LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

BUREAU OF EDUCATION,

Washington, October 21, 1919.

SIR: For two decades university extension work in this country has been increasing in volume. The growing recognition of the value of its various forms is indicated by the fact that within the last five years the total amount of appropriations for the support of university extension work has more than doubled, and the number of students has increased more than threefold. The need for extension education on a very large scale now and for the next few years at least is indicated by the following facts:

(1) There are now in the United States approximately four and a half million discharged soldiers, one-half of whom were overseas and all of whom have had impressed upon them in many ways the importance of education. It is a matter of common knowledge that these men, nearly all of them young men, are eager to take advantage of all available information for instruction in things pertaining to their vocations, to citizenship, and to general culture. Few of them will or can go to college; practically none of them will enter the ordinary public high schools; they are too old for this. Some, but comparatively few, will find their way into special vocational schools and part-time classes in industrial plants. A great majority of them must depend upon such opportunities as can be provided by extension education.

(2) The shortening of the hours of labor and recent increase in wages have given to millions of working men and women time and means for self-improvement far beyond anything which such men and women have ever known before in this or any other country. The closing of the barrooms throughout the United States has relieved large numbers of men of the temptation to spend their leisure time and money in various forms of dissipation connected with the barroom. Everywhere these working men and women are eager for instruction, both for improvement in their vocations and for better living and more intelligent citizenship. Not only do they take advantage of such opportunities as are offered them by the organized agencies of education, but in many places they undertake to provide opportunities for themselves in their own time and at their own expense. Few of these have had any schooling beyond the elementary grades.

(3) Among the foreign-born population in the United States there are many, both of those who have taken out their citizenship papers and of those who have not, who, though able to read and write in English and are otherwise fairly well educated, know nothing of our country, its history, its ideals, the form and spirit of its government, of the agricultural and industrial opportunities offered in various parts of the country. Much might be done for them through educational extension work.

(4) Within the last few years millions of women have been given the franchise and now have all the privileges and responsibilities of active citizenship. The adoption of the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States will add millions more. When these women become voters, they will, by their ballots or otherwise, determine wisely or unwisely the policies of municipality, State, and Nation. They are conscientious; they realize they need instruction as to the duties and responsibilities of active citizenship and help toward an understanding of the many complex and difficult problems which, by their ballots, they will help to solve. Through their clubs and various other organizations educational extension workers can do much for them which could be done very hardly, if at all, in any other way.

(5) There are in the United States approximately twelve and one-half million boys and girls between the ages of 16 and 21 who are coming to their majority at a time when in order to make a living and assume the responsibilities and duties of life and citizenship more knowledge and training are needed than ever before. Two and one-half millions of these attain their majority each year; less than one-eighth are high-school graduates; only a little more than one-fourth have any high-school education. That a large per cent of them would take advantage of any adequate opportunities offered them for further instruction, either in class or by correspondence, is definitely proven by the response they make to the advertisements of all kinds of correspondence schools conducted for profit and by the efforts they make to provide for themselves the means of instruction. Still more of them might be induced to do systematic reading under direction, or to attend instructive and educational lectures. Such opportunities for their instruction might easily be organized on a large scale as a part of education extension work.

I am sure most of the thoughtful men and women of the country will agree that the institutions of higher learning, supported by all the people, have an important obligation to these millions who can never profit directly by the instruction given within their college walls.

For the purpose of giving information on a subject of such vast importance to the cause of education and the general welfare of the country at this time, I recommend for publication as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education the manuscript transmitted herewith on the university extension movement in the United States. This manuscript has been prepared at my request by Dr. W. S. Bittner, formerly connected with the educational extension division of this bureau and now associate director of the extension division of the University of Indiana.

Respectfully submitted.

The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

P. P. CLAXTON,

Commissioner.

PREFACE.

The informational material upon which this bulletin is based was collected by the writer while associate director of the division of educational extension in the United States Bureau of Education. This material now forms part of the collections of the Bureau of Education.

Special acknowledgment is made to President E. A. Birge, of the University of Wisconsin, whose permission was given to print the major portion of his paper on Service to the Commonwealth Through University Extension.

Attention is called to the chapter in this bulletin on Engineering Extension, written by Dr. J. J. Schlicher, formerly director of investigation in the division of educational extension, and to the other chapters, acknowledged specifically in footnotes, which were in large part the result of his work. Other members of the staff of the division, J. J. Pettijohn, A. J. Klein, F. W. Reynolds, and especially Mary B. Orvis, gave generous assistance in the preparation of this bulletin.

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W. S. B.