85

E.—7a,

Workers' Educational Association, the first aiming at the extension of the cultural influences of university thought in large centres of population among those who had not been able to get to the University, the second also aiming at University culture, but intended more definitely for the hand-workers. The fusion took place in 1907, when, after a conference in Oxford convened by leading university men, a joint committee was established in which the University and the Workers'j|Educational Association (the well-known W.E.A.) were represented Jin equal numbers. The system has grown and developed till it has covered the whole Kingdom. With hardly an exception the universities and University Colleges have formed joint committees on the same model, and conduct extension work on the same lines as those laid down at Oxford, and the results have been so striking that the head of the American University Union in Europe, President George E. Mac Lean, in an official report on " Higher Education in England and Scotland," published in 1917, begins a chapter with these words : " University extension in the sense of the universities carrying higher education to adults has had an unparallelled success in England."* He is especially struck byjthe fact that, instead of declining as in America, the original extension movement in England has steadily grown, and he ascribes this to the sound principle on which it has been organized, that the work should be essentially university work of Honours standard, and should not be allowed to degenerate into mere popular lecturing. With this end in view three strict limitations have been insisted on from thejfirst, viz.,— (1.) The classes be limited to students who join for ja three-years course ; (2.) They should be conducted on the tutorial principle, essays being regularly written by each member; (3.) The number of members attending should be rigorously restricted to (say) twenty-five or thirty. The strict observance of these rules has been greatly facilitated by the wise policy of the Board of Education, which has made their observance a fundamental condition of the maintenance grants which it gives to these " joint tutorial classes," as they are called, and without which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to carry them on. Thoroughness and the avoidance of the superficial are essential characteristics of the movement, and those to which it mainly owes its remarkable vitality. From the evidence laid before us there seems to be some danger that, in the enthusiasm for extending the benefits of university teaching as widely as possible, the importance of such restrictions may be forgotten, or at least underestimated. But we recognize that in a country in the present stage of development of New Zealand there may be insuperable difficulty in complying with all the conditions considered necessary in England. The point we wish to make, however, is that, while some modification may be necessary in the endeavour to get a footing for the classes, there shall be no such relaxation of conditions as will make close and continuous work on the university plane impossible. Popular lectures have a legitimate place in an extension lecture system, but their function is to excite such local interest as may lead to the organization of the classes for intensive study which constitute the real university in partibus, or at least may encourage a habit of reading and reflection on subjects requiring sustained thought. Nor, again, is it sufficient that there should be willingness to devote time and effort over extended periods to the work. Experience shows that to be of real use these classes must be conducted on the Honours plane : that ability is required as well as keenness. True university study requires something more than the average measure of intellectual endowment, whether it is pursued in the college class-room or in the extension lecture-hall. In admitting students to the University colleges this truth has not always been kept in view, and some of the shortcomings to which we draw attention in other parts of our report are undoubtedly due to this defect. But it is no less vital to extension work. Members of tutorial classes have generally the advantage over the ordinary college student in maturity of mind and (in most

Conference of universities and W.E.A., 1907.

Intensive stud}' carried on.

Application to New Zealand.

More than average ability required.

* Official Keport on Higher Education in England and Scotland, 1917, p. 249.