The Inventions of the Idiot

by John Kendrick Bangs

  V

  University Extension

  "I was surprised and gratified last evening, Mr. Idiot," observed theSchool-master as breakfast was served, "to see you at the UniversityExtension Lecture. I did not know that you admitted the necessity offurther instruction in any matter pertaining to human knowledge."

  "I don't know that I do admit the necessity," returned the Idiot."Sometimes when I take an inventory of the contents of my mind it seemsto me that about everything I need is there."

  "There you go again!" said the Bibliomaniac. "Why do you persist in yourrefusal to allow any one to get a favorable impression concerning you?Mr. Pedagog unbends sufficiently to tell you that you have at last donesomething which he can commend, and you greet him with an Idiotism whichis practically a rebuff."

  "Very well said," observed the School-master, with an acquiescent nod."I came to this table this morning encouraged to believe that this youngman was beginning to see the error of his ways, and I must confess to agreat enough interest in him to say that I was pleased at thatencouragement. I saw him at a lecture on literature at the Lyceum Halllast evening, and he appeared to be interested, and yet this morning heseems to show that he is utterly incorrigible. May I ask, sir, why youattended that lecture if, as you say, your mind is already sufficientlywell furnished?"

  "Certainly you may ask that question," replied the Idiot. "I went tothat lecture to have my impressions confirmed, that is all. I havecertain well-defined notions concerning University Extension, and Iwished to see if they were correct. I found that they were."

  "The lecture was not upon University Extension, but upon Romanticism,and it was a most able discourse," retorted Mr. Pedagog.

  "Very likely," said the Idiot. "I did not hear it. I did not want tohear it. I have my own ideas concerning Romanticism, which do not needconfirmation or correction. I have already confirmed and corrected them.I went to see the audience and not to hear Professor Peterkin explodingtheories."

  "It is a pity the chair you occupied was wasted upon you," snapped Mr.Pedagog.

  "I agree with you," said the Idiot. "I could have got a much better viewof the audience if I had been permitted to sit on the stage, butProfessor Peterkin needed all that for his gestures. However, I sawenough from where I sat to confirm my impression that UniversityExtension is not so much of a public benefit as a social fad. There washardly a soul in the audience who could not have got all that ProfessorPeterkin had to tell him out of his books; there was hardly a soul inthe audience who could not have afforded to pay one dollar at least forthe seat he occupied; there was not a soul in the audience who had paidmore than ten cents for his seat or her seat, and those for whosebenefit the lecture was presumably given, the ten-cent people, werecrowded out. The lectures themselves are not instructive--ProfessorPeterkin's particularly--except in so far as it is instructive to hearwhat Professor Peterkin thinks on this or that subject, and his desireto be original forces him to cook up views which no one else ever held,with the result that what he says is most interesting and proper to bepresented to the attention of a discriminating audience, but not properto be presented to an audience that is supposed to come there to receiveinstruction."

  "You have just said that you did not listen to the lecture. How do youknow that what you say is true?" put in the Bibliomaniac.

  "I know Professor Peterkin," said the Idiot.

  "Does he know you?" sneered Mr. Pedagog.

  "I don't think he would remember me if you should speak my name in hispresence," observed the Idiot, calmly. "But that is easily accountedfor. The Professor never remembers anybody but himself."

  "Well, I admit," said Mr. Pedagog, "that the Professor's lectures wererather advanced for the comprehension of a person like the Idiot,nevertheless it was an enjoyable occasion, and I doubt if thefulminations of our friend here will avail against UniversityExtension."

  "You speak a sad truth," said the Idiot. "Social fads are impervious tofulmination, as Solomon might have said had he thought of it. As long asa thing is a social fad it will thrive, and, on the whole, perhaps itought to thrive. Anything which gives society something to think abouthas its value, and the mere fact that it makes society _think_ is proofof that value."

  "We seem to be in a philosophic frame of mind this morning," said Mr.Whitechoker.

  "We are," returned the Idiot. "That's one thing about UniversityExtension. It makes us philosophic. It has made a stoic of my dear olddaddy."

  "Oh yes!" cried Mr. Pedagog. "You _have_ a father, haven't you? I hadforgotten that."

  "Wherein," said the Idiot, "we differ. _I_ haven't forgotten that I haveone, and, by-the-way, it is from him that I first heard of UniversityExtension. He lives in a small manufacturing town not many miles fromhere, and is distinguished in the town because, without being stingy, helives within his means. He has a way of paying his grocer's bills whichmakes of him a marked man. He hasn't much more money than he needs, butwhen the University Extension movement reached the town he wasinterested. The prime movers in the enterprise went to him and asked himif he wouldn't help it along, dilating upon the benefits which wouldaccrue to those whose education stopped short with graduation from thehigh-schools. It was most plausible. The notion that for ten cents alecture the working masses could learn something about art, history,and letters, could gather in something about the sciences, and all that,appealed to him, and while he could afford it much more ill than thesmart people, the four hundred of the town, he chipped in. He paid fiftydollars and was made an honorary manager. He was proud enough of it,too, and he wrote a long, enthusiastic letter to me about it. It was agreat thing, and he hoped the State, which had been appealed to to helpthe movement along, would take a hand in it. 'If we educate the massesto understand and to appreciate the artistic, the beautiful,' he wrote,'we need have little fear for the future. Ignorance is the greatest foewe have to contend against in our national development, and it is theonly thing that can overthrow a nation such as ours is.' And then whathappened? Professor Peterkin came along and delivered ten or a dozenlectures. The masses went once or twice and found the platform occupiedby a man who talked to them about Romanticism and Realism; who told themthat Dickens was trash; who exalted Tolstoi and Ibsen; but who never letthem into the secret of what Romanticism was, and who kept them equallyin the dark as to the significance of Realism. They also found the bestseats in the lecture-hall occupied by the smart set in fullevening-dress, who talked almost as much and as loudly as did ProfessorPeterkin. The masses did not even learn manners at Professor Peterkin'sfirst and second lectures, and the third and fourth found themconspicuous by their absence. All they learned was that they wereignorant, and that other people were better than they, and what myfather learned was that he had subscribed fifty dollars to promote aseries of social functions for the diversion of the four hundred and theaggrandizement of Professor Peterkin. He started in for what might becalled Romanticism, and he got a Realism that he did not like in lesstime than it takes to tell of it, and to-day in that town UniversityExtension is such a fad that when, some weeks ago, the swell club ofthat place talked of appointing Thursday evening as its club night, itwas found to be impossible, for the reason that it might interfere withthe attendance upon the University Extension lectures. That, Mr.Pedagog, is a matter of history and can be proven, and last night'saudience confirmed the impression which I had formed from what my fatherhad told me. Professor Peterkin's lectures are interesting to you, aschool-master, but they are pure Greek to me, who would like to knowmore about letters. I would gather more instruction from your table-talkin an hour than I could from Professor Peterkin's whole course."

  "You flatter me," said Mr. Pedagog.

  "No," returned the Idiot. "If you knew how little the ignorant gain fromPeterkin you would not necessarily call it flattery if one should say helearned more from your conversation over a griddle-cake."

  "You misconceive the whole situation, I think, nevertheless," said Mr.Whitechoker. "As I understand it, supplementary
lectures, andexaminations based on them, are held after the lectures, when thepractical instruction is given with great thoroughness."

  "I'm glad you spoke of that," said the Idiot. "I had forgotten that partof it. Professor Peterkin received pay for his lectures, which dealt intheories only; plain Mr. Barton, who delivered the supplementarylectures, got nothing. Professor Peterkin taught nothing, but herepresented University Extension. Plain Mr. Barton did the work andrepresented nothing. Both reached society. Neither reached the masses.In my native town plain Mr. Barton's supplementary lectures, which weresimply an effort to unravel the Peterkin complications, were attended bythe same people in smaller crowds--people of social standing who werecurious enough to devote an hour a week to an endeavor to find out themeaning of what Professor Peterkin had told them at the function theweek before. The students examined were mostly ladies, and I happen toknow that in a large proportion they were ladies whose husbands couldhave afforded to pay Professor Peterkin his salary ten times over as aprivate tutor."

  "As I look at it," said Mr. Pedagog, gravely, "it does not make muchdifference to whom your instruction is given, so long as it instructs.What if these lectures do interest those who are comparatively welloff? Your society woman may be as much in need of an extended educationas your factory girl. The University Extension idea is to conveyknowledge to people who would not otherwise get it. It simply sets outto improve minds. If the social mind needs improvement, why not improveit? Why condemn a system because it does not discriminate in the mindsselected for improvement?"

  "I don't condemn a system which sets out to improve minds irrespectiveof conditions," replied the Idiot. "But I should most assuredly condemna man, or a set of men, who induced me to subscribe to a bread fund forthe poor and who afterwards expended that money on cream-cakes for theCzar of Russia. The fact that the Czar of Russia wanted the cream-cakesand was willing to accept them would not affect my feelings in thematter, though I have no doubt the people in charge of the fund wouldfind themselves far more conspicuous for having departed from theoriginal idea. Some of them might be knighted for it if the Czarhappened to be passionately fond of cream-cakes."

  "Then, having attacked this system, what would you have? Would you haveUniversity Extension stop?" asked the Bibliomaniac.

  "Not at all," returned the Idiot. "Anything which can educate society isa good thing, but I should change the name of it from UniversityExtension to Social Expansion, and I should compel those whose mindswere broadened by it to pay the bills."

  "But as yet you have failed to hit the nail on the head," persisted theBibliomaniac. "The masses can attend these lectures if they wish to, andon your own statement they don't. You don't seem to consider that point,or, if you do, you don't meet it."

  "I don't think it necessary to meet it," said the Idiot. "Though I willsay that if you were one of the masses--a girl, say, with one dress,threadbare, poor, and ill-fitting, and possessed of a natural bit ofpride--you would find little pleasure in attending a lecture yourprevious education does not permit of your comprehending, and sittingthrough an evening with a lot of finely dressed, smart folk, with theirbacks turned towards you. The plebeians have _some_ pride, my dearBibliomaniac, and they are decidedly averse to mixing with the swells.They would like to be educated, but they don't care to be snubbed forthe privilege of being mystified by a man like Professor Peterkin, evenfor so small a sum as ten cents an evening."