subjective environment. The individual creates his subjective environment and binds his conduct to its ideals and principles through strong irresistible impulses. The act follows directly upon the perception of the condition L;^ IC 34 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. requiring action. Impulses are of one dimension and lack the quantitative relations characteristic of feelings of pleasure and pain. The conduct of an individual is, therefore, determined either by impulses arising from relations between him and his subjective environment or by quantitative feelings of pleasures and pains, due to the relation between him and the objective environment. The realm of the two classes of motives correspond to the extent of the two kinds of environment. Static social conditions permit the growth of the subjective environment — the realm of instinctive action. New social conditions destro)'- a part of the old subjective environment, increase the importance of objective relations, and extend the realm of conduct determined by a calculation of pleasures and pains. The great social changes of this century have in this way increased the realm of conscious calculation and strengthened the tendency in men to regulate their conduct by strictly utilitarian standards. The growth of industrial relations in complexity and extent, the removal of the physical obstacles to the free movement of men and commodities, the increase of security and prosperity and the formation of great States have broken down the old local environ- ment and with it has gone the basis upon which a large portion of the subjective environment rested. Many old ideals have lost their vividness, thus destroying the motive force of the political, moral and social instincts depending upon them. The warship and the soldier, the hero and the statesman, are seen only in pictures ; the Presi- dent and Congress are in a distant city ; there are no local traditions of heroic acts ; no historic scenes to connect the present with the past ; no mountains, lakes, or straits are needed to give a feeling of security ; legislative halls are con- nected with corruption and bribery, and not with deeds of patriotism ; no fear of foreign invasion, domestic oppression, or of grievous taxation disturbs the tranquillity of industrial life ; liberties seem natural and not dearly bought rights, and THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 35 the constitution is only a part of an uninteresting book. When a nation becomes strong, its position secure, and its unity organic, the national traditions and ideas lose their objectivity and vividness and sink in the relative scale of wants. The tendency to determine conduct by the utili- tarian calculus is strengthened, and its use extended to large portions of conduct formerly out of its realm. This measured conscious attitude has extended so far as to bring even matters of diet under its control. The changes in the food supply have been so great and rapid that the instinctive impulses for food are no longer safeguards to health. Food must be measured and weighed, and its rela- tive constituents determined by some objective tests. In morals, also, ideals and instincts are becoming dormant and the summing of pleasures and pains a growing criterion of action. The growth of cosmopolitan influences, strength- ened by the immigration of so many foreigners, cause us to question our religious habits and customs and weigh them solely in the utilitarian balance. The closing of the World's Fair on Sunday would, an age ago, have been determined by impulse and emotion ; now it is decided by a civil court on utilitarian principles. We have learned not only to do in Rome as the Romans do, but to do the same things at home, if prompted by our individual inclination. Old customs and ideals, based upon inherited ideals cannot stand such tests, because the conditions in the objective environment creating them, have been removed by social progress. Intense social feelings now have few checks in the realm of the higher social sciences. The necessity arises, therefore, to extend the realm of those sciences, in which conduct is determined by the har- mony between it and the ideals of the subjective environment and not by the direct relation between the individual and his objective environment. The reformation of a subjective environment in harmony with the new conditions and boundaries of the social world will not come of itself, or at least not until many ages of slow evolution have taught 36 UNIV15RSITY EXTENSION. humanity what are the absolute utilities of this new world,:, and have forced upon them ideals and instincts needed to shut these absolute utilities out of the realm of calculation. This progress can be hastened by conscious education, thus avoiding much of the misery and suffering which purely evolutionary processes necessitate. Organized and persistent efforts should be made to revive and perpetuate the tradi- tions and ideals of the race, to extend race knowledge, to increase the amount of related knowledge, to create a new folk-lore and to raise a standard of citizenship. By these means the realm of the higher social sciences can be extended and new absolute utilities created through which the influence of the intense positive utilities of social life will be limited to a much smaller part of the whole realm of conduct. There is, therefore, a great present need of an educational agency to secure these results. University Extension must do for general history, recent events, and the enlarged national environment, what oral instruction did for the local events and surroundings. The new environment must be related to the citizen, visualized and made concrete and objective. National institutions, cosmopolitan ideals, and anew morality must be made as vivid and real as were local forces they displaced. Not merely a county or a State, but all Europe and America must be put in concrete relations to each citizen. He must be made to realize his present social rela- tions and feel as much in touch with distant events and places, as with those of his own locality. Intensity and objectivity will then be restored to the emotions, instincts and ideals of the subjective environment, thus giving them once more a dominant place in the national character. Simon N. Patten. University of Pennsylvania. LBAp'05 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS I 029 918 019 WJ MSM