A word in regard to the delegacy. The official heads are the vice-chancellor of the university and the proctors, together with the secretary, Prof. J. A. R. Marriott, M.A., who, with his assistant secretary, Miss E. M. Gunter, are the active members of the delegates, who number twenty and represent the colleges of the university. The summer meeting is divided into two parts: First part from July 30 to August 11, and the second from August 11 to 23. The tuition for the two parts is but £1.10 and working men and women may obtain the above tickets at half price under certain conditions. Not only are the courses so arranged that the students may select companion subjects out of these two sections and focus their interests upon special work, but the work itself is so outlined and printed that syllabi may be obtained for almost nothing. Thus the student has a guide of thought with him at every lecture, as well as something to carry away. Among the great men who are lecturing at the summer meeting are the Rev. W. Hudson Shaw, already well known in the United States; A. L. Smith, Ford lecturer in English History; E. L. S. Horsburgh, B.A., whose discussions on economic problems are holding together conservative theorists and advanced Socialists in remarkable fashion, as he presents the topics relating to industrial problems. George N. Trevelyan, Rev. W. K. Stride, R. V. Leonard and Edmund Gardner are here, and other men whose manuals are also famous. Perhaps the lectures on Dante by the Rev. P. H. Wicksteed draw the largest audiences, but the great class-rooms of the examination schools are filled to over-flowing in almost every case, so enthusiastic are the students. One might throw in parenthesis here that the undergraduate calls these enthusiastic summer students “stretchers” (another word for extensionists).
It would be impossible to compare an American Summer School with the Summer School at Oxford. I have attempted to write only the first impressions that one gains in this university town. Each traveller gains a different impression doubtless, and in order to gain that impression he must come himself. My last word, therefore, to my reader is not to remember my impressions, but to plan to visit Oxford and gain his own impression, and his own individual quickening.
Mabel Hill,
Normal School, Lowell, Mass.
Oxford, England, Aug. 4, 1909.
SAN FRANCISCO GROUP.
A group of about fifty history teachers, representing the grades, the high school, and the university, and living in the vicinity of San Francisco, have formed the habit of gathering informally at luncheon from time to time, to meet socially and to discuss questions of professional interest. At the last meeting. September 18, the topic was “The Practical Value of History.” Prof. J. N. Powman opened with a stimulating essay, and was followed by a general discussion.
These meetings are useful in enabling history teachers of various grades to learn what each other man is doing, and to discover common aims. It is planned to continue them at intervals of about three months.