Every Thursday evening during the first years, a public lecture
came to be an expected event in the neighborhood, and Hull-House
became one of the early University Extension centers, first in
connection with an independent society and later with the
University of Chicago. One of the Hull-House trustees was so
impressed with the value of this orderly and continuous
presentation of economic subjects that he endowed three courses
in a downtown center, in which the lectures were free to anyone
who chose to come. He was much pleased that these lectures were
largely attended by workingmen who ordinarily prefer that an
economic subject shall be presented by a partisan, and who are
supremely indifferent to examinations and credits. They also
dislike the balancing of pro and con which scholarly instruction
implies, and prefer to be "inebriated on raw truth" rather than
to sip a carefully prepared draught of knowledge.
Nevertheless Bowen Hall, which seats seven hundred and fifty
people, is often none too large to hold the audiences of men who
come to Hull-House every Sunday evening during the winter to attend
the illustrated lectures provided by the faculty of the University
of Chicago and others who kindly give their services. These courses
differ enormously in their popularity: one on European capitals and
their social significance was followed with the most vivid
attention and sense of participation indicated by groans and hisses
when the audience was reminded of an unforgettable feud between
Austria and her Slavic subjects, or when they wildly applauded a
Polish hero endeared through his tragic failure.
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