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Show EDUCATIONAL IDEALS ARE REACHING TO PUBLIC GOOD University Has Now Established the Broadest and Most Direct Service to the State's Citizenship. By PEOFESSOR W. G. ROTLANCE, Director of the School and Community Survey of the University of Ufoa. MOJJKRX education has followed, on the whole, rather an uncertain and haphazard course. Beginning, Begin-ning, as it did, in the medieval monasteries, it has adapted itself haltingly halt-ingly and reluctantly to tho requirements require-ments of a civilization nearly always running ahead of it. In the earlier times education ciothed itself in mystery; it assumed a sacred character; it imposed diit'ii-ult conditions, intended to be met only by a favored few. its methods were obscure and its purposes hidden, it professed to lead tho way into an inner world in which truth bore no relation to tho reality of the outer world. Instead In-stead of preparing for life it despised and repudiated life. It was ascetic, unsocial un-social and, therefore, in its effect upon tho mind of the scholar, immoral. Beginning very early in the history of modern peoples, there have been numerous nu-merous revolts against the exclusivencss and mystery of the schools. Perhaps the first was that of the Christian missionaries mission-aries or! heretical sects, who, in converting convert-ing tho peoples of western Europe, 1 taught the villagers how better to organize or-ganize their community life, how to improve their crude methods of agriculture, agricul-ture, how to reconcile their internal quarrels and laid the foundations of modern society in teaching tho sacred-nesa sacred-nesa of tho domestic relations. Mystery Cleared Away. Later, one very important phase of the reformation was that laymen insisted insist-ed upon the clearing away of the mystery mys-tery that enshrouded religious observance, observ-ance, and upon the making of religious knowledge available to all. Tho renaissance re-naissance was a protest against similar conditions and a like spirit in the universities, uni-versities, its great purpose being to humanize hu-manize learning. And from that time to the present every forward movement has been characterized by the clearing away of mystery, the humanizing and popularizing, not only of education, but of government, feligion and all organizations organ-izations that aim to control the actions and shape the destinies of mankind. The first schools in America were fashioned after European models and devoted to the perpetuation of European traditions and ideals; especially so in the universities and colleges, feut our headstrong and turbulent democracy hardly can be said ever to have accepted ac-cepted their educational leadership. The common schools arose, concerning themselves, them-selves, naturally and chiefly, with commercial com-mercial instruction in a nation dominated domin-ated by commercial ideals. Later the tremendous material development of the country on the one hand, and, on the other, the insistent demands of a self-confident self-confident democracy becoming more and more conscious of its power, forced the hands of the colleges, compelled them to remove- most of their restrictions, broaden their courses of study, and, in fact, made them face American conditions condi-tions and make provisions for the present pres-ent and the future, instead of looking always to the past. Educators Alarmed. During the last twenty years the movement for what has been called the industrializing and socializing of education edu-cation has gained a tremendous momentum. mo-mentum. Ten years ago this movement move-ment still caused the greatest alarm among educational leaders. Today it is almost universally accepted. The most conservative today accept conditions condi-tions and practices that were regarded with doubt by the most radical ten years ag-o. Education to a great degree de-gree in all stntes and in most institutions institu-tions is already completely humanized. It has come to be regarded as a public service, rather than as an exclusive culture, cul-ture, not at all as a monastic discipline. We are building up a democratic school system for a democratic country, knowing know-ing well that no other can servo the purposes of democracy. One of the most significant things in the modern educational democracy is the movement outward of our colleges and universities. This movement received re-ceived its first great impetus when the state agricultural colleges were established, estab-lished, the nature of their work making it necessary for them by some means to carry over their instruction to the farmer in the field. At first the farmer did not understand them. In many cases he would neither go to the farmers' farm-ers' college nor send his children there. Farmers Co-operate. So the college went to the farmer, and in doing so learned as much, or more, from the farmer than he learned from it. Thus there grew np b cooperation co-operation ' between the college and the farm which has given a vitality to agricultural agri-cultural education that could have come in no other way, and that has been much slower of growth in other college3 and universities. Yet these can no more resist the modem tendency than could the farmer's colleges. The state universities uni-versities are broadening their scope in a hundred ways, and greatly liberalizing liberaliz-ing and rationalizing their "established courses. In addition to the instruction in the arts and sciences, professional schools have been added. These are further supplemented by industrial departments, de-partments, extension courses, correspondence correspon-dence courses and many other features, all showing the tendency to reach out to the people that is the most signifi-cant signifi-cant development of modern education. Perhaps the most fruitful and promising prom-ising of all tho new educational ideas is that of uniting instruction with public pub-lic service. For purposes of instruction a modern university has to maintain a large number of trained experts and a very elaborate and expensive plant. So the question ba arisen, May not these experts and this plant serve other public pub-lic purposes without detriment to its function of instruction T It has been demontttrated that in many ways this can be done, not only without detriment, detri-ment, but with actual advantage to instruction. in-struction. The university goes to the facts of onr economic, social, civic and industrial life, in the same way that the farmer's college goes to the farm. And likewise it gets as much as it gives. Extensions Developed. Under the general designation of extension ex-tension work many state universities have developed these outreaching activities activi-ties on so largo a scale that the more conservative among university men have sometimes expressed concern lest tne-v overshadow what they trm the legitimate legiti-mate work of the university. President Wheeler of the University of California says that the university reaches directly di-rectly every year more than 2000 people peo-ple besides the resident students of the institution. The University of Wisconsin Wiscon-sin reaches a still greater number. Our own state university has enrolled in it extension classes nearly 700 students, to say nothing of its rapidly growing community work nnd of lis services to the schools in whirh university teachers reach every year, in one way or another, an-other, every public school teacher in the 6tate. The fear that these extensions of the activities of the state universities will be detrimental to their internal work is fast disappearing. Jn fact, it is being demonstrated that there is no bettor method of vit;i lizin? olnprooni work. There is always a wealth of new material, ma-terial, new points of view, new situations situa-tions in wbi'ii t" test out theories, whl'h could In; secured in no oth.'r way. t ;s ..'I irV1.','. cpjuu-cLlii up education with actuality that is sure to keep education where it belongs in the vanguard of economic and social progress. The University of Utah was among the pioneers of the extension movement. But those directing the extension work here do not regard the giving of instruction in-struction in classes off the university campus as the most important part of its extension activities. What they do regard as the most important thing is perhaps best expressed in the phrase r' community service." Tbev desire to take the last great step in bringing the best in modern education to the people, by establishing the broadest and the niost direct service to the people. Yet, in a Bense, the word "service'' does not express the idea. The university aims to work with the community rather than for it. United self-effort is the central idea of community education. It is what the community does, not what is done for it, that counts in its development. develop-ment. In its community service, then, the university aims to help communities to . help themselves. It works with them and directs their activities. It aims to help them perfect their local organizations, organ-izations, study their conditions, nnd what are their resources and solve their problems. To these ends, it will be possible pos-sible eventually to place every expert, each department, and the entire equipment equip-ment of the university in large measure directly at the service of every . community com-munity in the state. All this can be done, as has been demonstrated, not at the expense of cultural education, but greatly to its advantage. In fact, it will be, possible to make education the greatest asset to the people, however how-ever great its money cost, instead of a burden to be supported on grounds of duty, as it has too often been in the past. |