PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP

"An immense acceleration in the study of contemporary life in the universities within the next few years" is foreseen by President Hutchins of Chicago University in a Yale Review article on "The University of Utopia." In emphasizing the necessity of giving universities an effective influence on the life of the nation, President Hutchins has touched on an old and vitally important question.

There is certainly need for bringing scholarship into contact with actual life. The picture of carefully considered criticisms of legal practice, to take an outstanding example, going unheeded to library shelves is familiar, and any means which can bring legal administrators and theorists together will be welcomed.

President Hutchins looks to university extension courses to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Seminars for professional men, he believes, would make adult education self-respecting, and might prove an equal benefit to scholarship. The obstacles in the way of effective adult education are obvious. Most men, while they will accept the pre-digested education offered by the radio, are not interested in advanced study requiring difficult thought. In the absence of any prospect of financial gain, there is apparently no sufficient incentive to sustained mental effort.

How to interest people in the progressive theory of their profession seems an almost insoluble problem. It involves making scholarship practical and making ordinary business men more thoughtful. The notion is certainly Utopian. On the other hand, university extension courses already afford a practical means of bringing the best university thought to bear on contemporary life. Their development can increase definitely, the universities' contribution to the country.