THE GODKIN LECTURES

There are probably no educational activities undertaken by Harvard University which have a finer tradition than the Lowell and Godkin lectures. The Lowell lectures have received more public notice because of their wider field and greater frequency but the Godkin series given every April on "The Essentials of Free Government and the duties of the Citizen" or some phase of that subject has maintained the standard established by Lord Bryce, its first lecturer, and continued by such men as President Eliot. Mr. Hibben, distinguished not only as President of Princeton University but also for his scholarly work in philosophy, and more particularly the philosophy of the state, is a happy choice to give the lectures in 1927.

The extension work carried on by many universities on a wholesale scale is very often of doubtful value. On too many occasions it is given by second and third raters in the faculty or younger then whose interest lies elsewhere. There is a certain taudriness, a back-yards atmosphere. It is particularly noticeable that the vocational rather than the cultural element is emphasized. That is all very well for the vocational school but it is hardly consistent for the arts college.

If the expression "extension courses" could mean more often educational activity untouched by vocationalism, and conducted by the greatest scholars of the age and less often courses in accounting, business principles, and home-making the university would be doing a greater service to the intelligent public than it possibly can by assuming duties properly belonging to vocational training schools.