The Inventions of the Idiot

sity E

kfast was served, "to see you at the University Extension Lecture. I did not know that you

iot. "Sometimes when I take an inventory of the contents of m

a favorable impression concerning you? Mr. Pedagog unbends sufficiently to tell you that you have at la

nd I must confess to a great enough interest in him to say that I was pleased at that encouragement. I saw him at a lecture on literature at the Lyceum Hall last evening, and he appeared to be

e my impressions confirmed, that is all. I have certain well-defined notions concerning

sion, but upon Romanticism, and it was a m

concerning Romanticism, which do not need confirmation or correction. I have already confirmed and

u occupied was wasted upon

had to tell him out of his books; there was hardly a soul in the audience who could not have afforded to pay one dollar at least for the seat he occupied; there was not a soul in the audience who had paid more than ten cents for his seat or her seat, and those for whose benefit the lecture was presumably given, the ten-cent people, were crowded out. The lectures themselves are not instructive-Professor Peterkin's particu

n to the lecture. How do you know that wha

sor Peterkin,"

you?" sneere

n his presence," observed the Idiot, calmly. "But that is easily

the comprehension of a person like the Idiot, nevertheless it was an enjoyable occasion,

ght of it. As long as a thing is a social fad it will thrive, and, on the whole, perhaps it ought to thrive. Anything which

phic frame of mind this mor

about University Extension. It makes us philos

"You have a father, haven't

etter to me about it. It was a great thing, and he hoped the State, which had been appealed to to help the movement along, would take a hand in it. 'If we educate the masses to understand and to appreciate the artistic, the beautiful,' he wrote, 'we need have little fear for the future. Ignorance is the greatest foe we have to contend against in our national development, and it is the only thing that can overthrow a nation such as ours is.' And then what happened? Professor Peterkin came along and delivered ten or a dozen lectures. The masses went once or twice and found the platform occupied by a man who talked to them about Romanticism and Realism; who told them that Dickens was trash; who exalted Tolstoi and Ibsen; but who never let them into the secret of what Romanticism was, and who kept them equally in the dark as to the significance of Realism. They also found the best seats in the lecture-hall occupied by the smart set in full evening-dress, who talked almost as much and as loudly as did Professor Peterkin. The masses did not even learn manners at Professor Peterkin's first and second lectures, and the third and fourth found them conspicuo

r me," said

from Peterkin you would not necessarily call it flattery if one sh

As I understand it, supplementary lectures, and examinations based on them, are held

he work and represented nothing. Both reached society. Neither reached the masses. In my native town plain Mr. Barton's supplementary lectures, which were simply an effort to unravel the Peterkin complications, were attended by the same people in smaller crowds-people of social standing who were curious enough to devote an hour a

atively well off? Your society woman may be as much in need of an extended education as your factory girl. The University Extension idea is to convey knowledge to people who would not otherwise g

nd who afterwards expended that money on cream-cakes for the Czar of Russia. The fact that the Czar of Russia wanted the cream-cakes and was willing to accept them would not affect my feelings in the matter, though I have no

would you have? Would you have University

ing, but I should change the name of it from University Extension to Social Expans

. "The masses can attend these lectures if they wish to, and on your own statement t

in attending a lecture your previous education does not permit of your comprehending, and sitting through an evening with a lot of finely dressed, smart folk, with their backs turned towards you. The plebeians have some pride, my dear Bibliomania