LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Class 
 
Reprinted from the 
 EDUCATIONAL REVIEW 
 
 NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER, 1903 
 
 THE LENGTH OF THE COLLEGE COURSE 
 
 AND ITS 
 
 RELATION TO THE PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Papers read before the Department of Higher Education 
 
 of the National Educational Association 
 
 at Boston, Mass. July 7, 1903 
 

ri 
 
 ?S/TY 
 
 THE BACCALAUREATE COURSE IN ITS RELATION 
 TO THE PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS x 
 
 It is not easy to set forth in few words the relation of the 
 colonial colleges to preparation for professional life. Not much 
 of the instruction which they offered was technically profes- 
 sional. Yet the professional bent was stronger in them than 
 in the colleges of a later day. Colleges were for the service 
 of God in church and commonwealth, and that service was to 
 be rendered thru the professional and governmental activi- 
 ties of the alumni. It is not too much to say that the college 
 course was regarded as the first, undifferentiated stage of pro- 
 fessional training. 
 
 The profession chiefly in view was, of course, the Christian 
 ministry. A few subjects in divinity, of a pretty distinct and 
 technical sort, found their way into the general college cur- 
 riculum, and were pursued, willy-nilly, by students who were 
 preparing for other than the ministerial calling. A large part 
 of the immediate preparation for ordination, however, was 
 made by young theological students thru private reading, and 
 practice in sermonizing under the direction of some ministerial 
 friend engaged in an active pastorate. So the prospective phy- 
 sician learned of a practicing physician, the prospective lawyer 
 of a practicing attorney. And all three, if their training was 
 ideally complete, had taken the same classical and philosophi- 
 
 1 A paper read before the Department of Higher Education of the National 
 Educational Association, at Boston, Mass., July 7, 1903. 
 
 117322 
 
no Educational Review [September 
 
 cal course in college as the groundwork of their professional 
 education. 
 
 The colonial view in its most extreme form was set forth by 
 President Clap of Yale College, in his Religious constitution 
 of Colleges, published in 1754. "Colleges," he said, "are 
 Religious Societies, of a Superior Nature to all others. For 
 whereas Parishes, are Societies, for training up the Common 
 People; Colleges, are Societites of Ministers, for training up 
 Persons for the Work of the Ministry. . . Some indeed, 
 have supposed, that, the only design of Colleges, was to teach 
 the Arts, and Sciences. . . But it is probable, that there is 
 not a College, to be found upon Earth, upon such a 
 Constitution." 
 
 On the other hand, an advanced colonial view was expressed 
 by William Smith, D. D., Provost of the College of Philadel- 
 phia, in his General view of the College of Mirania, an ideal 
 sketch, published in 1753, as a suggestion relative to the college 
 then projected for the Province of New York. ; ' The Miran- 
 ians," according to this account, " divide the whole body of 
 people into two grand classes. The first consists of those de- 
 signed for the learned professions; by which they understand 
 divinity, law, physic, and the chief offices of the state. The 
 second class consists of those designed for the mechanic pro- 
 fessions, and all the remaining people of the country." The 
 M Iranians show their liberality by providing a good education 
 for this second class up to the age of fifteen. But college train- 
 ing is reserved for those of the former class. Beginning at the 
 age of six, all are trained alike for the first three years. Then 
 those intended for college pass thru a five-years course in a 
 Latin school. They are ready for college at the age of four- 
 teen, and their college course is five years in length, the first 
 year being devoted chiefly to Greek, the second to Mathema- 
 tics, the third to Philosophy, the fourth to Rhetoric and 
 Poetry, and the fifth to Agriculture and History. 
 
 If it was difficult to characterize briefly the colonial ideal of 
 higher education, it is hardly easier to trace the subtle change 
 which came over this ideal and gave us the typical American 
 college of the nineteenth century. In both Europe and Amer- 
 
1903] The Baccalaureate course 1 1 1 
 
 ica, the Revolutionary Age brought forth a new estimate of 
 human worth, as human, and a new demand for a purely hu- 
 mane culture. We cannot even attempt at this time to unravel 
 the influences, religious, scientific, literary, revolutionary, 
 which led to these shiftings of emphasis. But the distinctive 
 college ideal of the nineteenth century was the ideal of purely 
 liberal culture, in one of the noblest forms in which that con- 
 ception has appeared in the history of human thought. If 
 this lofty idealism dwelt overmuch in the thin air of academic 
 abstraction, it none the less called out upon its heights a de- 
 voted and enthusiastic following. The ideal of the colleges 
 became the ideal of the academies. Somewhat modified, it reap- 
 peared in the common schools; and the American people, with 
 marvelous unanimity, embraced this common faith and pur- 
 pose, that education shall be first and chiefly for manhood, ir- 
 respective of differences of family history, or of prospective 
 occupation. *T hru the greater part of the nineteenth century, 
 accordingly, we saw general, that is, liberal education in the 
 ascendency; and professional education rising indeed, but 
 slowly and painfully. Professional schools had come into ex- 
 istence in large numbers, and were more and more largely at- 
 tended. But their educational character was hardly . taken 
 seriously, and their courses of instruction were looked upon as 
 only a slight improvement on the system of apprenticeship. 
 An increasing number of students entered upon professional 
 studies without having taken any part of the college course. 2 
 There had come to be an unmistakable rift between studies 
 for culture and studies for vocation. 
 
 2 The American Almanac for 1842 contained a list of 101 colleges, 39 theo- 
 logical seminaries, lo law schools, and 31 medical schools in the United States. 
 Cf., Wayland, Present collegiate system, etc., p. 8. Dr. Wayland goes on 
 to say, " I rather fear that the impression is gaining ground that this [college] 
 preparation is not essential to success in professional study. A large proportion of 
 our medical students are not graduates. The proportion of law students of the 
 same class is, I rather think, increasing. The proportion of students for the min- 
 istry who resort to college is much larger than formerly " (Op. cit., p. 153). 
 
 In 1890 it was estimated that 8 per cent, of the medical students, 18 percent. 
 of the law students, and 23 per cent, of the theological students of the whole 
 country had taken a degree in arts or science. Report of a special committee (of 
 the Board of Overseers of Harvard University), p. 12. 
 
112 Educational Review [September 
 
 The old college course was for a long time but little changed ; 
 but insensibly it had come to be prescribed for culture rather 
 than as preparation for the professions. 
 
 Out of the enormous literature relating to the American col- 
 lege, which the nineteenth century brought forth, we may take, 
 as a single representative, the Thoughts on the present collegiate 
 system of the United States of Francis Wayland, published in 
 1842. This work is of great historical value, because of the 
 detailed account which it presents of the actual college admin- 
 istration of that day; and in its recommendations concerning 
 improvements, moreover, it is prophetic of some of the best 
 things in our later college history. " No nation," said Presi- 
 dent Wayland, " can derive the benefit which God intended 
 from the intellect which he has conferred upon it, unless all 
 that intellect, of what sort soever it be, have the means of 
 full and adequate development." But the colleges as then 
 conducted he declared to be " merely schools preparatory to 
 entrance upon some one of the professions." He continues: 
 " In consequence of this unintentional restriction, a very large 
 class of our people have been deprived of all participation in 
 the benefits of higher education. It has been almost impossible 
 in this country, for the merchant, the mechanic, the manu- 
 facturer, to educate his son, beyond the course of a common 
 academy unless he gave him the education preparatory for a 
 profession." At the same time, an increasing number were 
 entering the professional schools without this preliminary col- 
 lege training. The colleges were not in close touch with the 
 after-life of their graduates. " The college or university 
 forms no integral and necessary part of the social system. . 
 . . In no other country is the whole plan for the instruc- 
 tion of the young so entirely dissevered from connexion with 
 the business of subsequent life." 
 
 It was this state of affairs which President Wayland would 
 remedy. " Let the college be the grand center of intelligence 
 to all classes and conditions of men, diffusing among all the 
 light of every kind of knowledge, and approving itself to the 
 best feelings of every class of the community." To this end, 
 he would raise the requirements for admission, thus securing 
 
1903] The Baccalaureate course \ 13 
 
 students of a more uniform and more advanced age. To this 
 improved student body he would offer an improved college 
 course, one of the suggested changes being the provision of a 
 course parallel with that in arts, leading to the degree of Bach- 
 elor of Science or of Literature. " The question will here be 
 asked, What are we to do with the four-year course? I 
 answer, it seems to me of but very little consequence whether 
 we do with it or without it. . . I certainly would not 
 have the period curtailed commencing with the present, or 
 even with much higher requirements for admission to the uni- 
 versity. But I would not have it a matter of time." 
 
 We will pause here to consider briefly the place which the 
 baccalaureate course has occupied on the scale of years of col- 
 lege-men's lives, thru our educational history. Harvard 
 College settled down at a very early day to a four-year course, 
 and from that time on the quadrennium was so nearly uni- 
 versal in the practice of our colleges. that there is no need to 
 seek for occasional exceptions. 3 For generations, this was the 
 most rigid time-allotment to be found anywhere in our educa- 
 tional system. When we came to have professional schools, 
 they were for a long time without any common standards. 
 Below the college, the preparatory schools were likewise va- 
 riable. The courses were largely determined by college-ad- 
 mission requirements, and only gradually shaped themselves 
 into another four-year curriculum. 
 
 No extended inquiry has yet been made, so far as I can learn, 
 into the actual ages of colonial college boys. We know that 
 well-endowed students were occasionally graduated in their 
 teens in some instances before they were half thru their 
 teens. These last were probably exceptional cases. The sig- 
 nificant fact is that, however rigid the college course, the loose 
 organization of the secondary schools made such early gradu- 
 ation possible. 4 
 
 3 Yale College had a very early provision under which the course might be 
 shortened, but it seems not to have been carried into effect. The course of the 
 College of Philadelphia, before the Revolution, was three years in length. More 
 recently the undergraduate course at Johns Hopkins University has been a three 
 years' course. 
 
 4 President F. A. P. Barnard, of Columbia College, in his Annual Report of 
 
114 Educational Review [September 
 
 For the period since the Revolution, we have now at 
 hand the results of an extended inquiry made by Mr. 
 Thomas. 5 Full statistics were found to be available for only 
 eleven institutions. The list does not include any of the 
 greater universities of the country, but is made up of smaller 
 universities and representative colleges, seven of them in New 
 York and New England, one in the South, and three in the 
 Middle West. These statistics show in the period from the 
 Revolution to the middle of the nineteenth century, but little 
 marked deviation from the standards of more recent times. 6 
 Mr. Thomas has analyzed with especial care the records 
 of the past fifty years. It appears from his summary that, half 
 a century ago, the median age of graduation from these eleven 
 institutions ranged from twenty years and seven months, at 
 New York University, to twenty-five years and two months, 
 at Oberlin. During the last full decade, 1890-99, the range is 
 less great, extending from twenty years and two months, at 
 the University of Alabama, to twenty-three years and eleven 
 months, at Oberlin College and Syracuse University. One 
 institution, at the end of the half -century, was where it had 
 been at the beginning. The remaining ten were equally divided, 
 five of them showing a higher and five a lower median age 
 or graduation. Counting still by institutions, the median age 
 
 1880, " presented a list of eighty-one eminent men, all of them graduates of the 
 early years of this [nineteenth] century or earlier, and none of them graduated at 
 a more advanced age than eighteen." In 1886 he presented the results of a simi- 
 lar study, relating to 250 persons, none of whom graduated later than the middle of 
 the nineteenth century. The youngest of these graduated at the age of nine ; the 
 oldest at thirty-one. Three were thirteen, three were fourteen, and eight were 
 twenty-six at graduation. The largest number graduated at nineteen, the next 
 largest at efghteen, and the average of the whole number was 19.87 (Annual re- 
 port of the President of Columbia College, 1885-86, p. 32. 
 
 5 " Changes in the age of college graduation," by W. Scott Thomas, The 
 Popular Science Monthly, June, 1903, pp. 159-171. 
 
 6 Cf., the following, written in 1842: "Young persons maybe admitted to our 
 colleges at the close of their fourteenth year, and many enter at that early age. 
 The requirements of our colleges are, however, so moderate that a young man who 
 has commenced life with other expectations may, at a much more advanced age, 
 change his pursuits, and in a year or two be prepared for admission to college. 
 Thus, a considerable proportion of every class have attained to twenty-five or thirty 
 years of age. Thirty-two or three is not an uncommon age for a candidate for the 
 degree of Bachelor of Arts," Wayland, (op. cit., p. 31). 
 
1903] The Baccalaureate course 115 
 
 of graduation in this whole group, in the first of the five decades 
 under consideration, was twenty-two years, nine months, and 
 six-tenths, while in the last decade of the five it was twenty- 
 two years, seven months, and five-tenths, showing a lower 
 age at the end of the period, by about two months, than at its 
 beginning. 
 
 By changing the method of computation, it is shown that 
 in the first of these decades the average age of graduation of 
 all of the students included in the reckoning was twenty-three 
 years and three months, while in the last decade it was twenty- 
 three years and five-tenths of a month. Here again there ap- 
 pears a slight lowering of the age at which the baccalaureate 
 was taken. 
 
 Mr. Thomas has attacked his problem by a third line 
 of approach, which yields the most interesting results of all. 
 He has computed the percentages of students graduated at the 
 different years of their age, and plotted the resulting curves, 
 comparing the first decade of this period with the last. From 
 this it appears that the student body is becoming somewhat 
 more homogeneous with regard to age; that a smaller per- 
 centage is found either below or above the age of the bulk of 
 the class ; and that the favorite age of graduation, the " mode," 
 as he calls it, which was between twenty and twenty-one in the 
 decade, 1850-59, has risen and is found between twenty-one 
 and twenty-two in the decade, 1890-99. In this we see brought 
 to pass one of the changes which President Wayland proposed/ 
 
 In the latter part of the nineteenth century, various in- 
 fluences combined to lend new emphasis to professional edu- 
 cation. The great advance which had recently been made in 
 the physical sciences had undoubtedly a great deal to do with 
 the change. It is not surprising that schools of medicine 
 should have been among the first institutions to respond to this 
 
 1 Earlier discussions of the same problem maybe found in the following papers: 
 Andrews, E. Benjamin, " Time and age in relation to the college curriculum," 
 EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, vol. i. p. 133-146, February, 1891. 
 
 Table of ages of students entering freshman class of Brown University, by five- 
 year periods, 1827-90: 1827-30, 17. 7 years; 1831-75, over 1 8 and not over 19 
 1876-90, from 19.0 to 19.4. 
 
 Age of students entering freshman class at Harvard: From 1856 to 1859, under 
 
1 1 6 Educational Review [September 
 
 new quickening. When these schools undertook seriously to 
 lengthen and strengthen their courses of instruction, they 
 found the age of graduation from college already so high that 
 to add a sufficient professional course to the ordinary course 
 in liberal arts, would present serious practical difficulties. 
 Then arose a demand for the shortening of the traditional 
 college course, and this was followed by a demand for the short- 
 ening and enriching of the courses in lower schools. Harvard 
 University was the storm-center in the earlier part of this dis- 
 cussion. I shall accordingly chronicle, as briefly as possible, 
 the official history of Harvard's part in the movement down 
 to the early nineties, and there this sketch will come to an end. 
 
 In his annual report for 1883-84, President Eliot started 
 the discussion by suggesting, a propos of plans for lengthening 
 the course of medical instruction to four years, the advisability 
 of shortening the course in the college proper to three years, 
 or of bringing undergraduates to avail themselves of the facili- 
 ties already provided for abbreviating the college course. 
 
 The faculty of the medical school, in June, 1886, proposed to 
 the Academic Council a plan for the abridgment of the college 
 course, by those who would go from the college to the profes- 
 sional school of the university. The faculty of law concurred 
 in this recommendation. After consideration in committee 
 and extended discussion, the Academic Council, in November, 
 1887, requested the college faculty to consider the expediency 
 of a reduction of the college course. The reply of the faculty 
 was not given till March, 1890. It took the form of four 
 recommendations, addressed to the Corporation : 
 
 " I. That the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of 
 
 18; from 1860 to 1880, over 18 and under 19; from 1881 to 1890, six years out of 
 the ten, 19 or over. 
 
 Summary . ' ' While the average age of graduation at New England colleges is 
 rising, the usual age is falling." 
 
 Bartlett, S. C., " Shortening the college course." Education, vol. ii. p. 585-59* 
 June, 1891. 
 
 Average age of entrance has not been materially rising at Williams, Michigan, 
 Tufts, Dartmouth. At Dartmouth, average age of last four graduating 
 classes was less than four months higher than that of classes in 1832-36. At 
 Michigan University, average of present freshmen class is one year less than 
 that of the classes fifteen years ago. 
 
1 903] The Baccalaureate course \ 1 7 
 
 Arts be expressed ... in terms of courses of study satisfac- 
 torily accomplished. 
 
 " 2. That the number of courses required for the degree be 
 sixteen. 
 
 "3. That when a student enters college there shall be placed 
 to his credit . . . ( i ) any advanced studies on which he has 
 passed in his admission examination beyond the number re- 
 quired for admission, and (2) any other college studies which 
 he has anticipated. 
 
 " 4. That a student may be recommended for the degree of 
 Bachelor of Arts in the middle as well as at the end of the 
 academic year." 
 
 This report was approved by the President and Fellows, who 
 transmitted it to the Board of Overseers. From April, 1890, 
 to April, 1891, the Overseers had the matter under considera- 
 tion, and during the same twelvemonth public discussion of 
 the shortening of the college course was at its height. Then 
 action was taken by the Overseers, refusing consent to the first, 
 second, and fourth proposals of the faculty, and approving the 
 third, with unimportant modifications. In reporting this 
 action, President Eliot called attention to the fact " that any 
 student of fair parts can get the degree of Bachelor of Arts at 
 Harvard College in three years under existing regulations with- 
 out any unreasonable exertion." 
 
 Parallel with this movement at Harvard, important steps 
 were taken in other institutions. In May, 1890, Columbia Uni- 
 versity adopted the plan of permitting seniors to elect their 
 studies, under certain restrictions, from courses offered by the 
 faculties of philosophy, political science, mines, and laws. This 
 arrangement came to be known as the " Columbia Plan," by 
 way of distinction from the proposed " Harvard Plan." The 
 University of Michigan had for several years prescribed its re- 
 quirements for graduation in quantitative terms, and had per- 
 mitted students who came up to the beginning of their senior 
 year with not more than one half-year's work of their course 
 remaining uncompleted, to take professional studies during the 
 senior year along with the remaining work of the undergradu- 
 ate course. The further provision was now made at Michigan, 
 
1 1 8 Educational Review [Septembe 
 
 that students preparing for the (four-year) course in medicim 
 might arrange for an overlapping of the two courses, with th 
 result that the general and the professional degree might botl 
 be taken in seven years. The University of Chicago and th 
 Leland Stanford Junior University appeared on the scene a 
 this time, with their characteristic contributions to current dis 
 cussion and practice. The proposals of President Butler re 
 specting the baccalaureate, which have given a new impetus t< 
 the movement we are considering, are so recent that, with th 
 discussions of this session, they belong rather to the presen 
 than to the province of the chronicler. 
 
 To sum up, the more significant aspects of this history seen 
 to me to be these : That the bachelor's degree has in some sens< 
 determined our national educational standard ; that it has com 
 to be a general possession of our people, that is, the mark simpl; 
 of the well-educated man, irrespective of his calling ; that witl 
 better educational organization, it has come to represent nor 
 mally a higher grade of training than it once stood for ; that ii 
 becoming both a higher degree and a more popular degree, i 
 has largely lost its old-time connection with training for voca 
 tion, and has prompted young people, after they have come o 
 legal age, to go on still with general studies, and without seri 
 ous thought of occupation in life. To ward off the danger o 
 chronic dilettanteism, which is thus incurred; to integrate th< 
 baccalaureate with life, while keeping it still a degree of higl 
 standing and also a popular degree, has been, I think, the pur 
 pose of recent movements in this field. There has been som< 
 consideration, but not enough consideration as yet, of the prob 
 lem of intermediate, connective courses, between general cul 
 ture and professional training. 
 
 Of the extensive literature to which this question has giver 
 rise, attention may be called to the following, in addition to th< 
 papers already mentioned : 
 
 Adams, Charles Kendall, " The Next step in education/ 
 The Forum, v. 10, p. 618-632, February, 1891. 
 
 Comey, Arthur M., " The Growth of New England col 
 leges," EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, v. i, p. 209-210, March, 1891 
 
1903] The Baccalaureate course 119 
 
 Oilman, Daniel C, " The Shortening of the college cur- 
 riculum," EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, v. i, p. 1-7, January, 1891. 
 
 Harris, George, " The Age of Graduation at Amherst Col- 
 lege, 1830-1900," EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, v. 25, p. 525-7, 
 May, 1903. 
 
 Shaler, N. S., " The Use and limits of academic culture," 
 Atlantic monthly, v. 66, p. 160-170, August, 1890. 
 
 Annual report of the President of Columbia College: 1879-80 
 (Barnard), p. 44-56; 1885-86 (Barnard), p. 14-37; 1890-91 
 (Low), p. 48-52; 1901-02 (Butler), p. 29-49. 
 
 Annual report of the President of Cornell University 
 (Adams), 1889-90, p. 20-22. 
 
 Report of the President of Harvard College (Eliot), 1883-84, 
 p. 36-37; 1885-86, p. 14; 1886-87, p. 14, 16-17, 75, 76, 80; 
 1887-88, p. 12-13, 81-83; 1888-89, P- 2I > 116-119; 1890-91, 
 
 P- 7-9- 
 
 University of Michigan, The President's Report (Angell), 
 for the year ending September 30, 1890, p. 14-18. 
 
 Report of the President of Yale University (Hadley), for the 
 academic year 1901-1902, p. 13-29, 42-51. 
 
 ELMER ELLSWORTH BROWN 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
IT 
 THE LENGTH OF THE COLLEGE COURSE 1 
 
 The period devoted to professional education has been 
 more than doubled within the last forty years in the 
 United States, except in the divinity schools, where 
 three years were early required and are still required. 
 In Judge Story's law school at Harvard the period 
 of residence was eighteen months. It is now three 
 years. In 1869-70 the period of required residence in the Har- 
 vard Medical School was four months in each of three years. 
 It is now nine months in each of four years. This tendency 
 to increase the period of professional instruction has by no 
 means exhausted itself; and, inasmuch as the amount of pro- 
 fessional knowledge and skill to be acquired by every student 
 is steadily increasing, we must expect more and more time to 
 be devoted to professional education. This tendency is by no 
 means to be regretted. The advanced studies of professional 
 schools supply a better training than the elementary studies of 
 school and college; and they are generally pursued by the pro- 
 fessional student with greater zeal and energy than either 
 schoolboys or college students manifest; but, inasmuch as it 
 is the interest of society and the interest of the individual that 
 young men should be enabled to enter, well trained, on the prac- 
 tice of a profession by the time they are twenty-five years old, 
 it follows that the period of training preliminary or preparatory 
 to professional training should come to its end by the time the 
 young men are twenty-one years old. 
 
 If we ask, next, at what age a boy who has had good op- 
 portunities may best leave his secondary school whether a high 
 school in a city, or a country academy, or an endowed or private 
 school for the sons of well-to-do parents the most reasonable 
 
 1 A paper read before the Department of Higher Education of the National 
 Educational Association at Boston, Mass., July 7, 1903. 
 
The length of the college course 1 2 1 
 
 answer is at the age of eighteen. At that age the average boy 
 is ready for the liberty of a college or technical school, and will 
 develop more rapidly in freedom than under the constant super- 
 vision of parents or schoolmasters. Seventeen is, for the aver- 
 age boy, rather young for college freedom, tho safe for 
 steady boys of exceptional maturity. Between the secondary 
 school and the professional school, then, there can be, as a rule, 
 only three years for the college. The American colleges have 
 been peculiar in expecting so long a residence as four years. 
 For the B. A. degree Oxford and Cambridge have required 
 residence during only three years, and during much less than 
 one-half of each of those years. Even the honor men at Cam- 
 bridge are in residence, as a rule, but three years. Until recent 
 years the American colleges doubtless needed four years, because 
 of the inadequacy of the secondary schools. These schools hav- 
 ing steadily improved, and taken on themselves more and more 
 of the preliminary training of well-educated youth, it is natural 
 that the colleges should now be able to relinquish, without 
 lowering their own standards, a portion of the time which they 
 have heretofore claimed. What portion, is the interesting 
 question. In the Latin countries the A. B. is given at the end 
 of the secondary school course. In Germany the college course 
 and the degree of A. B. have disappeared altogether. 
 
 On this point I confine myself to stating what 
 answer the Harvard Faculty has given to this ques- 
 tion about the relinquishment of a portion of the 
 time heretofore devoted to the college. The principle 
 on which the Harvard Faculty has acted is this: They pro- 
 pose, in reducing the time required for the A. B. degree to three 
 years, to make no reduction whatever in the amount of work 
 required for that degree. In other words, they propose that 
 the degree of A. B., taken in three years, shall represent the 
 same amount of attainment, or power required, which the A. B. 
 taken in four years has heretofore represented. Under the 
 conditions which obtain at Harvard, there is no difficulty what- 
 ever in bringing about this result. In the first place the Faculty 
 has already pushed back into the secondary schools a good deal 
 of work of proper school grade which used to be done in the 
 
122 Educational Review [September 
 
 college. Secondly, the Faculty requires the young man who 
 takes his degree in three years to pass exactly the same number 
 of examinations on the same number of courses as are required 
 of the man who takes the degree in four years. This demand 
 can be readily met by the student, because the long summer 
 vacations can be utilized, and the ordinary pace or rate of work 
 of the student in the four-years' course can be considerably 
 accelerated by the ambitious man who proposes to take his 
 degree in three years. There are three months and two-thirds 
 of vacation at Harvard in every academic year a superfluous 
 amount. The standard of work in the four-years' course for 
 the Harvard A. B. was decidedly lower than the standard of 
 work in any of the Harvard professional schools. It is one 
 of the advantages of the three-year plan that it raises this 
 standard of work during the college residence. Pursuing this 
 general policy that the requirements for the A. B. are not to be 
 diminished, the Harvard Faculty fixes the minimum regular 
 residence for the Harvard A. B. at three years. They do not 
 believe that the residence can be reduced to two years without 
 diminishing the amount of work required for the degree. 
 
 At several different times it was proposed in the 
 Harvard Faculty that they adopt the principle of count- 
 ing the first year spent in one the professional schools 
 towards the degree of A. B., as well as towards the 
 degree of the professional school; but the Faculty always 
 rejected that proposal, on the ground that this method 
 implied a reduction of one-quarter in the requirements 
 for the degree of A. B., and indeed of more than one-quarter, 
 because the senior year ought to be a better year than the fresh- 
 man year. To accentuate this determination not to abate the 
 requirements for the degree of A. B., while shortening the period 
 of residence, the Faculty for .some years required persons who 
 were to take the degree in three years to obtain higher marks or 
 grades than were required of persons who took the degree in four 
 years. This particular requirement has now been removed ; but 
 it was useful during the years of transition, because it made it 
 evident that the three-years' man, on the average, had made 
 greater attainments than the average four-years' man. The 
 
1 9$] The length of the college course 123 
 
 governing boards of the university have had precisely the 
 same intentions as the Faculty; so that insistence on the previ- 
 ous sum of the attainments for the degree is the characteristic 
 feature of the evolution at Harvard. The result has been 
 brought about by the use of the Harvard admission examina- 
 tions to raise the standards of the secondary schools, by the 
 utilization of parts of the long summer vacation, and by en- 
 couraging students to put more work into the day and into the 
 year while they are in residence for the A. B. 
 
 The Harvard Faculty has endeavored to hold fast to the 
 actual facts of the case. It says nothing about an A. B. in five 
 years, because none but men in some way disabled spend five 
 years in getting a bachelor's degree. It does not try to bring 
 boys to college in large number at sixteen or seventeen years of 
 age; but it has for years advised that they come at eighteen 
 instead of nineteen. It offers the bachelor's degree in three 
 years or three and a half years, instead of four years, because 
 many students can win the degree in these shorter periods of 
 residence without any lowering of the standard. In short, it 
 proposes to hold everything it has won for the college and the 
 degree of Bachelor of Arts, and to meet the claims of profes- 
 sional education by better organization of the whole course of 
 education from beginning to end, by better methods of teach- 
 ing, and by large and early freedom of choice among different 
 studies. 
 
 While this change was going on in Harvard College, the 
 university took the important step of requiring the A. B. for 
 admission to its three oldest professional schools, first in the 
 Divinity School, then in the Law School, and lastly in the Medi- 
 cal School. It had already established the Graduate School in 
 Arts and Sciences, for admission to which a preliminary degree 
 was, of course, required. It is unnecessary to point out that this 
 action gives the strongest possible support to the A. B. If taken 
 by the leading universities of the country at large, it would 
 settle at once in the affirmative the question of the continued 
 existence of the American college. To preserve the college, 
 the sure way is to keep down the age for leaving the secondary 
 school, abbreviate the college course to three years, and require 
 
124 Educational Review [September 
 
 the A. B. for admission to university professional schools. 
 Then we may avoid what has happened in all the nations of 
 Continental Europe, namely, the disappearance of the college 
 course for the A. B. 
 
 AThe requirement of the degree of Bachelor of Arts for ad- 
 mission to the professional schools has the happiest effect on 
 the whole course of professional study. The classes in the pro- 
 fessional schools become at once more homogeneous in quality, 
 and that quality is distinctly higher than before. To believe 
 that any other result were possible would be to discredit the 
 college course itself. 
 
 The objections to this very decided improvement are two. 
 It is alleged in the first place, that the professional schools of 
 the universities cannot bear the reduction in their number of 
 students which would follow the enforcement of this require- 
 ment. Doubtless there would be some temporary diminution 
 in the number of students ; but the experience at Harvard shows 
 that this reduction would be only temporary. The reduction 
 is lessened, if four or five years' notice of the change is given. 
 After a few years, the reduction would be overcome. Indeed, 
 in the Harvard Law School, the number of students rapidly 
 increased after the requirement of a degree for admission to 
 the school. As a rule, the men already engaged in the practice 
 of a profession approve and actively support all measures which 
 tend to raise the standard of education for their profession. 
 This pecuniary argument, therefore, may safely be regarded as 
 one of only temporary and limited force. The other objection 
 is a sentimental one. It is said that the requirement of a de- 
 gree for admission to all professional schools would exclude 
 some young men of remarkable powers, who have had no oppor- 
 tunities in their earlier years to obtain a good, systematic edu- 
 cation. The obvious answer to this objection is that the organ- 
 ized institutions of education are not planned for geniuses, and 
 that geniuses do not need them. Moreover, it is not supposed 
 that all the professional schools of the country would make this 
 requirement. There would doubtless be plentv of private-ven- 
 ture schools in the large cities, which would receive young 
 men of an appropriate age without the slightest inquiry into 
 
1 93] The length of the college course 125 
 
 their preliminary education. That is the case to-day, and the 
 proposed change in university policy would, of course, be an 
 advantage to such schools. The question before us, in this 
 Department of Higher Education, is what the universities 
 ought to do. I urge that the universities should maintain each 
 its present standard for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, but 
 should permit young men who are capable of reaching that 
 standard in three years of residence to take the degree in three 
 years ; and, secondly, that, with notice of not less than four 
 years, they should require some bachelor's degree in arts or 
 sciences for admission to their professional schools. The long 
 notice will enable parents, schools, and the whole community 
 to adapt themselves to the change. The greater the number 
 of universities which unite in this movement, the more easily 
 will it be brought about. 
 
 It will be observed, perhaps, that I have said nothing about 
 the degree of Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Philosophy. 
 My reason is that I regard those degrees as only temporary and 
 inferior substitutes for the traditional degree of Bachelor of 
 Arts. I believe that these lesser degrees will disappear as 
 soon as an adequate variety of studies is allowed to count 
 towards the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Towards this ad- 
 mirable consummation the Harvard Faculty has already taken 
 some important steps. Thus, many college studies can be 
 counted toward the degree of Bachelor of Science; and many 
 of the studies originally introduced into the university thru 
 the Scientific School may be counted towards the degree of 
 Bachelor of Arts. Again, in 1903 and thereafter, the require- 
 ments for admission to the Scientific School represent as large 
 an amount of work done at the secondary school as the re- 
 quirements for admission to Harvard College, altho the 
 number of options is larger in the Scientific School 
 requirements. A very moderate increase in the number of re- 
 quired studies for admission to the Scientific School, and in the 
 number of optional studies allowed for admission to Harvard 
 College, would make the requirements for admission to the 
 two departments identical. For a time, in the development of 
 the American universities, there was a strong tendency to mul- 
 
126 Educational Review 
 
 tiply bachelor degrees. For ten years past the tendency has 
 been all the other way. Until this simplification is brought 
 about, however, the requirement for admission to the university 
 professional schools will have to be a bachelor's degree in arts 
 or sciences, this description including the miscellaneous de- 
 grees in letters, philosophy, engineering, etc. 
 
 Finally, if a degree in arts or sciences is to be required for 
 admission to university professional schools, the road to such 
 a degree should be as smooth and broad as possible. No ex- 
 clusive prescriptions should obstruct it; and the various needs 
 of the individual pupil should be carefully provided for in both 
 
 school and college. 
 
 CHARLES W. ELIOT 
 
 ( HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
Ill 
 
 THE LENGTH OF THE COLLEGE COURSE. 1 
 
 The American college is the vital center of our system of 
 higher education. With all its imperfections, it serves, as 
 probably no other institution can serve, to uphold the standards 
 of the secondary schools and to lift from below the level of 
 professional schools. It occupies an intermediate field of its 
 own, not perfectly defined, but as clearly defined as the fields 
 of our secondary and professional education. It should be al- 
 lowed and encouraged, as they are, to organize itself com- 
 pletely and efficiently according to the laws of its own life, 
 without curtailment or encroachment. Otherwise we shall 
 be in the absurd and uncivilized position of refusing to try for 
 the best college education, and shall be sacrificing to commer- 
 cial and utilitarian demands the one educational agency most 
 needed to purify and elevate the too materialistic tone of our 
 American life. 
 
 By tradition, the length of the college course is four years. 
 This is almost universal. There seems to be no good reason 
 a priori why it should have been four, rather than five or 
 three, or even two. But the practical unanimity of the tra- 
 dition indicates that thus far at least the period, of four years 
 has been found to be well suited to our needs. Analyze this as 
 we may, it is a definite result of long and wide experience, and 
 one which should not be discarded without the fullest consider- 
 ation. 
 
 It is argued, however, that conditions are changing, and 
 that a shorter time must be allotted, if we would save the 
 American college. This argument rests mainly on the increas- 
 ing age of the student at entrance to college and the lengthen- 
 ing courses of the professional schools. The fact that college 
 
 1 A paper read before the Department of Higher Education of the National 
 Educational Association at Boston, Mass., July 7, 1903. 
 
 127 
 
128 Educational Review [September 
 
 graduates are kept back from entering business life until they 
 are twenty-two need not disturb us on economic grounds, 
 because it is also a fact that the marked increase of college grad- 
 uates in business life has coincided with the very period in 
 which the age of graduation has been rising. But for those 
 going into professional life the case is different. Taking 
 eighteen as the average age of entrance to college, adding four 
 years of college and three or, as it may soon be, four years 
 of professional study, the young doctor or lawyer is not fledged 
 until he is twenty-six. A year, or even two years, may be 
 saved by reducing the length of the college course. 
 
 Let us admit, at once, that we are facing a serious economic 
 question. The saving of a year or two in time and money will 
 in many cases settle the question as to how extended an edu- 
 cation a young man can get. Young men who must get to law 
 or medicine by twenty- four must forego something, if they 
 enter college at eighteen. No device will secure them eight 
 years of educated life in six. The brighter and more mature 
 among them may perhaps save a year by entering college at 
 seventeen. But this does not meet the general difficulty. If 
 by any chance they enter at sixteen, they will be found as a 
 rule too immature mentally for the studies and too immature 
 morally for the life of our large modern colleges. This solu- 
 tion may, therefore, be dismissed as insufficient and unwise. If 
 the year or two years is to be saved, it must be taken in most 
 instances from college, or from the professional school. 
 
 We may as well admit that in such cases the college must 
 suffer the loss, because the intending doctor or lawyer cannot 
 escape the demands of the professional schools. His liveli- 
 hood is conditioned on completing his professional education, 
 and this settles the matter. 
 
 But does it settle the general question of the proper length of 
 the college course for those who have time to take it? What 
 are we to do with the mass of students who can take four years 
 of college? Why must their course be shortened? It is a 
 minority which goes on to law and medicine. Some better 
 reason must be found than the fact that a part of this minority 
 cannot remain four years. If it were true, or if it becomes 
 
1903] The length of the college course 129 
 
 true, that majority of young men suitable for college cannot 
 stay thruout the present course, then it may be a shorter course 
 must be established. Otherwise it does not appear that we are 
 doing a wrong to students by holding them four years, unless 
 it can also be shown that a three-year or a two-year course is 
 intrinsically better than a four-year course for American 
 young men. 
 
 This is to me the one question of real difficulty. I am unable 
 to see that young men generally will be better trained to begin 
 as lawyers at twenty-four than at twenty-five or twenty-six. 
 I am able to see that many cannot afford to wait so long, and 
 must take what they can get in the shorter time. It is clear 
 that some of them cannot take four years in college. It is also 
 clear that giving them the bachelor's degree at the end of two 
 years or three years will not give them an education of four 
 years. It is the time taken, as well as the studies taken, that 
 counts heavily, if a permanent impression is to be made. Ex- 
 tended time in residence given to unhurried settled study, and 
 not rapidly formed acquaintance with a series of studies, is 
 what is needed. And when we realize with what imperfect 
 training so many boys come from the schools, it may easily 
 take four years to outflank their deficiencies, correct their 
 methods, and develop even a semblance of liberal culture. 
 S Why, then, if some of them must leave college, should they 
 not leave, as some now do, at the end of two years or three 
 years, taking with them their valuable half-loaf or three- 
 quarters loaf of college life and training? It is worth a great 
 deal to them. They will find most of the professional schools 
 ready to receive them, and some of them ready to give, if not 
 the very best, at least a good professional education. The 
 best of everything in education cannot be had without taking 
 the best time needed. In fact we are exaggerating the situa- 
 tion, for if all professional schools would merely go so far as to 
 exact at least two years of college as prerequisite to entrance, 
 there would be a gain the country over in the quality of pro- 
 fessional students. It may perhaps be thought that the three- 
 year course will bring more students to college and more col- 
 lege graduates to professional schools. This is a matter of 
 
130 Educational Review [September 
 
 speculation. But suppose it does. Is it clear that we need 
 more college students with shorter education than they have 
 now ? Is it clear that we need proportionally more doctors and 
 lawyers? The desired gain in quality of professional students 
 can be secured without destroying the four-year course, merely 
 by exacting generally three years of college as a minimum en- 
 trance requirement. Has any American university gone 
 farther than this in dealing with the students of its own college 
 who enter its own law or medical school? 
 
 In the present condition of affairs in our land, viewed in its 
 entirety, the question of entrance to professional schools and 
 the question of the proper length of the college course are two 
 distinct questions. By all means let there be a few leaders 
 among the professional schools exacting a college degree for 
 admission, especially if it be possible to secure this on the basis 
 of a full college course, completed in full time without 
 haste or crowding. The time may perhaps come when all 
 good schools will be able to follow their example. But it 
 has not come yet. 
 
 If, therefore, the college course is to be shortened, it should 
 be because the shorter course is intrinsically better for the 
 mass of college students. Is four years of American college 
 education better than three? Few will doubt it is better than 
 two. Three years or four is the real question. 
 
 That a change of profound importance has come over our col- 
 leges in the last thirty years none will deny. It is a change in 
 tone and spirit. The gains in diversified opportunity and in 
 student self-government have been immense. There have also 
 been losses. In the large older colleges particularly there has 
 been an accession of students who are attracted more by the 
 social and athletic life than by studies. There has been a relax- 
 ing of effort, a disposition to look on college life as a pleasant 
 social episode. The old-fashioned college, with its simple pro- 
 gram of prescribed studies, is gone. The so-called " elective 
 system " has come in to replace it, wholly or partly. To re- 
 habilitate the old state of things is impossible and undesirable. 
 To endure the disintegration and confusion in intellectual 
 standards which has ensued is also undesirable and, I believe, 
 
ft UN' - 
 
 v or y 
 
 1903] The length of the cott^-&&' \ 3 1 
 
 impossible. The strength of opinion favorable to the four-year 
 course is found to be greatest where a large basis of prescribed 
 studies has been kept. The arguments for a shorter course are 
 most influential where elective freedom prevails most. It is 
 possible to argue with much effect for four years when it can 
 be shown that a fine education is given because of the very 
 definite correlation of studies to one end, namely, the acquaint- 
 ing of young men not only with the methods of knowledge, but 
 with the substance of things important for all liberally educated 
 men to know, the elemental things which, taken together, rep- 
 resent the stock and staple of our intellectual inheritance as a 
 race. This takes considerable time. Supplement this with a 
 first exploration into the fields, or, far better, into some definitely 
 mapped field of elective freedom corresponding to the well- 
 ascertained aptitudes rather than the chance likings of the 
 student, and four years will be found none too much. A natu- 
 ral break between the two lower and two upper years may thus 
 easily be made. At this time, if the hard necessity arises so 
 soon, let men leave who must leave early. The bachelor's 
 degree may then be kept for those who do the full work in the 
 normal time. From this point of view, the four-year course is 
 in every way worth maintaining. 
 
 But if the principle is to prevail that, once in college, the 
 student is to find all studies elective, the case is very different. 
 No definite program is completed for the mass of students, so 
 far as concerns the specific substance of what they study. And 
 without this an important common element is subtracted. A 
 certain effect is lost. The common area, of liberal culture, in 
 which all educated men should be at home, tends to shrink and 
 vanish. The solidarity of the student community, the intense 
 esprit de corps which accompanies movement by college 
 classes, the intimacy of the community in things of common 
 intellectual acquaintance all these are weakened by disper- 
 sion. The students are not traveling near enough in the same 
 direction to be within easy hail and call. Such a condition is 
 anomalous in education. Secondary education below gains its 
 effect from the correlation of prescribed studies, so as to form 
 a general gymnastic of the mind. Professional education 
 
132 Educational Review [September 
 
 above is unattainable without the mastery of correlated sub- 
 jects prescribed for all. The inner relations of the subjects stud- 
 ied, and not the preferences of immature minds, form the basis 
 for an organized course of study, and should have much to do, 
 perhaps most to do, with determining the length of any course. 
 College education alone, under the plan of free election, is being 
 allowed to wander aimlessly, as tho there were no general and 
 necessary rational relations according to which college studies 
 should be combined as they are in other fields of education. 
 The student's preference, so often determined by inadequate 
 knowledge or an easy-going following of the line of least re- 
 sistance, is dignified by the name of " election " and the be- 
 wildering mass of elective studies offered him is seriously called 
 a " system." " System " it may be to others, but not to him. 
 
 How can a definite argument for a discipline and culture of 
 four years, rather than of three years, be erected on such a 
 basis? We need not waste time in exploring the tangle of 
 inner reasons which indicate that the indefiniteness and hetero- 
 geneity of a free elective course may be a proper, even an 
 urgent reason for shortening it. The mere fact that the 
 movement for a three-year course is strongest where elective 
 freedom is least restricted is enough indication that a powerful 
 cause operating inside the college course to shorten it is the 
 inability of a purely elective scheme to fill out four years with 
 profit to the mass of students. 
 
 If the proposal were made to change a four-year course in 
 elective studies to a three-year course with a large basis of 
 prescribed studies, I confess the three-year course would seem 
 to me a marked improvement. And unless something is done 
 to reduce the tangle to order, the three-year course seems to 
 be inevitable in some places. But if the proposal be to reduce 
 the other type of four-year course to three years, then the loss 
 is not only unnecessary, but is in every way undesirable, be- 
 cause it is the loss of the crowning year in a definitely rounded 
 plan, the consummate college year of intellectual development, 
 privilege, and satisfaction. 
 
 On the colleges, therefore, which believe in maintaining a 
 large basis of prescribed studies as the one sure foundation for 
 
1903] The length of the college course 133 
 
 a rational plan of subsequent elective studies will rest the duty 
 of maintaining a four-year course. They will need to make 
 sure that they work out their program in true accordance with 
 their academic confession of faith and secure to their students 
 at all hazards the few fundamental studies, well and amply 
 taught. They will need to be resolute in teaching young men that 
 there is no real education without well-directed effort, that it is 
 not doing what a man likes or dislikes to do, but the constant 
 exercise in doing what he ought to do in matters of intellect as 
 well as of conduct, whether he happens to like it or not, that 
 turns the frank, careless, immature, lovable schoolboy into 
 the strong, well-trained man, capable of directing wisely him- 
 self and others. If they fail to do this with measurable suc- 
 cess, they fail to justify their contention. If they succeed, the 
 American college course of traditional length and largely pre- 
 scribed content may be trusted to justify itself triumphantly. 
 
 ANDREW F. WEST 
 
 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 
 
IV 
 THE LENGTH OF THE COLLEGE COURSE * 
 
 In view of the time allotted, I limit my statement to the pres- 
 entation of some considerations which appear to me to be 
 distinctly opposed to the proposition to make three years the 
 normal period of residence for the college course instead of 
 four. 
 
 Some students are, unquestionably, able to complete the 
 course in three years. About the same number should perhaps, 
 to do the work equally well, take five years. The question 
 before us, however, is not one that relates to a small proportion 
 of the students who enter college the very brightest or the 
 very dullest. It is a question which has to do with the normal 
 college course, that is, the course of study intended for the 
 average student. 
 
 It is easy to point out the origin of the difficulty which con- 
 fronts us and has given rise to the proposition itself. It is a 
 survival of the old idea which made the college curriculum some- 
 thing rigid, something into conformity with which every stu- 
 dent must be brought, rather than something which should be 
 made to conform to each individual student. It is not incon- 
 sistent with this suggestion that the first discussion of the 
 question took place in an atmosphere friendly to the elective 
 policy, in distinction from the policy of a fixed curriculum. 
 Adaptation to the needs of the individual along certain lines 
 did not in this case carry with it flexibility and adaptation in 
 other lines. It is not an adaptation of the college course to the 
 needs of individual men to propose that the course shall be a 
 three-year one. An adaptation would permit four years for 
 those who need four years, five years for those who need five 
 years, and three years for those who are able to do the work in 
 three years. 
 
 1 A paper read before the Department of Higher Education of the National 
 Educational Association at Boston, Mass., July 7, 1903. 
 
 134 
 
The length of the college course 135 
 
 1. The proposition for a three-year course is based upon the 
 supposition that the entire work of the college course is really 
 university work. Tlhis is a mistaken supposition. The work 
 of the freshman and sophomore years is ordinarily of the same 
 scope and character as that of the preceding years in the 
 academy or high school. To cut off a full year means either 
 the crowding of this higher preparatory or college work of 
 the freshman and sophomore years, or the shortening of the 
 real university work done in the junior and senior years of the 
 college course. The adoption of either of these alternatives 
 will occasion a serious loss to the student. The average man is 
 not prepared to take up university work until he has reached 
 the end of the sophomore year. No greater mistake is being 
 made in the field of higher education than the confusion which 
 is coming to exist between college and university methods of 
 work. The adoption of a three-year college term will only add 
 to a confusion already great. 
 
 2. The suggestion rests upon an incorrect idea as to the age 
 of students beginning work. The average age of students en- 
 tering college to-day is about the same as it was twenty-five and 
 fifty years ago. The average age of students leaving college 
 to-day is about the same as it was twenty-five or fifty years 
 ago. The serious difficulty lies in the fact that the demands of 
 professional education are greater to-day than they were 
 twenty-five or fifty years ago, and that, instead of courses of 
 professional study extending over two years, we are confronted 
 with courses of professional study extending over three or four 
 years. It is a point of special interest, however, that, altho the 
 requirements for entrance to college are so much greater than 
 they were in former years, the student masters these require- 
 ments and enters at practically the same age. In other words, 
 better educational facilities have made it possible to graduate 
 the young man at the same age, but with nearly two years of 
 additional work. With all this gain it is apparent to any stu- 
 dent of the situation that even yet there is great waste, and 
 that a better arrangement of the curriculum in the earlier stages 
 of educational work will make it possible for one or two ad- 
 ditional years to be gained. With the multiplication of high 
 
136 Educational Review [September 
 
 .schools and their greater efficiency, and with the consequent 
 improvement in the grammar schools, much may be expected. 
 It is reasonable to suppose that a practical limit has been 
 reached, so far as concerns the requirements for admission to 
 college. With this limit fixed, it is not unreasonable to ex- 
 pect that on the basis of the present requirements a boy may 
 reach college one or two years earlier within the next decade. 
 This will counterbalance the increase of time required in the 
 professional schools referred to above. It is, therefore, un- 
 necessary to shorten the college course merely to provide for an 
 extension of the professional course. 
 
 3. The proposition is based upon a wrong idea of the high 
 school. This institution is no longer a school preparatory for 
 college. In its most fully developed form it covers at least one- 
 half the ground of the college of fifty years ago. It is a real 
 college; at all events, it provides the earlier part of a college 
 course. Its work may not be separated from that of the fresh- 
 man and sophomore years either in method or scope. Many 
 high schools are actually moving forward to include in their 
 curriculum the work of the freshman and sophomore years. In 
 these schools the entire college course, as it was known fifty 
 years ago, besides the additional work in science which at that 
 time was unknown, is included. This development of the high 
 school has a significant bearing upon the question before us. 
 Plow is this new college, the product of our own generation, 
 to be brought into relationship with the old college which has 
 come down to us from our ancestors ? The correct appreciation 
 of the modern high school and its proper adjustment to the sit- 
 uation as a whole make strongly against the proposed three- 
 year course. 
 
 4. The adoption of the three-year policy by the larger insti- 
 tutions would be followed immediately by an increase of re- 
 quirements for admission to the first year of college work. 
 This fact is seen in the history of the college of the Johns Hop- 
 kins University. While high schools as such show a tendency 
 to increase the scope of their work, and while this tendency is 
 certainly to be encouraged, such increase should be accepted as 
 a substitute for the work of the college, but not as an addi- 
 
1 93] The length of the college course 137 
 
 tional requirement for admission to the college. Our present 
 difficulties have their origin partly in the fact that from time 
 to time we have increased the requirements for admission to 
 college until, as has already been pointed out, a fairly good 
 college course of instruction is now obtained before the so- 
 called college work begins. This is an evil which should be 
 corrected, and its correction lies in the direction of reducing 
 the requirements for admission rather than in increasing them. 
 The evil would be intensified by the adoption of the three-year 
 policy. 
 
 5. The proposition is based upon the supposition that the 
 time requirement is the essential thing. Starting from the tra- 
 dition that the college course must be four years for all men 
 of whatever grade, it proceeds upon the assumption that, for 
 various reasons, this period, now the same for all students, 
 must continue to be the same for all students, namely, the 
 three-year period. No idea has exerted a more injurious in- 
 fluence in the history of college work than that the period 
 of four years, however employed, if spent in college residence, 
 guaranteed a college education. It is questionable whether the 
 time limit in the undergraduate course is any more important 
 a factor than the time limit in the work for the doctor's degree. 
 This fondness for a time limit, which is the fundamental basis 
 of the three-year proposition, is a survival of the old class 
 system which disappeared long ago in the larger institutions, 
 and is beginning to show decadence even in the smaller institu- 
 tions. 
 
 6. The proposition is likewise to be opposed because of its 
 deleterious influence upon the smaller colleges. The American 
 college is the glory of American spiritual life, and its existence 
 must not be endangered. Granting that the larger institutions 
 could adopt without injury the three-year planj it would be im- 
 possible for the smaller colleges so to do. TWO things would 
 follow: (a) the decadence of the better colleges of this class, 
 and (b) the adoption of the policy by colleges only slightly 
 above the grade of high schools. When it comes to be seen 
 that the college system is adjusted in its entirety with a view 
 to its relationship to the professional schools, and that it is 
 
138 Educational Review [September 
 
 only a second college course following a first college course 
 already received in the high school, the tendency will be to go 
 directly from the high school to the university a tendency 
 to be discouraged as urgently as possible. Moreover, the col- 
 leges of lower grade will at once reduce their period to one of 
 three years, even tho their curriculum be greatly inferior to that 
 of the larger institution. In other words, the step proposed, in 
 spite of protestations to the contrary, means, in the end, a 
 lowering of requirements thruout the field of higher education. 
 
 7. Less than four years for a boy who enters college at the 
 right age, sixteen or seventeen, is too short a time. The adop- 
 tion, however, of the three-year course will compel every boy 
 to limit his college course to three years. This is a serious 
 difficulty. On the present basis he may take one, two, three, 
 or four years according to circumstances. On the new plan he 
 would be limited to three years, so far as collge work is con- 
 cerned. With the immense increase in attendance at college 
 which has come within the last decade on the four-year basis, 
 why should we deliberately plan to reduce the time to three 
 years? Surely a preparation will be needed in the years to 
 come as full and long as in the years that are passed. The one 
 place in which it is unnecessary and undesirable to cut down 
 the time of those who are willing and able to take four years 
 is in the college period. Let the time be shortened in the 
 earlier years, but at this stage of preparation,, with the great 
 number of subjects which may profitably be considered, let 
 us have all the time possible. 
 
 8. The suggestion of the third-year course ignores the cul- 
 ture value of the subjects in the first year of professional work. 
 For my own part I cannot conceive any work more valuable 
 to a young man or woman, from the point of view of citizen- 
 ship and general culture, than the first year's work in the cur- 
 riculum of the law school, the medical school, the divinity 
 school, or the school of education. In any one of these groups 
 the student is brought into contact with living questions. The 
 fact that the method of professional schools is different is, in 
 the majority of cases, a distinct advantage, and in no case an 
 injury, since it serves as a corrective of a tendency toward dilet- 
 
I 93] The length of the college course 139 
 
 tanteism unquestionably encouraged by the more lax methods 
 of the later years of college work. If any one question has been 
 settled in the educational discussion of the last quarter of a 
 century, it is that a line is no longer to be drawn between this 
 class of subjects and that, on the ground that one group, and 
 not the other, may be regarded as culture-producing. The op- 
 portunity to elect subjects of this character in the last year of 
 the college course does not injure the integrity of the college. 
 It must be confessed that the adoption of this policy by larger 
 institutions introduces a difficulty for the smaller institutions, 
 but this difficulty is not insuperable, and several ways have been 
 already suggested for meeting it. 
 
 9. The proposition, as already hinted, subordinates the col- 
 lege almost wholly to the professional school. It is largely be- 
 cause of the increased demands of the professional schools that 
 it seems necessary to shorten the college course. This does not 
 seem to be in harmony with the fact that a comparatively small 
 number of students really expect to enter professional schools. 
 Why should students who do not have the professional school 
 in mind be required to shorten the term of college residence? 
 If it is answered that the student who enters any line of busi- 
 ness activity needs the year thus saved in order that he may 
 begin his work earlier, it may be said that the facts do not bear 
 out this proposition ; and, in any case, a year of business is not 
 to be treated as a year of college work in the sense that it is 
 equivalent to the first year's course of study in a professional 
 school. It is therefore as inexpedient to adjust the whole col- 
 lege policy to the supposed needs of a minority who are plan- 
 ning to enter the professional school as it is to adjust the whole 
 policy of a high school to the needs of a minority who enter 
 college. 
 
 10. In conclusion it is to be urged in opposition to the pro- 
 posed movement that it is in general contrary to the drift of 
 educational movements, and that the very thing which it pro- 
 poses can easily be scured by other means. Among other 
 educational tendencies to-day may be cited (a) that of 
 the high school to enlarge its scope and add to its 
 curriculum one or two vears of additional work: (b) 
 
140 Educational Review 
 
 that of strengthening of the facilities and curriculum of 
 the average smaller college; (c) that of avoiding the 
 waste in the earlier years, and the consequent possibility 
 of college entrance at an earlier age; (d) that of distinct sepa- 
 ration between college and university methods. To each and 
 all of these the proposition stands opposed. 
 
 Following the example of one of the speakers this morning, 
 I would suggest that the plan which has been in operation at 
 the University of Chicago for nearly ten years has seemed to 
 many of us to meet in large measure the demands called for this 
 morning. This plan provides a course of four years and a 
 course of two years. It permits students of exceptional ability 
 to do the work in three years. It makes it possible for those 
 who so desire to prolong the work to five years. It is adapted 
 to the needs of individuals of different classes. With the com- 
 pletion of the two-year course a certificate is given, granting 
 the title of Associate in the University. This, for the present, 
 is sufficient in the way of a degree. To students who maintain 
 a standing of the highest grade certain concessions are made. 
 
 The details of the plan have been worked out as experience 
 has indicated the need. The provision of a two-year course 
 meets the need of many who cannot take a longer term of 
 residence and likewise of many who ought not to take a longer 
 course. The provision of a normal four-year course meets the 
 need of the average man or woman. This plan does not imply 
 that this average man or woman who spends four years in 
 residence is particularly stupid, or that a year has been wasted. 
 
 It is believed, from an experience of ten or more years, that 
 it contains the solution 'of at least many of the points now 
 
 under discussion. 
 
 WILLIAM R. HARPER 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
THE LENGTH OF THE COLLEGE COURSE x 
 
 In my judgment most participants in the discussion now 
 going on thruout the land as to the length of the baccalureate 
 course and the preparation for the professional schools, err in 
 supposing that the two questions are necessarily reducible to 
 one and also in taking hold of that one by the wrong end. The 
 nature, content, and proper length of the baccalaureate course 
 are matters quite independent of the proper standards of pro- 
 fessional education and are entitled to consideration on their 
 own merits. 
 
 The one question to which the two are usually reduced is 
 taken hold by the wrong end when it is said that the bacca- 
 laureate course should be of a stated length, say four years or 
 three years, and that everything else in education and in life 
 must adapt itself accordingly. Those who take this stand give 
 us no clear notion of (i) where the baccalauerate course be- 
 gins, (2) what it consists of, or (3) what it exists for. They 
 assume that all of these points are clearly understood and gen- 
 erally agreed upon. Nothing could be farther from the truth. 
 Not even the so-called reputable colleges are in anything ap- 
 proaching agreement as to the standard to be enforced for ad- 
 mission to the baccalaureate course; and while there is an ex- 
 ternal pretense of unanimity as to what the baccalaureate 
 course exists for, that course is, nevertheless, in too many in- 
 stances, fearfully and wonderfully made. Dr. Wayland said 
 over sixty years ago that " there is nothing magical or im- 
 perative in the term of four years, nor has it any natural re- 
 lation to a course of study. It was adopted as a matter of ac- 
 cident, and can have, by itself, no important bearing on the 
 subject in hand." To suppose that a four-year baccalaureate 
 
 1 A paper read before the Department of Higher Education of the National 
 Educational Association, at Boston, Mass., July 7, 1903. 
 
 141 
 
Educational Review [September 
 
 course is necessary semper, ubique, ab omnibus, is to elevate an 
 accident to the plane of a principle. 
 
 Others take hold of the question by the middle. They fix an 
 arbitrary age at which professionally trained men should be 
 ready for active work in life, and after subtracting the sum of 
 the years that they propose to allot to the elementary school, 
 the secondary school, and the professional school, the remaining 
 years, three, or perhaps two, are held to be sufficient for the 
 college. 
 
 Both of these methods appear to me to be arbitrary and un- 
 scientific, altho the former is the usual academic mode of 
 settling the question and has behind it the support of uncrit- 
 ical public opinion. 
 
 One of the worst of all educational evils is that of quanti- 
 tative standards, and it persists surprisingly in the discussion of 
 college and university problems. Every higher course of study 
 that I know of, except only that of graduate work leading to the 
 degree of doctor of philosophy at the best universities, is prima- 
 rily quantitative. These courses are all based on time spent, 
 not upon performance. The adjustment of the period of work 
 to the capacity of individual students, now so common in ele- 
 mentary schools and not unusual in secondary schools, is almost 
 wholly absent from the colleges. The " lock-step " is seen 
 there to perfection, and class after class of one hundred or even 
 two hundred members moves forward (with the exception of 
 a few delinquents) as if all its members were cast in a common 
 mold. The place of the baccalaureate course and its standards 
 will never be established on sound principles until the question 
 of its length is made subordinate to those relating to its content 
 and its purpose. Moreover, it is quite unreasonable to assume 
 that the baccalaureate course should be of one and the same 
 length for everybody. By the term " baccalaureate course " I 
 mean those liberal studies in the arts and sciences that follow 
 the secondary school period. 
 
 My own views on the questions at issue are, briefly, these : 
 
 I. The baccalaureate or college course of study of the liberal 
 arts and sciences should be preserved at all hazards as an essen- 
 tial part of our educational organization. It is distinctly 
 
1903] The length of the college course 143 
 
 American and a very powerful factor in the upbuilding of the 
 nation's culture and idealism. It should be treated as a thing 
 of value in and for itself, and not merely as an incident to grad- 
 uate study or to professional schools. 
 
 2. The college course is in serious danger by reason of the 
 fact that the secondary school is reaching up into its domain 
 on the one hand and the professional school is reaching down 
 into it on the other. Purely professional subjects in law, medi- 
 cine, engineering, and architecture are widely accepted as part 
 of the baccalaureate or college course by university colleges, 
 and now independent colleges in different parts of the country 
 are trying various devices with a view to doing the same thing. 
 If this tendency continues unchecked, at many institutions there 
 will soon be little left of the old baccalaureate course but the 
 name. 
 
 3. To preserve the college it is necessary (a) to fix 
 and enforce a standard of admission which can be met 
 normally by a combined elementary and secondary school 
 course of not more than ten years well spent, and 
 (b) to keep out of the baccalaureate course purely 
 professional subjects pursued for professional ends by 
 professional methods. f^The college course, in other 
 words, should be constructed for itself alone and for the intel- 
 lectual, moral, and spiritual needs of the youth of our time, 
 without reference or regard to specific careers. This course 
 must be widely elective, and so offer material to enrich and 
 develop minds of every type. This course is the best prepara- 
 tion for the professional study of law, medicine, divinity, en- 
 gineering architecture, and teaching, simply because it does 
 what it does for the human mind and the human character, and 
 not because it is so hampered and beaten as to serve as a con- 
 duit to a particular career or careers. 
 
 4. This course should be entered upon at seventeen, or in 
 some cases at sixteen. Eighteen is too late for the normal boy ; 
 the boy who has had every educational advantage and is not 
 ready to meet any existing college entrance test before he is 
 eighteen has been dawdling and weakening his mental powers 
 by keeping them too long in contact with merely elementary 
 studies. 
 
1 44 Educational Review [September 
 
 5. For the boy who enters college at seventeen and who 
 looks forward to a career as scholar, as teacher, or as man of 
 affairs, four years is, ordinarily, not too long a time to spend in 
 liberal studies. On the other hand the boy who, entering col- 
 lege at seventeen, proposes to take up later the study of a pro- 
 fession in a university, ought not to be compelled to spend four 
 years upon liberal studies just at that time in his life. To 
 compel him to do so is to advance the standard of professional 
 education arbitrarily without in any way raising it. It is a 
 fallacy to suppose that the more time a boy spends in study the 
 more he knows and the more he grows. Whether he grows by 
 study depends entirely upon whether he is studying subjects 
 adapted to his needs, his interests, and his powers. Pedagogs 
 suppose that the more time a boy spends in school and college, 
 the better; educators know the contrary. There is a time to 
 leave off as well as a time to begin. A boy can develop intel- 
 lectual apathy in college as well as knowledge, weakness of 
 will as well as strength of character. 
 
 6. The earlier parts of professional courses in law, medicine, 
 engineering and the like are most excellent material for the boy 
 of nineteen or twenty. He should begin them at that time and 
 complete his four years of professional study by twenty-three 
 or twenty-four. To postpone his professional course later than 
 this is not only to waste his time, but to waste his mind, which 
 is far worse. 
 
 7. There should be a college course two years in length, 
 carefully constructed as a thing by itself and not merely the 
 first part of a three-years' or a four-years' course, which will 
 enable intending professional students to spend this time as ad- 
 vantageously as possible in purely liberal studies. The uni- 
 versity colleges can establish such a course readily enough ; the 
 independent colleges will have to establish such a course or see 
 their influence and prestige steadily decline. To try to meet the 
 new situation by simply reproducing all present conditions 
 on a three-year scale instead of on a four-year scale, 4s a case 
 of solvitur ambulando. The shortening of the college to three 
 years for all students involves an unnecessary sacrifice. As 
 usually defended this policy involves no educational principle, 
 
1903] The length of the college course 145 
 
 but merely concedes a year of liberal study to the modern de- 
 mand for haste and hurry. 
 
 8. Whether the completion of such a two-year course should 
 be crowned with a degree is to me a matter of indifference. 
 Degrees are the tinsel of higher education and not its reality. 
 Such a two-year course as I have in mind would imply a 
 standard of attainment at least as high as that required for the 
 degree of A. B. in 1860, which had many characteristics that 
 we of to-day persistently undervalue. If this discussion could 
 be diverted from degrees to real educational standards, it 
 would be a great gain. The compromise plan as to degrees, 
 now becoming so popular, whereby the baccalaureate degree is 
 given either for two years of college study and two years of 
 work in a professional school or for three years of college 
 study and one year of work in a professional school, is disas- 
 trous to the integrity of the college course. It deliberately 
 shortens the college course by one year or two while proclaim- 
 ing a four-year college course. It is a policy that only uni- 
 versity colleges can adopt; independent colleges must suffer if 
 it becomes a fixed and permanent policy. 
 
 9. The most difficult point to establish, apparently, is that 
 at which the baccalaureate course should begin. Colleges with 
 courses nominally four years in length are admitting students 
 with from one to two years' less preparation than is demanded 
 by other colleges with four-year courses. The lax enforcement 
 of published requirements for admission, together with the 
 wide acceptance of certificates from uninspected and unvisited 
 schools, has demoralized college standards very generally. It 
 does not make much difference how long the baccalaureate 
 course is, if it does not begin anywhere. 
 
 10. A university ought not to admit to its professional 
 schools students who> have not had a college course of liberal 
 study, or its equivalent. A minimum course of two years of 
 such study should be insisted upon. A four-year course should 
 not be required for the two reasons ( i ) that it delays too long 
 entrance upon active life-work, and (2) that it does not use 
 the lime and effort of the intending professional student to the 
 best advantage. 
 
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