UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE.* THE great success which has
attended the Cambridge scheme of lectures on Political Economy and Literature in the manufacturing towns of the Midland districts is very encouraging to those who wish well to the 'cause of popular education. The endeavour to bring the resources of our national Universities to bear upon the educational needs of the artisans and workmen of our large towns is certainly a step in the direction of a really popular scheme of University reform. We are well aware that there are those among the higher members of the Universities who regard this movement with suspicion, deprecating its direction as entirely contrary to the true idea of University action. It is not that these gentlemen do not wish to encourage any efforts at University reform at all (in many cases, it is exactly the reverse), but that they are anxious that such efforts should take an entirely different direction to that of extending the exist- ing educational machinery to as large a number of persons as possible. Their idea of University reform appears to be altogether confined to such schemes as appear likely to give greater facilities and higher remuneration to those who resort to the Universities for the purpose of prosecuting origi- nal inves igation and scientific research. That the endowment of research should be a prominent feature in the University system, and that increase of efficiency on what may be called the mere grammar-school sides of University teaching, should not be too greatly encouraged, is reasonable enough. That the funds of the University should be wasted on the mere extension of the present system of rudimentary teaching, should certainly not be desired by any one. But between the encouragement of purely elementary knowledge on the part of boys who, from one cause or another, have neglected to make use of such oppor- tunities of gaining the rudiments of education, which the wealth of their parents, aided in many cases by benefactions in- tended by their original founders for a quite different class, could procure, and the utilisation of University machinery for the spread of common knowledge among the many who have had no such opportunities, there appears to us to be a vast difference. Indeed, we suppose that no principle of reform in the distribution of Uni- versity funds could be adopted which should be more in accordance with the original intention of the majority of ancient benefactors, than a principle which recognised the necessity of diverting a portion at least of the University resources into purely popular educational channels.
* University Extension. Report presented to the Syndicate for conducting Lec- tures in Popular Places. By the Rev. W. Moore Ede, B.A-, St. John's College. That the present scheme should be one for adtili education, and for the education primarily of working-men, is another coincidence which falls in curiously enough with the original idea of popular education in England. The late Professor Maurice, in his Lectures on Learning and Working (introductory to the establish- ment of the Working Men's College), has brought out very clearly this characteristic of early English education. He pointed out that whether we look at the schools which grew up in England after its conversion to Christianity, or to the catechetical training of Charlemagne and his Court by Alcuin, or to the Saxon discipline of Alfred, or to the Latin culture of the Norman monasteries, or to the universities in the twelfth century, or even to the same universities in the thirteenth century, when they had submitted to the Mendicant Orders, or again in the fourteenth century, when colleges were growing up as a substitute for cloister life, it would be evident that it was adult and not juvenile education which was always the main feature. In due time, of course, grammar-schools, as we know, began to be established. These, however, at first were entirely in connection with colleges, although gradually assuming an independent importance. There is an in- teresting letter quoted by Mr. Maurice, from Lord Bacon to King James, with regard to the establishment of one of these grammar- schools (that of Charterhouse, by Christopher Sutton) which con- tains observations not altogether unworthy, we think, of the consideration of our University authorities at the present dap-- I wish," writes Lord Bacon, "that on this point Mr. Sutton's intem- tions wore exalted a degree ; that that which he meant for teachers of children, your Majesty should make for teachers of mon ; wherein it bath been my ancient opinion and observation that in the Universities of this realm, which I take to be of the best-endowed Universities of Europe, there is notLing snore wanting towards the flourishing state of /earning than the honourable and plentiful salaries of Readers in arts and professions. For if the principal Readers, through the meanness of their entertainment, be but men of superficial learning, and that they shall take their place but in passage, it will make the mass of sciences want the chief and solid dimension, which is depth, and to become but pretty and compendious habits of practice."
Although science-teaching at the Universities has advanced some- what since Lord Bacon's day, yet there are those who have most right to speak in this matter who will echo his fear lest our modern science-teaching should "become but pretty and compendious habits of practice," and are not slow to declare their opinion that of real intellectual discipline, to be gained at least by average men, either at Oxford or Cambridge, the amount is lamentably small. In the opinion of the average Cambridge tutor, no doubt it would be the extreme of heterodoxy to call in question the beneficial result of the system of intellectual training which culminates once a year in the mathematical tripos. To him the system is unassailable, by the mere fact of its having given him his own position, and it does not occur to him that "time honourable and plentiful salaries of Readers in arts of the best-endowed Universities of Europe" can hardly be said to have fulfilled their founders' intentions, when they have produced a set of men whose highest conceptions of mathematical science seem to be satisfied by the concoction of ingenious symbolical riddles capable of being set in the " Problem Paper" of the next examination, or even afforded a convenient subvention for the early briefless years of young men who prefer the Bar to other pursuits involving less preparatory expense.
It is, of course, quite evident that for keeping up the love of original research, or encouraging scientific investigation, the extension of University teaching to the working-men of our manufacturing towns is likely to do little. On the other hand, as a step in the direction of a scheme of University reform which shall really bring within reach of the mass of the people those national resources from which, at present, they are almost entirely cut off, we cannot but regard this movement as most important.
From the report which Mr. Moore Ede has lately presented to the Cambridge Syndicate, and which the Vice-Chancellor con- siders "sufficiently interesting to warrant his publishing it, which he does, however, without in any way expressing an opinion as to the suggestions offered," we gather that the scheme has already been adopted in four of the large manufacturing towns of the Midland district. At Nottingham, the total num- ber of tickets sold for the two courses of lectures on Poli- tical Economy and English Literature was 761, at Derby 410, at Leicester 406, and at Lincoln 552. At Sheffield, which has adopted the scheme since the time embraced by Mr. Moore Ede's report, we understand that the number considerably exceeded a thousand. The lectures on Political Economy had the warm sup- port of the Trades' Union Council, and a considerable proportion of working-men attended that comae. It is stated that the Scis- sors-grinders' Union has resolved to purchase tickets for the Political Economy lectures and classes, next session, for all the
youths in their trade between the ages of 18 and 21. As a proof of the value which the students themselves put upon the lectures, we may, in conclusion, quote the following remarks from Mr. .Ed's report :—
" Many have expressed the immense benefit they have derived from the instruction received at the University lectures; one wrote to the effect that he would rather 'hare a term at Cambridge than a princely fortune ;' another, a lady, said she had never in any study learnt the art of thinking so well ;' another, a working-man, remarked, 'Don't it -open a fellow's head just !' And that expression of his conveyed the feeling of many of the students. Indeed, the evening lectures do open up to the audience many new lines of thought, and above all, teach them the difference between thorough knowledge and a mere smattering.
• I am informed on good authority that in the large Subscription Library at Nottingham, which is made use of by most of the well-to-do people of that town, the demand for books on history, political economy, and other subjects taught by the University lecturers, has very greatly increased, and the demand for novels proportionately diminished. The same holds good in the library at the Mechanics' Institute Another sign of the value the students set upon the scheme is to be found in the trouble they take to answer the questions set. Week after week many of them devote much of their leisure time to writing their answers, and when one looks over the frequently ill-spelt sheet, the formation of the letters tells that the hands which have guided the pens are but little accustomed to such a task, and it becomes difficult to mark its wrong that which one knows has cost so much toil and trouble."
In cordially recommending Mr. Moore Ede's Report to the attention of our readers, we cannot refrain from expressing our sympathy with him in his belief that "University extension has a great future before it."
Previous page
