A History of Adult Education at and through the New England University College and the University of New England, 1948 to 1980

Abstract

This thesis is the immediate product of several perceptions and forces. The first is the writer's life-long interest in Adult Education... The second catalyst to the task was his own association with most of the early dedicated staff of the pioneering Department of Adult Education at the University of New England, where he was appointed to a teaching department at a relatively early stage of the then new University's development. ... A third influence was the observation of the making of university extension policy and of related general decision-making... The fourth influence was the urging of A.C.M. Howard, W.G. Maddox, N.D. Crew and, later, Professor A. Cumming, to record some of the diverse experiences participated in and their perceived background and significance - not least because of: close contact with the Department during its greatest days; first-hand observation of widespread later academic misunderstanding of its liberal and committed purposes; and then the slow attrition of its work, in more austere days.