University Extension - A Survey Of Fifty Years 1873-1923 - Paperback

UNIVERSITY EXTENSION 1873-1923 PREFACE TT THEN I was invited by the Local Examinations X and Lectures Syndicate of the University of V T Cambridge to prepare a short survey of Uni versity Extension work in England during the past fifty years, I knew what a large field of work had to be brought under review. It was, however, the natural right of Cambridge to. take the initiative, for it was from there that the Movement began in 1873, and there its first lines were laid down. It is in Cambridge also that the Conference that is to mark the completion of half a centurys work in this enter prise will be held in the month of July of the present year. These circumstances have led me to concentrate more attention on the operations of that University but at the same time to show how fully its task has been shared by Oxford and London, and is now being shared by the other and younger Universities and Colleges that have come into being since 1873, and by the noble foundation at Manchester that looks back for its origin to 1846. Lookitig to the future, it appears that to Uni versities there is coming a new opportunity of making the pursuit of learning wear an aspect more really humane than it had come to wear, at least in some countries, before 1914. Whether they will be able to use that opportunity depends in some degree upon the response they make to mens desire for the ex tension of their teaching more widely than i time past. Knowledge is power, but something else is VI PREFACE required to give power its direction. Universities as the trustees of knowledge have some responsibility for the direction of the power which knowledge gives. Their responsibility is shared by the public of the nationsin which Universities exist. But in our own country, as in America, it seems clear that the largest body of public opinion shows a definite trend in favour of the power bestowed by knowledge being directed by motives of human friendship rather than by motives of human ambition. If this be a true reading of the worlds mental barometer it should augur well for University Extension work in the next fifty years, for the motives behind that work have been and are now motives not of ambition but of friendship between men everywhere. W. H. D. May, 1923. ERRATUM On p. 49 line 25, p. 53 line 7, p. 54 line i for the name g Bishop G. F. Browne read Sir Michael Sadler. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE v CHAP. I. INTRODUCTORY i II. SEED-TIME 6 III. THE RISE OF UNIVERSITY . COLLEGES 21 IV. OXFORD ENTERS THE FIELD 32 V. THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUMMER MEETING . 46 VI. TUTORIAL CLASSES ... 64 VII. PERSONNEL AND ORGANISA TION 7 6 VIII. THE SITUATION TO-DAY . 91 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE . . .118 EXTENSION WORK IN UNIVERSI TIES OTHER THAN OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 137 APPENDIX i. A RECORD OF SUMMER MEET INGS 148 IL SUMMER MEETINGS INAUG URAL LECTURES . . . .150 INDEX . . . ., ., 152 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY UNIVERSITIES are living institutions capable of extension in various directions and in more ways than one. But in England during the period of the past fifty years the term University Extension has come to stand for a movement in the sphere of education that has a definite connotation, and of which the main feature is the spreading of knowledge of such subjects as are treated in Uni versities to other places than towns or cities where Universities already exist. The purpose of this short study is to make a survey ofthis Movement which will both record the salient points of its development between the years 1873 1923, and at the same time interpret the aims of those who have initiated it and are carrying it for ward. The use of such a survey is not only to serve as a chapter of educational History but also to help those engaged in Education, and the Public generally for whom education exists, to judge better what the worth of the movement is and how far it is capable of still greater usefulness in the future...