ency, and Dr. Edmund J. James was elected to that office. Such,
in brief, is the origin of the National Society.

This American Society comes in as a helpmate to the local centre, the
branch, the college, and the university. Its functions are distinct
and various. Coming forward with the accumulated experience of a
quarter century in England, it can enable extension workers in this
country to profit thereby. It has employed a corps of practical
business men to systematize the work, and to attend to the necessary
details; it is publishing a monthly journal called _University
Extension_, for the purpose of gathering and disseminating information
regarding the movement; it publishes syllabi and furnishes them to the
student and to the public at the lowest possible cost; and employs
organizers to help in the formation of local centres, and to get them
in working order. It must be recognized at once that no single
educational institution can do this general work, and that the
American Society, instead of becoming a competitor with the university
in extension work, renders it practical for even the smaller colleges
to enter this field of usefulness.

In the performance of its functions, then, the National Society must
ordinarily deal with the greater centres of organization; still when
it is impracticable to form a branch, it may deal directly with the
local centre. Nor is its influence bounded by any conventional
barriers. It can enter the home where the solitary student sits by his
evening lamp, and direct his work. In this home work, of course, the
student rarely comes into direct contact with the educator, but
through systematized correspondence his work may be directed and
finally tested. It can thus be given a true educational value. It must
not be ignored that a startling proportion of our great business men
are what are termed self-educated. So will it be in the future; but it
is far from visionary to believe that university extension will open
paths whereby the solitary student need no longer employ an expensive
tutor nor waste his time, groping in the labyrinth paths of knowledge,
without a thread, at least, to direct his wanderings to pleasanter
fields of light and learning.

While this system of study is popular, and has all the glitter of
novelty, many insincere persons will enroll their names. Some will
seek only entertainment, and will be satisfied with the popular
lecture alone. Others, through timidity and