SCHOOL), and technical institutes, conducted for profit and in a relatively small number of cases, philanthropically endowed, oper ate in cities of all sizes throughout the country. They vary widely in efficiency and in repute. The schools of this type which utilize the correspondence method of instruction have reached large pro portions in the United States. Of the 1,5oo,000 new students en rolled each year, 95% wish to obtain vocational training and pay from $io to $28o for each course, the average payment being about $40. Extensive advertising methods are employed, from 3o% to 8o% of all tuition fees received being devoted to course salesman ship. Efforts are being made by the Federal trade commission, by the Better Business bureau of the National advertising clubs and by the National Home Study council, an association of corre spondence schools, to improve business ethics and to create instructional standards.
Each of the large associations originally organized for religious and social purposes maintains an educational activity as an auxiliary phase. The Young Men's Christian Association (q.v.) enrolls about 90,00o young men, mostly in evening classes which are chiefly of a vocational nature but which recently have shown a trend toward the non-vocational. The Young Women's Christian Asso ciation (q.v.) has an even more widespread educational pro gramme, though of a much more informal nature than that of the Young Men's Christian Association. Its emphasis is definitely on the side of cultural studies. The Knights of Columbus (q.v.) and Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew associations repeat the patterns of the other associations on a smaller scale.
Educationfor workers is of two gen eral types in the United States : that provided by the workers themselves and that provided by the employers. In the latter group fall some interesting experiments in education for the job vocational education designed for immediate practical use in the industry which offers it. The larger corporations such as the Standard Oil Company, The Westinghouse Company, the tele phone and allied interests, and to a lesser degree the automobile manufacturers, have educational departments which take employes from apprentice courses to the highest technical branches.
Workers' Education.—Although sporadic efforts had been made during the preceding quarter century, it was not until after the World War that an organized educational movement of wage earners assumed sizable proportions in the United States. In 1921 a group of trade unionists and teachers in New York formed the Workers' Education bureau of America as a national organi zation to serve as a clearing house for information and to estab lish study classes. The bureau bas since become the agency through which the American Federation of Labor carries on its entire adult education programme for its membership. It has not only increased the number of workers' classes, but has pub lished text-books, syllabi and study outlines. Of the dozen or so labour colleges scattered through the country, the residential Brookwood Labor college at Katonah, N.Y., is the best known. It has a two-year course and also conducts special summer insti tutes. The International Ladies' Garment Workers' union has the most highly developed educational programme among national unions, although those of the United Mine Workers in Illinois and Pennsylvania are worthy of note. In California, the State Federa tion of Labor and the University of California Extension Division have embarked upon a joint programme for workers.
AtBryn Mawr college, a summer session for women workers in industry is held annually for I oo women workers, equally divided between unionized and non unionized workers. The Bryn Mawr plan has been successfully adopted at the University of Wisconsin, Barnard college of Colum bia university, New York, and at Sweetbriar college, Virginia. The National League of Girls' clubs holds an annual summer session on Long Island for mill girls, stenographers and other industrial workers, initially trained in the league's winter classes in New England and Middle Atlantic States. These summer schools are not to be confused with those conducted in great num bers by the universities and colleges throughout the country (see SUMMER ScHooLs) which, while open to adults generally, are chiefly attended by teachers and college students. The California State board of education in 1927 initiated a series of special sum mer schools of adult education to be held annually. The first session was held at Mills college, Oakland, with an attendance of 25o. The Chautauqua Institution of New York conducts a two months' summer session annually attended by about 12,000 people. This course is comparable with a university summer session. In addition winter reading courses are attended by io,000 persons.
Thetotal enrolment of university extension students in the United States, exclusive of agricultural extension (see UNIVERSITY EXTENSION and AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION) may conservatively be estimated at 250,00o. The university extension movement (see UNIVERSITY EXTENSION), through lectures, visual education media, correspond ence courses, exhibits, discussion groups, reading circles, etc., easily reaches five times that number. If the 5,000,000 members of farm families reached by the State agricultural colleges in co operation with the Federal department of agriculture be added to the general extension total, it will be seen that university and college extension is the most important factor numerically in adult education in the United States.
Throughthe activities of the board on the library and adult education of the American Library Asso ciation, the 4,000 communities in the United States which have their own public library facilities, together with a number of State and regional organizations, have been acquainted with a new conception of the library as a dynamic agency of education. Many of the larger libraries have instituted readers' advisory serv ices providing individual attention for every serious reader, includ ing the preparation of special reading courses. This association has published a "Reading With a Purpose Series" consisting of more than 4o pamphlets, each of which is a short introduction to a given subject together with a list of half a dozen recommended books in the field. Hundreds of thousands of copies of these pamphlets have been sold and distributed. (See LIBRARIES and ScHoot. LIBRARIES.) By means of lectures, gallery talks, guidance for visitors, publications for the layman, loan collections, travelling exhibits, consultation hours for students and manufacturers, and formal classes, a great educational work has also been done by the museums.
The modern Chautauqua and lyceum serve towns of less than 2,500 population almost exclu sively. With the exception of one circuit, they are conducted for profit. The competition deriving from the radio, motion pictures and cheap transportation has resulted in large financial loss to the Chautauqua and lyceum operators of late years and it is questionable whether this form of combination lecture and enter tainment bureau will persist in America. The commercial Chau tauquas are not to be confused with the Chautauqua Institution of New York.
Three mil lion women in the United States belong to women's clubs, in towns and cities of all sizes. Study materials are prepared by national and State offices which form the bases of educational programmes throughout the year. With the public school as the basic unit, hundreds of thousands of parents, chiefly mothers, are united in parent-teacher associations, child study (see CHILD STUDY ASSOCIATIONS), child welfare groups, etc. They are served by several national organizations. Each group is engaged upon an educational programme. Certain of the large State universities, notably Iowa, Minnesota and California, have recently assumed responsibilities in relation to the parental education programmes within their respective areas. Varying greatly in accordance with the communities which they serve, open forums flourish in many parts of the country. They are purely individualistic and autono mous; half of them are conducted by Protestant or Jewish churches.
Certain individual enterprises reflect the best which the nation has to offer in adult educational thought. Among these should be cited the People's Institute of New York, founded in 1897 as a forum for public discussion. Courses of instruction of a high standard and individual lectures are offered. In its school, the institute conducts experimental classes for adults in various parts of New York city. Similarly, the New School for Social Research of New York city may be con sidered an adult education enterprise. There are others of less note, including at least three Danish folk school experiments which have not yet demonstrated their adaptability to American life.
(M. A. C.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-O. D. Evans, Educational Opportunities for Young Workers (1926) ; A. L. Hall-Quest, The University Afield (1926) ; Libraries and Adult Education: a Study by the American Library Association (1926) ; E. C. Lindeman, The Meaning of Adult Educa tion (1926) ; E. D. Martin, The Meaning of a Liberal Education (1926) ; J. S. Noffsinger, Correspondence Schools, Lyceums, Chautau quas (1926) ; Nathaniel Peffer, New Schools for Older Students (1926) ; J. K. Hart, Adult Education (1927) ; Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Why Stop Learning? (1927) ; E. L. Thorndike, Adult Learning (1928).
