I once heard a brilliant
university lecturer, who had had occasional experience of extension
teaching, describe a course of investigation which had interested him.
With an eye to business I asked him if he would not give it in an
extension course. He became grave. "Well, no," he replied, "I have not
thought it out sufficiently for that;" and when he saw my look of
surprise he added, "You know, anything goes down in college; but when I
have to face your mature classes I must know my ground well." I believe
the impression thus suggested is not uncommon amongst experts who really
know the movement.

Our results are much less satisfactory when we turn to the other side of
our system, and enquire as to curriculum. It must be admitted that the
larger part of our local centres can only take unit courses; there may
be often a considerable interval between one course and another; or
where courses are taken regularly the necessity of meeting popular
interest involves a distracting variety of subjects; while an
appreciable portion of our energies have to be taken up with preliminary
half-courses, rather intended to illustrate the working of the movement
than as possessing any high educational value. The most important
advance from the unit course is the Affiliation system of Cambridge
university. By this a town that becomes regularly affiliated, has
arranged for it a series of unit courses, put together upon proper
sequence of educational topics, and covering some three or four years:
students satisfying the lecturers and examiners in this extended course
are recognized as 'Students affiliated' (S.A.), and can at any time
enter the university with the status of second year's men,--the local
work being accepted in place of one year's residence and study. Apart
from this, the steps in our educational ladder other than the first are
still in the stage of prophecy. But it is universally recognized that
this drawback is a matter solely of funds: once let the movement command
endowment and the localities will certainly demand the wider curriculum
that the universities are only too anxious to supply.

The third point in our definition was that the movement was to be
organized on a basis of itinerant teachers. This differentiates
University Extension from local colleges, from correspondence teaching,
and from the systems of which Chautauqua is the type. The chief function
of a university is to teach, and University Extension must stand o