NEW UNIVERSITY EXTENSION

At the last meeting of the Board of Overseers on February 23, a plan establishing the Department of University Extension, under the authority of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, was finally approved. Professor J. H. Ropes '89 was appointed as dean.

The need for more extensive work by Harvard instructors has been partly met by the Afternoon Saturday Courses for Teachers and partly by the Lowell Institute Courses. The increasing demand, however, for these courses and for some degree led to the appointment of a committee to investigate. As a result of the recommendations in their report to the effect that co-operation was needed between the institutions of learning in and about Boston and that more extensive work could not be undertaken by the University alone, a commission was organized composed of the following institutions: Harvard University, Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Simmons College, Tufts College, Wellesley College, Boston College, Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The officers of this commission will, in co-operation, offer a carefully prepared general scheme of courses taking as a nucleus those now being given at the Lowell Institute and at the Summer School. The courses will be given primarily for teachers or other persons engaged in advanced work, but will be conducted in so far as possible like the parallel ones which are given in the various institutions, and a collegiate grade will be maintained throughout. A special degree will be given by the institution in which the greater part of the work is done. A part of the courses will be maintained by the fund of the Lowell Institute and for these a small fee will be charged; for the others the fee will be slightly larger.

At present the details of the courses and the professors for 1910-11 have not been definitely decided upon; but the commission will in all probability do so next month.