The Atlantic Monthly.

The March Atlantic contains two articles that will be of especial interest to Harvard men, since they are written, one by Brook Herford, and the other by Professor Palmer. Mr. Herford's article is called "An Old English Township," and in it he describes some of the curious changes and chances which have entered into the history of the little settlement of Singleton, in Lancashire. The description has a delightful simplicity of manner and a charming lightness of touch that seem almost to give one a whiff of the very breath of the English country air. No one could give such a description better than Mr. Herford, for a truly English sympathy with country life is one of his most lovable characteristics.

Professor Palmer's "Doubts about University Extension," must send a chill down the backs of the many warm supporters of that new system of education. Professor Palmer's "doubts" arise in the attempt to answer the question - Are the aims of university extension practicable? On this point, he says: "We cannot with certainity say that they are not, but it is here that doubts arise, - doubts of three sorts: those which suspect a fundamental difference in the two countries [England and America] which try the experiment; those which are incredulous about the permanent response which our people will make to the education offered; and those which question the possibility of securing a stable body of extension teachers." In regard to the first ground for doubt Professor Palmer says that the conditions of population and of popular education are not the same here as in England. There the universities exist only for a class, and the common people are unable to get their advantages, while here the colleges are organized by the people and for the people. The compactness of the country of England also affords great advantages to the extension movement there which it would not have here. As to the practical doubts of the permanency of the movement here Professor Palmer says: "Data for the formation of a confident opinion do not exist. All that can be done by way of warning is to indicate certain large improbabilities, leaving them to be confirmed or thwarted by time and human ingenuity." In regard to the impossibility of securing a stable body of teachers there seems to be no such doubt in Professor Palmer's mind, or rather the doubt seems to amount to a certainity. In England there is a surplus of unemployed scholars who can undertake the work, while here we must depend on college instructors, whose time is already largely filled. "This feature of the American system, * * * if persisted in, must ultimately destroy the extension scheme itself," for college instructors cannot, with justice to their work, engage in regular outside teaching. The extension movement here therefor, must content itself with a less ambitious scheme than its English prototype. The attitude of Professor Palmer, throughout the discussion is so cool and dispassionate, and his reasoning so logical that the doubts he expresses cannot be lightly passed over.