University Extension Work.

The University Extension Society has had since 1891 the benefit of the leadership of Dr. Edmund J. James of the Faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. Now, after four years of hard labor in the cause, the pressure of other work forces him to resign the office of president of the society. His letter of resignation is a history of the progress of an enterprise whose success has been very gratifying to its founders and to which Dr. James has contributed in no small degree.

The first courses of University Extension lectures were given in November, 1890, upon plans which had been formulated by Dr. William Pepper. On Dr. James devolved the labor of giving permanence to a movement, which many feared was only to prove a short-lived outburst of enthusiasm. Each year since has been marked by steady progress. From the seven courses of lectures in the short season - two months - of 1890, the number grew to 87 in 1891, 105 in 1892, 111 in 1893, and 135 in 1894. Dr. James looks upon the record of last year as a very gratifying one, the percentage of increase being higher than in any previous year, while the year was marked by business depression which caused many educational movements to suffer.

The lecture instruction work, which started in Philadelphia, has extended to distant localities. Centres have been established in forty-five of the sixty-seven counties of Pennsylvania, and courses have been held under the society's auspices in eleven other states - New Hampshire, Massachusetts. New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and Louisiana. Dr. James estimates that over 20,000 people attended the various courses during the last year. The object was to reach all classes of people. During the progress of the enterprise it has been found that the women were the first to appreciate its advantages. Year by year, however, the circle has widened, and appreciable progress has been made in the direction of interesting in the work other classes, including teachers, clerks, business men, mechanics, and factory operatives. "To reach the last mentioned class," says Dr. James, "must be a slow process at best. It can be done only as a result of interesting other classes better able financially to assume the initial expense of developing and establishing this method of instruction. When it is once firmly established in a community for one class of society, means will be found of enlarging its scope and usefulness so as to include all. The friends of extension can certainly not be satisfied with anything less than this."

Besides the systematic courses of lectures, two summer meetings have been held, at which lectures were given, and which have been of great benefit. Many class courses have also been given. One great aid to the work of the society has been its publications, which have helped materially in directing public interest along fruitful lines. The two national conferences held in Philadelphia accomplished valuable results for the movement.

"On the financial side," writes Dr. James, "the work has steadily tended to become self-supporting. It is not believed that University Extension work, any more than any other form of high educational service, can be carried on in such a way as to dispense with the contributions of public spirited citizens to aid in its prosecution, but the experience of the society has demonstrated the fact that a continually increasing sum, both absolutely and relatively, can be obtained from the communities themselves in which University Extension is prosecuted and from the people who most immediately profit by its work."

Instructors from about twenty universities and colleges have cooperated in one or another of the phases of the undertaking including nearly all the best known of American educational institutions. Dr. James gives great credit to the present secretary of the society, Edward T. Devine, whom he speaks of as a man of great educational experience and insight and absolute devotion to the cause.

"I had a warm belief," he concludes, "in University Extension when I entered the work four years ago, and the experience gained in its prosecution has left me with a still firmer belief in its importance and feasibility. I congratulate you upon the results which you have already accomplished, and still more on the great opportunity which lies before you. University Extension is, I believe, destined to prove one of the greatest educational movements of the last quarter of this century. I consider it a high privilege to have been identified with its beginnings in the United States, and I sincerely regret that the pressure of other work which has the first claim on my attention does not permit me to continue my connection with it."