SERVING THE PEOPLE.

If any one should be in doubt regarding the democratic character of learning at the university, he might examine the work of the extension division. He would find here in a short time sufficient evidence to convince him that the university is aiming to serve the state in ways which many people have never dreamed of, and which no other schools or institutions have thought of attempting. When you tell the man on the street that the university conducts courses at various points for bakers, mechanics, and other groups engaged in occupations of this general character, he is surprised to hear that there is anything for such persons to learn. And yet the university is investigating the needs of all these workers, and bringing together all that is known in their respective fields, with a view to offering it to them. under conditions which will enable them to keep on with their work, and study at the same time. What other school in the state-elementary, high, or special-is endeavoring to serve the masses in such directions as these?

The University of Wisconsin has attracted the attention of the whole world on account of its efforts to help every group of workers-whether with their heads or with their muscles-in the state. Almost every day one may read some fresh tribute from a careful investigator, who expresses his admiration for an institution that can adapt itself progressively to the needs of all the people of the commonwealth it serves. Some observers have been in doubt whether the university is located in Madison, or in Milwaukee, or Oshkosh, or Superior, or Eau Claire, or La Crosse, or in various other cities. Certain it is that the university is developing ways and means of giving busy, working people in all these places what they need, without its being necessary for them to leave their own homes.

GRADUATE STUDY.

One who is familiar with the development of the public high school in this country knows that it has won its way only after terrific struggle. Many among us can remember the time when it was popularly believed that secondary schools ought not to be supported at public expense, since they did not meet the needs of the masses. bert Spencer thought the state should not support schools of any grade. He contended that

they should be maintained by those who patronized them. No one would now defend a proposition like this in its application to the elementary school in our country; but we still hear it advanced in some places in respect to the high school. But the principle of free high-school education is, in spite of occasional protests, a settled one. However, as men once could not see that the high school would serve the community as a whole, so some of them can not now see that the university is of advantage to all the people of the state. Happily, though, the majority of our people do appear now to see this matter in the right light.

At this moment we are witnessing the attempt of many persons to get adjusted to the notion of extending the undergraduate course. There are some who profess not to see that graduate study will be of service to the state. These men once could not see that high-school education would be of service to the state, and they were hostile to it as a public institution. With great difficulty they have accepted the high school and the usual college work; but they resist the idea of providing adequate facilities for advanced work. Every step forward is opposed, and always will be, by persons of this temperament.

Teachers at any rate should be entirely sympathetic toward the development of graduate study to the fullest possible extent. The sole purpose of such study is to carry a few individuals, those who have the intellectual strength, up to the point reached by the race in the accumulation of knowledge in various fields. No one would be so foolish as to say that the undergraduates in our colleges have time to assimilate all that has been discovered in any branch of learning. If there were no provisions for some students to go beyond the undergraduate course, our society would come to a sudden halt in its development. It is exactly the same in principle as if educational facilities should terminate with the high school. If there were no colleges or universities, society would be a very different thing from what it is today. Nations which have not made provision for advanced study and research can not continue to develop. Those countries which have made most liberal provisions for advanced university work are the most progressive in the world today. These are all facts of every-day observation.

THE TEACHING OF UNDERGRADUATES.

Those who reason as they run jump to conclusions from surface indications. Many people follow this method in their theorizing about teaching in the university. They say: "If attention is given to advanced work, the elementary work will be neglected, and the undergraduates will not receive any intelligent attention. The strongest men will be drafted off to do the graduate work, and the elementary students will be put in the hands of callow youths, who do not know how to teach, and who have little interest in students."

It is undoubtedly true that some men in the university are mainly interested in the more advanced phases of their work, and they give their attention primarily to graduate students. But it is entirely untrue to say that the energy of the university is mainly turned in the direction of this advanced work. Most of the effort and a large part of the best ability in the institution are devoted to the welfare of the undergraduate students. The most capable teachers are often young men who have recently come from study themselves, who are thoroughly interested in teaching, and who are enthusiastic in their work. Many of them have had experience in secondary schools, and when they come to the university they really are experienced teachers. They are familiar with the conditions in the high schools, and they can appreciate the interests, the limitations, and the needs of the undergraduate student.

EXPERT TEACHING THE AIM.

Often one hears it said by persons who do not know the situation that the older and able men, the full professors in the university, never teach freshman and sophomore classes, but turn these over to green novices. As a matter of fact, the beginning classes in many departments of the institution are taught by the full professors. This is generally true of all the large freshman and sophomore classes in every department. But of course it is financially impossible to provide older, high-salaried men for all the small classes, such as must of necessity be found in the languages, mathematics, and the like. Even if the state would foot the bills, it would be utterly impossible to get full professors enough to do the busi

ness.

And even if it were feasible it would not be desirable. We want to insist upon the proposition

that the best teachers to be found in any institution are often men in subordinate positions, who have their futures before them, as Dooley says; who are full of vigor and enthusiasm, and who are willing to attend to minutiae which would annoy older men, whether in the high school or the university. The advantages of youth in teaching outweigh the disadvantages in most cases. Often an assistant in a large department in the university is chosen for a position as full professor in a small college or in a normal school, and not infrequently he at once attracts marked attention as a teacher. He was doing just as good work in the university, but it was not a matter of comment, because it was just a part of the general order of things.

Of course, this is not true of every teacher in the university. Nothing is universally true anywhere. On the whole there is good teaching in the normal schools; but there are exceptions. The normal school endeavors to secure men who understand the art of teaching, and who are enthusiastic in their business, but normal-school presidents are not always successful in their search for such men. cessful as the

The university is probably as sucnormal school in this matter; it certainly is as successful as the high school or the elementary school. In an earlier day, little attention was paid in the college to the art of teaching. The instructor handed out facts, and the pupil was expected to memorize them and render them back in examination. But in our own university this mode of teaching is being generally abandoned. The dominant aim in the university to-day is to make knowledge vital and effective in the lives of undergraduate students.

THE SPIRIT OF RESEARCH.

It is on the whole of marked advantage to effective teaching in the university that the spirit of research is in the air. In any department in which there is no interest in investigation, the teaching is likely to become formal and devitalized. It is essential in order that a university teacher should have a genuine interest in what he is teaching, that he should be making additions to the knowledge in his field, or at least that he should be seeing new applications of it. A university teacher in order to be effective must feel the value in his own life of the knowledge he is presenting, and he is not apt to experience much