5. Public Service.—This is rendered through public discussion. It differs from lectures. It establishes forums, community institutions and the like. Its work is to arouse and inform public opinion.
6. Package Libraries.—These are made ip of selected books and pamphlets, changed as needful, and sent on request to libraries, clubs, schools, and individ uals. Some institutions treat as many as 1,000 subjects in this manner.
7. Visual Instruction.—This is carried out through pictures, lantern slides, or films furnished for motion picture ma chines. Sometimes exhibits of actual material or machines are lent to schools or clubs for inspection and study.
Besides the above there are still other methods of work which have independent features or combine those already men tioned. Such are bureaus or divisions for Municipal Information, Business Service, General Information, Lyceum Service, Community Entertainment, etc.
Extension work of one kind or another is now offered by 127 educational in stitutions. This takes no account of private commercial schools operated for profit, of various clubs, societies, and other organizations that are doing ex tension work of many kinds. Some of the educational institutions above re ferred to offer only one form of work, as extension classes, or correspondence study; others offer every possible form. The great State universities have taken the lead, but the work done by a few private foundations, as Columbia Uni versity and the University of Chicago, is equally notable.
Accurate figures are of course not available but, according to figures of Dr. Schlicher, published by the National Uni versity Extension Association in 1919, it is estimated that university extension is reaching about 120,000 students through classes or correspondence study; 2,026,000 through semi-popular lectures; 5,553,000 through pictures; 308,000 through institutes and conferences; 936,000 through outlines and pamphlets used in debates and discussions; 1,265, 000 through bulletins and circulars.
Dr. W. S. Bittner in a bulletin pub lished by the U. S. Bureau of Education, (1919 No. 84) calls attention to the fact that during the World War much of the machinery and devices used to mold public opinion, to teach soldiers and sailors or industrial workers, was taken from the university extension movement.
Extension lecture bureaus were called into immediate service to spread war propaganda. Similar service was ren dered in support of Liberty Loans, Red Cross Drives, and other war interests. Universities used without stint available resources for what might be called ex tension courses in practical subjects, as automobile mechanics, food conservation, nursing, war aims, etc. The same plan of work was put into operation in train ing camps, and for this men were taken freely from colleges and universities.
The rapid spread of extension work within the recent past shows that this is too wide a field to be adequately culti vated by private initiative. It belongs to the State and special machinery should be set up by legislative action. Unified management and a common program should be agreed on. Only in this way can extension work be provided sufficient to meet the demands of a new age and a rapidly increasing population.