LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
01 FT
Class
The Relation of the College
to the Professional School
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
r^^**^:
/^^OFTHE^^X
I UNIVERSITY |
Vp "F ,/
STENOGRAPHIC REPORT
OF THE
Conference on the Relation
of the College to the
Professional School
CALLED BY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
TO MEET FRIDAY AND SATURDAY
MAY EIGHTH AND NINTH
J903
PUBLISHED BY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, SOUTH-
EAST CORNER LAKE AND DEARBORN STREETS, CHICAGO
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Introductory Note 4
Program 8
List of Delegates 10
Report of Proceedings.
Introductory Paper
The Present Situation, Professor Young, Northwestern Univer-
sity 15
I. Has the college a field peculiar to itself, not covered by the tech-
nical school or by the demands of preparation for the pro-
fessional school?
Papers :
President Edward D. Eaton, Beloit College 22
President M. P. Dowling, Creighton University 27
President George C. Chase, Bates College 33
Rev. J. H. Thomas, late President of Oxford College 44
President Charles J. Little, Garrett Biblical Institute 89
Discussion :
President William F. King, Cornell College 38
President Thomas McClelland, Knox College 40
Professor R. G. Kimble, Lombard College 48
Hon. Arthur L. Bates, Allegheny College 51
President D. W. Fisher, Hanover College 54
Professor Fletcher B. Dresslar, University of California 56
II. Is it desirable that the college course should be reduced in time
from four to three or even two years and correspond-
ingly in amount of work?
Paper :
President George E. Merrill, Colgate University 58
Discussion :
President Webster Merrifield, University of North Dakota. . 63
President Charles W. Needham, Columbian University 71
Vice-President Francis Cassilly, St. Ignatius College 77
Director George N. Carman, Lewis Institute 78
Professor J. H. T. Main, Iowa College 79
President J. W. Bashford, Ohio Wesleyan University 80
President Charles A. Blanchard, Wheaton College 81
III. What subjects in the typical college course can be accepted by
the professional school as qualifying in part for the pro-
fessional degree so as to shorten the time required for gradu-
ation in the professional school?
Papers :
President Franklin C. Southworth, Meadville Theological
School 84
Dr. R. McE. Schauffler, Kansas City Medical School 96
Discussion :
Dean John H. Wigmore, Northwestern University Law
School 95
Professor A. T. Robertson, Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary 92
Dr. Arthur R. Edwards, Northwestern University Medical
School 98
Professor John H. Gray, Northwestern University 100
President Charles A. Blanchard, Wheaton College 102
Professor William A. Locy, Northwestern University 103
IV. If reduction is allowed should it be (a) by acceptance of credits
in the College of Liberal Arts for work done in the pro-
fessional school, or (b) by acceptance in professional school
for work done in the College of Liberal Arts, or (c) by
combining these plans?
Paper:
Professor Munroe Smith, Columbia University 105
Discussion :
Dean J. L. Goodknight, Lincoln College 114
Professor Ernest J. Wilczynski, University of California 118
Dr. Frances Dickinson, Harvey Medical College 119
Dean John H. Wigmore, Northwestern University Law
School 121
Professor C. H. Eigenmann, University of Indiana 125
Dr. Charles E. St. John, Oberlin College 126
V. The Relation of the Technical School to the College.
Paper :
Dr. Harry W. Tyler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. . 130
Discussion :
Director George N. Carman, Lewis Institute 140
President Frank W. Gunsaulus, Armour Institute 141
Index 145
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
The following letters explain sufficiently the origin of the conference
held at the Northwestern University Professional School Building at the
corner of Lake and Dearborn Streets, Chicago, on May 8th and 9th, 1903.
The program which follows these two letters was based upon replies
and suggestions received to the two communications. It is sufficient to say
that the program was carried through exactly as it was prepared, no
speaker who had promised to be present failing to appear. The list of dele-
gates shows the participation in the conference.
It may be said further that the social features of the conference, espe-
cially the informal meeting of delegates Thursday evening, the luncheon
to the delegates on Friday at noon, and the reception to the delegates in
the evening, offered opportunities for interesting and fruitful intercourse
and for a fuller discussion of the topics of the conference than would have
otherwise been possible.
The widespread attention which the conference received from the press
of the country indicates how important has become this whole topic of
the relation of the college to the professional school.
The deep felt interest in the proceedings of the conference on the part
of those who were present is indicated by the almost unanimous desire to pro-
vide for similar meetings in subsequent years, a reference to which will be
found on page 124 of, these proceedings.
Northwestern University.
Evanston Chicago.
President's Office,
Lake and Dearborn Streets,
Chicago.
March 12, 1903.
MY DEAR SIR :
The relation of the college to the professional school, and of col-
lege training to professional school work, is receiving today more
attention, perhaps, than any other question under discussion by college
and university faculties. How to preserve the benefits of the college
training while economizing the student's time for both the college and
the professional degree is the problem to be solved. The complexity
of the questions involved makes it difficult for any single institution
to make out and adopt a plan for itself, and the important bearing of
any general plan upon our whole American system of education
seems to make it desirable that there should be an interchange of
views upon this subject by those who are most concerned and who have
given it most thought.
The question must be considered from the standpoint :
First. Of the independent college, that is, one having no organic
connection with professional schools.
Second. Of the independent professional school.
Third. Of the university which embraces both college and pro-
fessional schools.
As factors in our educational system all three classes of institu-
tions are interested in this subject and ought to be consulted and to
take part in any general discussion of the matter.
With a view to facilitating an interchange of opinions and to
securing the best judgment upon this matter, a conference has been
called for Friday and Saturday, May 8 and 9, 1903, at North-
western University Professional School Building, Lake and Dearborn
streets, Chicago.
You are cordially invited to participate in this conference. Will
you kindly indicate whether or not it is probable that you can be
present yourself, and if not, whether your institution may be repre-
sented by some other delegate?
Faithfully yours, EDMUND J. JAMES.
N. B. Please address your reply to this communication in care
of the President's Secretary, Northwestern University Building, cor-
ner of Lake and Dearborn streets, Chicago.
Northwestern University.
Cvanston Chicago.
President's Office,
Lake and Dearborn Streets,
Chicago.
April 13th, 1903.
MY DEAR SIR :
The definite acceptances thus far received to the invitation which
was sent to you to take part in the conference to be held in the North-
western University Building, Chicago, May 8th and 9th, upon "The
Relation of the College to the Professional School," would indicate
that at least one hundred different institutions will be represented.
Two or three institutions have indicated their desire to send repre-
sentatives from each of their professional schools, and we should, of
course, be glad to have the different departments of the various insti-
tutions represented as well as the institutions as a whole. If there
are any other members of your faculty who would like to be present
and to take part in this conference, we should be glad if you would
appoint them, also, as delegates.
The interest in the conference has proved to be unexpectedly
widespread and intense, and the prospect is that the discussion will
throw much light upon present conditions. The following prelimi-
nary list of questions for discussion has been made up from sugges-
tions made by different institutions which are to be represented. We
should be glad to receive other suggestions :
I. Has the college a field peculiar to itself, not covered by the
technical school and not serving solely as preparatory to the profes-
sional school?
II. Is it desirable that the college course be reduced in time
from four to three years, or even two, and correspondingly in amount
of work?
III. Is it desirable that the bachelor's degree, based on the course
of four years, be required for admission to the professional school ?
IV. If the bachelor's degree is not required for admission, is it
desirable that there should be reduction of time, i. e., so-called com-
bined courses for the two degrees ? What should be the maximum re-
duction? Should time in the professional school be counted in meet-
ing the minimum requirement of residence in the college ?
V. If reduction is allowed should it be (a) by acceptance of
credit in the College of Liberal Arts for work done in the professional
school, or (b) by acceptance in professional school for work done in
the College of Liberal Arts, or (c) by combining these plans?
VI. Is the fact that the shorter combined courses are offered
with the usual degrees likely to have the effect of discrediting the
longer courses and of discouraging the non-professional as well as the
professional undergraduate from following them?
Is its effect likely to be disadvantageous to the independent col-
VII. What is likely to be the effect of the combined courses upon
professional education in general, and especially upon the independ-
ent professional schools ?
VIII. If the bachelor's degree is not a reasonable requirement
as a preliminary to professional study, what should be required in the
way of preparation ?
IX. What method of co-operation is feasible between the inde-
pendent college and the university professional schools or independent
professional schools by which mutual recognition of work done in the
respective institutions may be secured, thus insuring to the inde-
pendent college equal privileges in this regard with the university
college ?
The plan is to have the consideration of each of these questions,
and such others as may be submitted and accepted, opened by two
brief papers and followed by a general discussion by the delegates
present.
Delegates are requested to register in the rotunda of the North-
western University Building, Lake and Dearborn streets, immediately
on their arrival in the city. Arrangements will be made for a social
gathering on Thursday evening for those who may be able to arrive
Thursday afternoon. The first formal session will be held Friday
morning, May 8th, at nine o'clock, in Booth hall, on the Law School
floor of the building.
The university will tender a reception to the delegates present,
Friday evening, from 8 to 11 o'clock, in the rooms of the Law School.
The Sherman house, which is located opposite the city hall, only
two blocks from the Northwestern University Building, will offer a
limited number of rooms for one dollar a day, European plan. The
Great Northern, five blocks distant on Dearborn street, offers a similar
rate. The Auditorium offers rooms from $1.50 up; and the Audi-
torium Annex, from $2 up. The Northwestern University Building
can be reached conveniently from the Auditorium by elevated road.
An early reply, if you have not already answered the communi-
cation of March 12th, will be greatly appreciated.
Faithfully yours,
PROGRAM.
THURSDAY, MAY 7TH, 1903
Informal Meeting of Delegates in the Parlors on the second floor of the
Building, 8 to 11 p. m.
FRIDAY, MAY 8TH, 1903
9:00 A. M.
BOOTH HALL, LAW SCHOOL FLOOR
GREETING TO THE DELEGATES
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY
INTRODUCTORY PAPER "THE PRESENT SITUATION"
Abram Van Eps Young
Professor of Chemistry in Northwestern University
I
Has the college a field peculiar to itself, not covered by the technical school
or by the demands of preparation for the professional school?
PAPERS :
President Edward D. Eaton, Beloit College
President M. P. Dowling, Creighton University
President George C. Chase, Bates College
DISCUSSION :
President William F. King, Cornell College
President Thomas McClelland, Knox College
Rev. J. H. Thomas, late President Oxford College
GENERAL DISCUSSION
12 :30 P. M.
Luncheon to the Delegates in Assembly Hall on the second floor
2:00 P. M.
II
Is it desirable that the college course should be reduced in time from four
to three or even two years and correspondingly in amount of work?
PAPER :
President George E. Merrill, Colgate University
DISCUSSION :
President Webster Merrifield, University of North Dakota
President Charles W. Needham, Columbian University
GENERAL DISCUSSION
III
What subjects in the typical college course can be accepted by the profes-
sional school as qualifying in part for the professional degree so as to
shorten the time required for graduation in the professional school?
(a) Theological School
PAPER :
President Franklin C. Southworth, Meadville Theological School
DISCUSSION :
President Charles J. Little, Garrett Biblical Institute
Professor A. T. Robertson, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
(b) Law School
PAPER :
Dean John H. Wigmore, Northwestern University Law School
(c) Medical School
PAPER :
Dr. R. McE. Schauffler, Kansas City Medical College.
DISCUSSION :
Dr. Arthur R. Edwards, Northwestern University Medical School
8:00 to 11:00 P. M.
Faculty Reception to the Delegates Law School Floor
SATURDAY, MAY 9TH, 1903.
9:00 A. M.
BOOTH HALL, LAW SCHOOL FLOOR
IV
If reduction is allowed should it be (a) by acceptance of credits in the
College of Liberal Arts for work done in the professional school, or (b)
by acceptance in professional school for work done in the College of
Liberal Arts, or (c) by combining these plans?
PAPER :
Professor Munroe Smith, Columbia University
DISCUSSION :
Dean J. L. Goodknight, Lincoln College
GENERAL DISCUSSION.
11 :00 A. M.
V
The relation of the Technical School to the College
PAPER :
Dr. Harry W. Tyler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
DISCUSSION :
Director George N. Carman, Lewis Institute
President Frank W. Gunsaulus, Armour Institute
2:00 P. M.
CLINICAL LECTURE IN WESLEY HOSPITAL:
Dr. Weller Van Hook, Northwestern University Medical School
10
LIST OF DELEGATES.
Albright College, Myerstown, Pa., President James D. Woodring.
Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa., Hon. Arthur L. Bates.
Alma College, Alma, Mich., President August F. Bruske.
Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, President Frank W. Gunsaulus.
Augustana College and Theological Seminary, Rock Island, 111., Dr. C. W.
Foss.
Baker University, Baldwin, Kan., President L. H. Murlin.
Barnard College, New York City, Columbia University delegate, Professor
Munroe Smith.
Bates College, Lewiston, Me., President George C. Chase.
Bellevue College, Omaha, Neb., President R. Kerr.
Beloit College, Beloit, Wis., President Edward D. Eaton.
Beloit College, Beloit, Wis., Professor E. G. Smith.
Beloit College, Beloit, Wis.,.. Professor R. C. Chapin.
Buchtel College, Akron, Ohio, President A. B. Church.
Carleton College, Northfield, Minn., Professor W. W. Payne.
Carthage College, Carthage, 111., President Sigmund.
Central Female College, Lexington, Mo., President Z. M. Williams.
Central University, Danville, Ky., President W. C. Roberts.
Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, 111., Prof. Samuel I. Curtiss.
Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, President S. B. McCormick.
Colgate University, Hamilton, N. Y., President George E. Merrill.
Colgate University, Hamilton, N. Y., Professor M, S. Read.
Columbia University, New York City, Professor Munroe Smith.
Columbian University, Washington, D. C., President Chas. W. Needham.
Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa, President William F. King.
Creighton University, Omaha, Neb., President M. P. Dowling.
Denison University, Granville, Ohio, President Emory W. Hunt.
DePauw University, Greencastle, Ind., Professor J. P. Naylor.
Detroit College, Detroit Mich., St. Ignatius College delegate, Francis Cas-
silly, S. J.
Eureka College, Eureka, 111., President A. E. Hieronymus.
Ewing College, Ewing, 111., President J. A. Leavitt.
Fort Worth University, Fort Worth, Tex., President Mac Adam.
Georgetown College, Georgetown, Ky., President B. D. Gray.
Glendale College, Glendale, Ohio, President Miss R. J. Devore.
Hamline University, St. Paul, Minn., President G. H. Bridgman.
Hanover College, Hanover, Ind., President D. W. Fisher.
Harvey Medical College, Chicago, Dr. Frances Dickinson.
Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Mich., President J. W. Mauck.
Hope College, Holland, Mich., President G. J. Kollen.
Illinois College, Jacksonville, 111., President C. W. Barnes.
Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, 111., President E. M. Smith.
Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind., Professor C. H. Eigenmann.
Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa, Professor J. H. T. Main.
Iowa Wesleyan University, Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, President John W. Handier.
Kansas City Medical School, Kansas City, Mo., Dr. Robert Schauffler.
Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, President William F. Pierce.
Knox College, Galesburg, 111., President Thomas McClelland.
Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, 111., President Richard D. Harlan.
Lawrence University, Appleton, Wis., President Samuel Plantz.
Lenox College, Hopkinton, Iowa, President F. W. Grossman.
11
Lewis Institute, Chicago, 111., Director George N. Carman.
Lincoln College, Lincoln, 111., Dean J. L. Goodknight
Lombard College, Galesburg, 111., Professor R. G. Kimble.
McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, Professor Andrew C. Zenos.
Marquette College, Milwaukee, Wis., President A. J. Burrowes.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Dr. Harry W. Tyler.
Meadville Theological School, Meadville, Pa., President F. C. Southworth.
Michigan State Agricultural College, Agricultural College, Mich., President
J. L. Snyder.
Mills College, Mills College, Cal., Miss Jane Seymour Klink.
Missouri Wesleyan College, Cameron, Mo., Professor Agnew.
Monmouth College, Monmouth, 111., Acting President Russell Graham.
Morningside College, Sioux City, Iowa, Professor R. B. Wylie.
Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass., Miss Nellie E. Goldthwaite.
Mt. Union College, Alliance, Ohio, President A. B. Riker.
Northwestern College, Naperville, 111., President H. J. Kiekhoefer.
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, Dr. Charles E. St. John.
Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, President J. W. Bashford.
Oxford College, Oxford, Ohio, Rev. J. H. Thomas, late President.
Palmer University, Muncie, Ind., President John H. H. Latchaw.
Park College, Parkville, Mo., President Lowell M. McAfee.
Parsons College, Fairfield, Iowa, President F. W. Hinitt.
Penn College, Oskaloosa, Iowa, President A. Rosenberger.
Penn College, Oskaloosa, Iowa, Professor Robert Meredith.
Ripon College, Ripon, Wis., President Richard C. Hughes.
Rockford College, Rockford, 111., Miss Julia H. Gulliver.
Rose Polytechnic Institute, Terre Haute, Ind., President C. Mees.
Ruskin University, Glen Ellyn, 111., Dean George Miller.
St. Ignatius College, Chicago, Francis Cassilly, S. J.
St. Louis University, St. Louis, Mo., President W. B. Rogers.
Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, Professor John L. Tilton.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky., Professor A. T.
Robertson.
Tarkio College, Tarkio, Mo., President J. A. Thompson.
University of California, Berkeley, Cal., Professor Fletcher B. Dresslar.
University of California, Berkeley, Cal., Professor Ernest J. Wilczynski.
University of California, Berkeley, Cal., Professor G. T. Lapsley.
University of Chicago, Chicago, 111., Professor Albion W. Small.
University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo., President James H. Baker.
University of Maine, Oronp, Me., Mr. Leroy H. Harvey.
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb., President E. Benj. Andrews.
University of North Dakota, University, N. D., President Webster Merrifield.
University of the Pacific, San Jose, Cal., President E. McClish.
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., Acting President Birge.
Upper Iowa University, Fayette, Iowa, President T. J. Bassett.
Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Ind., President W. P. Kane.
Waynesburg College, Waynesburg, Pa., President A. E. Turner.
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., President B. P. Raymond.
Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Mich., President John W. Beardslee.
Westminster College, Fulton, Mo., President John H. MacCracken.
Wheaton College, Wheatpn, 111., President Blanchard.
Woman's College of Baltimore, Md., President John F. Goucher.
12
PROCEEDINGS.
OPENING SESSION.
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1903, 9 :00 A. M.
PRESIDENT JAMES:
Will Dr. King of Cornell College lead us in prayer ?
PRESIDENT KING :
Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the cir-
cumstances of favor under which we are permitted to assemble this
morning. We pray Thee that Thou mayest give us the guidance of
Thy Spirit in the important deliberations in which we are to engage.
Prepare us for the best results in reference to the causes which are
entrusted to our keeping. Let Thy blessing rest upon every member
of this convocation of Thy servants, and we pray Thee that we may
have such spirit of deliberation, of cooperation and brotherly feeling
as shall lead us to the right conclusions, resulting in the good of Thy
cause and the upbuilding of the common cause of education. Be
pleased to give us light where we need light and to help us in the great
problems which are to be considered, and grant that we may have such
light and strength as shall lead us to the proper conclusion. Let Thy
blessing rest upon all institutions with which we are connected. May
they be fountains of good living as well as fountains of learning, and
may the results coming from each of these institutions be such as to
glorify God and bless mankind. Let Thy blessing rest upon all
interests near and dear to our hearts. Prepare us for the duties and
privilege, and when we have finished our work here on earth bring us
home to Thy kingdom through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
PRESIDENT JAMES :
I wish first to extend a word of cordial greeting on behalf of
Northwestern University to the delegates and the institutions which
they represent. We thank you most heartily for your willingness to
participate in a conference upon this subject which we regard as cer-
tainly one of the most important, if not the most important educational
question in the field of higher education before the people of the
United States today. In the educational development of any country
we find various kinds of forces at work making for progress. In many
cases nearly the entire reliance is upon the public authorities, upc
13
state governments, upon state departments of education, upon state
universities. In this country we have been to a very large extent, up
to within a comparatively recent time, dependent upon private enter-
prise. It is only within the lifetime and memory of most of those
present that the state university, the state department of education,
has become an important element in the educational life of the country
an element destined to become ever more important.
It is quite possible in a country where everything has depended so
wholly upon private initiative and energy that the strong and vigorous
institutions those which from any reason may have been strategically,
located and strategically equipped should imagine that to them
belongs the leadership in determining the educational policy of the
community. We have seen some signs of that in this country. In spite
of the fact that we are growing to be a nation and our national sense
is increasing and the sense of unity is growing, and we are gradually
with every passing year becoming more and more conscious of that
feeling of solidarity, I am convinced that this country is so large, the
different sections of the country are so different, that no one institu-
tion or group of institutions or section, or group of sections can under-
take to determine what shall be the educational policy of the United
States. We are today in the field of higher education face to face
with an important change, a change which is little short of revolution.
The external form of that development is the relation of the college
to the university, or, as we sometimes express it, toward the profes-
sional school which, it seems to me is the better formulation, for
ordinary purposes, at least and the relation of these two to the larger
organization that we call the university.
For my part, I think that no one institution and no one section of
the country can undertake to outline any policy in this matter which
is wise for the rest of the country to follow. It is only when we get
together and discuss the question from every possible point of view,
from the point of view of every possible kind of institution, that we
are really going to have light thrown upon the problem.
We hope here to initiate the beginning of a series of conferences
in which finally every kind of institution which may fairly lay claim
to be called an institution of higher learning may have its legitimate
expression and representation. We thank you most heartily for your
presence here. We shall be glad to do whatever we can to make your
stay pleasant. Owing to the numerous strikes in the city we have
been unable to get our program printed. We have definite information
from the printer, however, that in a few moments we shall have the
14
printed program and list of delegates from the different institutions.
Take pains to get acquainted with the delegates. We desire especially
that you shall go away from here with a pleasant recollection of the
social features of this occasion. I feel more and more that the social
element, the cultivation of personal acquaintanceship is, among the
minor forces, one of the most efficient means to promote that better
understanding which will contribute to the solution of all our diffi-
culties.
The program this morning will be introduced by a paper on "The
Present Situation," by Professor Young of Northwestern University.
I may say that Professor Young was the chairman of a committee
appointed nearly a year ago, and that committee was the continuation
of a committee appointed some time before that, to study the relation
between the college and the professional schools within our own insti-
tution. Certain concessions were sought by the professional schools
from the college, and the college asked for the reasons. This led to a
very thorough investigation. We have asked the Professor to put the
results before us this morning. That will be followed by the discussion
of the first topic, "Has the college a field peculiar to itself, not covered
by the technical school or by the demands of preparation for the pro-
fessional school?"
I have invited Professor A. T. Robertson of the Southern Baptist
Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, to preside. I will ask him to take
the chair.
PROFESSOR EOBERTSON:
I appreciate very much the honor President James has conferred
upon me. I am sure that my task will be very easy indeed, as the work
is outlined and we have present those who are to read and to speak. It
will simply be my part to see that the machine goes. I am sure it
will go.
The question which we have before us is certainly on.e of the very
greatest interest. Although we do not have all the educators of the
United States here we have some of all the kinds ; we have some doctors
and some lawyers and some university men and some college men and
they represent all the different kinds. We shall now go ahead and have
the introductory paper on "The Present Situation," by Professor
Young of Northwestern University.
PROFESSOR YOUNG:
The importance of the general topic which this Conference has
been invited to consider, viz. : the relation between the college and the
15
professional school, especially in the matter of curricula, has already
received wide and merited recognition. It is important in its bearing
upon the status of professional education in general. It is important
because it involves the fundamental principles of liberal education.
It touches the mutual interests of the professional school and the col-
lege when they are departments of one institution. It touches vitally
the interests of the colleges in their relation to each other.
Two features of the existing conditions appear conspicuous. The
first of these is the tendency to urge a college course, attested by the
bachelor's degree, as preparation for professional studies. Of the value
and need of this preparation it would seem that the professional
faculties and the professional practitioners should be the best judges.
The advocacy of this preparation has been frequently and emphat-
ically expressed in public print. Its most effective expression is found
in the fact that some professional schools require the bachelor's degree,
or its equivalent, for admission and thus constitute themselves truly
graduate institutions. This has been the requirement in the Johns
Hopkins Medical School since its opening and is now the requirement
in the Medical School of Harvard and that of Baltimore University,
and in the law school of Harvard, of Columbia and of Leland Stanford.
The Medical School of Western Reserve requires the equivalent of
three college years; that of Michigan (1901-1902) and of Chicago
(1904-1905) require two college years, and that of Minnesota one col-
lege year. The Law School of Chicago University requires three and
that of Ohio two college years for admission. These are actual require-
ments; but in addition we often find formally expressed in the cata-
logues of other institutions urgent advice to similar effect. As I desire
especially to emphasize this point, I offer some quotations : Pennsyl-
vania University Medical catalogue. "It is earnestly recommended
that young men, before entering upon the study of medicine at this
University should have previously taken the degree either of A. B. or
B. S. at some college or university where the standard is equivalent to
that of the University of Pennsylvania."
Missouri Medical Catalogue. "It is the policy of the Medical
Department to encourage in every way possible the gaining of a liberal
education as a sound preparation for the professional study of medi-
cine. Students are strongly urged to take first a scientific course in
the Academic Department."
Nebraska University Medical Catalogue. "Whenever it is possi-
ble the student is advised to take this work, viz.: two years medical
preparatory. It lays a broad foundation for the technical work of the
16
last two years and gives the student not only the best possible training
but also the advantages which accrue from the possession of the bach-
elor's degree."
Iowa State University Medical Catalogue. "These combined
courses are especially recommended to all students who intend to enter
the profession of medicine."
Eush Medical College (Chicago) Catalogue. "The necessity, how-
ever, for a broader and more thorough preparation than one college
year for the study of medicine is strongly emphasized, and every stu-
dent is advised before taking up the study of medicine to procure a lib-
eral education such as can be obtained only in a well-equipped college
or university."
University of California Medical Catalogue, 1902. "The need
of a broad foundation in general culture can not be overestimated and
students should extend their studies in the culture courses as much as
possible beyond the prescriptions of two college years here laid down."
American Academy of Medicine. From data collected for the
Academy of Medicine and presented June, 1902, it appears that fifty-
two medical schools replied out of the one hundred and forty*-three to
which was sent the question, "Do you believe that a general insistence
on a college education for physicians is desirable ?" Twenty-four of the
fifty-two answered "Yes" and nineteen, "No" without qualification.
University Presidents : The presidents of Harvard, Yale, Colum-
bia, and Cornell have given lengthy consideration to this matter in
their last reports. President Eliot earnestly advocates requiring the
bachelors degree for admission.
President Butler. "It is held to be the settled policy at Columbia
University that the several technical and professional schools shall rest
upon a college course of liberal study as a foundation (although not
necessarily upon a course four years in length) either at once or as
soon as practicable. The School of Law has already been placed upon
the basis of a graduate school to take effect July 1, 1903. On Decem-
ber 20, 1898, the University Council recommended that the College of
Physicians and Surgeons be made a graduate school as soon as such a
step is financially practicable."
Presidents Had ley and Schurman, however, argue strongly against
the requirement.
The second feature to which I refer is the tendency to cut down
the time of the college course and therefore the meaning of the bache-
lor's degree in order to reduce the time necessary for both degrees.
President Butler, in his last report, earnestly advocates the reduction
17
of the course for the bachelor's degree to two years. In many colleges
the fourth year is allowed to go to professional study and in the Uni-
versities of Michigan, Chicago, Nebraska, Missouri and Colorado the
fourth and the third year are allowed thus to go.
Clearly these two tendencies are glaringly inconsistent. For let
the movement for time economy go on only so much further and in
the same direction as it has already gone in comparatively few years
and logically the bachelor's degree should be given along with the pro-
fessional degree of M. D. for four years of study in the professional
school. This would oe a fine reductio ad absurdum. The professional
degree would maintain its full and unmodified significance but the
bachelor's degree would mean nothing. It would be an empty symbol,
an atrophied appendage to the professional degree.
Thus between the tendency of the high schools to cover the fresh-
man and even the sophomore work and the desire of the professional
schools to have their alumni labeled with two degrees instead of one,
it looks to some, and I surmise their number is considerable, as if the
peculiar usefulness of the colleges, so far as the professional students
are concerned, was fast approaching zero.
/ In these days of strenuous competition and rapid evolution in
matters academic as well as matters industrial, it behooves one to
study carefully what basal facts and principles he should take for
grounding. There are those who find little comfort or encouragement
save in keeping close to the proposition that the professional school and
the college have each its peculiar, legitimate function and usefulness ;
that of one is not that of the other. That of the professional school is
very distinctly defined. Indeed its status in law and medicine is more
or less established by statute. It is to make lawyers and physicians,
good at least up to a standard defined by law and better according to
the measure of opportunity. The function of the college is less sharply
definable. It certainly is not to make lawyers and physicians, but it is
to make men, men liberally educated. Now liberal education has, so
far as I am aware, no definition in law and perhaps it would be difficult
to define it satisfactorily, but that it is none the less real and none the
less valuable is believed by many. Therefore it has been thought that
this topic might suitably be made the starting point in the discussions
of this conference.
The desire that the academic and the professional degree should
be obtainable without the full expenditure of time required for both
independently has led to the institution of the so-called combined
courses providing for reduction of total time. The economy of time
18
thus made possible is in some institutions one year, in others two years.
Of the first group, allowing one year of economy in the combined Aca--
demic and Medical courses, may be mentioned Yale, Columbia, Penn-
sylvania, Cornell and Minnesota. Reduction of two years is allowed
by Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, California, Chicago and
others. In the combined law courses the reduction is generally one
year. Examples: Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Michigan, Indiana, Wis-
consin, Iowa, Chicago, California and Leland Stanford.
To effect the economy of one year in the combined Medical
courses, two methods are found in use : First : Seniors or Juniors in
the college take work to the extent of one year in the professional
school and credit for this is transferred to the college. Examples:
Columbia, Pennsylvania, Cornell, Minnesota. Second: Professional
students are released from items in the Medical school by credits in
the college for corresponding items. Example : Yale.
For the economy of two years in the combined medical courses,
three methods are found:
First: Most of the work of the first professional year is done
within the first three years of the college and credits therefor ac-
cepted in the professional school; Seniors in the college do the
second year's work of the professional school and credit therefor is
accepted, by the college. Examples: Illinois, Northwestern.
Second: Two years of the professional school work are done
in the college and credits accepted by the professional school. Ex-
amples: Missouri, Nebraska, Chicago.
Third: After the first two years of college work are com-
pleted the student gives his whole time to the professional work
extending over four years. Examples: Michigan, California.
In the combined Law courses two methods are found in use :
First: Seniors or Juniors in the college are allowed to take
work in the professional school and credit is transferred to the
college. This transfer to the extent of one year's professional work
is allowed in Columbia, Cornell, Nebraska, Chicago, California.
Second: Exchange of credits between the college and the pro-
fessional school. Examples : At Wisconsin the college allows twelve
semester hours from the Law school, and the Law school allows eight
semester hours from the college. At Iowa University the college
allows ten semester hours from the Law school, and the Law school
allows ten semester hours from the college.
The method of economy followed by this or that institution
is probably determined largely by local conditions. Nevertheless it
19
may be hoped that profit will come from exchange of ideas as to
the merits and demerits of the several plans. Some of those insti-
tutions which offer combined courses with reduction of time and
unmodified degrees can hardly avoid the appearance of discrediting
the work of their own college, since they practically say to the pros-
pective professional undergraduate at the end of his second year:
"Our third and fourth years of college work are of no account to
you; we give you exactly the same degrees if you take them or
if you do not." This seems a strange state of affairs when one
has in mind the statement often heard that colleges are useful
mainly for those intending to enter the professions. Nor is it
surprising in view of this treatment of the prospective professional
student that the question arises as to the value of the last year
or the last two years to the non-professional undergraduate. Indeed,
so conspicuous an educator as President Butler advocates reduction
of the college term to two years for all. This movement may be
regarded as the natural outgrowth of the reduction of time for
the professional student without change of degree. There are those
I doubt not in this conference who will see in this situation a com-
petition between the interests of the college and the professional
school and having the interests of the former at heart will regret
the apparent tendency of this movement.
Again, those institutions which offer the combined courses with
time reduction by whatever method can hardly avoid the appear-
ance either of belittling time as a factor in education or else of be-
stowing degrees with less than the conventional meaning. It would
not be wise to attach too great significance to degrees. Still it
may be fairly said that they constitute a trade-mark with more or
less of legal status and of commercial and sentimental value. The
degrees of Law and Medicine imply, according to statute in many
states, three years in the one and four years in the other school
respectively. The bachelor's degree implies almost universally in
this country the equivalent in work at least of the old-fashioned
course of four years. Now if the two degrees are desired on the
one hand and given on the other, it should be for the things which
they imply, otherwise they are the outward and visible sign with-
out the thing signified. Of the thing signified, time is surely an
important factor and an essential one, although not the sole stand-
ard of measure. As matters stand at present, three men may hold
the same degrees from the same institution, for instance, A. B.
and M. D. All may have started at the same point, have done
30
work of equally good grade and at the same rate per year. One
has worked eight years, one seven, and one six. These years would
be made up in most instances four years in the Medical school and
four or three or two in the college. Yet all are put under the same
label. Some simple-minded people are puzzled to understand how
time should be so important a factor in liberal education, that it
may be discounted fifty per cent without disturbing values, while
in professional education it is so important that its integrity is pro-
tected by law. Others, perhaps, think that there is a real disturb-
ance of values by the giving of the two degrees for the reduced
courses, and they may object to the plan altogether on the ground
of principle because it implies the false pretense that six years
are as good as eight in matters educational.
Another significant feature of the existing conditions is found
in the fact that comparatively few of the institutions which have
established the combined courses with reduced time require that
their professional students shall follow these courses in order to
secure the professional degree. In many instances the requirements
for admission to the professional school are no higher than those
for admission to the college. The result is that the preparation of
the professional undergraduates in the same school may vary from
that given by the high school to that given by one, two, three, or
four years in college. Michigan University in her Medical school
requires the six years course of all. Chicago University in her antic-
ipatory announcements makes these requirements in Medicine and
in Law. Western Eeserve does the same in Medicine.
So far as I am aware these instances are exceptional. This con-
dition seems to imply the desire to induce some professional students
to secure a better preparation than the minimum which the profes-
sional school requires of all for admission to its courses. The in-
ducement consists in cutting by twenty-five and fifty per cent the
cost, in time, of the collegiate degree for those who take the two
degrees instead of one. To some this seems an expedient of doubtful
wisdom so far as the interests of the college are concerned, one
likely to prove a transitional measure leading from four years to
three as the term of the college course for all.
Those who view these tendencies with some anxiety may perhaps
find a hopeful token of favorable reaction in the fact that Cornell
University has withdrawn (December, 1901) the combined Medi-
cal course of six years and allows the economy of only one year.
And Dean Vaughan, of the Michigan University Medical depart-
21
ment said before the American Academy of Medicine (summer of
1902), "Our faculty may think it wise in the future to extend our
combination course to seven years. In fact our Medical faculty
is ready to do so at any time."
With these facts in mind those who have been interested in
calling this conference have thought that there might be profit in dis-
cussing the multiform aspects of the subject, and that discussion
might possibly help to improve the situation which reveals so much
of confusion and inconsistency.
THE CHAIRMAN:
Professor Young must have read his paper beforehand; it was
exactly twenty minutes long. He has given us a condition and not
a theory. Now we will have a theory. "Has the college a field
peculiar to itself not covered by the technical school or by the de-
mands of preparation for the professional school?" The first paper
will be by President Edward D. Eaton, of Beloit College.
PRESIDENT EATON:
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The higher education,
we are all agreed, should make a man at home in his world, and
fit him to do well his part in his generation; so far as in him lies
improving the world for the use of his own and succeeding generations.
To this end his education must give him a large amount of
useful knowledge and must train him for the practice of his pro-
fession if he is to have one. But we are not satisfied unless it does
more than that. The educated man belongs to the minority of priv-
ilege. He is literally one among a thousand. Shall he regard
himself as belonging to a privileged class, the aristocracy of culture,
prepared to get ahead of his fellow men and justified in doing it,
or secluding himself in the enjoyment of learning? This insidious
tendency lurks in all education. It is especially to be regretted if
it develops in a republic where the welfare of the nation is condi-
tioned upon the sympathetic interaction of all classes of society,
and where the educated must be the recognized leaders of the masses.
The ignorant vote will wreck the commonwealth, unless trained in-
telligence is willing and able to transform the ignorant voter.
There is no question that the American college has been a dis-
tinctive and potent influence in this direction during all our na-
tional life thus far. From the day when the pioneers of Massa-
chusetts Bay, in 1636, established Harvard College, down to the
present hour, college men have been founders of commonwealths,
22
makers of constitutions, state and federal, and interpreters of the
same, leaders of public opinion, framers of laws and moulders of
institutions.
Has this been an accidental distinction of the college, due to
the fact that it chanced to be the opportunity for education open
to American youth hitherto? Would other educational institutions,
had they existed, have served the purpose equally well, and may
the college be retired with thanks if educational convenience suggests
that it be superseded? On the contrary, we believe it can be shown
that the college is organically connected with our national welfare;
that its educational service is unique; and that it can not be dis-
carded except with distinct and serious loss. The limits of the
present paper will permit but the merest outline of some of the
grounds for such a conviction.
First: College life is a fellowship of the ages. One of the
essentials of an adequate education is that it give the young fellow
some true perspective of life; that he should see not merely the
foreground of the picture where he and his set or even his country
happen to be figuring, but that these should be placed in the wide
landscape of human experience. It is an essential advantage of the /
college that it takes one before his eyes are focused upon his own
life-work, and gives him opportunity of intelligent participation in \
the struggles and achievements of many centuries and many lands.
It was for him that Socrates trod the streets of Athens, inspiring
men with love of virtue. For him Dante was led, with blanched
cheek and burning spirit, through the circles of the inferno. For
him the Greek scholar, fleeing from the doom of Constantinople,
carried in his bosom the manuscripts of Homer and Sophocles. For
him Milton poured forth the organ tones of his soul. For him
Bacon and Newton and Kant were sunk in thought. For him Coper-
nicus and Herschel sailed the ocean of the sky; for him Agassiz
built his hut upon the glacier's stream, and Darwin gathered facts
with endless careful scrutiny of Nature. With all these and such
as these he lives from day to day, and the breadth of their existence
enters unconsciously into his.
Second: There exists in college a unique comradeship of vari-
ous social classes, and interaction of diverse tastes. It is the only
ideal democracy in existence. The son of the man "of wealth is
fellow to the boy who is dependent upon jobs of work for his food
and clothes. One who is later to be a manufacturer or merchant
or teacher is now in close intimacy with others who are to become
23
physicians or politicians. In the informal relationships and inti-
macies of class room, athletic field and dormitory the most various
points of view are presented, the most dissimilar interests are re-
garded. This inestimable freedom of relationship is due in part
to the fact that all are living more or less completely in a spacious
world of the humanities, and in the fellowship of pursuits which
encourage the recognition of their common young manhood. I have
seen a student with negro blood in his veins reach his college town
after winning honors in an interstate contest in oratory, to be seized,
as the train stopped, by his white fellow students, and borne in
triumph on their shoulders to the college buildings. Could such
a thing be even imagined anywhere else? The greater the univer-
sity, the smaller the circle of friends, in the case of many students;
while some are absolutely solitary, others gravitate into a select group
of those of their own standing or predilections. But the college
is a republic where all are fellow citizens.
How much it is worth to have these young men think out
into life along such a variety of lines, and realize something of
the importance of various callings, before they join the company
of those whose whole study and talk is of cadavers and diagnosis,
or those whose attention is concentrated upon points of theology
or heads of sermons. How much it is worth to have the bread of
truth not yet continually thick buttered with professional advantages.
It is little wonder that as a rule college friendships retain
through life so much more charm than ever attaches to the acquain-
tanceship of the professional or technical school. To know well
through life so many men in callings wholly unlike my own, and
to have our friendship invested with the glamour of college days,
so that we are to each other always boys when by others we are
discounted as old men, is not this alone worth all the college course
may cost ? This may be a matter of sentiment ; but was not Charles
Kingsley right when he said, "By sentiment well directed, as by
sorrow wisely used, great nations live"?
Third: The college is the best agency ever devised for the de-
velopment of character under the touch of inspiring teachers. Per-
sonality is evoked and molded most of all by personality. The skilful
and sympathetic teacher has an opportunity with his college pupils
that is almost limitless. Our age rightly sets great store by the inves-
tigator. The strides we are making in knowledge, the conquests of
applied science, would be impossible without him. The develop-
ment the universities are to have in his interest no one can measure.
34
But the investigator may be a failure as a teacher, and be destitute
of power to realize the best possibilities of young lives. The college
teacher, at once companion and guide, mentor and friend, restrainer
and quickener, is a true maker of men. Hopkins, Woolsey, Wayland,
McCosh, Fairchild, Haven, Chapin, Cummings, and hundreds of
others, were great as college men, in close and stimulating touch
with generations of students who owned through life the decisive
influence upon them of these builders of manhood. Such college
men have richly supplied our country with the maintainers of her
freedom characterized by Lowell as
"Men by culture trained and fortified,
Who bitter duty to sweet lusts prefer,
Fearless to counsel and obey."
The work they did must be done again for every generation if our^
"national life is to be maintained at a high level. It can not be
adequately done in the professional and technical schools, with their
loose-knit organization and necessarily impersonal relation of lec-
turers ; it can nowhere be done so well as in the college.
Fourth: The college is the best instrumentality we possess
for awakening the sense of social responsibility. In the university
or professional school a student must tend to exist for himself. He
is intent on carrying out his own plans for his personal career,
and his success depends in large measure upon his aloofness from
other interests. But in college every man is organically related to
other men and to a great variety of interests. His class makes de-
mands upon him which are reinforced by his own class-feeling. Col-
lege athletics, college literary and oratorical events, Christian asso-
ciation work, fraternity life with the intimacies and responsibilities
of a home, claim his activity, and assess him in their various enter-
prises.)^ He is judged at the bar of college public opinion by his
serviceability to the college community. There is a constantly act-
ing and powerful influence organizing the student into the life of
the community, and developing in him an instinct of obligation to
public service, which is an invaluable preparation for citizenship.
College men as a rule manifest public spirit in their subsequent career,
and 'are ready to shoulder the burdens of the public weal. The title )
of President Woodrow Wilson's inaugural address, "Princeton for
the Nation's Service/' gives true expression of the fundamental value
of the American college.
The high school is anchored to secondary methods and ideals.
Thus its honor is its fatal limitation when it is tempted to do col-
25
lege work. The high school senior measures himself with children.
What he needs is to become a Freshman as soon as possible, and
instead of being promoted to a double senior and triple senior in
the high school, be set down on the lowest bench in college, with
Sophomores ready to teach him humility. Irreparable damage will
be done to American education if the high schools, already over-
loaded, are stimulated to imagine they can be colleges also.
President Nicholas Murray Butler, in his introduction to Paul-
sen's Essay on German Universities, has justly remarked that it is
a false assumption that the American college is to be classed with
the German gymnasium as a secondary school; and that to confuse
the American college with the German gymnasium is inexcusable.
Serious evils result in Germany from passing at once from the gym-
nasium, all discipline and textbooks, to the university, all lectures
and lernfreiheit. These evils have been largely obviated in the Amer-
ican system. At the college age our youth are not boys and are
not fully men. It is a time of promise and of peril. To herd
them with boys or subject them to the discipline of boys, is futile,
if not disastrous. To free them from control and relegate them to
their own immature self-determination, is certainly disastrous. The
union of wise guidance and freedom has been found in the college.
The Emperor William is not alone among Germans in thinking and
declaring that Germany has too many university-educated men, crowd-
ing the professions and leading the ranks of the discontented classes.
But we can hardly imagine too many young Americans getting a
college training. They are quickly absorbed in the varied life of
business, of industry, or the professions, after securing in some de-
gree a disciplined breadth, quite other than the breadth acquired
through unrelated elections and lectures. They are saved for life
from the conceit of erudition and the provincialism of the specialist.
While safeguarded from many of the recognized evils of over-spe-
cialization, they are also delivered from the complacency and the
contracted outlook which are the perils of the "self-made" man.
They are enhanced in value as American citizens, whatever their
calling.
If there is force in the considerations suggested in this discus-
sion, is it unreasonable to think that one source of the efficiency and
flexibility of the Anglo-Saxon race is the college system, which
has been for so many centuries the distinctive characteristic of the
English universities, and which was so early planted and so deeply
rooted in American soil, but which among us has for a generation
36
and more been fed from German rather than English scholarship, so
that the German ideals of scientific research and productive scholar-
ship have united fruitfully with the English college system in the
development of the typical American college.
As President Butler has said in the paper already quoted, "the
college has proved to be well suited to the demands of American
life, and to be a powerful force in American civilization and cul-
ture." We all acknowledge the personal obligation of reciprocal
social service; does not this obligation extend also to corporate mem-
bers of society? Is it not incumbent upon the colleges to give the
best possible training to large numbers of young people for gradu-
ation into the rich opportunities and special development afforded
by the universities, and to co-operate intelligently with the univer-
sities in the due adjustment of courses of study that delay and dupli-
cation may be avoided? And is it not also the privilege of the
universities so to administer their work and direct their influence
as not to cripple and throttle the colleges, but rather to uphold and
stimulate them in their unique contribution to American life?
THE CHAIRMAN: We shall now be favored with a paper by
President M, P. Bowling, of Creighton University.
PRESIDENT BOWLING: As the great mass of children never go
beyond the elementary grades, the studies laid down for the pri-
mary schools should not be dominated by the requirements of the
high school, but should aim at giving the best life equipment to the
multitudes who can not hope for a higher education. As the large
majority of the high school pupils do not take a college course, the
needs of those who stop within the twelfth grade should mainly be
considered in formulating a high school curriculum. As many col-
lege graduates do not undertake professional or technical studies,
they should not be compelled to take a course adapted only, or mainly,
to the wants of the future specialist, but should have the advantage
of a liberal education, calculated to prepare them for any pursuit
which they may afterward choose. I hold, then, that the college
has a distinct scope of its own, and I answer in the affirmative the
first question: Has the college a field peculiar to itself, not cov-
ered by the technical school and not serving solely as preparatory
to the professional school? If, as seems likely to happen, the col-
lege course be reduced to two, or even three years, there would be
still stronger reason for an affirmative answer.
Even for those who afterward take up professional and tech-
27
nical studies, the time spent in purely college work is not only not
lost,, but is an invaluable help for more thorough and effective work
in their chosen vocation. It gives the student a firmer grasp of
principles, a superior mental development and qualifies him better
for specialization. It makes him more penetrating, masterly; it
secures quicker and more telling results; it enables him to over-
come difficulties and solve problems more speedily and make more
headway in a shorter time; it gives him greater assurance of success
I in any field.
If the university reaching downward and the high school reach-
ing upward should finally absorb the college, till it disappears alto-
gether as a distinct entity, this present question will still be far
from settlement, will still demand an answer; because the branches
now forming the main staple of the accepted college course contrib-
ute so unmistakably to the best mental endowment, that they can
not, without loss to culture and serious detriment to the proper
development of the human mind, be diverted or passed over, for
the benefit of any special education. Seth Low gives this testimony :
"It is doubtless true that the college graduate entering on a busi-
ness career is at a disadvantage the first few years of his business
life as compared with one who entered business when he entered
college. If, however, the man has a capacity for business, I ven-
ture to say that in five years, certainly in ten, he will find himself
more than abreast of his friend who did not go to college. The
trained mind can master the problems of business better than the
untrained mind, and it can master other problems better for which
it has itself any natural capacity." Very opposite, too, are the words
of Dr. Louis H. Steiner, addressed to the American Academy of Medi-
cine: "On the whole it must seem almost incredible to any one
who has availed himself of the advantages furnished by a faithful
study of Latin and Greek before entering on his medical studies,
that a student could deliberately forego these that he would under-
take to fight his way without the assistance they are able to render
at almost every step of his progress. In all my experience I never
heard a physician who had faithfully gone through a classical course
under competent teachers, regret the time spent in forming an
acquaintance with these ancient languages, while it has been my
lot to meet many who deeply lamented their error in neglecting them
in their youth, and labored zealously to repair the same afterward
by private study at an advanced age."
If you ask what kind of a college I have in mind in giving
as
this affirmative answer, I reply, it is one that gives a general or
liberal education, one that stands for a well-balanced system, pref-
erably a rigid system. It need not offer a great multiplicity of
courses, or pretend to satisfy every applicant, by allowing him to
select at will from many branches, sometimes incompatible and often
of only secondary importance, thus leaving considerable gaps in the
knowledge of essential subjects. It maps out a curriculum which
makes obligatory such branches as in some form, however elementary,
are deemed absolutely essential for a liberal education. It does
not promise that the youth who takes this course will have a spe-
cialist^ knowledge of any individual subject, nor does it say that
he will be completely educated at the end of his course, but he will
have a more harmoniously rounded education and will be fairly
acquainted with a greater number of essential branches, than by fol-
lowing a system based on electives and specialties. The plan may
not suit all comers, but it does afford a good, sound, thorough edu-
cation. It does not pretend to teach everything, but it teaches thor-
oughly and successfully what it undertakes to teach. Its motto is
"non multa sed multum" '; it believes in "unum post aliud," in thor-
oughness, concentration, method, ^fn other words, it is an institu-
tion that furnishes a good, general, classical, literary and scientific
education. Moderate electives for undergraduates and limited spe-
cialization for particular students are not necessarily out of har-
mony with such a college. v With such a^ clearly defined scope, a
sphere of activity distinctly marked out, the college could and should
be kept free from all entangling alliances likely to divert it from its
purpose of giving a good general education. My ideal college opens
up the treasures of ancient and modern literature and languages, and
establishes a familiarity with the best authors; it gives a working
knowledge of physics and chemistry, a fair acquaintance with sur-
veying and astronomy, a systematic training in fundamental mathe-
matics. It teaches ancient and modern history, the various kinds
of composition, elocution and oratory; it cultivates a graceful deliv-
ery, trains for the discussion of live questions, forms the taste, en-
ables the student to think, write and speak correctly and elegantly.
It promotes acquaintance with sociology, political science and eco-
nomic laws, it finds place for the rules of harmony, it unfolds the
constitution of the United States and the principles underlying pop-
ular government. Who will say that these are superfluous or useless
accomplishments, which even the specialist may ignore? We have
excellent authority for saying that the main end of education should
39
be to unfold the faculties. It is not so much the actual impart-
ing of knowledge as the development of the power to gain knowledge,
the ability to apply the intellect, utilize -the memory, make use
of observation and facts. It is not essential that the studies pro-
ducing these results have a direct bearing on after life, any more
than it is necessary for the athlete in the development of his powers
to wield trie blacksmith's hammer instead of dumb bells, which
play no part in his subsequent career; he discards them all when
the physical powers have been developed. "The business of educa-
tion," says Locke, "is not, I think, to perfect the learner in any
of the sciences, but to give his mind that freedom and disposition
and those habits which may enable him to attain every part of
knowledge himself." Speaking of Plato, Bishop Spalding says:
"The ideal presented is that of a complete, harmonious culture, the
aim of which is not to make an artisan, a physician, a merchant, a
lawyer, but a man alive in all his faculties; touching the world at
many points; for whom all knowledge is desirable and all beauty
lovable, and for whom fine bearing and noble action are indispen-
sable." "With such education," says another authority, "as a basis,
the young man may become a specialist not with a warped mind,
>ut with one capable of receiving aid in his own particular science
)m all studies."
In my opinion, specialization should begin only after the mind
has been well formed and strengthened by general studies; other-
wise, there is a one-sided development. It will doubtless be ad-
mitted that premature specialization has a tendency to make men I
narrow, to take away breadth of mind, soulful sympathy, correct-
ness and justness of judgment outside their own chosen sphere; that
it often dwarfs the mind, blunts the finer sensibilities, dries up the
esthetic and emotional nature, makes men hard, dry, arrogant, un-
yielding and impervious to argument, producing effects the very oppo-_
site of humanism or the humanities. YOne of the most influential
scientific journals in this country complained several years ago of
a condition directly traceable to early specialization and to the neg-
lect of general education. The charge was that scientists, however
well informed in their chosen branches, are often unable to write
a clear, forcible, and intelligent paper on any subject. They are
weak in grammar, punctuation and phraseology, unacquainted with
the value and force of words; they seldom do justice to themselves
or their conceptions, on account of their defective composition. Early
specialization is also injurious because many young people do not
30
know what their life work is to be. Their tastes and predilections
are often founded on circumstances entirely accidental. They fre-
quently change their object and sometimes finish with some subject
of r specialization very different from that for which they originally
^nought themselves best fitted.
sS*C I plead, then, for a general or liberal education, a good founda-
\ tion for specialties, technical and professional work. I incline to
| what some call the rigid system, that is, few electives, and those
well measured, and dependent on the judgment of the master rather
than the disciple. I am well aware that such a view places me irre-
deemably in the class of "old fogies." This being the case, I have
nothing to lose by disapproving of that empiric or experimental
method which today is considered quite as essential in the educa-
tional field as in the scientific workshop. The treasured wisdom
gathered from long and costly experience is readily cast aside and
little appears worthy of acceptance unless it be new. Few are con-
tent to be mere educators, working along the safe line of established
knowledge; every elementary teacher, no matter how imperfect his
mental endowments, must be a reformer, an inventor, a discoverer.
When will educational leaders learn that it is better to be right
than to be original, better to propose something safe than something
startling, better to base a system on sound philosophy, even if others
have done the same before, than to leave the beaten track in search
of untried and, perhaps, dangerous novelties? There are established
principles and practices that must always have place in education,
because they are based on the nature of the human mind and the
perennial needs of man, because they respond to aspirations as deep-
seated as human nature itself. Customs and habits and men may
change, but human nature never; and, therefore, the essential land-
marks in mind development mist ever remain immovable.
The view presented does not forbid studies aimed at professional
work, for those who insist on them. It does plead for liberal studies,
and encouragement of them, in behalf of the vast majority, that
is, for those who can afford to spend more time before beginning
their life work, and for those who never intend to enter a profes-
sion at all. For smaller colleges, especially, this method is pref-
erable. They have a clearly defined scope. By keeping to their
own field they will do more for their clients than by undertaking
work for which they have neither financial resources, facilities, ap-
pliances nor demand. Strange as it may seem, it is really possible
to obtain the degree of bachelor of arts with less scholarship, by
31
selecting easy courses in some colleges of higher standing, in which
the elective system prevails, than it is under the so-called rigid
system, which prescribes a definite course and leaves little latitude
of choice.
The opinions advanced are based on these principles:
First: There are some branches of study absolutely necessary
in any schema of liberal education. Without a knowledge of these
no man can be called educated.
Second: For a finished education there is, in each of the de-
partments of study, a minimum of knowledge essential for a man
of culture.
Third: The aim of a truly liberal education is the harmonious
development of all the faculties, the careful training of mind and
heart, and the formation of character, rather than the actual im-
parting of knowledge and the specific equipment for a limited sphere
of action.
Fourth: All branches of study are not equally serviceable for
the mental and moral development. Some contain mind-developing
factors and character-building elements which no electivism should
replace.
Fifth: Precepts, models and practice should keep pace in every
well-ordered system; all the branches should be directed to some one
definite end.
Sixth: Young students are not the proper judges of the studies
essential for a systematic and thorough development of their faculties,
or even for success in after life.
Seventh: Selection of branches should be permitted to none but
those whose minds have already been formed by the studies essential
to character-building and who have themselves practically determined
on their own life work.
Eighth: There is no royal road to knowledge. Placing the
name on the register of a college does not make a student; a multi-
plicity of courses, which a student is free to ignore, does not make
a scholar.
Ninth: The studies pursued need not be directly useful in
after life.
Some of you educators may tell me that the scheme proposed is
too ambitious, the course prescribed purely ideal, that neither college
nor university does anything like the work mapped out, that anyone
practically acquainted with the atmosphere of the class room will
laugh at the grotesque appearance of this stuffed curriculum. To this
32
I answer, that I would form the same judgment myself, if there were
question of the minutiae of specialization, instead of the general cul-
tu/e intended.
~^r To sum up the contentions of this paper: A general or liberal
education is advantageous, and to some extent necessary, for all who
aim at culture, even for those who enter professional and technical
schools. The college which stands for a well-balanced and fairly rigid
system is preferable. The ideal college is one that promotes general
culture, one that is free from entangling alliances and premature
specialization. There are established principles and practices in educa-
tion, based on the nature of the human mind and responding to aspira-
tions as deep seated as human nature itself. These cannot be ignored.
I have said that a certain kind and amount of training is necessary
and that the college gives that peculiar training. I will go a step
further, and add explicitly, that nothing else can supply it. The times
in which we live, our social, economical and political conditions, call
for cultivated and cultured men, such as are produced only by the col-
lege. Unfortunately, time does not allow the development of this
familiar idea, which is really the pith of this question, the gist of every
argument. Suggested, though not expressed, it formed the undercur-
rent of my thought throughout. But if we need the end, we need the
means essential for obtaining it. So I claim f -hat the college furnish-
ing this liberal culture performs a necessary function, which no other
educational agency can replace.
THE CHAIRMAN :
We shall now be favored with a paper by President George C.
Chase, of Bates College.
PRESIDENT CHASE:
Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen : The Place of the College in our
System of Education. Fifty years ago few thinkers would have cred-
ited the United States with an educational system. Have we such a
system today?
A system may be defined as "the combination of parts into a
whole in accordance with some uniform law, principle or purpose."
What is the uniform principle or purpose in accordance with which
the schools of our country are combined into a symmetrical whole ? We
are forced to admit that no such principle or purpose has yet become
fully operative. Yet we notice the partial working of a principle that
is evidently destined to issue in a complete educational system. It is
the principle of promoting the common welfare, economic, political
33
and moral moral in the broadest sense as including the intellectual,
the aesthetic and the ethical. The democratic spirit that constructed
the Constitution of our government has expressed itself hardly less
definitely in our schools. Often ill adjusted to one another, sometimes
duplicating or repeating the work of the same student., not infre-
quently presenting huge gaps in the natural order of succession, and
usually dwarfed and hindered by inadequate resources and appliances,
the schools of our country have gradually been approximating a sys-
tem whose unifying principle is the promotion in due relation to one
another of the many-sided well-being of the people. In this developing
system there is now evident a division and correlation of work that is
full of promise. Schools for culture, for technical and professional
ends, and for research, are falling into a complete and orderly whole.
There are four ways in which educational institutions may pro-
mote the general welfare : By giving their recipients more productive
efficiency ; by elevating them as moral beings ; by engaging their ener-
gies in research ; and by preparing them to be the active and faithful
guardians of all the interests of a civilized people. All true education
will contribute something to each of these results, but in proportions
varying with the agencies employed.
Our elementary schools seek and find their chief return in produc-
tive efficiency; but they also prepare the way for the attainment of
the other results, and even actively contribute to them. Our secondary
schools, also, aim chiefly to promote productive efficiency ; but place a
stronger emphasis upon -the other ends, especially upon the moral ele-
vation of their pupils.^Our technical and professional schools are
established expressly to promote efficiency, their products ministering
to higher needs and demanding the exercise of higher powers. The
university, in the narrowest meaning that educators tend to give the
word, has as its chief function, research extending the bounds of
knowledge. The preparatory school and the college aim both to give
their students moral elevation and to prepare them to be the disinter-
ested and devoted guardians of the general welfare. The preparatory
school aims more at moral elevation and the college more at social and
public service.
The primary purpose of the college is to promote the general
welfare. Its second conscious aim is to impart to its students true
moral elevation. Indeed, the higher satisfactions of the soul satis-
factions intellectual, aesthetic, and ethical are the main spring of
that discipline and culture indispensable to successful service in the
interests of the community. Nor does the college ever lose sight of
34
the conditions of that material progress which, by increasing comfort,
economizing strength, providing needful appliances, and insuring
leisure, powerfully contributes to character and happiness.
It promotes research only incidentally, by inspiring the love of
truth and developing the aptitude for investigation. Its paramount
aim is the highest well-being of the community. Harvard's "Christo
et Ecclesiae" as representing her noblest conception of worthy aims
was an adequate motto for the college. Her earlier "Veritas" fore-
shadowed the university.
How shall the college attain her paramount aims ? First, by de-
veloping men who exemplify the elements and the resources in which
well-being consists men trained to observe, compare, generalize, rea- *
son ; men who think and feel worthily, express themselves appropriate-
ly, decide wisely, and act promptly; men who delight in those all-
inclusive moral laws love to God and loving service to man; men
by instinct and habit pure, earnest, humane, and just, apostles of
"sweetness and light/' It is the mission of the college, through her
graduates, to save and exalt the home, to make honesty, sound
finance, and reciprocal advantage the accepted maxims of business,
and disinterested helpfulness the common law of society. YjTfc is the V
worthy aim of the technical and the professional school to prepare f
men to get a living. It is the distinctive aim of the college to teach v
men to live, to insure the* dominance of the soul. / f
Equally definite is the duty of the college "to prepare men for
public life. The founders of the first college in America gave as
the warrant for the undertaking "the furnishing of the common-
wealth with leaders and the churches with a learned and godly min-
istry." The founders of Yale, also, proclaimed the distinct purpose
of educating men "for the public service." Almost without excep-
tion the colleges of our country, whether founded by state appropria-
tions or private benevolence, originated in the purpose to insure to
the people competent and patriotic leaders equal to all exigencies.
Service to country is part of the implied contract between the stu-
dent and his college as a guardian of the public welfare. Even if it
"be not writ" in precise terms, as at Annapolis and West Point, it is
there for every true college man whenever the State needs his service.
If there is a growing reluctance among college men to go to the front
in the battles for civic progress, where lies the responsibility? In
changed curricula, or the decline of early ideals? Or in both?
In our day the public service is infinitely more varied than even
a generation ago. The Civic League, the Associated Charities, the
Church Guilds and Christian Associations, the University Settle-
ments, the literary clubs, the hundreds of organized philanthropies
and reforms are so many opportunities for the college graduate, so
many tests of his loyalty. Such an age obviously needs the college
woman quite as much as the college man.
The unique aim of the college gives it a field peculiar to itself
"not covered by the technical school, not serving solely as preparatory
to the professional school," and not occupied by the university. The
man who is in any true sense to be an active, responsible guardian of
the welfare of the community, of the interests of his state and coun-
try, must be broadly educated, liberally educated. A narrow curricu-
lum will not meet his need. He must know both men and things.
He must know the conditions under which men have developed on
this planet. He must be acquainted with that action of forces, phys
ical, biological, psychic, social, political and ethical, by which human
beings have reacted upon their environment and upon one another.
It were well could he know the beginnings and the progress of civili-
zation as disclosed by archaeology, history, literature, ancient and
modern, the arts and the philosophies of all schools and all ages;
could he trace those changes in governments, laws, customs, indus-
tries and ideas which have issued in the modern state and modern
society. He should at least thoroughly understand the principles
embodied in the government of his own country and their relation
to the popular movements of his own time. He should be acquaint-
ed with the social conditions of his age and land and should be in-
telligently interested in improving them. He should have studied
the elements of political economy and the laws that govern commerce
and industry. He should know the general results of modern sci-
ence, should possess its spirit, and be able to apply its distinctive
methods in some of its branches. He should know and appreciate
the spiritual forces that have shaped and unified the life and the in-
stitutions of his country. He should have learned his own powers
and aptitudes and found the appropriate place for their use. He
should be thoroughly democratic, a man among men, sincerely rev-
erent, true to duty and conscious of his responsibility to God. All
this he should be if he is amply to fill his place as a college man.
r<T Amid the ever-increasing complication of the social mechanism,
there should be somebody who knows the relation of the parts and the
general meaning of the whole. And where shall we look for him if
not to the college graduate?
3e
Does the outline include too much? Not more than is required
by the ideal. Some men can attain this. All can strive for it.
The college should provide the requisite courses and impart the high
purpose. In an age of extreme and increasing specialization, where
every man tends to look only "upon his own things," we seek eagerly
for the guides that will help us to "look also upon the things of
others." The courses of study and the influences that will produce N|
such guides must be college courses and college influences. They
can not be afforded by the secondary school. Neither can the second-
ary school meet other equally exacting conditions. Its resources
are meager. It is too often thwarted by ignorance, prejudice, party
discords, political ambitions and social jealousies. Its students rep-
resent limited interests, the local types of character and talent, the
maxims, customs, and habits of the vicinity. Its entire horizon is
narrow. In the average college all these conditions are reversed.
The college represents, at least the state, often many states, some-
times the country. It has that continuity of administration, in-
struction and social life that make traditions possible, that develop
reverence, awaken aspiration and impart the feeling of brotherhood.
The true college has the spirit of universal learning, the breadth of
humanity, the vital instincts of Christendom. Nor can the technical i
school take the place of the college. Its aim, worthy as it may be, I
in itself, is narrow to make men efficient in a particular art or in-
dustry. The well directed technical school will soften its coldly
practical tendencies by the introduction of culture studies. But it
must still aim to make engineers, not men. So with the professional
school. It ministers to a calling only secondarily to humanity. Nor
can the college be merged in the university proper. The two may
be united, but the union will be mechanical, not vital. The univer-
sity has its own aim research, the extension of the bounds of knowl-
edge a noble aim, but reserved for the few and requiring methods
unsuited to the college. But while the college in our country has
its own paramount place, it sustains living relations to all our other
educational forces. It furnishes teachers-to the elementary and the
secondary schools, and students to the universities and professional
schools. It gives breadth to men of all arts and all callings. V It en-
nobles research, imparting to merely mechanical results a spiritual
significance. It unites the community in a devotion to the higher
ends of life and so supplies the soil and the atmosphere in which
alone knowledge can flourish and the arts multiply.
37
Shall we not say with Milton, "I call that a liberal education
which prepares a man to perform skilfully, justly and magnanimously
all the offices of life, public and private"; with Lowell, speaking
of Harvard, "Let her aim to give a good all-round education
fitted to cope with as many exigencies of the day as possible. Let her
continue to give such a training as will fit the rich to be trusted with
riches and the poor to withstand the temptations of poverty."
THE CHAIRMAN :
We shall now have the first address in the discussion, by Presi-
dent William F. King, of Cornell College.
PRESIDENT KING :
Mr. Chairman, and Fellow Teachers : After the valuable papers
which we have been permitted to hear this morning, which have so
accurately and thoroughly treated the subject, I think there is little
need for extemporary remarks.
I was wonderfully pleased with the definition given by President
Bowling, of Creighton University, which he quoted from Bishop
Spalding. I thought the quotation illustrated beautifully the high
culture and capabilities of that prelate. He gave us an admirable
summary of the merits and field of the college. If we will accept
the truth in that and the truth in the other papers that we have
heard, there is but little left in the way of a question as to whether
there is a field for the college. I think it is fair to say that there
is no other appliance or institution that has ever been invented for
making men and women, that equals the college. We have tried
many things that were supposed to be better, but I think it still
remains true that with all the improvements of modern days we have
not discovered anything equal to the straight college for making
men and women. If this be true is there much left of this topic?
It is true that the college does a good deal for the technical schools in
preparing students for them, and for the university and professional
schools in preparing students for them, but over and above these two
valuable services it does a far larger and better service for society at
large. I believe that if time permitted to refer to statistics I speak
only from a general impression of the subject that we would find that
a comparatively small per cent of college graduates go in either of
these two directions, and that a much larger per cent go in other
fruitful vocations in life.
There is another side to the college problem that I think it is
well for us to think of, and that is that the college leads us, as no
other institution does, to those higher and nobler things that are un-
purchasable. In this day of commercialism where there is so much
selfishness, we are almost led to think that money will buy anything,
but the college furnishes to its students a class of qualities and per-
haps of positions that can not be purchased. Culture can not be
purchased by money, scholarship can not be purchased, character can
not be purchased, adaptability to the duties and work of life can not
be purchased.
The college has another factor that is of value that has not been
mentioned in the papers, and that is that it comes close to the people.
The other schools named are few and located largely at the centers
of population, but the college goes out to the rural districts and
comes close to the people, showing the youth what is desirable and
what is to them practicable and possible, and so scores and hundreds
of our young people secure a college education by the college being
comparatively near to them, that would never think of it if the
college were farther away.
The college was spoken of by one of the speakers as a republic.
I will venture to add that it is a republic of wide representation. It
gathers into its constituency representatives of all vocations and all
schools of thought and of all modes of life. And they are there on a
common plane, with no distinction except of merit, to give and re-
ceive from each other all that is possible from that community life,
and they go out into all the vocations of life to spread good influences
wherever they may go. And it is about as important for the pro-
fessional man to come in contact with the college man in his profes-
sional work as it is for him to be prepared for his work himself. Take
the matter of a minister ; the pastor of any church has a benediction
in his congregation if he has one or more and the more the better
of college men and women to second his efforts in all that he is at-
tempting to do for the community, and so it is in all the profes-
sions.
Hj think it is also one of the virtues of the college over other
educational institutions that it tends to postpone the choice of a life
vocation. It is very possible that many in my presence, especially
those who are interested in technical and scientific education, may
take exception to this statement, but I think it is true ; nevertheless.
I think it is an advantage to most young men and women that they
postpone to a reasonable period of maturity the choice of their life
vocation. There is not nearly the danger of making a mistake in re-
gard to the choice of the life vocation when it is made a little later
in life and after the student has more fully developed his faculties
and more perfectly learned his own tastes and capabilities. And we
all know the misfortune of so many mistakes of wrong choice in
earlier days, so that when a student comes to me early in his college
course and expresses regret that he is not inclined to go on with his
work because he has not determined what his life vocation is to be,
I congratulate that student and tell him that I think he is on the
right track. I tell him to go on, and before he gets through, or by
the time he is through college he will be much better prepared to
determine questions of that kind than he is today. I do not say
that this is a universal rule ; I think there are persons of such genius
and such bent of mind as that the decision of life's vocation comes
much earlier and properly so; I merely speak of the average of men
and women in our schools and colleges.
Now, I think that I will not venture to extemporize more upon
this subject, thougji it is one that lies very close to my heart, but will
leave with you the sentiment that is carved over the gateway of one
of our leading educational institutions which I think is suggestive.
The inscription is this: pSo enter, that daily thou mayest become
more thoughtful and more' learned ; so depart, that daily thou may-
est become more useful to thy country and to mankind." Useful-
ness to our country and to mankind and especially in work for the
Master are the great objects of college education.
THE CHAIRMAN:
We shall now have a ten minutes' discussion from President
Thomas McClelland, of Knox College.
PRESIDENT MCCLELLAND:
Mr. Chairman and Friends : If the ground had been thoroughly
covered before President King addressed us, what shall we say of
it now after his admirable discussion of the question before us?
When the President of Northwestern did me the honor to ask
me to present a paper before this gathering I felt that I must de-
cline because of special pressure of business just then, but this sub-
ject is one which interests us at Knox greatly and you might as
well know what we are saying about it to our students down there,
even though it must be presented in a very informal fashion.
Two directly opposite decisions with reference to the value of
a college education on the part of two young men recently came
to my notice. One of them, a cashier in a bank in an Illinois
40
town, wrote me that he had made a mistake in entering his busi-
ness career before taking a thorough general education. He asked
my advice in regard to giving up his position and entering even yet
upon a college course. The other, an under-classman, has reached
the conclusion that there is not time for him to take a college course,
and so he proposes to enter at once upon his professional studies.
I shall not undertake to say which of these young men was right.
In these specific instances both may be right.
But I am interested in the general question of a liberal educa-
tion as a prerequisite of the technical and professional education which
is intended to fit only for a specific vocation. Much has been written
and said on this subject recently, and among the medley of voices
speaking on the question I think we may now detect some constant
notes which give evidence that we are gradually reaching a con-
sensus of opinion in regard to some of its important features. For
one thing, it seems to be quite generally recognized that the commer-
cial spirit of the age has had entirely too much to do with shaping
the courses of study in our institutions. This is not to be wondered
at when we consider the opportunities for making money. It is
but natural that young people should choose the shorter courses
which are popularly supposed to fit most readily for the "current
market." It is a good thing, however, that the universities which
have gone farthest in yielding to this pressure are the first to
call a halt. It is a significant fact that some of our leading uni-
versities have already appointed committees to overhaul their courses
with the purpose of correcting the evils of the excessive elective sys-
tem, a movement, I take it, in the interests of that liberal education
for which we have been contending this morning. Indeed, it is a
matter of congratulation and encouragement that the strongest plea
for liberal culture is coming from university men today. Some of
them go so far as to urge that the undergraduate work be taken
in the separate college where the development of the man as dis-
tinguished from the subject upon which he may be working is the
central idea, rather than in the college connected with the univer-
sity, where the university idea is more likely to predominate. In
addition to this I might cite the testimony of many prominent busi-
ness men, who have had large observation and experience, in favor
of the liberal education. I have it from the general superintendent
of one of the great railroads running out of this city that he has no
difficulty in finding men thoroughly equipped for positions which
call only for the technical skill needed to accomplish specific tasks,
41
f OF THE
C UNIVERSITY
I but when he is seeking for a man to meet emergencies on the moment,
for a man who has the power of initiative, for the man who can direct
other men, for the man who can grasp large questions and settle
them, in short for the man of general executive ability, then he has
difficulty. It is almost impossible, he says, to find the men for these
positions. Some of you will remember that Dr. Harris in discuss-
ing the value of a college education for the teacher in our common
schools at one of our National Educational Associations stated that
he had discovered that the normal school man without the college
training usually surpasses the college man without the normal school
training for the first two or three years, but about the end of that
time he reaches his limitations and the college man forges ahead
of him. Now Dr. Harris can not be taken as at all hostile to the
normal school education. He would favor it as heartily as you and
I favor it. But he believes, in order to make the teacher as effective
and as successful in practice as he ought to be, that he should have
iiot only the technical training of the normal school, but the broad
foundation of a liberal education as well. The story is told that a
pupil of Michael Angelo, upon returning to his study one day.
found that the great master had written across the canvas the word
"Amplius" This illustrates our point. Amplitude of intellect was
never more needed than today. Young people sometimes flatter
themselves that if they enter upon their specific vocation without
this general training it may be secured afterward, but the chances
are it never will be. In his particular business each man gets daily
training toward perfecticji_in..}iis line of work, but if the foundation
^Tlncomplele it will be hard, if not impossible, to remedy the defect.
Why have the railroads of the country been spending such vast
sums of money on their roadbeds, within the last decade? Simply
because the old roadbed of a few years ago could not have borne
for a single day the strain of the present day traffic. Improved roll-
ing stock, all that goes under the name of equipment, would have
been useless if the roadbed, the road itself, had not been strengthened
and perfected. So it is with the traffic of life. It bears more
heavily on men than ever and it is increasing as the years go on.
There is need of specific training, but without that strong manhood
which comes from broad culture and character the strain will not
be successfully borne.
There never was so great a demand for men as today, but the
Call is not because of any numerical lack. It is for men of quality.
As President Roosevelt said recently: "The greatest need of the
42
nation is educated men prepared to enter into the activities of their
fellows with a ground work of plain common sense and the heroism
of aggressive warfare for right. We want scholars and shall take
pride in their achievements,, but more than anything else we want
educated men of character in politics and business, and above all in
civic life." The President rightly thinks that for the most part we
must look to the college to meet this need. But the college itself ,
whatever its facilities today, can not give us the men unless there
is the right spirit among the students in training there. I have no
disposition to depreciate what we have been calling the "new edu-
cation"; on the whole it is a great advance over the old, but I have
some doubts as to some of its tendencies. The seductive aphorism,
"Follow the line of least resistance," which has been so much in
vogue is responsible for much mischief, and it has in it yet elements
of danger. Tf the old idea that the chief business of education is
to strengthen the student at his weakest points is a rule too ascetic,
"it is," as Dean Briggs has said, "preferable to the emasculate ex-
treme of doing only what one likes to do." This easy going rule
which allows the student to follow his wishes rather than his wants,
has had its evil effect on the student mind and we are not surprised
that the Dean of Harvard finds that "the tendency of the student
today is to come to the professor, practically with a bill of rights
in his hands saying, 'Mind, you must not be dull or I shall go to
sleep, you must attract me or I shall not get on an inch; you must
rivet my attention or my thoughts will wander/" This sort of
inanity deserves the contemptuous retort, "Well, then, if that is
your mood, go to sleep; don't get on an inch; let your thoughts
wander." And we may well assume an attitude of rebuff toward the
half weakly, half vicious tone of too many young people who are
saying to the church, the school, the college or their parents, "If
you expect us to be virtuous or heroic or accomplished you must
bestir yourselves; we should like to gratify you but there must be
nothing dry, nothing hard, nothing ascetic. It is the duty of the
minister or the professor to waft us to heaven or Parnassus on gentle
zephyrs. Otherwise we may let them endure the pain of seeing
us conclude to go to some other place." Just this kind of thing
offers one of the strongest arguments in favor of the influence and
training involved in the liberal culture for which the college stands.
Without following this question further I want to say just in a
word that I believe college men have come to the point where they
can afford to hold up their heads and stand squarely on their feet.
48
We have had too much disposition to apologize for what has been
called the "small college." It has its place, a place of importance,
and it is making itself felt today, more than ever before.
THE CHAIRMAN:
We shall now have the last formal paper of the morning by Kev.
J. H. Thomas, late President of Oxford College.
EEV. THOMAS:
Mr. Chairman and Fellow Workers in College: The first ques-
tion on our program is, Has the college a field peculiar to itself?
On this I take the affirmative and assert that the college is a chief
instrument of our moral and social progress.
The people of the United States are the college-bred people of
the world; or, if this seem an overstatement, certainly the college-
led people. This is a matter of fact capable of proof; but I will
only suggest lines of evidence. The number of our college students
in proportion to our population is greater than university students
in Germany, far greater than in any other country; though varying
standards make the comparison inexact. The increase in the attend-
ance upon our colleges in the last decade was of men sixty per cent,
of women one hundred and forty-eight per cent. College graduates
are in the majority among the real leaders of our nation. They
are gaining rapidly on non-graduates in Medicine and the Law.
Most ministers are college-bred and teachers in the higher places,
as are a growing number of the men most influential in commerce.
A generation ago the appointment of Everett and Lowell and
Motley as ambassadors to foreign courts encountered criticism. But
college men have so often reflected honor on our country's diplo-
matic service that today their appointment is welcomed. Their knowl-
edge is indispensable for the development of our soil and its prod-
\ ucts. Their service as experts is often necessary in the growing
W complexity of state affairs, as in the Venezuela boundary case. And
their trained discrimination and impartial judgment is valued, as
in the arbitration of the coal strike.
The earliest colonists in their poverty founded colleges, and
their sons planted them everywhere as they followed the star of em-
pire westward. No state is without a college; they average eleven
to a state, and wealth is now poured out for their endowment. The
excellence of our public school system is due to college-trained men
determined that free tuition even in state universities should open
the door of opportunity to the poorest. And this opportunity brings
44
into the public service many of our ablest men after university train-
ing. The college is as necessary to our system of education as t]&-
heart to the arterial system. It is not too much to say that the de-1
velopment of our whole national life has been under college influence. 1
Light will be thrown on the functions of a college as we stucly
the reasons for its unique influence in the history of our people. The
sword has conferred power upon rulers in former ages. In our
country, education, character and ability have commonly won the
votes that have elevated men to power. With us the pen is mightier
than the &\yord.
The religious inheritance of our people has fostered education.
Luther, Calvin, Milton, Wesley, all university men, impressed on
their followers the value of trained leaders. The churches that grew
out of their teaching have been moulded by such influence, and the
Catholic church in our country earnestly promotes education. The
very diversity of religious views has multiplied colleges; and hav-
ing been founded through religious motives, they have made it
their first duty to impress deeply the obligation of Christian ethics.
The idealism which so dominates in our moral and social progress
is born in colleges. It compels war upon unrighteousness; it pauses
not in the pursuit of evil; it is not dismayed in the face of appar-
ently impossible tasks; David, the stripling with his sling, it reckons
mightier than Goliath, the giant, in armor.
The quickened national conscience which demands justice even
in China, which is first to welcome Japan into the brotherhood of
nations, which forbids liquor to be sold in the South Seas, is a
religious development in which the colleges lead the churches. Public
opinion, the final arbiter in our land, is very largely moulded by men
trained in our universities.
The college develops character; it takes the youth when he has
grown wiser than his father and mother (in his own judgment), too
big for his teachers, in the critical years of transition from boyhood
to manhood, and supplies or supplements home influence. Every-
body knows the self-conscious collegian. The new alma mater wins
his respect and compels his obedience. How often, alas! young
lives are wrecked in spite of her, and yet how often, also, happy
impress is made to abide for time and for eternity. The influence
of the college in this way is incalculable. The long and influential
career of the late James Martineau was dominated, as he said at the
close of it, by an impulse received from a teacher when he first left
home. The bent which determines a career is apt to be given at
college. 45
Applcton's Cyclopaedia of Biography is a Hall of Fame, a sort
of American Valhalla. But President Thwing has shown that for
admission to it the college-trained man has two hundred and fifty
times the chance of the man who lacks the college training. The
conclusion is forced on us that the college from the first has been
intertwined about the very fibers of our national life; and as a
line of Christian effort has been a factor above all others in mould-
ing national character.
Now such spiritual quickening is needed more and more as the
complexity of social and moral problems in the United States in-
creases and their urgency grows more imperative. Our free insti-
tutions are imperiled by the horde of alien immigrants flowing upon
us like a swelling tide. How shall the peril be averted? The most
effective maans is through their children in our public schools. But
the college is the power-house from which electric influence extends
through all the educational circuit. . The necessity of such uplifting
power in our civilization demands that the fountains whence its
life-giving streams arise be kept free and pure.
But has the college a field peculiar to itself, not covered by the
technical school and not serving solely as preparatory to the profes-
sional school? I answer that the college makes the man; technical
and professional schools put tools in his hands. They are not sub-
stitutes for the college, but build upon it. The college existed alone
long before them, and the school for specialists can never do the work
of the college. A minority of students attend them, a small minor-
ity considering the number of women now attending college. If
the whole is greater than any of its parts, the need of all is more im-
portant than the need of a minority.
To ignore women in college plans is to shut the eyes to facts.
Not only because college women may soon outnumber college men,
but because of their influence upon ethical, esthetical and spiritual
questions. Kaiser Wilhelm's restriction of women to Kinder, Kilche
und Kirche is like the pope's bull against a comet. Even if women
keep within the Emperor's paddock, their influence upon the next
generation in childhood requires for them as thorough training as
possible. But women will attend college, be it co-educational or
segregational. Their influence, greatly enlarged now, will be yet
greater. More than ever women need strength of mind to refuse
specious but misleading projects; sound judgment to discriminate
between true and pretended progress ; wisdom to guide their tender-
ness of heart reaching out a helping hand to the needy.
46
What, then, is the ideal college for which we should strive?
The aim of education is a rounded culture for soul, mind and body ;
an enlightened conscience, a disciplined mind, a trained discernment.
The student must have all his powers at command and be able him-
self to direct his further study. To this end all branches necessary
to give the various kinds of mental culture must be required, Mathe-
matics, Language, Physics, Metaphysics and Ethics, with such elec-
tive work as the student may choose. The course of study must be
long enough to accomplish this, and not too long for the needs, the
time and the money of the average candidate for higher education.
The student is living in the twentieth century, not the tenth.
Fields of knowledge and enterprise have broadened immensely. And
though the end of education is discipline rather than knowledge,
yet the course of study requires readjustment from time to time.
Milton's scheme of education in the seventeenth century Would be
absurd for today. Contrast the catalogue of a modern university
with it, or even with a catalogue of fifty years ago, and the change is
astonishing. It would seem as if the knowledge of today were un-
known only half a century ago. The student can no longer be satis-
fied with physiology; the field of biology must, at least, be opened
to him. The old metaphysics must still be taught, but so. also, must
the new psychology; and so on through a wonderful range of modern
research.
It is not strange, then, that college entrance requirements have
been advanced two years in half a century, and four years in college
would not seem too much, now, if Music or Art is to be mastered
during the college course, as must be done by many. President Eliot
would have this added time saved by more economy through wiser
planning of studies and more effective teaching in primary and sec-
ondary schools, "a consummation devoutly to be wished," a worthy
aim for school directors. But it can not be reckoned on at present
in planning college courses.
Freedom is necessary for the wise development of college ideals.
The last half century has witnessed a great enlargement of curricula.
The wise exercise of freedom must be used in the future to meet the
needs of the growing diversity of modern life. Colleges must re-
quire what is necessary to maintain their old-time influence in all its
wholesome effects. To lose this factor in our future development as
a people would be a blow at progress. Combination courses may be
needful for students proposing advanced study in special lines. But
47
such courses ought not to let down the bars for all. A degree
granted for less work than is required by the usual four years' course
will tend to this.
The practical question is, how to maintain the standard of a
sufficient training for the needs of today against the pressure to reach
the goal by a short cut. To do this the bachelor's degree will help
greatly if given only to those who have mastered the standard course
with requisite thoroughness. This help has been nearly lost by the
unspeakable confusion that exists in granting degrees. Not only are
some degrees obtained without study, but the standard varies greatly
in colleges. Some have lowered it through money-making motives;
some by ambition to show a large attendance. A degree has no
standard value, but depends on the reputation of the college granting
it.
If reputable colleges offer a degree for two or three years of
work, others will make a like offer. The degree will mean even less
than it now does. Ought not the strong help the weak in the inter-
est of higher education ? Civil authority is properly invoked to pun-
ish fraud in granting degrees. Whether its aid should be sought to
uphold a standard in colleges has been debated. But among them
surely self-government ought to attain the desirable end. If such a
conference as this can agree, it will have more influence than civil
statutes. To fix such entrance requirements as the National Educa-
tional Association recommends and a four years' course to obtain the
bachelor's degree, might establish the standard. It certainly would
if this conference met annually to recognize colleges that conform to
such a standard as is the rule of many state associations. Would it not
be well to form a permanent organization at this meeting for confer-
ence on this and other points of common interest?
PROFESSOR K. Gr. KIMBLE, OF LOMBARD COLLEGE:
Mr. Chairman: There is one point in the discussion to which
we have listened here this morning, with so much pleasure and
profit, to which I would call special attention. It has been repeated-
ly urged before us that among all our educational institutions the
college is preeminently that one which lays emphasis upon culture,
upon character, upon manhood, upon the all-round development of
the individual. This contention is profoundly just; it is one which
rests upon facts of great significance. Permit me briefly to set them
forth. In the process of education, as the term is ordinarily used,
there are to be found three special, complementary, phases or part
48
processes. For want of a better terminology I shall call these instruc-
tion, education [in the primitive or root meaning of the word] and spe-
cialization. These are all present at every stage of the general process
of education, but they do not always bear the same ratio to each other
relative to the part played by each in making up the whole. At one
stage instruction will be the dominant process ; at another, education
and at another, specialization. The existence of these part-pro-
cesses is due, like that of the general process and of the temporary
dominance of one over the others, not to accident nor to caprice, but
to the essential characteristics of the development of the average in-
dividual. This fact is very significant and should not be forgotten.
Now, in this development there comes a time when in the homo-
geneity of the young mind the rudiments of that structure which is
to give shape and direction to all its future growth begin to appear.
This attempt of the mind to gain a framework for itself, to deter-
mine the lines of direction along which its energies are in future
to be exerted, must be met by the instructor with a treatment calcu-
lated to make the attempt successful. The young mind should here
come in contact with the great, common-place, fundamentals of
knowledge about which all agree so completely and so implicitly that
we usually forget they ever have been matters of knowledge at all.
This is the period when the process of instruction is dominant. It is
the period roughly covered by our schools up to, and largely includ-
ing, the high school. It is the period during which the individual
is being informed with the ripest results of the everyday experience
of the human race to the end that his further development may be
guarded from the perils of too great eccentricity and that society
may not find in its midst a person too unlike others to live with
them. Presently, when the mind has in this manner gotten its orien-
tation in the field of human experience, there arises in the individual
a restlessness, a chafing under bonds, a persistent and passionate
longing to exert and assert the self in all its powers. This is the
natural response to all that has gone before. It is the stirring of the
soul in its desire to go forth to meet the beneficent necessity of show-
ing forth, displaying, the individual nature in order that both it and
its fellows and the world of things and events may see what manner
of creature it is and may accord it that place which is its natural
due. This is the period of "education," of leading out; the period of
voyaging into unknown seas, of making new and strange friends, of
gaining fresh and multiplied points of contact with the world. This
40
is the educator's psychological moment. If he be wise and efficient
he will see to it well that the strenuous young mind now has oppor-
tunity to measure and test itself upon many and diversified fields tak-
ing care that the total result of it all shall be the educing, the lay-
ing bare, the developing of all the powers and capacities of the indi-
vidual; he will see to it that here takes place that harmonious and
all-round development which is the indispensable basis of the highest
type of culture, character, personality and efficiency. It is the work
of the college to care for the individual during this stage of his
growth. This is its historic, its necessary, function and in this it
differs radically from both high school and university, competing
with neither, complementing both. For this it is set apart. For
this it will endure. I will not go on to state to you why it is that
the next thing in order is that process by which the individual is
trained and fitted for the performance of the particular work in life
for which this education has shown him to be most adaptable. This
is that phase of the general process of education which I have called
specialization, and of it the university, the technical institute and
the professional school have charge. It is the college which interests
us at this moment in this assembly, and to it I must confine myself.
And upon the basis of what I have outlined I would have you note
concerning the college the following points: First, the educative,
cultural, character-founding function for which it stands is rooted
in the deep necessities of human development. It is no impertinent
interloper, no useless adornment, no outgrown appendage. It can-
not be given up. The very power so to do could only be derived from
the thing it would be used to destroy. The second point is this : if
this function is so important and cannot be allowed to go unper-
formed, some institution or institutions must see to it that it is al-
ways performed and that, too, with increasing efficiency. The third
point is yet more obvious : whatever institution performs this func-
tion will do the work which the real college is now doing, and will,
therefore, be nothing more nor less than the real college. Thus the
existence of the college as an institution is not a matter of question.
There is one further point, the fourth, and then I have done. The
question has arisen as to whether the college is to exist as an inde-
pendent, separate, distinct, institution or coalesce with the high school,
the university and the professional school. To this question I would
return a most emphatic reply. The function for which the college
stands is a distinct function having its own characteristics belonging
50
especially to it. Now for the performance of such functions there
is invariably developed a distinct and important structure, an insti-
tution in this case, and a distinct and important institution always
becomes as separate and independent as it is allowable for institu-
tions to become. The very spirit and atmosphere, the purpose and
method, of the secondary school, the college, and the university re-
spectively, are of such a nature and are so related to each other that
these institutions must be isolated from each other in time, place,
organization, equipment and interest of both teacher and pupil if
each institution is to do best the work which most needs its doing.
These facts are almost self-evident; their logic is invincible; the
conclusions to which they point are inevitable; the tendencies behind
them are irresistible; therefore the college will have a distinct, inde-
pendent and separate existence. We may sum up the whole matter
of the college and other educational institutions by saying that it is
by cooperation and organization, not by competition and assimila-
tion, however "benevolent," that the proper relations to each other
of the school, the college and the university are most happily and
effectively to be promoted and conserved. I thank you for your at-
tention.
THE CHAIRMAN :
We shall now be favored with a brief address by Hon. Arthur
L. Bates, representative of Allegheny College, and who represents
his district in Congress.
CONGRESSMAN BATES:
Mr. Chairman: I had supposed that this concluded the exer-
cises of the morning; I will not talk all the time that remains.
The fact that I did desire to say a word earlier in the morning is
due to the supposition that a discussion was to be precipitated upon
this very august body. I think now, however, it would be in order
for President James to send for the most powerful microscope in his
institution and make diligent search for some argument on the other
side of this proposition which has been stated in the bill of fare
for this morning.
I came here of the same opinion of the gentlemen who have
addressed this meeting. I am like the old judge who told the young
practitioner: "There is no use of making an argument, Mr. A., the
Court is with you/' But Mr. A. went on and elaborated his posi-
tion, only to be interrupted at last by the remark, "In spite of your
argument, the Court is still with you." I am in that position now.
61
In spite of the learned and eloquent arguments brought forth I am
still with you.
What do the technical schools want? What do they desire?
Their position has not been stated. I do not know why. The idea
is represented in this gathering that the American college has not
a field peculiar to itself and distinct in itself that is not covered by
the technical school. Do the graduates of the technical schools de-
sire to be classed among the learned professions? The old-fashioned
phrase "learned professions" applies to the Law, the Ministry and to
Medicine. Why are these three called the learned professions? Be-
cause by the rules of the law schools and the medical schools and
the theological schools, and, as has been stated here this morning,
because in some cases by statutes of commonwealths, a liberal edu-
cation precedes the inception of the technical training. Hence, they
are rightly denominated the learned professions. Does the civil en-
gineer, does the mechanical engineer, does the electrical engineer, do
those in the mechanical walks of life do they desire to be classed
in that denomination? A case of this sort came to me the other
day. I received official notice from Washington that during June
an examination would be held for the choosing of twelve civil engi-
neers for tne Naval Department of this government, and those who
passed a proper examination for civil engineer would receive a com-
pensation to start with of $2,700. Those who passed the examina-
tion for assistant would receive from $1,800 to $2,000, and all would
enter the regular service, and it would be practically a life position
and with advancing pay and emoluments. I thought of the son of
a friend of mine who had graduated at a Pennsylvania college in
what was called the Civil Engineering department. It was one of
those elective courses. He had been doing some work for one of
the railroads in the position of assistant civil engineer, and I thought
this woulcl afford him an excellent opportunity for bettering his
position. He was very eager in the matter until he saw that the
requirements of this examination were not more than half covered
by the elective course he had pursued in the college. He had failed
in both respects. He had not followed a liberal course of education ;
he had only half taken the technical training necessary to fully de-
velop him to take an examination to become a civil engineer in the
navy department of his country. It showed me the proof positive,
which comes to anyone who has looked into the question, that elec-
tives should be elected by the competent minds of those fitted to
judge, and not by the immature minds of those who apply. I be-
52
lieve, Mr. Chairman and Friends, that the elective courses ought
to be not eliminated, possibly but regulated in some way by ma-
ture minds. If the young man of sixteen or seventeen is to decide
what course he is to take, why should he not decide who is to be
president of the college and who shall be his professor or teacher?
If he is competent to decide one, he is competent to decide the other.
I have often rejoiced that my father kept me from going into some
technical course in college when I was sixteen. I know young men
whose fathers have made egregious blunders by allowing their sons
to go unrestrained because the boys thought they knew what they
wanted to do. They wanted a short cut and they went into the
so-called technical training when they ought to have been prepar-
ing their minds as the farmer would prepare a field by plowing
deep, taking out the rocks and stumps, and then putting in the
marker and deciding where he would plant this crop and that crop.
I believe the American college stands for development and
mental growth and acumen and that no technical school and no tech-
nical training can ever take the place of the liberal course of instruc-
tion afforded the youth of today in the American college that gives
us the wealth of letters, and gives us the association with the ages
of the past; that enables us to walk with Horace in the garden,
to go with Cicero to the Capitol, and to converse yes, converse
with the best minds of the world, and to be on familiar terms with
the sayings and the truths that have been uttered all along down
the ages.
There is another side to this question which I am sure is not
represented here. There is the swing of the pendulum first one
way and then the other. The return swing is beginning. Money-
making is the curse of the American people today and there are
in our American colleges some professors who would eliminate all
that does not lead immediately to practical results. They would give
technical and scientific training to a sixteen years' old boy. These
beliefs exist, but I think are not represented here. They are being
projected and believed by some of the American people and I con-
gratulate you, gentlemen, on the staid and firm, and if you please
to call them "old fogy" ideas that I believe are right. I believe
in still employing the conservative method for the uplifting, the
moral and intellectual uplifting, of the American people to the high
plane which I believe we are nearing from day to day and year to
year. The American college is one of the grandest institutions in the
world and I hope it will not be assailed by utilitarian ideas.
53
THE CHAIRMAN:
Is there anybody who will take up that other side? If not we
can hear more of the first.
DR. FRANCES DICKINSON, OF HARVEY MEDICAL COLLEGE :
Mr. Chairman: I should like to ask this question: Can the
standard of the schools be kept up without the protection of the law?
THE CHAIRMAN : Is there any answer to this inquiry ?
Dn DICKINSON : The integrity of the medical education is pro-
tected by law; I wonder if the standard of other professional courses
and other literary degrees would be strengthened if they had the
same legal protection, or does freedom of adjustment make better
standards ?
PRESIDENT FISHER, OF HANOVER COLLEGE:
Mr. Chairman: I want first to express my gratification that
since the newspapers for a year or two have been full of the other
side of this question, now we have an opportunity to say something
on this side of it ; and I hope that the newspapers will publish enough
to show the attitude of this body.
I want also to call your attention to the fact that everything
that is involved in the entire list of questions submitted is involved
in this first inquiry. There is nothing of much importance outside
of it.
The first question which I wish to raise is, whence does the desire
come for such a departure as is thus indicated? We say that the
College has a field peculiar to itself. This is just what in some
quarters seems to be denied. But who is it that raises the doubt?
In the first place I am perfectly satisfied that it is not the profes-
sional schools. For instance, the Medical Convention, which has
just been in session in New Orleans, expressly declares in favor
of a full college course for medical students. I am sure that it
does not come from any good Law School. It is perfectly evident
to this body that it is not from the majority of the Colleges. It
limits itself either to the great outside world, or to a few large col-
leges that for some reason have fallen in with this notion.
Still, I suppose that a question of this sort could not arise
unless there were something in it. When many people advocate a
thing, as a rule there must be something in it, or supposed to be in
it, else they would not take up with it. Mr. Crane, speaking for
the great outside world, says that a course in college whether long
54
or short is of no use. No use for what? Perhaps not to fit a man
to go into a manufactory or a store. But a course in college is
usually for some other purpose. Does it fit him for higher work ? It
certainly does, and four years are none too much time for this.
Now, as to the institutions from which this desire comes. It
is from a very small number of very large institutions. Why?
Pardon me for saying it, I have been a college president for twenty-
five years, and while my college is a "small" one it has given me
an opportunity to see things. The first thing some of these large
institutions attempted was to push up the standard for entrance;
and the smaller colleges managed to keep in sight of them. The
higher standard of entrance used to be the cry. My own judgment
is that they built their chimneys so high that now they want to
lower them.
But let us look at the merits of this proposal as it affects the
colleges themselves. No one wants the course cut short for all stu-
dents. Everyone here knows what would be the effect of that on
the colleges. One fellow gets out in two or three years because he
is going to a professional school, and another is expected to stay
four. How many will stay four? Not one in twenty. You simply
are abolishing one or two years of the course on this plan.
On the other hand, what will be the effect on the professional
schools? Every medical or law school would thus be saying that
somewhere you can without harm take one or two years out of your
preparation for your life work; just what every good one among
them insists must not be done.
In fact, who wants it? In these western colleges a great many
who enter do not go farther than the Sophomore or Junior year;
some because they fail, but more for other reasons. Why not allow
them to continue to do this, and not graduate? It seems to me that
the thing sought by this handful of large institutions is, instead
of this, to be able to give these men a degree. That is all there is
in it. These are some of the things that were in my mind.
PROFESSOR FLETCHER B. DRESSLAR, OF CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY :
Mr. Chairman: I would like to ask you a question. Represent-
ing a theological school as you do, do you call it a technical school ?
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
PROF. DRESSLAR: Do you teach the history of the Hebrew
people ?
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, sir.
55
PROF. DRESSLAR: Do you think it would be educational to
any young man or young woman to learn carefully the history of
the Hebrew people?
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
PROF. DRESSLAR : Might it not, then, be done in college as well
as in the technical school?
THE CHAIRMAN : I would say, no.
PROF. DRESSLAR: Provided the man in the technical school
knew more about it than the man in the college. Other things
equal, might it not be taught just as well then in the college and
just as much culture come from it as if taught in a technical school ?
My question leads to this: Are there not subjects that are of vital
importance both to technical work and to manhood and scholarship
and character? If so, can we not use them to help our young
people to serve themselves and the state and the world better by
making the combination ?
We have no theological work in the University of California,
but we have taught there the history of the Hebrew people. And I
say to you, other things being equal, it is just as helpful to them
as to study the history of the Egyptian people. Now, isn't it pos-
sible that there is a middle ground, instead of saying that you are
on one side or else you have got to be on the other? Is it not
possible? It seems to me here is a place for us to consider. The
college does not have the whole truth and nothing but the truth,
possibly. Neither does the university have the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, possibly. But can not they each help the
other? Certainly there is no better place to become strong and
helpful than the college, and when my boy gets big enough to go
to college I want to put him in a college rather than a great uni-
versity, though I have the honor to represent the University of
California with its four thousand students. This question does not
mean that the colleges are to fight the university as such. This is
the question with our institutions: That we have here many kinds
of institutions and the institution that can work out the best thing
will get the reward and will get the honor, and that institution
that lags behind, whether it be a college or a university, will be the
hindmost one and you know what happens to the hindmost one.
We do not want in this country of ours a systematic line of educa-
tional work. We want something looking as near to right methods
as we can have. Out of this we get a better, richer., nobler life.
58
Likewise there is a field for the university that tries to find things
that will help both ways.
PRESIDENT BOWLING, OF CEEIGHTON UNIVERSITY:
Mr. Chairman: I must confess to a feeling of disappointment.
We were expected to take up some live and practical discussion. But
from the unanimity developed it would seem that we have been
threshing old straw. I do not believe that such is the state of the
case; there are many who hold different opinions from ours on this
question. There is no such unanimity as appears. After this meet-
ing we will have to meet the questions and objections of those who
believe that the college has no particular place of its own. It seems
to me that we ought to give voice in some way that will be under-
stood of the faith that is in us in regard to the function of the col-
lege. It may be that a noisy minority is making a great deal of
fuss about this question; but since we all seem to be of one mind
we ought to be able to reach a definite result and formulate it. I
have come five hundred miles just simply to attend this conference
because I hoped we would be able to get some practical results. I
felt that there was a necessity for rearranging the college course and
for escaping chaos. If there is such a thing as co-ordinate effort
and any possibility of agreeing on any line of action, we ought to
get together. Now, how would it be if at the end of each of these
questions we take a vote so as to express our preferences? This vote
would not bind anybody we are not here in a position to bind
our respective institutions. Certainly, that action would have a great
deal of moral force. It does not seem that we can accomplish much
without a vote. Suppose that the Secretary should call the names
of the delegates and ask, "What does such and such a college vote?"
If any one does not wish to answer he does not need to do so. It
will show those that stand together who are with them and they will
have the strength of greater unanimity in the ideas they hold. I
would suggest that we try to get some practical results by seeing
how many stand for or against these various propositions. I do
not want to put this in the way of a motion unless the Chairman
thinks it desirable.
A DELEGATE:
Mr. Chairman: I believe that the positions of the various in-
stitutions can not be expressed by Yes or No. Inasmuch as the dis-
cussion will be continued this afternoon, I move we adjourn.
Motion seconded.
Adjourned.
57
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1903, 2 :00 P. M.
PRESIDENT BOWLING, OF CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY, IN THE CHAIR.
THE CHAIRMAN:
The question to be discussed this afternoon is, Is it desirable
that the college course should be reduced in time from four to three
or even two years, and correspondingly in amount of work? The
first paper will be presented by President George E. Merrill, of Col-
gate University.
PRESIDENT MERRILL:
I cannot say what I wish to say upon this question without first
putting myself on record as opposed to the shortening of the four
years' course. The reasons which I shall urge for devising a new
course for a three years' term of student life, if it should be neces-
sary to adopt that shorter period, are in some degree the same rea-
sons I would urge for keeping the longer term.
I am averse to a shortening of the four year course because, in
my judgment, the college should educate, not only its students, but
the public at large, in the truth that the hurry and bustle of the
age, perilous in many ways, is fatal to the best development of man-
hood and to the preservation of the best social life. I would almost
be willing to say that this reason alone is enough for the four year
course. The college should be the strongest conservative force in
America to preserve the quiet and repose which alone are favorable
to culture the quiet and repose which are themselves a part of
culture. It is a distinct misfortune if our youth are forced to
yield to the pressure of life before they fairly have entered life.
I would not plead one moment for idleness. I would not foster
feebleness of effort or purpose. I do not think our undergraduates
now are in very much danger of overwork, and I would not give
them more latitude than they have. But if so much time as they
now have can be kept intact for the consideration of many subjects
of intellectual culture ; if they can retain the privileges of ample and
unhurried liberal study, before they are thrown into conditions, either
in the professional school or in the outside world, in which they
must surrender their freedom to the bonds of the life-pursuit, their
term of education will be of much higher value than under condi-
tions of greater pressure. It is evident enough that the technical
58
and the professional schools must put their students to the distinct
work which is to occupy their attention for life, and practically the
lawyer is a lawyer, the physician a physician, the minister a min-
ister when he begins his work in the professional school. And it is
well that in the shortest practicable time the professional student
should pass from the stage of preparation to practice. But the col-
lege has other ends in view. It defeats its own purpose if it gives
over a part of its course to technical studies, or cuts off its own
time for the sake of technical studies that are to follow. The col-
lege must have the large, unhurried opportunity, or it very largely
ceases to be a college. It is doing its part in preparing manhood
and making citizens, who in any profession, or in no profession, in
society, in citizenship, shall have the trained mind, the disciplined
judgment which shall make them capable of leadership in general
affairs. Other agencies join hands with the college in this broad
work, but no one of them can do the work of the college. And for
this purpose it would be more logical to extend rather than curtail
the time in the college. It is the American vice to reduce life to
activities. It is the part of the college to foster thought. It is a
misfortune if the fostering of thought, the liberalizing of the mind,
must give place to the intense strain of specializing at an early time
in the life of the student. To those who would ask: "What shall
we do, in an age replete, as no other has been, with subjects of
knowledge what shall we do for the best interests of education?" it
is a strange answer to give : "Cut down the time \" When the col-
lege is richest in its intellectual resources shall it say to the world,
"This opulence is of no account. Refuse to use it. Decrease op-
portunity as possibilities increase." It seems absurd to make such
answers. Is it not better to say that all the demands of the future
life require the amplest culture of the mind in the early years? Is
it not better to open these four years to the widest possibilities and
make sure that ample time is given to the general culture which they
may offer? The hurry will begin soon enough. The pressure will
grip the mind very early. After graduation there will no longer
be any, or but little freedom, and the one special subject will hold
the student to itself with ever growing power. It seems to me that {
it is wise to demand of the college that conservatism which shall
protect the higher education from the vicious American habit of
hurry and pressure, and secure for the time when such intense activ- i
ity is inevitable the stability and power that are the natural prod-
ucts of calm, prolonged preparation.
50
Moreover, a true college method demands much time. I grant
you that if you are to employ university methods in college instruc-
tion, perhaps some of the time would better be cut off. If you are
going to carry the lecture method, and the approval of published
notes in cramming for examinations, and the rating by examination
only, into the comparatively irresponsible but the more plastic years
of training, your college will suffer less from diminution of time.
But if you are to bring each student into the class-room for daily
contact with his teacher and for the expression of his own powers,
the divulging of his own condition of mind at frequent intervals;
if you are going to note his daily diligence; show him thoroughness
of method in acquisition; train his intellectual powers for frequent
yet safe transition from one subject to another; if you are going
to complete for him the solid foundations of knowledge before you
give him over to the special and intense application to one subject;
if you wish to make him a citizen of all ages and countries in his sym-
pathies, and if you are to humanize him by personally conducting
him in contact with your own mind and soul through all the human
interests represented in the college then you need at least our present
allotment of time. College method must have generous opportunity.
But if compression of time must come, shall the attempt be made
to crowd the work of four years into three ? Or shall a new course be
prepared for the shorter time ? I think there can be very little doubt
that compression of time will come. The very calling of this con-
vention will emphasize the demand, even if it should fail to make a
definite recommendation to that end. The cry for an earlier beginning
of bread-winning, especially on the part of professional men; the
somewhat unequal comparisons between the German and French educa-
tional systems and our own; and even such remarkable deductions as
the President of Harvard College draws from his array of the vital
statistics of Harvard graduates; with many other arguments, con-
centrate their force upon the shortening of the college course. Indeed
we have to face not only argument but actual fact in the present con-
ditions in many colleges. A three years' course is in practical opera-
tion, under varying conditions, at Harvard, Amherst, Dartmouth,
Bowdoin, Tufts, Clark, Columbian and other colleges. In many of
these colleges, however, it is hardly fair to call the course a three years'
course, for the privilege of making this course is granted only to men
of exceptional standing, and it is not possible to the average man.
Harvard, however, has now come squarely to the reduction for all men,
who wish it, and two or three of the schools I have named are alto-
60
gether upon the three-year plan. There may yet be many sinuosities
in the course of the movement, but where the head of the serpent goes
the tail is very likely to follow, no matter with what wrigglings. And
we are asked to face the problem of the shortened course, if it should
become general. If it comes, then it seems to me that a new scheme,
both as to the subjects and quantity, must be devised. It is only very
brilliant men who can do four years' work in three. It would be
wholly impracticable to require this of all students. And even if it
could be done, it would be far from desirable for exactly the same
reasons that I have urged for the retention of the four years' course.
The quiet, the repose, the freedom that are essential to culture must
be maintained. If only three years are to be given to the college, they
should be more than ever guarded. The struggles of life are a year
nearer to the student. The broad view is the sooner to be lost in the
specializing of the profession. More precious than ever is opportunity.
Make, then, a course that will be adapted to the time. Offer fewer
subjects (alas ! that it must be so) ; diminish the freedom of elec-
tion; discourage all premature approaches to specializing; but with
the two ideas of breadth and correlation arrange a quantity which
shall require diligence, indeed, but relieve the student of ceaseless
toil. Otherwise the experiment of the three years' course will be
fraught with peril. Many schools have tried to place the tasks of
manhood on the shoulders of youth. Men of college age ought not
to work as the world has a right to expect them to work at the age of
thirty-five. I believe that any attempt to crowd our present amount
of work into narrower limits will be very injurious to the student ; and
it will be fatal to the true spirit of a broad and effective culture.
Of course, in saying this I would not lose sight of the fact that
changed conditions of college life apart from the curriculum might
make it possible to carry practically the same amount of work now
in four years. The interesting experiment of the Collegiate Depart- !
ment of Clark University is now making in this direction. If students \
will forswear fraternity joys, avoid the pleasures of social life, and '=
restrict athletics to simple hygienic limits, a considerable time could
be taken from four years and all the present work be done. I can not
argue here the question whether the loss to college life and its genuine
culture would be greater than the gain by such a curtailment of its
social and sportive activities; but I venture to assert that the loss
would be so considerable as to make the change in any of the older col-
leges practically unwise. But it is not only because the life of the
student should be kept measurably free and open, with ample chance
61
for assimilation, that I urge a carefully arranged special course. I
can not see how the present range and number of subjects can be
crowded into so much ]ess space without the intellectual confusion
both of instructor and pupil. Even now there is an evil tendency to
bring together subjects that would better be separated, and to dissi-
pate the mind by an election of too many subjects in the given time.
Both in character and method, therefore, as well as in quantity, the
curriculum should be greatly changed. Clark College has wisely
arranged its group system to meet these ends. And it is fortunate that
we already have enough testimony from other colleges, where com-
pression of four years' work into three is allowed to students of high
standing, to the end that very few men will attempt the task; while
in some cases, as Wellesley, it is declared "almost a physical impos-
sibility" for it to be done. I am sure that the same thing must be said
of the College with which I have the honor to be connected.
I have felt the embarrassment all through this paper, that the
courtesy due to other announced topics has limited me to a very gen-
eral discussion. The temptation has been constant to pass over my
bounds into the details of the question of the relation of the college
to the professional schools, from which comes almost all the pressure
for a shortening of the college course. It is sufficiently germane to my
subject, however, to suggest that so far as a shorter course is demanded
by professional interests it is quite possible to eliminate at least a year
from the combined periods of college and professional school without
seriously affecting the nature or the time of the college course. The
State of New York through the Eegents is just now effecting changes
in our educational law by which a certain amount of science subjects
in the college will give credit for the whole of the first year in the
medical school. No violence is done to the college curriculum, which
has long included a very large portion, if not the whole, of these
requirements in science, while for many years the first year of the
medical school has been a mere repetition of the college work. The
college course will not be shortened a day ; the college degree will not
be debased in value a particle ; nor the liberal character of the college
curriculum be diminished by the change. In the same way theological
curricula can be tied together by certain philosophical, sociological,
historical and linguistic subjects, as we are proving in our own
University, where our professional school is theological ; and it would
be strange if legal acumen could not discover similar arrangements for
the schools of Law. But these questions are to be fully discussed by
others, and therefore they can have but this brief mention on my part.
62
In conclusion I shall reveal a secret of the faculty meetings of
Colgate University. I am not sure, indeed, that all the members of
our faculty are themselves aware of the fact of which I speak. As I
preside in the faculty room I notice that all discussions are peaceful
until some brother refers to another brother as "My Colleague." That
is a storm signal. When the tenderness of the relation of colleagues
becomes conspicuous, trouble is brewing. It is fair to say that the
questions now before this conference have never called forth the term
colleague in our faculty room. To us the questions have not seemed
so insistent as to many, for we have said, even as I have now said in
closing this paper : "Go to, let the professional school cut its course \"
Yet, if the cut should come on the college, while we should be sorry
and should believe it to be on the whole injurious to the cultured life
of the country; and while we should wholly refuse to lead off in the
innovation ; we would not refuse to join in the procession but be proud
to bring up the rear.
THE CHAIRMAN:
The discussion will be taken up by President Webster Merrifield,
of the University of North Dakota.
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD :
Mr. Chairman ; Fellow Teachers : I have no prepared paper and
I have no prepared speech. I am, however, going to use a few minutes
in giving you the result of our experience in North Dakota. I repre-
sent, as you know, a pioneer state, a state in which the conditions, I
have no doubt, are somewhat unique. I am sure that conditions with
us are somewhat different from the conditions with President Merrill.
Our young people are all comparatively poor. I venture to say that
nine-tenths of our students are largely self supporting. It is needless
to say, therefore, that these young people have to be out more or less,
that their attendance at the University is somewhat irregular. The
result has been with us that the young people would start in to take a
four years' course and find themselves, perhaps at the beginning of the
last year, with several terms of back work not made up. They would
then try by "stealing bases" and by "working" the faculty to get
through, and though the faculty would resolve at the beginning of the
senior year that certain students would not be allowed to graduate that
year, in the end the outcome usually was that the students would throw
themselves with a few short-comings on our mercy and we would let
them through. This sort of thing has led to a great deal of good-
natured wrangling in our faculty meetings. We have a good deal of
63
the "colleague" business. We have adopted a measure 1 that is some-
what of a compromise in the hope that it will enable these young
people to get out of their difficulties without calling on us to sacrifice
our consistency. I am going to post up here a scheme 2 which pro-
vides for a three years' course, that is for the completion of the four
years' course in three years.
I ought to say that the scheme which I am about to set forth is
not entirely original with us, although I think we have the credit of
working it out. President Hyde of Bowdoin College, in a magazine
article last summer, made some suggestions which we have worked out
in detail. The scheme is the outgrowth of a conviction on our part
that there are great differences in human capabilities. I believe that
some young people are capable of doing twice the work which others
are able to do, and of doing it quite as well. I am sure we have with
us young people who carry five studies with greater ease than others
carry three. The scheme which I wish to elaborate is as follows : We
divide our students into five general classes. We have a class of
students which we call "Pass," a class which we call "Fair," a class
called "Good," a class called "Excellent," and, combined with these
classes, but as no necessary part of the plan, we have what we call
"Special Honors." With us a unit of work is one term's work in a
given subject. We give the "Pass" student one credit for that work.
In the course of the year we give him twelve credits. The "Pass"
student must spend the full four years to earn the forty-eight credits
required for graduation. To a student classed "Fair" we give each
term one-tenth of a credit additional, for each subject. The "Good"
student receives for each unit of work one and two-tenths credits, the
"Excellent" one and three-tenths, and if a student take honors we
give two-tenths additional each term for each honor. The "Fair"
student for four courses in one term receives four and four-tenths
credits; at the end of the year, thirteen and two-tenths; and at the
end of four years fifty-two and eight-tenths. In like manner the
"Good" student, who receives one and two-tenths credits per term for
each course, at the end of four years receives fifty-seven and six-tenths
credits, or in three years forty-three and two-tenths. The "Excellent"
student in the same way receives sixty-two and four-tenths credits in
four years, or forty-six and eight-tenths in three years ; and if he take
two honors he receives forty-eight credits and graduates in three years.
We believe that such a student will graduate at the end of three years
1. See pages 68-70.
2. See page 69.
64
with quite as much honor to his class and quite as much credit to him-
self, and will go out quite as useful a citizen as the student who takes
the full four years. The old idea used to be that, although the good
student could do his work in shorter time and with greater ease than
the poor or indifferent student, yet he would spend his leisure time
in outside reading; he would cultivate his mind by drinking in the
atmosphere of the institution, etc. While the clever student sometimes
did that, in my experience in the East and in the West the clever fel-
low quite as often spent the time in lounging and dissipation. There
was no sufficient incentive for effort. Of course, the earnest student
made a good use of his time, but earnestness, in my experience, is
largely an acquisition. I have often known students who at eighteen
or twenty were not earnest and at thirty or thirty-five were exceed-
ingly earnest.
A DELEGATE : Under your system will not the excellent or honor
student miss some subjects necessary to a liberal education ?
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD:
After twenty-five years of teaching I can not say just what consti-
tutes a liberal education. When I was in college the term Biology
was unknown. Now, we will suppose, I have a professor of Biology
who knows nothing of Greek, while I, the professor of Greek, know
nothing of Biology. Is my professor of Biology, without Greek, and
am I, without Biology, liberally educated ? Probably someone here can
tell. I can not. The upshot of my experience of twenty-five years is
practically this, that the most one gets out of college is a certain
amount of mental and moral power, and that is about all he needs to
get out of it.
This in brief is what I have to offer as an humble contribution
from a new and pioneer state. I do not claim for it any advantage
for other institutions, but it serves our purposes and I believe it has
not resulted in the degrading in any way of the course. Our A. B. is
just as valuable as before. This plan provides for the more energetic
students a way of getting out in three years with a degree which is
worth, we believe quite as much as the four years' degree.
A DELEGATE : Have you any difficulty with your students as to
their grade in their own minds? Does a "Fair" student complain
because he is not graded "Excellent?"
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD: Yes, we have that brand of human
nature. We have some students who never think that they get their
deserts.
A DELEGATE : You publish these grades in the catalogue ?
65
u
(<
PRESIDENT MEREIFIELD: Yes, sir, we shall in the forthcoming
edition.
A DELEGATE : Do you consider that an essential feature, publish-
ing the grades ?
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD : The publication I do not regard as
essential.
A DELEGATE: Is not publication calculated to humiliate the
dullard or lazy student?
t PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD : I am coming to think there is no such
hing as a dullard. Let me explain.
Although I am a product of the old style college course and pre-
side over an institution which for many years had only that course, I
do not feel altogether grateful to the old style training. I feel that
it left me lame in various directions. Since we established our depart-
ment of Engineering, the "dunderheads," the fellows who never used
to do anything, have really come to life. They do things that are
brilliant. I think they are just beginning to find themselves. They
had a faculty that was dumb in terms of Greek and Latin but
which finds eloquent expression in terms of the plane and turning
lathe, and I am beginning to think that the old style education, the old-
fashioned college course, left a lot of people expressionless simply
because it did not give them an adequate language of expression. You
could put me down to a piano and I could not do anything. But I
should object to being called a dunderhead because I can not electrify
you on the piano. In the same way the student who can not do wonder-
ful things in Latin and Greek and possibly mathematics has a right
not to be set down as a dullard.
It is true that under our plan the student who is only "Passable"
or "Fair" will have to be content to be classed as "Passable" or "Fair."
I do not see why the student who is "Excellent" should not be called
"Excellent" in college as in the world. The world is notoriously
frank in its judgments and I do not believe it is unmitigated kind-
ness for us to shelter the inefficient and the lazy. Their awakening
when they get out in the world will be all the ruder for undue coddling
in college.
PRESIDENT BASHFORD : Do you not give double reward by classi-
fying "Excellent" and graduating in three years ?
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD: Of course you might leave out the
honors altogether. Our object in giving the honors was to dignify
scholarship and to offer an inducement to young men and women to do
outside work.
66
PRESIDENT KING : I would like to inquire whether the experiment
has been sufficiently tried in this institution for the President to have
an opinion as to its practicability, and if so, I would like him to answer
what he thinks of the practicability and actual working out of the
problems from the standpoint of the students, from the standpoint of
the faculty and from an educational standpoint.
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD: Our experience has been very limited
but I believe the plan to be thoroughly practicable. It seems to me it
lets a student out at the end of the three years in the right way.
Yale and Harvard let him out at the end of three years if he has car-
ried an extra amount of work. Our experience has been that that
begets a certain superficiality on the part of the best students, and
unless a student is rugged he is apt to break down under the strain.
I think these dangers are eliminated here. There is no inducement
here for superficiality, and I ought to add that we have a provision in
our regulations whereby any candidate for honors who neglects his
work in military science or physical culture, or is injuring his health
by overwork may at any time by vote of the faculty be deprived of the
privilege of honor work.
Another feature of the plan is that if a student has been out of
school for a time he can get his degree at any other time than at the
end of the year. For instance, the "Pass" student will finish in four
years, the "Fair" in three years and two terms, the "Good" in three
years and one term, and the "Excellent" with two honors, in three
years. If the "Excellent" student took three honors he could get out
in a little less than three years. If he lost a term he might make
it up in this way. I have no reason to believe that the plan will not
work with entire success with us.
A DELEGATE : I understand that by this plan you graduate a dull
student at the end of four years and make that the standard of your
graduation ?
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD: Yes, sir.
A DELEGATE : Is it not inconceivable that any student should be
"Excellent" in all of his subjects ?
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD : He does not need to be "Excellent" in
all subjects. He must be "Excellent" in one subject and at least
"Good" in all; in that event he will graduate in three years. The
student must have a general average of such a character that it will
put him in the "Excellent" class. He may not fall below "Good" and
graduate in three years.
A DELEGATE : May I ask whether this plan has been tried at all
in ) r our University? 67
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD: We are trying it now; we propose to
adopt it finally next year. Our brief experience with it has been
entirely satisfactory and the students seem to be as much pleased with
it as the faculty are.
A DELEGATE: Would this arrangement require many more
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD: No, sir. We have no difficulty in that
way. We have a wide range of electives and the classes are offered for
the "Pass" students. It has not increased the number of our classes
at all. Our classes were organized on the old four year basis.
A DELEGATE: Is each student allowed to take as many subjects
as he is capable of taking ?
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD: Four is the normal maximum. No
honor student can take more than four.
A DELEGATE : Then he is credited for extra periods of time, for
extra work in those four studies ?
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD : Yes, sir. The honor student takes six-
teen hours a week and gets through in three years.
A DELEGATE : You rate students on the quality and not on the
quantity ?
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD: Yes, sir.
A DELEGATE : May I ask just what the requirements for gradua-
tion are ? Is it so many credits for work ?
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD: It is so many credits for work which
ordinarily would require four years of residence. Forty-eight credits
are required for graduation instead of forty-eight units of work, the
credits running from a minimum of a credit for each unit of work
to a maximum of a credit and one-half for each unit of work.
A DELEGATE : What is it that constitutes a unit of work ?
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD : A unit is a term's work in one subject.
A DELEGATE : Your term is three months ?
PRESIDENT MERRIFIELD: Yes, sir.
UNIVERSITY GRADES AND HONORS.
A. System of Credits.
1. Marks based upon the class work and the final examination
shall be given to all students at the end of each term as follows :
1. Scheme adopted by University of North Dakota. Copy submitted
by President Merrifield. See page 64.
68
Excellent (Ex.) Conditioned (C.)
Good (G.) Failed (Failed)
Fair (F.) Incomplete (I)
Pass (P.)
Incomplete work should be indicated as Ix., Ig., or If., etc.,
according to quality.
2. In order to encourage excellence in work, quality as well as
quantity is to be taken into consideration in determining a student's
fitness for graduation. In order to receive a degree a student must
have completed forty-eight units of college work ; i. e., the equivalent
of four courses during three terms for four years. In computing his
credits, however, the following plan shall be employed:
Por , 1 course 4 courses 4 courses Curriculum Tri ,
Iterm 1 term 1 year 4 years In 3 years
Pass 1. 4. 12. 48. 36.
Fair 1.1 4.4 13.2 52.8 39.6
Good 1.2 4.8 14.4 57.6 43.2
Excellent 1.3 5.2 15.6 62.4 46.8
Honor .2 .2 .6 1.8 1 1.2 2
Excellent with Honor 1.5 5.4 16.2 64.2 48.
3. A student is entitled to his degree whenever he has forty-
eight units of work to his credit, provided he has passed all the re-
quired subjects in his curriculum.
B. Final Grades.
1. Final grades shall be awarded as follows :
Those having an average of 1.28 or more are assigned to the First
Grade; those having an average of from 1.24 to 1.28 to the Second
Grade; those having an average of from 1.20 to 1.24 to the Third
Grade. Those below 1.20 are not graded.
2. These grades are determined by dividing the number of the
units of work which the student has to his credit by the number of
term courses he has taken, the maximum being 1.33.
3. These grades shall be printed on the Commencement program
at the time the student graduates, and also in the Catalogue next
published.
C. Special Honors.
Special honors are awarded as a mark of high scholarship and
special attainments to students in the Normal College and the Colleges
of Arts and Engineering. Candidates for these honors must main-
1. 3 honors. 2. 2 honors.
69
tain a standing in all subjects of at least "Good," and in addition must
do special work in connection with one or more of their regular courses.
To undertake honor work a student must have already completed in
a satisfactory manner three full college courses; and he must have
already evinced special ability in the line of work in which he proposes
to specialize.
The following are the conditions and rules of procedure governing
the award of these honors :
1. A student desiring to study for honors must first gain the
consent of the head of the department in which he desires to do special
work.
2. He must within three weeks from the beginning of the college
year petition the faculty to be allowed to undertake the special work.
3. If the student is allowed to become a candidate for honors
he will at once arrange his special work with the professor in charge of
the department in which he proposes to specialize, and the professor
will assign him work of a more special, technical or intensive nature
than that done in connection with the regular college courses.
4. The candidate for honors must maintain a standing of "Excel-
lent" in the regular college course in connection with which he is doing
the special work, and in addition must creditably pass such examina-
tions, prepare such reports, essays, and theses as may be required by
the professor in charge. Finally within three weeks of Commence-
ment, he must satisfactorily pass a written examination upon the
special work of the year.
5. No student taking more than four regular college courses
can be a candidate for honors.
6. No student can study for honors in more than one department
at a time.
7. No student during his college course can be granted more
than three honors, nor more than two in one branch of study.
8. All honor students at their graduation shall have their names
printed on the Commencement program together with the subject or
subjects in which honor or honors have been granted. They shall be
designated as Single Honors, Double Honors, and Triple Honors.
The names and honors shall also be printed in the next catalogue.
9. Any candidate for honors who neglects his work in military
science or physical culture or who violates any of the rules of the
University, or who, in the judgment of the faculty, is injuring his
health by overstudy or neglect of exercise may at any time, by a vote
of the faculty, be deprived of the privilege and obliged to drop his
honor work.
70
THE CHAIRMAN:
The discussion will be continued by President Charles W. Need-
ham, of the Columbian University.
PRESIDENT NEEDHAM:
I have observed in the discussion carried on, in which I have been
greatly interested, that there is a preponderance of college men. I
want to say at the beginning that I indorse heartily and would empha-
size all the sentiments that have been expressed today. When I saw
the question which was to be discussed this forenoon I did not for a
moment think that it was expected that there would be any addresses
or talk upon the negative. I did not assume for a moment that it was
expected that there would be. I assumed that the college men simply
wanted to be assured that they were appreciated. There is no question
about the field of the college. It has a sphere of its own and we are
here, if I understand the call, for the purpose of discussing the boun-
daries of this and other fields of education.
Let me explain the attitude of the business man. I wish to say
just a word for him. I was in one of the great business institutions
of the country the other day and application was being made by a man
for a place. He had influential backing, was a fine fellow; he had
graduated from a fine college ; he did not smoke nor drink ; he had no
bad habits ; he was not afraid of work, he said. And after talking with
him the manager said, "That is all good excellent, I am glad you
have it. Unfortunately we have no place for you." And the man was
turned away. The manager said to me, "It is unfortunate that these
college men think that they are entitled to places simply because they
have been through college."
I said, "You depreciate college life and work, do you not ?"
"No," he replied, "I believe in it profoundly, and we must have
it if we are to have the proper culture of mind and readiness to turn
from one occupation or business to another."
Our President Koosevelt is a remarkably fine illustration of the
type of Americans who can turn from one thing to another quickly;
he is a college man. But this is something beyond the college. We
have moved into the age of specialization. You and I cannot get away
from it. Unless a man is a specialist along some line he cannot be use-
ful in the higher fields of work ; he cannot obtain a place in the great
organizations which are covering the industrial and commercial world
today. The man must have the breadth of culture which the college
gives as a foundation, but upon this foundation he must build a
special structure, he must specialize.
71
X
Let us define the field. The college has been spoken of as that
agency which "makes the man." There is a sense in which this state-
ment is very true. I remember when I started out after being admitted
to the bar, Judge Ira Harris said, "It is a great thing to be a lawyer,
but it is a greater thing to be a man/' There is a sense in which it is
true that the college is the making of the man. It gives him depth,
breadth and a general fitness for every occupation. A definition has
been quoted from Milton having in it the words "preparation for skil-
ful work." That does not mean general culture ; it means the knowl-
edge of some particular thing. It was stated here that the learned
professions are Law, Medicine and Theology. That used to be the case.
It is not true today. I remember crossing the ocean not long ago and
on board the vessel were three very distinguished looking men. They
impressed me, and I thought from their appearance they must be
clergymen of the English Church. I was interested to know who they
were because I heard them talking about their "profession" with a
profound appreciation of it. Afterward I found that two of them
were chemists from a German university and the other was a chemist
from an English university. Chemistry is a profession a learned
profession. In my own institution I have been criticised because I did
not speak of engineering as a profession. Engineering today is a
learned profession. Speaking of chemistry, I was in another great
institution in New York and had a very delightful talk with a chemist.
I found that he had come from a great university and was receiving a
salary far beyond that of college professors or presidents. He was fol-
lowing his profession. Every occupation requiring careful specializa-
tion is a "profession." The word has acquired a broad meaning.
Now, I say that we must divide the fields of educational activity, thus :
First, there is the elementary work and the secondary school work,
carried on largely in the public schools, then comes the college, and
lastly the university. I would not divide the field entirely with
reference to the subjects taught; there is a marked difference in
the method of teaching the subjects. In the elementary and second-
ary schools it is largely work of memorizing, of taking in facts
dogmatic statement of facts. In the college the method requires the
student to exercise the reasoning faculties; there he develops the
power to reason and investigate. Thus the work in the college is, or
should be, carried on by close contact between professor and student.
Then comes research where the student acts more independently, in-
vestigates for himself, finds the facts and applies them to new con-
ditions. He needs to be guided; he must have a master; but the
72
work of the university professor may be carried on by the lecture
system in a large degree. The university is for graduate work.
The college teaches the principles, the truths, the doctrines of life
and works them out in the laboratory, but by and by these things
must go into the field of specialization and there it will be deter-
mined whether they have real commercial value, may I say. The
gentleman in New York, to whom I have already referred, said he
thought the college professors, in the sciences, were at least four
or five years behind the times. He did not say that critically,
because he said, "I have the highest respect for these men. We
often go to them and we take them into our works." The professor
in the college has to take his knowledge from books and from the
laboratories which are furnished by the institution, and these facilities
are necessarily limited. The great industrial institutions have the
greatest facilities, fine laboratories, all the money needed for the
best experimental work and there the best work is being done. Money
making is a great incentive for bringing these sciences up to date,
obtaining the best and latest developments in the scientific world.
It seems to me that if we can agree among ourselves where the
secondary work shall stop and college work begin, where the college
or general culture course shall end and specialization begin, then
we have determined the field that remains for the university.
Permit me to say a word in reference to the cultural value of
professional education. It has a cultural value. There has been an
entire change in the methods of teaching these specialties. The old
plan was to have the Law school by itself, the Medical school by itself,
but today they are becoming true departments of the university.
This means that the methods of study now pursued are being changed
and systematized. Today the student in Law and in Medicine is
taught subjects historically; he is taught scientifically; he acquires
his knowledge in a methodical manner; there is a scientific develop-
ment of the subjects. Is there not cultural value in this? Surely
there is.
Generally speaking we limit the teaching of the Law to the Law
professor; credit for a subject of Law taught by the academic teacher
is not often given. The academic teacher finds fault with that, but
I believe it is right. Law must be taught as a specialty from the
legal standpoint. I have observed very closely the difference in the
teaching. I recall now two teachers, both distinguished men, one
an academic teacher, the other a man distinguished in the profession
of the Law, occupying today a high and exalted position upon the
73
Supreme Bench of the United States. Both are college men, thor-
oughly cultured, thoroughly equipped for their work. I have been
in the class-rooms of these men and listened to their instruction.
They taught international law. The academic teacher went over the
same ground as the other. He referred to many of the same cases,
but when he was through there was a lack of clear definition. We
all know that international law is in the process of development.
The academic teacher left the student with a doubtful definition as
to whether a particular tendency toward a rule of action had really
become an international law. On the other hand the lawyer, who had
sat upon international tribunals, spoke with a clear definition in
reference to the development of international law and its application
to given cases. The difference, it seems to me, is this, as between
men who are well equipped I speak of no others that the work
of the academic teacher in a subject requiring long and careful spe-
cialization, lacks that definition and clearness that is shown by a
man who has been applying the principles to concrete cases and work-
ing out the problems in practical life. Therefore, in my opinion,
the college should do the work of general culture without any ref-
erence to what the man intends to follow as an occupation, and the
specialized work should be taken up in the university. Our grand-
fathers went through a four years' course in college and then took
up special courses of an indifferent kind for one or two years. A
gentleman a justice of the Supreme Court told me the other day
that he went through Yale and then took his course in Law and
was admitted to the bar before he was twenty-one years of age. It
took him five years in college and special study to fit himself for the
law. What is the situation today? A man can not afford in these
days to give more of his life to preparation than is actually necessary.
We must divide the field with reference to present conditions and
methods. Each course must have its full value assigned it and the
time fairly divided between the general culture course and the pro-
fessional course. The college is the natural feeder for the univer-
sity; it is absolutly essential to the university, and there will be
and ought to be colleges all through this land in every part of it
near the people devoting themselves entirely to this field of general
culture. And the universities in the future must do their work
largely, if not wholly, in the field of specialization.
A DELEGATE: Will President Needham not tell us what he
thinks about shortening the courses?
74
PRESIDENT NEEDHAM: Yes, I think the college course can be
shortened. I think it should be shortened to three years, but I would
not decrease the work. When a student goes through the high school
under a pressure of at least twenty hours per week it is none too
much to keep up a like pressure through the college course. I am
aware that he may lose some time for games and society, but life
has changed and we must meet the change. In our university, for
instance, we have just adopted a course for undergraduates of sixty
hours, fifty of which must be university studies, to earn the Bachelor
degree. Ten hours may, if taken in the professional schools, be
counted in that course. This shortens the entire student life to six
or seven years.
A DELEGATE: Would the speaker correspondingly shorten the
university course?
PRESIDENT NEEDHAM : No, I would not. We can not. The states
are now fixing the period of study for admission to the practice of
Medicine and Law at three and four years. We can not cut down
their period of study. Then again, it is impossible to do the work
in less than three years. I think every man knows that to be true.
I think if the college has for the general culture course fifty or sixty
hours of work in three years and then three years is given to the
special courses in the university this would be a fair division of
the field.
A DELEGATE: I should like to ask the speaker if he believes
that a man is as well qualified for any technical or professional pur-
suit at the end of a three years' course as at the end of four years?
Is he as well developed in his powers of mastery ?
PRESIDENT NEEDHAM: It is somewhat difficult to answer that
question without being misunderstood. Of course a man can do more
in four years than in three; but I think this is true, that consider-
ing the work in the colleges in the past, a man would go out better
fitted for special work if he worked more intensely and under greater
pressure. That is, did the same work in less time.
A DELEGATE : I should like to ask in connection with the matter
of laws being passed to require four years and three years of study
isn't it in large measure due to the fact that men going into profes-
sions have not been college men and have not been able to master
the technical and professional pursuits as easily as college men in
three years? Would a college man do more work in a professional
school in three years than a high school man would in four ?
75
PRESIDENT NEEDHAM: Undoubtedly. It is true that a college
man would be better fitted, and I believe the time will soon come
when the standard will be raised all through the land requiring col-
lege courses as a prerequisite for special work. A man needs this
broad culture in order to equip himself for specialization.
THE CHAIRMAN:
The topic is now open for general discussion.
PRESIDENT J. W. BASHFORD, OF OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY :
Mr. Chairman: I am sure we have been very richly repaid for
coming. If the Conference is to come to anything more than some
very profound papers and brilliant addresses, we ought to take some
action in regard to the future. I should like to give my five minutes
to Dr. Goucher. The whole matter can be arranged for in five
minutes. Then we can resume the general discussion.
THE CHAIRMAN:
I presume that it will be the wish of the delegates to hear Dr.
Goucher.
PRESIDENT GOUCHER:
Mr. Chairman : I do not wish to speak upon this subject directly.
I desire to make a motion, if it is in order.
I wish to move that a committee of five be appointed this after-
noon to report on the desirability and practicability of forming a
permanent college organization; and that it shall be the duty of
that committee to report tomorrow morning at half past ten.
If it were necessary to support this motion I should make a
speech. I believe it is generally thought that we should take some
definite action of this kind. We have representatives here from
Maine, from California, from Texas, from North Dakota from more
than twenty states. It is a representative body. It is essential that
the term college shall approximate a definition. It is limited on
neither side. There are colleges, so-called, the work of which does
not exceed schools of the secondary grade ; there are colleges, so-called,
which are attempting university work. If an organization should be
formed if it were possible for it to agree upon a schedule which
would indicate the minimum and maximum limits of the college
work, then the term would have a definite meaning, and its special
work could be more readily defined.
I move you, Mr. Chairman, that a committee of five, or seven,
be appointed to report tomorrow morning at half past ten o'clock
on the advisability of forming a national college association, and if
76
in their judgment it is wise, that they present a definite plan of
organization.
Motion seconded.
Motion carried.
THE CHAIRMAN:
I will ask your permission to confer with President James before
naming the committee.
We are still on the original subject for discussion. Does Presi-
dent J. W. Bashf ord desire to say anything ?
PRESIDENT BASHFORD : I gave my time to Dr. Goucher.
THE CHAIRMAN:
Vice-President Francis Cassilly, of St. Ignatius College, will
speak.
VICE-PRESIDENT CASSILLY :
Mr. Chairman: The question as formulated is, Should the col-
lege course be reduced in time? We have had a great many sound
ideas expressed in regard to it. However, it seems to me that if
we want to discuss it intelligently we must take this question in
connection with some other questions.
The college course is not a unit separate from all other courses.
Education is a growth. The whole of education is a growth. At this
time there is a number of opinions rife which are not correct. There
seems to be an opinion prevalent to the effect that you can parcel out
education, that you can measure it out just as you would measure
any material commodity. Of course, any person who has spent his
life in it knows that education is not of this nature. It is the
growth of a live principle and it begins when the child is in its
mother's arms, and it goes on from day to day through life. It is
divided into periods, naturally.
When we take up this question of the college course and its rela-
tion to other courses, we must consider its relation with the uni-
versity, its relation with the secondary school, its relation with the
elementary school. We must take into consideration also the length
of a man's life. It seems to me that the college course should stop
about the twenty-first year. This is the age when youth is generally
considered to arrive at man's estate. About the twenty-first year the
general course, the culture and refinement course, which has already
developed the taste and judgment, should stop and the young man
should be ready for university training. The university course should
begin at twenty-one to prepare him for his special life-work. If
77
the general course is to stop at twenty-one, then we must arrange
all other courses so that they will dovetail nicely.
Is it necessary for the college course to be four years in length ?
If we take seven years of age, which is about the time schooling
begins, we have eight years for the common grade school course. The
high school requires four years, the college four. That brings the
young man to twenty-three when he takes his bachelor's degree. I
think here is the secret of this whole discussion. We have found out
that the age at which the youth receives his bachelor's degree is
too late. We have got to cut it down by one or two years. My
opinion is that the college course is one of the very best courses.
Why not cut the time by removing something from the elementary
course ? Why should it be necessary to spend eight years in the gram-
mar school and four in the high school? If the study-schedules in
high school and grammar school were arranged economically, and
time retrenched from the less important studies, students could be
prepared for college in much less time than at present. Let us
have three or four years for the college course. I have been engaged
in college work all my life and I must say that I prefer to have stu-
dents begin the high school course before they finish the eighth grade.
I think they can do better work. That is my experience. The others
who wait until they finish the eighth grade seem to lose one or two
years. A boy or girl will finish the eighth grade at fifteen years.
It seems to me that this is a little late to begin the high school
course. If they could begin their Latin much earlier than that
it would be well. There is where the time is wasted. It is wasted
in the high school and particularly in the grammar grades.
THE CHAIRMAN:
Director George N". Carman, of Lewis Institute, will now address
you.
DIRECTOR CARMAN:
Mr. Chairman: In considering this question of the length of
the college course, is it not essential that we take into account the
fact that there is something that comes before the college as well
as something that follows it? We all know that great changes are
taking place in the instruction given in the high or secondary school.
We know that many of the same subjects, or parts of subjects, are
now taught in the secondary school and in college. It is often im-
possible to draw a line and in the case of particular subjects say,
"This is high school work and that is college work." We may illus-
trate in the matter of Mathematics, for example. Most colleges re-
vs
quire work in Mathematics that in the high school takes two or
three years to accomplish. There are colleges that require I have
in mind particularly Cornell University that students who enter
the engineering schools shall have completed a high school course
in Mathematics of four years in length. Modern languages are taught
in the high school and in college. In some subjects then, the same
work may be done by a high school and by the college.
It may be said, as has been intimated in this conference, that
the difference between the college and the high school is the difference
in the way the work is done. In the secondary school it is memory
work primarily; in the college, reasoning. I do not think we can
accept this as a satisfactory statement of the difference between
high school and college work. Consider for a moment this matter
of marking students and publishing the marks that we have heard
something of this afternoon. There are some of us who feel that it
is well for men who have reached college to give less attention to
marks than the plan suggested contemplates. There is many a high
school in which the method of teaching is up to the best standards
of the college or university, and there are colleges and universities
in which the method of teaching is such as has here been associated
with the secondary school. Whether, then, the college course is two
years or four years in length, we must certainly take into account not
only the age of the students, but the sort of instruction they had
before entering college, and the studies they pursued and the character
of the instruction they received, in the high school.
We know that there are represented in this body colleges and col-
leges. We know that the degree of A. B. as given in one institu-
tion may represent one thing and as given in another college some-
thing quite different. You will all grant that there is a great dif-
ference in colleges as such, in secondary schools as such, and in
universities as such. It is no longer possible to define an institu-
tion by calling it a high school or university. We must look further.
I have a case in mind in which a student who had received the
degree of A. B. from a college found it necessary to spend two years
in an academy to prepare for another college, and all three institu-
tions are in the state of Illinois.
PROFESSOR J. H. T. MAIN, OF IOWA COLLEGE:
Mr. Chairman: I wish to ask one question. As I understand
Professor Needham, he contends that the academic teacher of a tech-
nical subject is not qualified to give in college the kind of instruc-
tion required in the professional school. It seems to me that is a
79
very important point. If we have sufficient data on which to gen-
eralize in regard to the matter we have a conclusion deserving care-
ful attention. But right at that point there is a question in my mind.
It seems to me we have not enough material on hand with which
to try to reach anything like a definite conclusion. It seems to me
right there is where the college must begin to protect itself against
the encroachments of the professional school. Beginning with the
Junior year we have a great many elective subjects and will have
more. International law will be one of those subjects, Physiological
Chemistry another, and various other subjects. It is the business
of the colleges, it seems to me, to teach them so that they will be
acceptable to the professional school. It is the business, then, of
the professional school to accept such subjects. Just as the college
accepts the work of the secondary school, provided the proper exam-
ination is passed, so the professional school must determine by
some sort of examination whether the college is securing adequate
results in technical subjects. I think that is a very important point,
and it is a point where the professional school and the college must
come together. The college will teach these subjects more and more.
What will the professional school do ? I do not want the professional
school to accept these subjects unless they have been adequately taught.
The college work must be worthy. If in certain cases the academic
teacher is not qualified to give adequate instruction, let one be se-
cured who can.
PROFESSOR MUNROE SMITH, OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY :
Mr. Chairman : I simply want to call the attention of the last
speaker to the fact that the question last mentioned is the next one
called for.
PRESIDENT J. W. BASHFORD, OF OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY :
Mr. Chairman: I will say a word upon the subject in hand.
Of course it is understood by all of us who are here and we have
constant experience with that fact that the student is entirely free
to go to the college for one year, or two years, or three, or four
years. If any student finds it advantageous to himself, and if the
professional school finds it advantageous to itself to do so, the stu-
dent can leave the college. The only question that is at stake ~isp\
whether we shall give the college degree for two, or three, or four J
years' work. Upon that point I am emphatically opposed to a changeT"
I am President of the Association of College Presidents of Ohio. We
spent half a day discussing this question from every possible point of
so
view. In view of the fact that we found that the increase of college
population among the young men is sixty per cent, we are evidently
not losing in number by maintaining the four years' course. If there
is a demand for the shorter course it does not show itself in a practical
way. The very fact that the young men are increasing in numbers
so rapidly shows that they appreciate the advantages of a college
course and that they are willing to pay the price.
There is a book published in this city entitled, "Who's Who in \
America/ 5 It is in the office of every teacher; it is a book with
which many of you are familiar. That book gives the names of /
about 9,700 people who are prominent in public life; 6,700 have
college degrees, or have the culture represented in the college degree.
So that the per cent of college men who are succeeding in the profes-
sional and in business lines is in favor of the college men. On the
other hand, the people who are without the college training are at
a disadvantage. Taking the statistics, the man who has the college
training multiplies his powers by two hundred and four. The great
body of people do not furnish more than one-third as many in the
list as their numbers would entitle. Trained men and women furnish
two hundred times as many as their numbers entitle; untrained peo-
ple furnish less than one-third as many as their numbers entitle
them. This shows our young people an advantage of over six hundred
in favor of the trained men and women. ^
Judging by the growth of our colleges; judging by the success
of our people, our college courses are vindicated.
There is one other fact. Scientists are telling us that the prog-
ress of the human race is due to the fact that we have a long recep-
tive period. The period of receptivity of youth in the animal king-
dom is very low three or four years. And the period of youth in
the barbarous nations and among savage peoples extends to about
the fifteenth or sixteenth year, but the period in civilized nations
extends to the age of twenty-one or twenty-three. Now, if there is
any lesson to be drawn, it is that our progress is due to this increase
of the period of receptivity the increase of the period of prepara-
tion. I am sure that, if we are to fit ourselves for the tasks of
the twentieth century, the way to begin is not by cutting down the
preparation but by increasing it.
PRESIDENT CHARLES A. BLAN CHARD, OF WHEATON COLLEGE :
Mr. Chairman: I think that this subject before us this after-
noon is very helpful. The question is, Shall the college course be
cut down in time and correspondingly in amount of work? The dis-
81
cussion which has preceded in regard to this matter has seemed to
center about the question of time alone, and remarks have often been
made to indicate that there are some schools which require a certain
time of residence irrespective of the amount of work which is to
be done. I have never heard of such a college. I do not believe
there ever was one. I think that it is very helpful that we should
come clearly to see that the proposition to shorten the college course
is not to shorten the amount of time, but it is a proposition to
diminish the amount of work which is to be done. We ought to
keep this fact in mind in all the discussion in regard to this matter.
Is the amount of work now required by the colleges for the degrees
offered in excess of that which should be required? Shall we cut
down the amount of time ? Shall we correspondingly cut the amount
of work?
There is another thing which it seems to me ought to be cleared
up. That is the question as to what liberal culture is. I do not
know that I am anywhere near right in my ideas; I will give them
for what they are worth. If they are not worth much I shall be
able, possibly in this discussion, to get some of more value. Take
the suggestion of the President of the University of North Dakota.
Did the fact that he did not have Biology hinder him from being
a liberally educated man? Did the fact that his Biology teacher
did not have Greek prevent his Biology teacher from being a liber-
ally educated man? I suppose that a liberal education is one which
does not directly tend to the life task and the life reward. In other
words, if a man is going to teach Biology for a living the study of
Greek would be a liberal study because it would enlarge his mind
and give him a broader foundation. On the other hand, if a man
was to be a teacher of Greek the study of Biology would be a liberal
study, because it would give him a broader basis for his life work.
What is the explanation of the fact that Dr. Bashford has just
mentioned, viz., that the college man in proportion to other men has
so many chances of securing recognition for his work? I think it
is simply because the college education has been affording the per-
sons who have had it with more points of contact with their fellow
men. The professional study tends directly to the income. The pur-
suit of studies which do not tend directly to the pocket book are not
sharpening, as the professional studies are, but the effect is broaden-
ing. I can very well believe that the instruction in international
law would be different if given by a college professor instead of a
person actively practicing as a lawyer. At the same time it might
82
be true that the college professor would furnish to his college stu-
dents that which, since they are not to be international lawyers but
educated men in various professions, would be quite as valuable to
them as though their instruction had been furnished by the prac-
ticing lawyer. It might be more valuable. It might give them a
look at that subject which would be more helpful to them than
the look which they would get from the lawyer.
I wanted to say a word in regard to the suggestion of Director
Carman that there are high schools and high schools. The question
as I understand it is whether, since the college requires a certain
number of studies in addition to studies pursued in secondary schools,
the amount of time now devoted to them should be reduced and
the work correspondingly reduced. I take it that the average col-
lege man knows that a large part of the work done by ambitious
high schools is done so poorly as to be practically valueless and often
injurious to students. Of course, any of us who know Lewis Insti-
tute know that the work there is pedagogically excellent. No one
present will say that if a person comes to college with the first or
second year done in Lewis Institute, or anywhere else, provided it
is done, that he will have to do it over again. The question is not,
shall we require a student to remain in our institution to go over
that ground again and then take two years in addition in order
to secure his degree. The question is, if this student comes up to
us with two years of work done and two years of work not done,
shall we give him his A. B. or shall we let him do these other
two years before he receives his degree? In other words is A. B. to
represent Sophomore or Senior grade?
I wish to record myself with Dr. Bashford as in favor of re-
taining substantially the amount of work now required. I have had
a great many students who have gone into the professional schools
before completing their college course who have said to me that
they felt they ought to have remained longer in college. I think
it would be easy to find thousands of men who have been through
college and professional schools who wish they had studied more.
It would be difficult to find one who wished he had studied less.
It seems to me that college men should stand fast by that course
which for two hundred years has won its way into the hearts of the
American people and is now working out such splendid results.
THE CHAIRMAN:
The time has come for closing the discussion on the present
topic. Is it the will of the Conference that we take a recess of
five minutes? 83
A DELEGATE: Mr. Chairman, I move that we take a recess of
five minutes.
Motion seconded.
Motion carried.
RECESS.
THE CHAIRMAN:
Will the gentlemen please come to order? The second topic
for discussion is, What subjects in the typical college course can be
accepted by the professional school as qualifying in part for the
professional degree so as to shorten the time required for graduation
in the professional school?
The first paper will be presented by President Franklin C. South-
worth, of Meadville Theological School.
PRESIDENT SOUTHWORTH:
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: There is a three-fold
difficulty in giving a categorical answer to the question which has been
addressed to me. The first difficulty comes from the fact that there
is at the present time no typical college course. The college course
is going through a process of evolution. It would have been easier
to answer the question, "What subjects in the ideal college course can
be accepted by the theological school as qualifying in part for the
theological degree." For each man can formulate for himself a
course which, in his opinion, ought to be the typical one, even
though he is obliged to admit that his theory does not conform to
the present facts. A second difficulty comes from the fact that the
theological course is also undergoing a process of evolution, and that
a goodly number of subjects which are likely to enter into the theo-
logical curriculum during the next decade are not yet generally rec-
ognized as a part of it. And the third difficulty lies in the fact
that a large number of theological schools, in fact the majority of
them, are not yet prepared to say that they will refuse to admit
as candidates for graduation men who have not yet acquired the
bachelor's degree. And when they insist upon its equivalent they
are very liberal in their interpretations.
Bearing in mind, therefore, these necessary limitations, I would
say: First, that certain subjects forming a part of the theological
curriculum in schools which do not insist upon the college degree
from candidates for admission, might, with great advantage, be trans-
ferred from the theological school to the college. Such subjects
are Ethics, Logic, Rhetoric. Psychology, the History of Philosophy,
84
and the necessary linguistic preparation for the theological course
in German and Greek. For I take it that it is no longer possible
to train men successfully for the ministry of religion in a modern
theological school,, without demanding from them the capacity to deal
at first hand with the work of German theologians. All these sub-
jects are obviously necessary in the theological curriculum, but as
they all may be said to form also a part of the typical college course,
I think it will generally be admitted that the better place for teach-
ing them is in the college rather than the seminary.
I have the same feeling about Hebrew as about the other lin-
guistic studies. Hebrew, in my judgment, does not naturally belong
in the theological school. The proper place for the study of lan-
guage is in the college, and Hebrew has been transferred from
the college to the seminary only because the demand for the teach-
ing of Hebrew in the college has up to the present time been very
limited. The revival of interest, however, in Semitic languages in our
own country is, I hope, an indication that many colleges will soon
be prepared to do successfully what some of the larger ones are now
doing. The theological school would be left free by virtue of such
a substitution to enlarge and enrich its curriculum by means of sub-
jects which bear directly upon the life and work of the ministry.
I now come to a group of subjects whose place in the theological
curriculum has not yet been universally recognized, but which will
have more and more to do with the work of the modern ministry. The
first of these is Sociology, a subject which is entering into the work of
the church in our day as it has not entered since the time of the
Hebrew prophets. The significance of this study for the work of the
minister would, I think, be generally recognized, for it comprises
spheres of activity into which most ministers of religion are bound
at some time in their lives to come. The relations of men to one
another in society, the great subjects of philanthropy and charity
these and allied themes have come in recent times pretty near to
the center of the modern ecclesiastical stage.
Another subject to which attention is now given in some of
our schools of theology as never before is English literature, and espe-
cially modern English poetry in its ethical and ideal aspects. In these
aspects poetry is coming to be recognized as the hand-maid of re-
ligion, and poetry in the sense in which Matthew Arnold defined
it as "a criticism of life," is, it seems to me, intimately connected
with the work of the Christian preacher. Perhaps this study may
not yet be declared to have gained a permanent place for itself in
the theological curriculum. But I have no doubt that it will gain
such a place in a comparatively short time. Now, it has to be ad-
mitted that the college is the normal place for the study of literature,
and when the college is willing to study literature from the point
of view which I have named, it may perhaps successfully relieve
the seminary of this work.
I pass now to two important lines of study which are compar-
atively new as yet, both in the seminary and in the college, but
which are, in my judgment, destined to assume a commanding place
in the work of both. The first of these is the study of Anthropology.
A few of our larger institutions of learning have already given it a
place in their scheme of studies. It belongs properly to the col-
lege, but if the college continues to neglect its duty, the seminary
must step in to remedy the defect. The school of theology can not
successfully deal with the destiny of man in his ideal possibilities
and continue to neglect his past. Too long has religion been taught
as something separate from and unconnected with the ordinary life
of man. Eeligion must be taught in the future as a human phe-
nomenon which results from man functioning religiously, and the
religious phenomena of the race must be set forth as beginning with
the very dawn of human history. The study of Anthropology deals
with man in his development as an individual, as a social, as a
tribal, and as a religious being. These phenomena are inseparably
connected throughout his history. In our theological schools, as well
as in our colleges, we have done our best to divorce them. If the
college is to hold its place as an institution which is able to offer a
really liberal education, it must enter, in dealing with the science
of man, the religious field.
And the time will come, in my judgment, when it will be forced
in pursuing the science of man to approach religion from its cos-
mological as well as from its anthropological side. The study of
Anthropology, I have tried to point out, involves the study of the
science of religion. It involves in one of its aspects the study of
comparative religions; it must involve also in its higher form the
philosophy of religion itself, as one of the forms of human activity.
The second of these fields is that of Education, sometimes oppro-
briously designated as pedagogy. It is only recently that some far-
sighted men have discerned the fact that education uses the same
methods in the sphere of religion as in other spheres. The North-
western University, through the splendid work of Professor Coe,
has been a pioneer in this realm. The results of its work should
be studied, not only by the college but also by the seminary, for it
is along these lines that the teaching of religion and the work of
the church are likely to be transformed. The numerous phenomena
of adolescence to which Professor Coe has called attention, must
become familiar in the future to the man who is to deal success-
fully with the religious education of the youth. It remains for
the college to say, however, whether this work is to be done chiefly
by it or by the seminary.
It is one of the evil effects of the sectarian spirit that the teach-
ing of religion has been under the ban so largely in the public school
and in the state university. If my contention is correct, the ban
must sooner or later be raised. What God has joined together no
institution of learning can permanently part asunder. The exclu-
sion of the study of the English Bible, the most important and most
epoch-making work of literature in the world, from the school and
the university, simply because of sectarian rivalry, is a reproach
to the age in which we live. The time is coming, and coming soon,
when the Bible will be taught in the college, when it will be taught
by modern methods and set over against its historic background, to
the end that the one-sided instruction in literature and history
which is now given may, in some degree, be remedied. It will also
be clearly seen that ecclesiastical history is but a chapter in uni-
versal history which the college may not ignore with impunity. In
the middle ages the history of the church was the history of civili-
zation.
It will be clear, I think, from what I have said that, in my judg-
ment, there is limitless possibility of cooperation between the college
and the theological school, one of the results of which may well
be the shortening of the total time required for graduation. Here
the theological school stands in a peculiar relation to the college,
for I hasten to add that the ministry is not a profession in the
sense in which the Law and Medicine are professions. The min-
ister of modern times is simply a liberally educated man, with an
invincible purpose to incarnate in human life certain moral and spir-
itual ideas which he shares with his fellow men. With the passing
of the priestly conception of religion there has ceased to be a body
of esoteric information, into which the minister must be initiated.
He must, of course, be a specialist in the things of the spirit, just
as the man who is to teach Mathematics must specialize in that line
of study, and he must also acquire certain information about methods
of work and forms of parish activity in which he is to be engaged;
87
he must receive instruction in Homiletics, must learn the art of
preaching, must acquire the ability to persuade and to instruct. In
other words, the theological school must continue to retain as a
part of its special curriculum, which it is not likely for some time
to come to hand over to the college, the department of Homiletics
and pastoral care or practical theology. Some of the subjects which
I have named as desirable in a college course, will, perhaps, not re-
ceive general attention there for some years to come. Meantime, the
seminary must continue to remedy the deficiency; but that a shorten-
ing of the theological course is entirely practicable along the lines
which I have suggested can not, I think, be a matter of doubt.
Meantime it is, of course, obvious that certain subjects now taught
in the seminary are not likely to prove immediately popular in the
college. This may be said, I suppose, of such themes as Christian
Doctrine, Old and New Testament Theology, the Religion of Israel,
Biblical Exegesis and Archaeology, Hermenetics, Textual Criticism,
and the History of the Apostolic Age. The seminary will continue
to be the place where such themes as Symbolics, the History of Mis-
sions, Apologetics, Patristics, Liturgies, Sunday School Methods,
Church Polity and Denominational History are exclusively taught,
and with the relegation of certain elementary subjects to the college,
there will be an ever-increasing field which the seminary can make
peculiarly its own. But with the appearance of a set of men in
the pulpits of America, liberally educated in accordance with mod-
ern methods, not simply in the few themes which have been too
long regarded as separate from the normal functions of human life,
but in the deep and fundamental problems, interest in which the
minister shares with educated men of every profession, we may look
for a new and more hopeful era of Christian activity.
THE CHAIRMAN:
I will now appoint the following committee to report tomorrow
morning at half past ten o'clock on the advisability of forming a defi-
nite organization, and if in their judgment it is wise, to present
a definite plan of organization:
CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT JOHN F. GOUCHER,
Woman's College, Baltimore. Md.
PRESIDENT EDWARD D. EATON,
Beloit College, Beloit, Wis.
PRESIDENT W. C. EGBERTS,
Central University, Danville, Ky.
88
PRESIDENT RICHARD HARLAN,
Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, 111.
DR. CHARLES E. ST. JOHN,
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.
PRESIDENT W. B. BOGERS,
St. Louis University, St. Louis, Mo.
VICE-PRESIDENT FRANCIS CASSILLY,
St. Ignatius College^ Chicago, 111.
The discussion of this subject will be taken up by President
Charles J. Little, of Garrett Biblical Institute.
PRESIDENT LITTLE :
Mr. Chairman: Pro Christo et Ecdesia, the founders of Har-
vard College chose for their motto, which they interpreted, "This
is a school for the training of ministers." The Cambridge Divinity
School once so famous is now the meager remnant of what was origi-
nally the whole thing. The following curriculum of the earlier Har-
vard makes this plain enough.
The course included two years of Logic and something of Physics ;
two of Ethics and Politics; two of Mathematics (including, however,
only Arithmetic and Geometry) the equivalent of four years of Greek,
and one year each of Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac. Latin was ex-
cluded as something that must have been mastered before entrance, its
conversational use being obligatory upon all within the limits of the
college in place of the mother tongue, which was "to be used under no
pretext whatever, unless required in public exercises." The Bible was
systematically studied for the entire three years, Ezra, Daniel and the
New Testament being specified. A year was given to catechetical
divinity. Daily prayers must be attended "at six o'clock in the morn-
ing and five o'clock at night all the year long" ; at which time students
were required "to read some portion of the Old Testament out of
Hebrew into Greek, and the New Testament out of English into Greek,
after which one of the Bachelors or Sophisters should logically
analyse that which was read."
Concerning degrees it was ordered that "every scholar that on
proof is found able to read the originals of the Old and New Testa-
ment into the Latin tongue, and to resolve them logically; withal be-
ing of Godly life and conversation; and at any public act hath the
approbation of the overseers and master of the College, is fit to be dig-
nified with his first degree."
The College of William and Mary was to be "a seminary for the
breeding of good ministers" to which the grammar school and the
school of philosophy including Mathematics were auxiliary and sub-
ordinate. Yale was founded "to preserve orthodoxy in the govern-
ment" and the early students were saturated with theology. The pre-
dominant purpose was to make orthodox ministers and orthodox
citizens.
Every American college established by a religious denomination
looked to the same end. Thus it happens that in every one of them
remain vestigial studies, survivals of this older order though no one of
them adheres to its original intent. Mr. Lowell's suggestion that
Harvard is still true to its ancient motto is not without a dash of pun-
gent irony even for the most liberal interpreter. The divinity school
still exists in connection with universities now classed by their own
desire as non-sectarian; but it is a disenthroned monarch, tolerated
and cherished generously to be sure but no longer supreme or even
conspicuous. And what is more important in this discussion, the
colleges of liberal arts are not preparing men for the theological sem-
inary or indeed for any of the professions. The colleges have shifted
ground. They defended the old classical curriculum because (so they
declared) certain studies were essential to mental discipline; there is
(they affirmed) a training which is a prerequisite to any and every call-
ing in which rapid and accurate thinking and effective expression are
required. But they have abandoned the old curriculum; in its place
they offer a large range of studies and degrees from which the student
selects according to his own sweet will and they defend the new curri-
culum by declaring that they are developing manhood. To make mat-
ters worse, the line between undergraduate and post-graduate studies
differs with each institution. A graphic representation of it for the
colleges of the United States would be an instructive although a some-
what diverting exhibition. For what some of the strongest of our uni-
versities treat as post-graduate studies, some of the weaker ones require
of undergraduates. If the college of liberal arts is not to be crushed
out between the high school and the university, it must, in my judg-
ment, consider carefully its relation to both ; it must surrender to the
professional school and to the university all that belong to them ; it
must abandon glittering generalities and frame very definite ideals of
liberal culture; it must do something also to facilitate an earlier
entrance into active life. The post-graduate university and profes-
sional school are here to stay, and here to grow. Each year is making
them more important and more exacting in their demands. Let no
oo
one deceive himself. Underneath all this discussion is the competi-
tion for students, and the desire of the colleges to hold them too long
will be only less disastrous than the eagerness to get them too soon.
Turning now to the theological seminaries, one sees the curri-
culum disturbed by conflicting tendencies. Sometimes the post-
graduate ideal predominates and the classical diploma is a prerequisite
for admission ; at other times the divinity school is controlled by the
demands of the churches for efficient pastors and efficient missionaries ;
then the doors are opened wider and the utilitarian training discredits
erudition. And so we have the incompatibles under the same roof:
an arena for the discussion of intricate philosophical, theological, and
historical problems; a training camp for the defenders and propa-
gators of definite truths.
The introduction of Assyrian, the absorption of Exegesis by
higher criticism, the interpretation of Philosophy and Theology, are
results of the one tendency ; the increased attention given to Elocution
and Sociology, of the other. And until the divinity school clears up
its mind and determines whether it will develop scholars or train min-
isters or attempt to combine the theologian and the pastor in one per-
son we shall make no progress in this discussion. Latin and Greek and
Hebrew and German are indispensable to the theological scholar; the
college teaches three of them, sometimes four. The divinity school
teaches Hebrew chiefly because the colleges do not and Greek may some
day be in the same case. The divinity school requires Psychology and
History and Sociology ; these too may be taught in the colleges. Let
the divinity school recognize its duplex character; let it establish two
courses, a course in ministerial training and a course in theological
science, prescribing in detail that which it requires for each. Then
whenever strictly undergraduate work is included in the theological
curriculum work done in college can be readily accepted. For my
part I would much rather admit to a theological course, one well
acquainted with Greek, Hebrew, and German, who is also well trained
in Logic and History and who has confronted the chief problems of
Ethics and Sociology, than the bachelor of arts proficient in none of
them.
But as to post-graduate studies that are taught in the colleges,
there is this difficulty. Most of our theological seminaries are credal
seminaries. They have definite standards which as honest men their
professors must maintain. It may be said and has been said that the
credal seminary ought not to exist. That proposition I do not care to
argue. These credal schools are here and will remain here for a long
91
time. If the colleges expect to prepare students for them this quality
must be recognized and respected. Yet under the guise of the Phil-
osophy of Eeligion or of Semitic Literature or of History an active
propaganda is sometimes carried on against the teachings of these
x;redal seminaries. To accept work of this kind, is to give it endorse-
ment. This we can not do. On the contrary we are obliged to discuss
these problems from our own point of view and not unfrequently to
combat the propositions with which certain college men are enamored.
As to the non-credal seminaries, the university should absorb
them. They have no claim to a separate existence. To them Chris-
tianity is after all but a phase of history, and religious experience but a
psychological phenomenon,, complex,, and bewildering; as history and
psychology belong to the university, Christianity and religion upon
this assumption must go there too.
Nor would this be without its compensations. For the churches
would doubtless gain for their pulpits many a student, who after prose-
cuting his researches under acknowledged masters of differing schools,
accepted gladly the opportunity to proclaim and to apply such truth
as he had grasped and held firmly. The universities, on the other
hand, would become catholic and comprehensive. Instead of maintain-
ing a theological annex, which under the guise of free inquiry, propo-
gates a provincialism, its staff would be enriched with powerful and
learned theologians, checking and complementing each other, and
rounding out their separate investigations into concordant, although
imperfect knowledge.
For such a university the particular question before us will be
swallowed up in the larger one; upon what conditions shall students
be admitted to post-graduate study ? Possibly when we have a genuine
university it will adhere to the German precedent and demand of all
students the same preparation. But I do not believe it. I am bold
enough to prophesy that not only the great professional schools of
the future (I include, of course, the schools of technology) but each
department of the post-graduate university will describe in detail the
knowledge that it requires of those that are to be admitted to its work.
Some of these requirements will be common to all the schools and de-
partments ; some of them will be peculiar to each great discipline.
THE CHAIRMAN:
The discussion will be continued by Professor A. T. Robertson, of
the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
02
PROFESSOR ROBERTSON:
The general difficulties of the situation that we are discussing are
somewhat accented in the institution with which I have the honor to
be connected the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, of Louis-
ville, Kentucky. We have a distinct elective system. All of our
studies are elective. They have always been so since 1859; but they
are not elective in the sense that you can take some of them for the
degree and not the others. You have to take all of our courses to get
our full degree, but you can take them in the order you wish. So that
we do not have first, second, and third years. We lay, then, no
accent upon the question of time : we put it all on the matter of work.
As to entrance into our institution, we have had some difficulty on
that line as to the acceptance of work even of other seminaries. It
has only been within the last two years, strange as it may seem, that we
have been willing to accept work from other institutions because we
had difficulty in fitting their work to ours. But we have finally done
it, that is to say, we have decided that our institution can take work
from other seminaries and institutions at the discretion of the profes-
sor who has charge of that special department. He subjects the stu-
dent to some kind of an examination, and if the work is satisfactory,
credit will be given to that extent, but no further, and while the ques-
tion has many difficulties, some from every standpoint, we are rid of a
great many of them. However, I would add we do not do any college
work at all so that the remarks of preceding speakers do not bear upon
us. We do simply theological seminary work.
Now, I am willing to admit that the college can do some work
which we can recognize, as for instance the beginning work in New
Testament Greek and the beginning work in Hebrew. We have some
students who come to us who have studied some New Testament Greek
and some Hebrew and we take that work, if they are able to stand our
tests. We will not take their work just because they have been over it.
As to the rest, the general study of the Bible, Biblical History, 1 am
not so clear, because the question of exegesis inevitably comes in. We
are concerned in our seminary, and I judge other seminaries are, about
the matter of exegesis. Other seminaries ought to be concerned, if
they are not, if they have a creed, because a creed is what a man be-
lieves. If they are not concerned they ought to be absorbed, if there is
anything left to be absorbed. On that point there is not much that the
seminary can do in the way of concession. The Bible courses in the
average college serve more as introduction to the theological work
than as preparation. I will confess that not many students are afflicted
03
with too great a knowledge of the Bible. So we admit the principle
of acceptance of work but are very strict in the application of it.
I do not believe it is best to attempt to crowd the theological into
the college course. It seemed to me from the preceding discussion
that the college course is likely to be reduced to three years ; yet here
you will crowd the theological course in also. I think if you are going
to compress the college course that you will not want to put very much
theology into it. At least you will not be able to. Let us leave the
time for the general training. Let the student finish his college work
before he goes to the seminary rather than mix the two. I believe the
best results come from doing one line of work at a time. It is better
to have the college before the theological work than with it. It is bet-
ter to have the theological work apart from medicine than with it. We
have some students in Louisville who take Theology in the morning
and Medicine in the afternooon. What they take at night I do not
know. They get very little of either. The crowding of the high
school makes it possible sometimes to take the college work in less
than four years. We shall have, I believe, a clearly defined system
of education when the university becomes well defined. Now, let
the college persuade the university to give up college work. If we
laugh at the high school that classes itself as a college we laugh at the
college that classes itself as a university. Is the university a genuine
university if the bulk of its work is college work ? We need a defini-
tion of a university. President Eliot of Harvard calls Johns Hopkins
"the leading university of our country," because it made a new epoch
as to graduate work, but even Johns Hopkins still does some college
work. Where can the college work best be done? In the college or
university ? If in the college, then the university should make conces-
sions to the college and not try to drive it to the wall. We shall clear
the way in American education if we have first the high school or sec-
ondary school work, then the college work, and third the graduate
work, either in the university or professional school. I believe there is
room enough both for the university professional schools and for the
independent professional schools. Here also the work of the high
school and college should precede. If that is done there will be little
need of concessions as to curricula. The college has given room for
the high school, and the university should also give room for the col-
lege, if it is a real university. It should leave college work to the
college. The college can well afford to let graduate and professional
work alone if the university will let college work alone.
94
All this applies to my topic thus: I think that the theological
seminary should teach the work belonging to it and the college should
teach the college work. I think the Law professor who gives himself
specifically to that subject can do better legal teaching, and so can the
teacher of Medicine, and so can the teacher of Theology, and the
teacher of Chemistry also. I fail to see the ethics of the situation
when we ask the college to make all the concessions. To be sure the
theological school does not ask the college to make any, nor are we in a
particularly wholesome humor to make any. Let us stand for our-
selves. The theological seminary takes the work where the college
leaves it and has little reason to alter its course of study.
THE CHAIRMAN:
The next address will be given by Dean John H. Wigmore, of the
Northwestern University Law School.
DEAN WIGMORE :
Mr. Chairman ; Members of the Conference : Owing to the late-
ness of the hour I will spare you any extended description of our creed.
All our faculty believe, in the first place, that there must be three years
spent in the study of the technical subjects of the Law ; that even these
three years do not give the young lawyer all he might well know;
that those three years that is to say taking substantially all of his
time as a student during that period represent only about three-
fourths of the subjects which he might well have covered ; that he goes
out to the bar knowing at least one-fourth less than he might well have
known. There is absolutely no disposition on the part of our faculty
and I think it represents the feeling of a great many faculties of
the country towards any substitution whatsoever on the part of those
three years, or towards the admission of any other subjects than legal
subjects. The question then remains, What is a legal subject? What
is a subject especially useful for a lawyer, for a professional man, as
one skilled in that specific profession or art, as distinct from a subject
which helps him as a man and a citizen? A subject which usually
ought to count in a legal curriculum must possess two elements. It
must furnish a certain kind of information ; and it must help to culti-
vate in the student a legal method of thinking.
Furthermore, this work ought to be done for him by lawyers ; but
that point we may waive, because no large amount of legal work is
likely to be attempted in the college except by lawyers. The question
is, then, what subjects are there, usually offered in college, which can
be counted in that list? There are only three: constitutional law,
international law and administrative law. Constitutional law when
taught in a college may properly be credited in law school, provided it
is not merely constitutional history, and provided it is studied in the
legal decisions with which a lawyer must be familiar. Our habit has
been to give credit for such a course when it has been taught from the
legal decisions and not to give credit when it is not so taught, and to
make no discrimination between our own honored college and the col-
leges of other universities. We, therefore, do not recognize the sub-
ject of administrative law. We do not believe that a lawyer needs to
know any more of administrative law than anybody else in a good gov-
ernment. The ordinary man should study it as a citizen, not merely as
a lawyer. There are, to be sure, colleges giving a course in adminis-
trative law, so-called, which really is a course in the legal aspect of
the functions of public officers; and for such study we should give
credit. It seems to me, then, on the whole, that it would be im-
proper for those who have in their guardianship the interests of the
legal profession, in certifying that a man is properly and adequately
trained for the profession of the Law, to give credit for subjects which
are not distinctly technical and professional. I think that represents
what the advanced schools believe in regard to giving credit in the law
school for work in college. I speak without regard to the question
of shortening the requirements for the degree of bachelor of arts.
THE CHAIRMAN:
Dr. R. McE. Schauffler, of the Kansas City Medical College will
present the next paper.
DR. SCHAUFFLER:
Mr. Chairman ; Gentlemen : I was very much surprised when I
came here this morning to find that I was put down for a formal paper,
and could not understand it at all until I looked over the list of dele-
gates, and as far as I can discover, I am the only delegate from an
independent school. It appears that the rest all took to the tall tim-
ber. I was too young to do so. While I come here to represent an
independent medical college in Kansas City, I come of old New Eng-
land and New York in my own education, and having a bachelor's
degree from Williams I can not stand here before you without giving
my testimony as to my appreciation of that degree. My time was not
wasted. My medical work was done in Columbia. Now, President
Butler thinks it is economically impossible and from the standpoint of
social service unwise to require a bachelor's degree for admission to
the medical school, but let me tell you how it works out. Although
Columbia does not make it a rule to require the bachelor's degree for
admission to the medical school, one quiz-master there says that no
young man can enter his class who is not a college graduate. That
quiz-master takes fifteen men, graduates from Yale and Princeton he
takes those fifteen men of whom a bachelor's degree is required, and
carries out good, old-fashioned methods of lecturing, and puts those
fifteen men into the field against the other graduates of Columbia,
against New York City and Harvard. He places twelve of those
fifteen men in the very best hospital places in the city of New York.
There are three prizes. All three of these prizes are limited to that
fifteen men in competition with a class of one hundred and sixty-five.
There is not a single man in Columbia of the short-cut course that got
one of these prizes, and so far as I remember even got one of the hos-
pital positions. Thus the bachelor's degree in Columbia is not as
much discounted on the face of it as would seem.
The independent medical college out west has not a very good
reputation. I hope to stand for one at least that is poor but honest.
The first of the changes which have come about in recent years
is the discarding of the idea of making anything from an independent,
stock company, medical college. Everybody who knows anything
about it has learned that. Consolidation has taken place and has put
matters on a different basis. Now, we are not complaining about uni-
versity competition. Of course we feel it very keenly. It has put us
to great exertion to keep our laboratory work up to the requirements ;
still we have not been forced to the wall. But we are objecting to the
university competition which offers to throw a bachelor's degree on
a combination course to students who will come to its medical school.
It may be all right with respect to the college course but that is the
grievance of the independent medical college.
The particular question which I am asked to answer here is, What
subjects in the college courses can be credited in the medical school ?
According to President Butler's definition we can't give credit for any
of them, for the true college course consists of Greek, Latin, Mathe-
matics and a mixed course called Natural Philosophy. But as the
course reads today, we can give credit for Biology, Histology, for
Chemistry, for Physics, for Botany, and for elementary Pharmacy.
I am perfectly sure that the Biology and the Histology which I had
at Williams was superior to that given at Columbia. That criticism,
of course, is a few years old. Now, for these subjects we give a credit
today of one year on the four-year medical course if the student has
the bachelor's degree. In the first place the fellow is supposed to be
97
better equipped. That works fairly well in the East. It does not
work very well in the West. We must have the independent medical
school for a while yet, but the process is to get rid of the independent
medical school. We are not affiliated because there is no large school
near us. The time may come when we will be. We have not found the
giving of the one year's credit for the A. B. degree very satisfactory,
because it is not strong on just the subjects which are most helpful.
We would be absolutely swamped if we tried to give two years' credit
for the A. B. degree. On the other hand it does not seem to be very
wise for us to be making alliances with the colleges around us. The
trouble with the western medical school is that it is poor. If you are
trying to be honest, if you are really requiring a high school diploma
as entrance requirement, you are not having an easy time. Of course,
you can make all sorts of alliances with the small colleges around you
and meet the university competition by lowering the standard. It does
not seem fair all around. I would like to see ultimately two years in
college required for admission to the medical course. We can not have
it all at once. I would like to see no credit for the degree per se but
have credit given for specific scientific courses, for just what the work
really amounts to, with the understanding that it will be all right for
a man to come to us from college with enough credit to get one year's
credit. It is true that it will be wiser for him to come after two years
in college.
THE CHAIKMAN:
The discussion will be opened by Dr. Arthur R. Edwards, of the
Northwestern University Medical School.
DR. EDWARDS :
Mr. Chairman; Gentlemen. In the university professional
course, both in the course itself and in the preparation for the course,
it seems possible to divide the study into two parts, one in preparation
and training for the course and the other the studies which bear di-
rectly upon the especial technical or professional course. It has
seemed to me from contact with the medical students that there is
altogether too much preparation and altogether too little practical
training in the department of Medicine. I do not feel free to speak
so dogmatically regarding the other departments, but I think that con-
dition would apply fairly well to the department of Law.
My first proposition is that there should be some way in which a
man should have a college training, should have the discipline which
ought to precede the study of Medicine, without spending as long a
98
time as is now necessary. I think that doctrine is true, because as
time goes on you will find the professional courses lengthening rather
than shortening. The basis for my position on this particular subject
I think can be shown by going over the amount of training necessary
for a man to take a medical course with a college basis. He spends
four years in a high school ; then he goes to the college for four years,
making eight years; then he goes to the medical school, and of the four
years which he spends there two years are taken up with subjects
which are not directly helpful in practicing the art of Medicine or
Surgery. He spends two years on Chemistry, Anatomy, and Physi-
ology with miscellaneous professional training. When we come to
summarize the work, we find that the man spends four years in high
school, four in college, and then goes to the medical school to study
Chemistry and Anatomy and subjects scientific rather than directly
medical. And then to learn to diagnose disease and get some of the
essential points in treatment he has but two years. I contend that this
is essentially wrong. Yet I would not take the position that a man
can get too much training. I think some of the minor details must be
modified. If Medicine grows in the next ten years as it has in the last,
a five or six years' course will be absolutely necessary. Therefore, it
seems to me that instead of spending ten years upon his preliminary
preparation, that ten years must be made to overlap the practical
course so that we will have at least three years for Medicine itself.
We should regulate the training and modify the courses in such a way
that it would be possible for a student to reach the point where he is
capable of graduation by the time he is twenty-five or thirty years of
age. The better men will go into the hospitals and complete their
medical education. A college education is a great thing, but it seems to
me that taking into consideration all the physicians who are graduat-
ing from medical schools and going into all parts of the country, both
where the standards are low, and where the difficulties are great, as
well as those who are to stay in the other districts, we should plan to
modify somewhat the medical courses and in the colleges to give as
many elective courses as possible which bear directly on the medical
training.
I think the medical student who enters the medical college should
have his Chemistry a thorough course of two years covering prac-
tically what would be given in the medical course; in some way he
should have secured the principles of Anatomy and Comparative
Anatomy; he should have had Histology it is only a step between
structural botany and structural histology. In that way a college
course could easily cover sixty to eighty per cent of the practical work
of the first year of work in the medical school. This would give the
student of Medicine more time for the study of the art of Medicine
itself. That can only be reached by limiting the total number of
years spent, because the medical course is bound to increase, therefore,
it would seem that the college with the professional school should
so plan its courses that students can shorten their combined courses
to seven or eight years. I agree with Dr. Schauffler in his position
that merely because a man has the degree of A. B. he is not entitled
to have a year's credit in the medical school. He is only entitled
to that when the majority of the subjects in the first year have been
covered by his previous work.
I think it will come to this: The college must teach some of
those sciences which are directly medical. They are important to the
average man of intelligence. The medical schools should take recog-
nition of this work so that in six years a man can obtain his combined
degrees.
THE CHAIRMAN :
Professor John H. Gray, of Northwestern University, will con-
tinue the general discussion.
PROFESSOR GRAY :
Mr. Chairman : There is one thing I should like to say in regard
to the men who are not willing to take the full four years of the college
course in addition to the three or four years required for a profes-
sional course. If I understand Dr. Bashford, he said that such men
ought to leave college without a degree at the end of one or two years.
Now, I am afraid that the result in practice will be somewhat different
from that. My fear is, that these men will either enter the profes-
sional school without any college study, or will go to a university with
a combined college and professional course amounting in all to less
than eight years. I believe that it is practically impossible to hold
men for four years of college life and then four years, we will say, of
medical study. I feel very keenly that it is not only practically impos-
sible but also undesirable. In my opinion there are numerous social,
physiological and psychological reasons which make it desirable for
one to begin his life-work earlier than he can do after such a course in
view of the present standard of admission to college. I am sure that it
is practically impossible. We have already reached the point in the
West, where we must make a choice between combined courses, or
professional graduates who have had no college training.
100
An illustration will best show the danger to the independent col-
lege. Something like a half century ago we found the men in charge
of the educational machinery of the country absolutely averse to recog-
nizing the genuine needs of what we call technical education the
various lines of engineering, etc. They refused to have anything
to do with it. They drove the people interested in technical education
to found independent institutions. ^Reference has been made to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. No institution of learning
in this country has brought more genuine honor to America than the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was driven out into the
world to its own injury and to the weakening of the University, be-
cause those in charge of the University would make no place for the
work it is doing.
Now, if I understand the movement that is going on, it is to
recognize that a large part of the things covered in the technical
schools can be better done in the colleges. The technical schools are
today attempting to throw back a lot of the work which we call liberal
work on the college. The technical schools had originally to do this
work simply because their students had been shut out by the colleges
from all liberal training. Both the colleges and the technical schools
make a great gain when these studies are carried on in the college
rather than in the technical school.
I am a firm believer in the combination course. There are one or
two words I should like to say about the practical side of it. We all be-
lieve in liberal culture. We all believe in technical studies. We are not
quite sure whether we can inoculate a man with liberal culture in three
years. I am sure there is a border-land between these two fields a
border-land of subjects which are partly technical, and partly liberal
but always necessary as a foundation for the purely technical training.
If I should instance a thing, which Dean Wigmore probably would
want to interpret, I would say in regard to such subjects as bankruptcy
and corporations (I do not mean to say that there must not be tech-
nical study of them) and the facts connected with them that there is
as much liberal culture in these and many similar subjects, as in
almost any studies in the college curriculum. I do not believe that a
man can take a great constitutional case or a great case concerning
private corporations and follow out the history and logic of the case
and fail to get a large part of the training that can be got from any
subject in college.
Further, I believe that it is perfectly justifiable for the college,
having held its man for three years, having turned him over to the
101
professional school, having given him the training of those subjects,
to give him his college degree. But whether you are going to give him
his college degree at the end of those three years, or later when he
takes his professional degree is another question. I do not believe that
it is possible or desirable to hold him for the seven or eight years neces-
sary if the two courses be kept distinctly apart, and as many years in
the professional school required of the college graduate as of one who
has had nothing more than a high school course.
I question if it is desirable anywhere to require a college degree
for admission to a professional school. I know it will be imprac-
ticable to do so in this vicinity for years to come.
In regard to subjects taken in the medical school, my own
feeling is that these subjects may well count toward the college de-
gree. I think whichever institution happens to be the best equipped
at the particular time for doing these things ought to do them. I
do not care whether a man gets his Chemistry in the medical school
or in the college of liberal arts. If he is to be a physician, he has
got to have it somewhere, and he is entitled to his A. B. when he
gets it, if he has done the other work.
THE CHAIRMAN:
The discussion will be continued by President Charles A. Blan-
chard, of Wheaton College.
PRESIDENT BLANCHARD:
Mr. Chairman : It seems to me that this pressure for the com-
bination courses has not originated from the young men, but has
originated from the institutions that offer such courses. I may be
mistaken. It seems to me supremely unhappy that educational in-
stitutions should give young men the idea that they are being held
too long. I could wish that the colleges and universities, instead
of saying to the young men, "You are likely to be held too long/'
would say, "You are in too great a hurry; stay as long as you can."
I may be mistaken but my observation leads me to believe that the
pressure is on the part of the institutions and not on the part of
the young men.
In the second place I wish merely to quote from Dr. Hadley.
He said, for substance, in his address in this university last winter:
"Gentlemen, there are some people who do not want college courses,
and there are others who do. Are you going to construct your courses
for the people who want them or for those who do not want them?"
I think if we construct our courses for those who want them we
102
shall influence many others to wish for them. If we hinder those
who do desire them, by constructing courses for those who do not,
we shall be scaling down the courses of education for the whole
country.
In the third place if we go on scaling down the liberal courses
as the universities are now doing with their combined courses, this
thing will happen universally, the prizes will go to the men who
get the most training. Other things being equal, the man who does
the best will get the best results, and instead of encouraging one
hundred and fifty men to shorten their courses and give the prizes
to fifteen, it would be better to encourage all to a broader culture
and distribute the prizes among them. Certainly we educators ought
not to invite and urge men to shorten their courses of study.
THE CHAIRMAN:
The discussion will be continued by Professor William A. Locy,
of Northwestern University.
PROFESSOR LOCY:
Mr. Chairman: The paper was presented by a medical man
and the discussion carried on by a medical man. I think it would
be suitable for me to say a word from the standpoint of the teacher
in the college of liberal arts. The question as it affects the college
has been stated as follows: "What subjects offered in the Medical
School can be legitimately accepted for credit by the College of Lib-
eral Arts toward its degrees?" I should say that under proper cir-
cumstances the college of liberal arts is quite justified in accepting
some work done in the medical school to count toward its degrees,
provided the work is done in a broad and liberal spirit. There are
a good many subjects that are common to the scientific courses in
colleges of liberal arts and in the medical schools. Whether or not
it is safe for the college to accept particular subjects depends on
whether they have been taught in the medical school in an ultra-
professional spirit, or whether in a broad way. If, for illustration,
Chemistry in the medical school is taught on a broad basis, I think
it is right for the college to accept that work and allow it to count
toward the bachelor's degree. But if it be given a strictly pro-
fessional turn so that a man is taught merely to detect sugar by
a color test, or if it be narrowed to urinary analysis or made
simply to provide a medical man with facts that will enable him to
apply certain tests in Chemistry, then, in my opinion, it ought not
to be accepted in the college of liberal arts. Physiology is a splen-
103
did example of work that is taught in the college of liberal arts and
also in the department of medicine. It is a splendid subject, I
think, to illustrate that some of the work of the medical school is of
a good kind to put into the curriculum of the college of liberal arts.
Physiology is now taught in the medical school on the most liberal
basis. Instead of beginning with a discussion of the physiology of
the human body, the work is carried on by giving attention first to
analysis of the vital activities. This is followed with work that
belongs directly to the department of general Biology. If it be
taught in that way the college is perfectly safe in accepting it.
Nevertheless, medical schools usually employ a different method of
teaching Physiology from that best suited to general students in
the college of liberal arts. For that class of students there should
be provided, in my opinion, a course of moderate extent giving a
complete survey of the subject of Physiology. The physiology of
the nervous system and the sense organs should be brought into
this course. The medical men desire that the college of liberal arts
shall give a course of laboratory training in Physiology extending
over a year in which the activities of the nervous system are not
touched upon. If the college of liberal arts is to supply a course of
that kind it should be separated from the other general course
in Physiology. Take Comparative Anatomy; if that is taught in
the liberal way as contributing to a knowledge of the comparative
structure of animals I think that it can be very well accepted, but
if it be taught in the narrow way of simply naming the bones, the
muscles and the blood vessels and nerves, it does not belong in
the college course at all. Histology can, I think, very well be ac-
cepted in the college of liberal arts if it be taught as a deeper
analysis of the form and structure of animals. Embryology as giv-
ing a picture of the development of animal and plant life, is an
exceedingly rich subject that ought to be taught in the college of
liberal arts. That part of the subject which is of a general char-
acter and accompanied by laboratory work may be accepted from
the medical schools. If it be taught in a broad way I should
designate it as one of the liberal subjects. Neurology has given
the basis of the structure of the nervous system, the fiber tracts,
the analysis of the sense organs, and is a discussion of their func-
tions. I think it a subject well worthy of acceptance by the college.
Bacteriology has a similar position. I would go so far, as a college
of liberal arts man, as to say that even Pathology, which deals
with morbid growths, offers such a field for making minute and fine
104
distinctions that it may be accepted by the college. If it be taught
as a science elucidating the structure of animals in a broad way,
and is not taught in the formal way of merely naming characteristics
by means of which to recognize abnormal growths, it ought to be
accepted in the college.
All of these subjects contribute toward a knowledge of organic
nature which is today a general topic of importance in our colleges.
SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1903, 9 lOO A. M.
PRESIDENT EATON, OF BELOIT COLLEGE, IN THE CHAIR.
THE CHAIRMAN:
The subject for discussion this morning is :
If reduction is allowed, should it be (a) by acceptance of credits
in the College of Liberal Arts for work done in the professional
school, or (b) by acceptance of credits in the professional school
for work done in the College of Liberal Arts, or (c) by combining
these plans? The first paper will be presented by Professor Munroe
Smith, of Columbia University.
PROFESSOR MUNROE SMITH:
Mr. President and Gentlemen: The subject on which I am to
speak is so intimately connected with those which have already been
discussed, and it is so difficult to make my position on this ques-
tion intelligible without indicating my views on the others, that I
shall ask your patience for a brief preface.
The college has undoubtedly a field peculiar to itself, viz.,
that of educating men who are not satisfied with the view of his-
tory and life which may be obtained in the high school, who have
or can procure the means for further study, but who do not pro-
pose to enter any of the recognized professions. With many college
graduates all systematic education stops at the moment when they
receive the first or college degree. The college, moreover, prepares
young men not only for the recognized professions, but for non-
professional graduate work; and this work, the amount of which is
rapidly increasing, is already correlated, in a way that is on the
whole satisfactory, with the four-year course for the college degree.
As regards both of these classes of college students those who pass
from the college into active non-professional life and those who
enter upon non-professional training in research work it seems
unnecessary and undesirable to diminish the amount of work required
for the college degree. It is also undesirable, I think, that the course
105
4 should be shortened in time, unless the results that are now obtained
I in four years can be substantially obtained, as regards the average
student, in three years. Such a change such an acceleration of the
pace of study that the four-year course shall be run instead of walked,
and run in the average time of three years is, perhaps, possible;
but after listening to Dr. Merrill's charming apology for leisure I
am quite sure that it is undesirable. And even before hearing Dr.
Merrill's arguments, I was convinced that the scheme of compress-
ing four years' work into three years would mean a change in the
habits of college undergraduates and a breach of the traditions of
the college so great as to be almost revolutionary. I doubt, there-
fore, whether the shortening of the college course to three years is
feasible without a substantial diminution of work; and this, as I
have already indicated, I do not think desirable.
What we have at present to consider, however, is the college
course as a preparation for professional study. In the preceding
discussion two different questions have been imperfectly separated;
the question whether we shall encourage students who are already
in college to begin their professional studies before completing their
college course, and the other question, which is the one I am now
discussing, whether we shall require students who are not in col-
lege and who do not intend to come to college whether we shall
require these students to pursue a four-year college course in order
to get into a university professional school. Considering that until
recently all our professional schools, even our university profes-
sional schools, were open to high-school graduates, and that the
majority are still open to such graduates, it does not seem to me
desirable that a college degree, based on a four-year course, should
be required for admission to all professional schools, nor even to
all university professional schools; and I doubt whether it should
be required for admission to any of them.
I speak with some hesitation as regards university schools of
law, because of the fact that both Harvard and Columbia are now
requiring the first degree for admission to their law schools. I
think, however, that if this policy be maintained in these univer-
sities and adopted by other universities, it will become necessary
to shorten the college course to three years. For this reason I ven-
ture to disapprove of the step which these two universities have taken.
At the same time I recognize that the American law school stands
in a peculiar relation to the college a relation different from thai
occupied by the other professional schools. No other professional
106
school leaves to the college an important part of its professional
work. The great majority of our law schools, including many of
our university law schools, do this very thing. They teach so much
private law and so little public law that the young man who desires
an all-round legal education must look to the college for most of
his international law, much of his constitutional law, and his gen-
eral view of national, state and local administration. The same is
true of Roman law, because the American law school almost always
confines itself to Anglo-American law. In several of our universities,
indeed, these subjects are treated in a graduate school and may be
pursued by law students in connection with their professional studies ;
and in some of our law schools these subjects are obtaining recogni-
tion as portions of the law curriculum, usually as electives; but as
things stand throughout the country generally, the majority of stu-
dents who pass through American law schools carry out little public
law or comparative jurisprudence beyond what they may have brought
in with them from college. As long as this state of things exists
as long as a student who intends to study law must resort to the
college not only for general preparation but for an essential part
of a well-rounded legal education so long there will be a special
reason why the college course preliminary to study in a law school
should be longer than that which is required as a preparation for
other professional schools.
It may perhaps be maintained that a somewhat similar state of
things exists as regards theological education. The modern clergy-
man is expected to know so many things that are not and perhaps
can not be taught in a theological seminary, that perhaps we should
say that he requires as long a preliminary college course as does
the lawyer. But until it is decided what subjects should be taught
in a theological seminary and what subjects should be excluded
and yesterday's discussion showed that the theological teachers are
far from having reached agreement on this point the relation of
the theological seminary to the American college seems incapable of
even theoretic adjustment.
For admission to the university law school, as the average uni-
versity law school is now constituted, and perhaps also for admis-
sion to the theological school, when that shall become distinctly a
university school, it seems to me that at least three years of college
study should be required. If the law course shall be so modified
as to give due space to instruction in public law, it will probably
be necessary to extend that course to four years. In such case,
107
when the law school shall do the work which it now leaves to the
college, it may be proper to require only two years of preliminary
college training.
For admission to the other professional schools we should require,
I think, at least two years of college study. A liberal-scientific course,
whether given in a college or in a scientific school of similar rank,
should, however, be regarded as equivalent to a classical course. Two
years of college or of liberal-scientific study and four 'years of medi-
cal or engineering study yield, it will be noted, the same total period
as three years of college and three years of legal or theological
study. The college and professional course for the professional de-
gree should not, I am sure, be less than six years; and when we con-
sider the average age of entrance into college, I am inclined to think'
that not more than six years should be required.
If now a four-year course be maintained for the degree of A. B.,
or if the college course be shortened by one year only, and if col-
lege students be encouraged to begin their professional studies be-
fore the termination of the course required for the college degree,
the first question that presents itself is: What policy shall we pur-
sue as regards the college degree? Shall we say to these students:
"You can obtain a liberal and a professional education in six years
of combined college and professional study, but you shall have no
academic recognition of your college work"; or shall we accept a
combined college and professional course for the first degree?
It seems to me that justice as well as expediency calls for the
granting of the degree of A. B. on such a combined course. The
linguistic and historical studies which usually figure in the first
part of the theological course and the general scientific studies which
occupy the first year or two of a medical course or of an engineer-
ing course these have long been recognized as college subjects. Con-
versely, as I have just pointed out, the American college is teaching
some subjects which in every European and Spanish-American uni-
versity are regarded, and which in this country are beginning to
be regarded, as proper to the law school. Whether the college is
trespassing on the professional field or the professional school is
encroaching on the field of the college, may be disputed, but there
can be no doubt that their claims now overlap; and the point on
which I desire to insist is this: that the degree of A. B. is now
awarded, in all our colleges, on what is substantially a combined
course, partly composed of the traditional college studies and partly
of studies that are, or may be regarded as, professional. The pro-
108
posal to give the degree of A. B. as well as the professional degree,
on a six-year combined course, is simply a proposal that the student
who has successfully pursued during four of these six years the study
of subjects which are generally regarded as college subjects shall
receive what he has earned, viz., the college degree.
These considerations, I think, dispose of the objection often heard
that there is something dishonest in allowing studies that count for
the professional degree to count for the college degree also. What
is just can not well be dishonest. The impression that there is any
dishonesty in the combined course flows from the facile but baseless
assumption that all the studies pursued in the professional school
are purely professional studies and are different in their nature
from those pursued in the college.
There still remains, however, the question whether it is wise
to encourage college students to begin their professional studies be-
fore completing a distinct four-year college course. It was said
yesterday that no demand for the combined course no protest against
the seven or eight years of college and professional studies had
come from the students. It is true that no such protest has come
from the young men who have voluntarily entered on such a course.
The protest has come from the tens of thousands of young men who
have gone directly from the high school to the professional school.
These have protested, dumbly but clearly, by giving up the college
course as a thing beyond their reach. When we are planning to
constrain these young men to enter college as the only avenue to
the university professional schools, their silent protest, I think, should
be taken into account.
The last question which must be answered in planning a com-
bined course (and this is the special question before us today) is
whether studies falling in the debatable field studies which are
both college and professional studies and which for convenience we
may call semi-professional studies whether these studies may to
the best advantage be pursued, by the candidate for the two degrees,
in the professional school or in the college? These alternative so-
lutions are indicated, in the question as drafted, by the letters "a" and
"b." If the first solution "a" is adopted the college undergraduate,
at the moment in which he is permitted to begin his professional
work, passes out of the college into the professional school, and
work done in the professional school is accepted as an equivalent
for the Senior or for the Junior and Senior work of the college.
If the second solution "b" is adopted, the student anticipates in
100
the college, as electives, studies which count toward the professional
degree, and, after a full college course, he enters the professional
school with advanced standing. In its practical working this lat-
ter arrangement may approximate so closely to the first solution
"a" that the difference seems formal rather than substantial. If
in any year a college student is permitted to elect, and does elect,
all his work in a professional school we have what may be termed
solution "a" in disguise. The difference seems merely a matter of
registration. It is, however, something more than that: it is a
matter of jurisdiction, and, what is more important, it is a matter
of associations and influences.
In each of these plans there are advantages, some of which
will suggest themselves to every college or professional instructor.
I desire to dwell on a few advantages of plan "a" the plan under
which the student, at the moment at which his semi-professional or
professional studies begin, severs his connection with the college and
passes under the jurisdiction of the professional faculty and under
the influences of the ideas and associations of the professional school.
In the first place this is the only arrangement in which the
smaller colleges can effectively co-operate. A small college may
teach some of the semi-professional subjects as well as they are
taught anywhere; but it can not teach very many of these subjects
as well as they are taught in the leading professional schools, nor
can it attempt to teach all of them. To make the combined course
generally effective as between the independent colleges and the pro-
fessional schools, the student must sever his connection with the
college at the close of his Sophomore or Junior year and migrate
to the professional school.
Even in the universities I use this term to designate the insti-
tutions which include a college, a non-professional graduate school,
and a number of professional schools even in the universities, where
the college can expand its list of electives almost indefinitely by
the simple process of making professional-school courses college elec-
tives; where it seems a question of secondary importance whether
a student shall do his semi-professional work piecemeal or all at
once; and where it seems immaterial whether this work be done
under the jurisdiction of the college faculty or of a professional
faculty even here there are distinct advantages in placing the semi-
professional courses under the jurisdiction of the professional faculties.
A semi-professional subject may be taught and for the partic-
ular purposes of the college, for the benefit of the undergraduates who
no
do not intend to enter any of the recognized professions, it perhaps
should be taught without the slightest professional twist or lean-
ing. But for the students who are to enter professions it will be of
advantage that the semi-professional courses shall be taught with some-
thing of a professional aim. Take for example studies like chemistry
and physics, which find different applications in medicine and in the
other applied sciences. When a student has passed beyond the rudi-
ments of chemistry or of physics, the professional teacher may begin
to dwell more fully on those aspects and bearings of the science which
are of chief importance in his profession. This may be done, I
think, without sacrificing that indefinable property or accident which
makes these studies "liberal" and gives them "culture-value/' Such
a method of teaching saves time in combined college and professional
courses. I have instanced physics and chemistry ; but what is true of
them is true, I think, of all or nearly all the studies in the debatable
semi-professional field.
Again, the pace of professional work is more rapid than that
of college work. At Columbia we have been experimenting for
thirteen years with combined courses. In 1890 we introduced solu-
tion "a" in disguised form, permitting Seniors to elect a full first year
in any professional school, but keeping their names on the college
roster. At first such students were compelled to take a course or
two in the college in addition to their professional work, but this
is no longer required. In 1897 an arrangement was made by which
college undergraduates, beginning with their Sophomore year, might
elect, when they pleased, applied-science studies to the total extent
of two full years, and thus gain, after obtaining the degree of A. B.,
the standing of third year students in the Schools of Applied Science.
A recent inquest, in which the opinions of all the members of the
different university faculties were solicited on this and on other
matters, has brought out the fact that the instructors in the pro-
fessional schools are not wholly satisfied with the results of these
experiments. Many of them complain that the college undergraduates
who elect professional studies do not do as good work as the students
who are primarily registered in the professional schools. Because
they are still college undergraduates they find it difficult to escape
the numerous distractions of college life, in the way of social, liter-
ary, dramatic, musical and athletic activities.
This means that if the combined course is to be wholly suc-
cessful, one of two things must be done. Either the pace of the
college work must be accelerated (and this, as we know, will be diffi-
111
cult), or the students who, at the close of their Sophomore or Junior
year, are permitted to elect professional studies, must sever their
connection with the college, although they remain candidates for the
degree of A. B. Under such an arrangement the first degree would
be awarded on the recommendation of the college, as regards work
done in the college, and on the recommendation of the professional
faculty as regards work done in the professional school.
Where both college and professional school are parts of the same
university the situation will be simple. If, however, the student does
his college work at one institution and his professional work at
another, the problem of the degree is more complicated. Shall the
university to which the student has migrated for his professional
course give him its college degree, or shall his original college give
him the degree on a certificate from the university in which he has
pursued his professional studies? Or, if he has studied in an inde-
pendent professional school, shall his original college give him his
degree on a certificate from that professional school?
It is evident that the latter arrangement is the only one that
puts the independent professional school (which can not give the de-
gree of A. B.) on the same footing as the university professional
school. Apart from this consideration, however, and simply as be-
tween the university and the independent college, it seems much
fairer that the student should receive his college degree from his
original college. [This plan, as far as I know, was first proposed by
Professor A. D. F. Hamlin, of Columbia University.] To an arrange-
ment by which the university should give him its college degree there
is a double objection. (1) The university appears to be robbing
the independent college of its alumni. (2) The university introduces
into its own college alumni association a body felt to be alien, com-
posed of students who hold its first degree, indeed, but who have
never studied in its college.
The arrangement which I advocate involves the assent and co-op-
eration of the independent colleges. Should they give this co-opera-
tion? If the change is in the interest of American education they
should accept it without narrowly reckoning the advantages or dis-
advantages to themselves. I firmly believe, however, that to them the
gain resulting from such co-operation will far outweigh any loss
it may entail.
In the first place it will preserve their independence. The co-
ordination of college study with professional study in the univer-
sity is, I think, necessary, and if necessary it is sure to come. It
112
may be attained either by that voluntary co-operation for which I
am pleading and which is analogous to what is known in the eco-
nomic world as a traffic arrangement; or it may come through a sub-
ordination of the smaller colleges to the universities in a sort of
educational trust. This latter method of co-ordination has already
appeared in the so-called "affiliation." Both in economic and in edu-
cational affairs traffic arrangements seem to me preferable to trusts.
In the second place the arrangements which I have outlined will,
I think, increase the number of students in the independent colleges.
The mere possibility of completing the college and the professional
course in six years will draw into the colleges thousands of students
who now go directly from the high school to the professional school.
The requirement of preliminary college study for admission to the
university professional schools will force into the college all those
who wish to get professional education of the highest type. The inde-
pendent colleges will get their share of this increment if they co-op-
erate with the universities in the way here suggested. Each of them
will be able to offer to students all the advantages associated with en-
trance into a university college. The net result then, it seems to me,
will be this: The independent college will lose some of its Juniors
and Seniors, who, but for the reciprocity arrangement with the uni-
versities, would have remained in the independent college for four
years. The independent college will gain in exchange many students
who, but for the shortened combined course, would not have entered
college at all, and many more who, but for the reciprocity arrange-
ment, would have entered a university college.
It does not seem probable that any large proportion of students
will be drawn from the Junior and Senior classes of the college into
the professional schools. In the discussion of this problem it is some-
times apparently assumed that the combined course is going to take
the entire top story off the college edifice. If that were so it would
disprove what was so emphatically asserted yesterday, that the col-
lege has a peculiar field of its own. But it is not true. In the
first place, not all those who propose to enter the professional schools
will do this at the earliest moment. Those who can afford to post-
pone their entrance into active life will stay in the college for the
full period. This has been the result of our thirteen years of experi-
ence at Columbia. In the second place, those who are not going to
enter the professional schools those who are going on for graduate
non-professional work and those who are going out into active non-
professional life will stay through the four years. In our experience
113
at Columbia the proportion of the Senior class which goes over into
the professional schools is on the average little more than one-fourth
(26.4 per cent).
The greatest advantage of the combined course is that it preserves
the old four-year course for all students except those who propose
to enter a professional school and who are obliged to enter it at an
early period. The combined course does not shorten the college
course, it only broadens it. The college course remains a four-year
course and a liberal course, but it becomes a course of ampler oppor-
tunities.
THE CHAIRMAN :
The discussion will be opened by Dean J. L. Goodknight, of
Lincoln College.
DEAN GOODKNIGHT:
The discussion of some of the principles and the elaboration in
part of the practical applications by Dr. Smith, cover the question
more fully than it can be touched upon by myself. I affirm that the
independent colleges must all hang together or they will hang sepa-
rately. The tendency of the whole movement in this question today
has its germ in the elective idea, which found its first distinctive
hot bed of propagation in Harvard University. This does not say
that the elective in itself is a bad thing, but even a good thing may
be put to a bad use and even abused. Educational institutions are
feeling after a basis of co-operation "if haply they may find it."
We are passing through a developing period. We have not
reached a permanent college status. There was a time in the educa-
tional work of the United States, when we were in the culture period.
We have moved out of that and must now go through an experimental
expansion period in order that we may come back to a culture
basis. The college should develop and train fully the mental powers
and fit the individual for his life-work whether it be professional
or not. The adjustment should be such as to secure the correct
training and the best things in education. This whole scheme of
shortening courses is upon the assumption that man should begin
his professional life-work at twenty-three, twenty-four or twenty-five.
This is merely an assumption rather than a proved necessity. I
do not believe that it is necessary for a man to enter a professional
career before even twenty-five. He may wait until he is twenty-six
or twenty-seven or eight and accomplish a great deal more in a life
time than if he had begun his professional work at twenty-two or
114
twenty-three. There are a great many men who will have to do
this, even if we have shorter courses, because of their mediocre
ability and because of the circumstsances that prevent them from
continuous preparation and from the continuation of professional
preparation work. I am not to prove that an adjustment to a shorter
course is the best thing, nor that it is a consummation to be devoutly
wished.
But if it must be, how can it be done to insure the least harm.
Certainly we must have a re-adjustment. I think there is no doubt
about that. The pushing of the high school work into college work
and a tendency to make professional work a part of the college course
forces the issue. We have a condition and not a theory confronting us
in our educational system. There are four ways, as I see it, by which
this can be done.
I. You can shorten the college course to three years or to two
years. No one who properly considers the question will admit that
we need less time now to develop and train strenuous men for
their professional work than we have needed in the past. You will
always turn out a certain product by a certain course of study or
training. The product is always according to the great, fundamental
law found everywhere according to the cause. The effect is logical
and by a law of nature follows the cause. With an adequate cause
you will have an adequate effect. With an inadequate cause you will
have an inadequate effect. The best results come from the full four
years' college and professional courses, and as already indicated the
only distracting factor is that the professional men want to get into
their professions a year or two earlier than they can if they must
take a full college course and then a full professional course.
II. The second solution is that one or two years of academic
work can be done by the professional schools and allowed to count for
one or two years on the academic course. This is a very easy solu-
tion in the university where there are college and professional courses.
It can be very readily and easily adjusted in such particular insti-
tutions. But what are you going to do in the case of the independent
college ? If we adopt this plan as already indicated in the discussion
by Dr. Smith, it is "up to" the colleges. There is no professional
school to fill out the course for the independent college. Certainly
no man should have an A. B. or B. S. degree until he has done the
work in some form. I do not believe in conferring degrees on
faith. I think they should be conferred for actual work. Therefore no
college can afford to confer the A. B. or B. S. degree until the work in
115
that particular line has been done. Dr. Smith gave us, I think, an
elaboration of that point which makes it clear to us. The small
college might say to the student: "You do two or three years of
work in our course and take your professional degree and we will
then give you a degree." But you see the confusion this will pro-
duce and how impractical it would be in its operations.
III. By the third plan the college may do a year's work by
electives which shall count on the professional degree. This seems
feasible for Medicine, for Dr. Schauffler said to us yesterday that
there were at least six studies in Medicine which can be done in
the academic course. This seems, therefore, feasible for the medi-
cal course and for the medical degree that comes with the completion
of that course in connection with the academic course which has
been part of the work. But this necessitates more and better equip-
ment for the small college. If you are going to teach Biology
and Chemistry in the small college, I believe that in most of them
you will need to man them with more men and with better men and
with better equipment because we can not afford to advance men who
have not well done this particular work as part of a professional
degree. And while the work done at the present time is adequate
for the A. B. or B. S. degree, yet if it is to be thus extended
it must be an elective and be a special course which will be substi-
tuted for some of the things today demanded for academic degrees.
This can be very easily adjusted and work done in the university
where the men and equipment are ready at hand for the regular
professional work. This will necessitate the colleges forming alliances
with the independent professional schools and with the universities
which have the problem already solved. This problem was also dis-
cussed and enlarged upon by Dr. Smith in connection with forming
"a trust" or alliance of colleges and universities and professional
schools.
But how about Law and Theology and Polytechnic courses ? We
are assured by the gentleman who spoke on Law yesterday that the
colleges could not do advanced work which could be or ought to be
accepted in the law schools unless they had lawyers as instructors.
I suppose most of the colleges could do this, because they are located
in places where there are eminent jurists and judges and attorneys
whom they could induce to take up this particular work in connec-
tion with the college course. As to Theology, we were assured yester-
day that it had very little work which could be done in the college.
Of course, in the Polytechnic courses this adjustment could be made
116
to a large degree, because Botany and Chemistry and Mineralogy, and
High Mathematics and other branches could be taught in the colleges.
But as with Medicine, so again this will necessitate the smaller col-
leges securing more and better men because it will require extra
men and technical men, and will require increased equipment for
doing the work.
IV. The fourth solution is that there will have to be a read-
justment of our entire school system by taking some time from the
eighth grade course and some out of the high schools or college
preparatory schools, so as to save one or two years. I am free to
say, for my part, if the adjustment must come that it seems to me
that is the place where the adjustment should take place. I believe
that today there are some things in the eighth grade course that are
rubbish and are not necessary for the development of the eight grade
course students. Also it might be true that a three years' preparatory
course for the man who wished to take a college course and a profes-
sional course, might be arranged. So that without any great difficulty,
it seems to me, there might be a saving of a year in the eighth grade
course and by shortening the preparatory course to three years and
then making the academic course full four years, you will have a better
prepared man for his professional course than you will get by any kind
of over-lapping or back-lapping or forward-lapping in the whole mat-
ter as between colleges and professional schools. The adjustment might
go so far as to readjust generally the eighth grade and the high school
and the college and professional courses. So that you would have a
complete adjustment for the boy or the girl who wanted to take a pro-
fessional course. This is now done by a great state university that is,
they accept a boy out of the college who has completed three years of
preparatory work and who does three years college work in said uni-
versity and they then graduate him in Medicine and in the academic
degree all at one time by adding the three years of work in the col-
lege to the three years professional work, counting it as one year.
We will have to add a great variety of men to the small colleges if
we readjust them to the educational system. The professor from
California said yesterday that it is not desirable that all who wish
to become trained individuals shall go through the same course and
be turned out in the same identical manner. We can not turn them
out the same thing anyway. Their individuality counts for too much
to be able to make men according to a uniform pattern or by any
patent method.
117
The day will come when all professional training will rest upon
culture courses. An adjustment may be made to serve professional
education, yet the full A. B. and B. S. courses should be retained
for those who wish for and demand the best and the largest things
in education both from the standpoint of the profession and the stand-
point of culture, both in the universities and in the colleges. It is
needed to balance what the culture student ought to have in order
to make him equal to the individual who goes forward and takes
four years or three years of professional study.
Our place as a world power is not yet attained. We can not be
the world-molding nation that we should, unless lying at the base
of all is the right adjustment of our great educational system in the
United States of America
THE CHAIRMAN:
The discussion will be continued by Professor Ernest J. Wil-
czynski, of the University of California.
PROFESSOR WILCZYNSKI :
Mr. Chairman: I should like to say a few words on this ques-
tion. I find that the policy as expounded so ably by Professor
Smith, of Columbia University, agrees substantially with the policy
adopted by the University of California and I only wish to say in
a few words what our point of view has been in this matter.
The University of California believes in a rigorous and ade-
quate preparation for its professional school. It recognizes, however,
that there are certain points of view which it can not afford to over-
look. It is, indeed, desirable that the preparation of every man for
his work should be on as broad a basis as possible. But it is also true
that after a certain age the flexibility of early youth is lost. A
man should enter his life-work while he is still able to incorporate
completely its details as a part of his own being. A year more or
less makes but little difference in his culture and even if it did the
advantage would seem to be with the shorter course. For the real
test to which, after all, professional men must be subjected, is that
of efficiency. I believe that a year saved at this end of the professional
man's career is worth much to him. In case he saves a year in time,
he goes to his work fresher in mind and body and not appreciably less
mature. It is not true that this year makes any real difference in cul-
ture. We believe that true culture is not so much gained by a mere
smattering of many things as by a profound knowledge of some one
subject. If a medical student has spent two or three years in prepara-
118
tion and four years in professional work he is certainly more imbued
with the spirit of research, with the true ideal of work, than the stu-
dent who merely spends four years earning the bachelor's degree.
Is there any one here who would deny that professional studies have
a cultural value? I am not satisfied with the definition of culture
that expresses it in terms of such and such studies. It seems to
me that it is an attitude of mind which keeps the cultured man
open to the influences of the world. A certain amount of prelimi-
nary study is necessary. It is the province of the college to pro-
vide this. True culture does not attach itself to simple knowledge.
Creative scholarship is an important factor of culture. Our standpoint
is this: First, two years' liberal collegiate work; the last two years
are taken by the student in the academic atmosphere, but the sub-
jects are professional to the extent of about one year; then follows
the purely professional work. The bachelor's and professional de-
grees are thus both earned and the student's efforts have been along
the line where they will do him the most good. This plan serves effi-
ciency better and culture just as well.
THE CHAIRMAN:
Dr. Frances Dickinson, of Harvey Medical College, will continue
the discussion.
DR. DICKINSON:
Mr. Chairman: I represent one of the independent medical
colleges, and like the gentleman yesterday I did not "take to the
woods" because for nine years I have been a student of entrance
requirements and educational curricula of medical schools. Have
personally talked with several thousand enquirers for college educa-
tion, many under and more over twenty-one years of age; average
age thirty-two to thirty-five. Matriculated into a medical college
ten hundred and fifty of these adults in nine years and given the
M. D. degree to one hundred and ten only. This experience has
taught me that more adults want parts of the medical course studies
for special purposes and general culture rather than the doctor's de-
gree for practice. They desire those branches often found in the
collegiate courses. Lawyers want anatomy; teachers, physiology;
commercial men, chemistry. There are two hundred and fifty va-
cancies in drug stores in Chicago because the druggist's knowledge of
chemistry gives him a better salary in commercial laboratories, as
canning and other food factories.
Since the all round, old fashioned high school course has dis-
119
appeared, and the elective system run wild and high school courses
all over the country vary widely, the high school diploma has become
a poor evidence of the essential foundation studies of a medical course.
The elective courses chosen have often failed to develop capacity
and to train the mind, have often been the studies not leading to
a future choice, consequently we have listed six groups of studies,
covering all the branches taught in all of the high schools and
demand sixteen units from these groups as equivalent to a four years'
high school course. Latin, physics, mathematics and English must
be four of the sixteen whether the diploma covers them or not. One
group of them consists of commercial branches since the Board of
Regents of New York have established a four years high school com-
mercial curriculum.
The study of physiology is no longer based on histology but
upon the laws of chemistry, physics and psychology. Is there any
function of the body that is not the resultant forces of chemistry,
physics and psychology applied to anatomy? Has any cell or group
of cells any force or power to grow, to change, to aid the process
of life or death, to continue their activity in any form except by
way of the laws of chemistry, physics and psychology? Therefore,
the study of the normal man is the study of these laws applied to
human anatomy.
Since the study of medicine is the study of the human body
and all the forces affecting its functions, it is essential that the
collegiate subjects of chemistry, physics, psychology and biology
should be the foundation stones to a proper medical education.
Biology for a medical course should include general biology,
structural and systematic botany, structural and systematic zoology,
vertebrate morphology and embryology, animal physiology and his-
tology, elementary bacteriology and hygiene. These are the subjects
which are found in both collegiate and medical curricula and all
are scientific studies belonging to the B. S. degree, whoever gives the
degree.
I have personally visited nearly half of the medical colleges
of the country to observe equipment. Have looked over most of
the one hundred and fifty-six medical curricula and find these colle-
giate studies scattered in the first two years of the four-year courses
Only specialized botany, physics, chemistry and biology as applied
to human anatomy and its functions belong to medical colleges.
As for example botany applied to the medicinal and food plants,
chemistry and physics applied to drugs, is knowledge necessary to an
120
intelligent selection of remedies and intelligent expression of combi-
nations in prescription writing that shall make remedies palatable,
suitable and effective.
I hope to see the day when these collegiate courses from their
elementary standpoint shall be outside of the medical curricula; that
two years 7 scientific collegiate course shall be necessary to medical
college entrance.
Economic necessity is not the only reason that many of our best
men left school between the ages of twelve and sixteen years. The
adolescent stage of child life takes from the text-book school life
the vigorous boy and girl. He will not go to school any more and
sit still all day long. He demands change of occupation and must
use hands and feet and all his forces to answer nature's own call
for healthy growth of mind and body. The vigorous healthy fellow
in after life finds that he wants an education best attained in col-
leges and universities. He wants it for better social position, and
business purposes or his own pleasure. His general life and business
training has been a schooling. It has developed his capacity for
work, taught him economy of time, trained his powers of concentra-
tion and observation, increased his resources for application, quick-
ened his ability to apply and enlarge his sympathetic knowledge of
his fellow men.
Shall all of these attainments go to naught when he knocks at
the college door and asks admission? No, the least we can do for
this man over twenty-one years of age, with a record of more than
five years in business, is to give him one year of a four years'
course leading to the degree of A. B. or B. S. I am here to plead
for those business men. There are hundreds of them in our best
families in all of our large cities, who will give back immediately
to the community in which they live, the benefits of this up to date
knowledge who will be thereby grander and more forceful citizens.
THE CHAIRMAN :
Dean Wigmore, of the Northwestern University Law School, will
continue the discussion.
DEAN WIGMORE:
Mr. Chairman: You may recall that Prince Bismarck, once
consulting an eminent physician, was much annoyed by the repeated
and inquisitive questions which the physician asked, and he exclaimed,
"I want to be cured without being asked questions." "Very well,"
was the reply, "your Highness should have consulted a veterinary
121
surgeon." It occurs to me that, while we are discussing the solu-
tion "a," whether we should give credit in the college for work in the
professional school, we are talking about what is good for the stu-
dent to have, and that just here it would be worth while to
abandon the attitude of the veterinary surgeon and to ask our
patient himself what symptoms he himself can detect. I have,
therefore, caused the students in the Law school to be asked this
question, which would seem to be fairly phrased: <f With reference
to the addition of new and useful facts of knowledge; to the acquisi-
tion of the habit of correct thinking; and to the broadening of the
mental and moral view with reference to these three points, and
wholly apart from the professional training, have I found the studies
of the first year in the law school compared with the studies of
my fourth year in college, inferior, or equal, or superior?" The
answers on the first point (with reference to the addition of new
and useful facts of knowledge) were as two to one, that the first
year of the Law school is superior to the fourth year in the col-
lege. On the second point the answers were, as one to one, that it is
equal. In regard to the third point (the general broadening of the
mental and moral view) they were, as one to two, that the first year
of the Law school was inferior to the fourth year of the college.
I would suggest that every Law school and every Medical school
engage itself in collecting such statistics, so that we may have, a year
or two from now, some data worth working upon.
PRESIDENT DOWLINQ:
Mr. Chairman: I should like to inquire whether it is possible
or desirable for this Conference to recommend a plan allowing a
certain number of years for each of the different stages of educa-
tion. It seems to me that this is really the key to the situation. I
will illustrate what I mean. Suppose that we were to say that the"
primary grade should be seven years, the high school four years, and
the college course three years. Then we would have something defi-
nite, because it is quite probable that in the same amount of time
the same amount of work would be done in different institutions, and
there would be some kind of grade for primary schools, high schools
and colleges. Supposing that a boy enters the primary school at
the age of seven; he takes seven years for the primary work and is
fourteen when he enters high school; he finishes high school at eigh-
teen, and, after spending his three years in college, graduates at
twenty-one. He can then prepare for technical work. The reason
I suggest this is that I would like to get some practical results.
122
I have been present at not a few of these educational meetings, and
I have learned how long a time it takes to do nothing and how
many years it takes to do very little. We get together and we dis-
cuss the questions but do not get the results. I know a great many
will say that we should not approve anything without investigating
it, but on the other hand there is not one here who has not for
years been thinking of the matter, and very few who have not defi-
nite ideas. The majority are of one mind. Would it not be pos-
sible for us to reach some conclusion, and announce to the public,
"Here is what we think"? It seems to me that there ought to be
some stage in the game when we should abandon experiment. For
many years past we have been experimenting, going from one thing
to another. We might by this time come to some conclusion. Sup-
pose I represent an institution that is prepared to adapt itself to
whatever is wise. You say that the college course should be four
years in length. All right; I go back and we adopt a four years'
course. We hardly have it put in force before you will say : It should
be three years, and we must adopt a new plan. The primary school
should have its distinct grade, the high school a certain number of
years, and the college should have a certain number of years. We
ought to be able to determine this. Then the university can take
the student and it will be able to accomplish more with him because
he is better developed and prepared for work in any line. I believe
that the interest of education would be best served if seven years
were given to the primary grades, four years to the high school and
three years to the college course. I believe that the college should
confer the A. B. at the end of its three years' course without ref-
erence to work done thereafter; and that neither the college nor the
professional school should ask or grant any allowance for work except
under its immediate control. This would give a distinct plan to
all schools and would prepare the student sufficiently to enter the
university at the age of twenty-one. I would advocate giving of
the degree by the college when the student has finished his three
years. Suppose we accept three years as a compromise, which will
make it unnecessary to compromise next year ; let the student be given
his A. B. at the end of his three years. It seems to me the college
should give a degree when it is through with the student, when he
has got the liberal culture that an educated man should have ; and then
hand him over to the university that the university may do the best
it can for him. Let us not have entangling alliances; they are
a source of confusion and dispute and never make harmony.
123
THE CHAIRMAN:
We will now hear the report of the committee appointed yes-
terday. Dr. St. John will read the report.
DR. ST. JOHN:
Mr. Chairman: Dr. Goucher, the Chairman, wished me to pre-
sent his regrets that he is unable to be present. The report of your
committee consists of one resolution and five recommendations, and
is as follows:
Eesolved: That it is the judgment of your committee that
steps be taken looking toward the organization of a National College
Association.
As the time is too short for your committee to formulate a
comprehensive plan, they would recommend:
First, that a commission of fifteen be appointed to prepare a
plan of organization including conditions of membership.
Second, that a conference similar to the present one be held
during the month of May, 1904, the exact time to be determined by
the present conference.
Third, that the report of the aforesaid commission be sub-
mitted to the conference of 1904.
Fourth, that said commission be instructed to prepare the pro-
gram for that conference and make other necessary arrangements.
Fifth, that the selection of the fifteen persons to constitute the
aforesaid commission be referred to a committee consisting of PRESI-
DENT JAMES, of Northwestern University; PRESIDENT MERRILL, of
Colgate University; and PRESIDENT KING, of Oberlin University,
with power.
(Signed) JOHN F. GOUCHER, Chairman.
W. B. ROGERS,
EDWARD D. EATON,
W. C. ROBERTS,
RICHARD D. HARLAN,
CHARLES E. ST. JOHN.
The acceptance of the report was moved.
Amendment was made to include the three gentlemen named in
the fifth clause, Presidents James, Merrill and King, in the commis-
sion of fifteen.
Amendment adopted.
Report adopted.
124
PROFESSOR C. H. EIGENMANN, OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY :
In connection with the motion that has been offered I should
like to say a few words. We can hardly draw hard and fast lines
between the college and professional schools unless we are in an
"independent" college, and the discussion so far has been from the
standpoint of the independent and smaller colleges. I should like,
therefore, to give an outline of the practices of one of the larger
colleges and its professional schools so far as they have been estab-
lished. In speaking of them, however, I should like to say that the
practices in the universities are also being adopted in the smaller
colleges. I have spoken to a number of the gentlemen present and
find, for instance, that the work in Chemistry and the work in some
other departments of some of the smaller colleges is now accepted
by the various medical schools, and the time required for the com-
bined academic and medical degrees is thus reduced. In the larger
colleges we simply offer a wider possibility of election. In connec-
tion with our Law school it has long been a practice to permit the
Seniors to elect certain Law school subjects toward the A. B. degree,
and the Law school students to elect certain undergraduate work.
We have recently taken an invoice of stock and we have found that
we offer as electives all the courses that are offered during the first
two years in the medical colleges, with the exception of Human
Anatomy and Pathology, and when we found that was the case we
proposed to add them as culture courses. Now, it is to be admitted
that if the smaller colleges want to keep pace with the larger ones,
the number of their men and their equipment must be increased,
and of course that is a matter that the smaller colleges will have
to look to. We propose to offer, and have been offering for a large
number of years, as cultural courses toward the A. B. degree, many
courses that lead directly to the M. D. degree. To these courses
we shall add Human Anatomy and Pathology. Any student, whether
he intends to take up Medicine or not, may elect any or all of
these courses in the medical college. He will in such a case get his
A. B. degree in these courses just as he will if he is taking Latin
and Greek or anything else.
We have had in operation for several years a scheme of shorten-
ing the college course to three years. It has not been by leaving
off the Senior year or by taking down the chimney. It has been
done in this way: any student who enters the university may re-
quest of a committee that exists for that purpose the privilege of
carrying extra work: On his first request he is given the benefit of
125
the doubt and permitted to carry some extra work. Ordinarily each
student carries fifteen hours. No student is enrolled in classes for
more than fifteen hours unless he brings the permit of the committee
to carry extra work. Not more than five extra hours are permitted.
At the end of the term the total record of the student who has carried
extra work comes before the committee. If his work has been above
a certain grade all of the work he has carried may count toward the
total required for graduation ; if it falls below, if he has done inferior
work, not more than fifteen hours is permitted to count, and a second
request to carry extra work will be refused. An exceptional student
may thus materially shorten his course.
PROFESSOR CHARLES E. ST. JOHN, OF OBERLIN COLLEGE :
I want to say just a word from the point of view of the independ-
ent college. We believe at our institution that four years in college is
too long a requirement in preparation for the four years' professional
courses; and the only question is, where shall time be taken out? I
believe with the distinguished president of Columbia, who, in outlining
his proposition at the Cleveland meeting, made a very clear case, that
the two years' loss of time occurs before the high school.
I think that every college man here feels that at least a year is lost
in the elementary grades. But the proposition made by him was that,
although the loss occurred before entering college, the place to recover
was in the college. This seems at first a little illogical, but it is not
so illogical as it might be. It is much easier to manage four hundred
colleges than it is to force an unorganized body of schools to change
their courses. It is a question of administration. It will be very diffi-
cult to save the time before college, but the time must be saved. At
our institution, about one-fourth of the men enter upon professional
work after graduation. And, as we are a co-educational institution,
that means about one-eighth of our graduates. Are we to shorten the
college course for the benefit of the one-eighth ? What about the seven-
eighths who want preparation for non-professional work and value the
traditional college course for the liberal training it furnishes? The
point is, we want to keep the four years' course for general education
and at the same time meet the other situation. And to do this we
must enter into some arrangement with the professional schools. W^
are not afraid of "entangling alliances." We are in these alliances
now. We have taught from a medical point of view histology, an-
atomy, and physiology. The only thing that now stands in the way
of this pre-medical preparation in the college is the statutes in sev-
eral states requiring four years registration in a recognized medical
126
school. And we are discussing the question of adding to our Faculty a
professor of law. It is quite a question whether that kind of man can
now be found. Such college positions may be open to men within the
next few years, and the demand may be relied on to create the supply.
It is not exactly a practicing lawyer we want, but a man trained in
the law school and willing to take a professorship in the College.
We are not afraid of this co-operation in educational lines. But
a very difficult question is, who shall give the degree? And this is
where many of us will feel the pressure of the situation. This must,
however, be true ; that if the work is done in the college, it must be of
as high grade and the same character as that done in a professional
school. We think the solution is in this combined course. We are
an independent college with no university aspirations, and do not want
a law school, but we wish to keep our men. We want some practicable
scheme and think it can be found in this co-operation of the independ-
ent college with the university and independent professional school.
PRESIDENT CHARLES A. BLANCHARD, OF WHEATON COLLEGE :
Mr. Chairman: I would like to ask whether the suggestion
made by President Dowling was intended to be a motion making
declaration as to the ideal course of study and number of years in the
school ?
PRESIDENT DOWLING : I did not make it as a motion because I
did not know the sense of the meeting.
PRESIDENT BLANCHARD : I would like to ask whether it would be
proper for us to consider a motion.
THE CHAIRMAN : It is in order.
PRESIDENT BLANCHARD : I wish to move, That in the judgment
of this body the ideal course of study for our American people at the
present time is six years in primary grades, four years in the high
school, four years in college, and four years in the professional school.
I make this motion cutting down the proposition of seven years
to six years in the primary grades for reasons that I will state if the
motion is seconded.
Motion seconded.
PRESIDENT BLANCHARD: The remark made by the gentleman
who has just left the floor seems to me decisive. Dr. Butler said that
there were two years thrown away in the primary grades and that the
way to remedy the matter was to take two years out of college. It
seems to me we ought to remedy the difficulty where it exists. It is
true, as the gentleman says, that it is a very difficult thing to secure the
127
public attention of the country in order to cut down all the primary
grades from eight to six years. I do not understand that we here are
responsible for anything except for the expression of our judgment.
If we think the grades should be cut down we ought to say so. If we
think they are all right we ought to say so. If we think seven years
better we ought to say that.
As to my own judgment, I am satisfied that it would be a great
benefit to the educational system of our country, in this time of chaos,
for a body like this to take definite action. I want to say one word,
Mr. Chairman, and that is this. The gentleman who has just left the
floor says, "We wish to save our men, and therefore we would like to
find how we may do so." I think what we want is to save our country,
to save able-bodied, well educated, well trained men for public life.
It is a certain fact that the college training of the last two hundred
and fifty years has had a marvelous share in the development of this
country. A minister of George III. reporting to the Ministry on his
return to England said, that unless Harvard College was suppressed
England would lose the American Colonies. He said, "Every man that
goes out from that college is a preacher of sedition." I suppose, Mr.
Chairman, that was substantially true. Every man was a preacher of
the doctrine of liberty. The colleges have been a source of that kind
of sedition.
We want the college training continued so that every man may
have his look at the fields beyond. We want that liberal culture which
all leaders require and I think we ought to say so. I am clear that we
should pass this motion, if it be our judgment. I think we ought to
publicly express our own opinions and trust to the public to produce
the impression which we desire on the minds of legislators and those
who have the care of primary education in the United States.
Therefore, I move that the judgment of this body of teachers is
that the primary course should be six years in length, the high school
course four years, the college course four years, and the professional
course four years.
DIRECTOR CARMAN, OF LEWIS INSTITUTE: I should amend as
proposed by President Bowling, having seven years instead of six.
President Butler was quoted. I wish to quote him at Minneapolis.
The statement was there made that two years were lost in the primary
grades and two years in college, a possible loss of four years. There
is no denying that a seven years' elementary course is receiving
a good deal of consideration. It seems more reasonable than a longer
course for students who are to continue in the high school.
128
PRESIDENT JAMES. H. BAKER, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO :
Mr. Chairman: I believe in action if there has been sufficient
deliberation, but I hardly agree with the gentleman who made this mo-
tion. I do not think that we have had enough deliberation. So far
as I know this is the first large formal meeting in which the problem
of university organization in this country has been taken up in this
manner. Of course all of these problems have been discussed, but I
mean such a meeting for such a purpose. Ideas regarding university
organization in America are unsettled. Few know where they stand.
I think this meeting is very significant as being one of the first meet-
ings to seriously take up these problems, and I believe great good will
grow out of it.
I have reached two conclusions: First, that from the primary
grades to the Ph. D. degree, the period of general education is too
long. Second, that the American youth will not take four years in
the high school, four years in college, and four years in the professional
school. They ought not to. Where the shortening process should be
applied I am not sure. I do think there should be a most thorough
investigation, national in character, bringing in the colleges, including
the great universities, bringing in some of the leading high schools,
and some broad-minded business men who have had the benefit of
college education, so that we may have a redefinition of what culture
means. We should have an examination all along the line, to learn
what readjustments should be made. We are trying to pile the Ger-
man university on top of the English university and hence arises all
the trouble. There must be reorganization and readjustment from the
top to the bottom. Such a problem needs the most careful and
thoughtful consideration so that the investigation may be justly called
national in character some such investigation as was made by the
"Committee of Ten" a dozen years ago in regard to secondary educa-
tion. I wish not to be misunderstood. Culture must be retained and
will be retained in America in some fashion and to some extent; but
this does not take away from the fact that we must have a readjust-
ment based upon careful investigation. Culture will have to be re-
defined. Culture merely for culture's sake is of the past. Culture in
these days must include the will, the desire and the motive, to be use-
ful to humanity. Whether a man write a better poem or dig a ditch
better, in some way he must make his culture useful.
PRESIDENT W. C. ROBERTS, OF CENTRAL UNIVERSITY, KENTUCKY:
Mr. Chairman : I move that this matter be referred to the com-
mittee of fifteen which has been appointed to consider all these ques-
129
tions, and that that committee be instructed to gather statistics which
may throw light on a great many closely related subjects we have no
light on now. I am sure we shall be better prepared to act intelligently
on this important question at our next meeting in 1904.
Motion seconded.
Motion referred to committee.
THE CHAIRMAN :
The last topic for discussion is, The Eelation of the Technical
School to the College. We shall now be favored with a paper by Dr.
Harry W. Tyler, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
DR. TYLER:
Mr. Chairman ; Gentlemen : There is an element in my paper as
to which I wish to say a word at the outset. I have spoken rather
freely of the single institution I know intimately, deeming that per-
sonal experience would have more interest and value than any more
abstract presentation.
In view of the tendency of the word college to lose definite signifi-
cance a tendency fundamental for the present conference I may be
pardoned for translating my subject, with some incidental broadening,
The Eelation of the School of Technology to General Education.
All men need general education ; many have the capacity and the
means necessary for that grade of general education called collegiate.
A minority probably increasing seek professional education also.
The problem of the college is to harmonize if possible the interests of
those who seek only general education and of those who seek both
general and professional education. The corresponding problem of
the professional school is to give the best professional training to stu-
dents of various degrees of previous general education.
What constitutes general education? How much of it is so im-
portant that the school of technology should enforce its attainment?
How much of it should be advised but not required ? Where and how
should the minimum and the broader range be given ?
As to the first two questions I presuppose that general education
includes the sum of those formative agencies of which the main ob-
ject is quantitative and qualitative development of the powers and
faculties of the student, without necessary reference to his efficiency in
a particular occupation. I should include under it the study not only
of Literature, Philosophy, History and Art, but also of Mathematics,
Physics and Chemistry. A well-rounded general education should in-
clude all of these, and it should include also moral, physical and social
136
elements. The educated man should not only have acquired a wide
range of knowledge, he should have gained power, self-mastery and the
beginnings of wisdom.
The school of technology has the right and the duty to make its
requirements of general education such that the aggregate value and
efficiency of its graduates shall be a maximum, diminished neither on
the one hand by too narrow training of a great number of men nor, on
the other, by the undue restriction of numbers in consequence of a
standard too broad or too high.
Of the elements of general education above mentioned a great
part the sciences receive greater emphasis in the school of tech-
nology than in the college. Moral, physical and social interests
fare less well in some respects, better in others; the issue comes in
part on the student's attitude toward his work as a whole, in part on
the inclusion or exclusion of the literary elements of general educa-
tion.
As to policy the following alternatives invite consideration :
First: The graduate of the secondary school may be examined
for admission to the college only in subjects on which his professional
course will depend, and the professional course itself may involve no
recognition of literary studies as such. The graduate will have the
minimum of general education, although the significance of chem-
istry, physics, mathematics, etc., as constituents of general education
apart from their utilitarian aspects should not be forgotten.
Second: The graduate of the secondary school may be examined
more or less extensively and thoroughly in literary studies, for example,
English, history, modern languages, etc., but his professional course
may contain none of these. This seems to be based on the assumption
that the professional graduate needs no literary education beyond that
which is within the capacity and maturity of the secondary scholar.
On the other hand, it seems, if requirements are strictly enforced, to
make the admission of candidates to professional courses depend to
a relatively great extent on thoroughness of preparation along literary
lines, on which success in the professional work will have but slight
dependence.
Third: The professional school may attach such value to general
education as to require an academic degree for admission. This gives
high recognition to the value of general education, but seems to be open
to serious objections which will be considered at some length below.
Fourth: The professional school may accept responsibility for
general as well as for professional education, and, requiring literary
131
as well as scientific subjects for admission, may undertake more or less
successfully to combine certain fundamental elements of general educa-
tion, for example, English, history, and economics, with its own pro-
fessional instruction. The main difficulty of this plan is that of lack
of time.
Fifth: The professional school planning its courses for graduates
of secondary schools, may at the same time make provision for college
graduates to enter with advanced standing in such a manner that their
total period of education shall not be unduly prolonged.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has based its policy
on the fourth and fifth of these alternatives. From its standpoint the
entire omission of the literary elements of general education is inde-
defensible, and is certain to produce graduates whose professional
efficiency to say nothing of their value as citizens and as men is
confined within a narrow range. The attempt to meet the difficulty
by enforcing the study of literary subjects in the preparatory course
alone must be ineffective, for the reason that the secondary scholar
has in general not reached the age or intellectual maturity which jus-
tify a suspension of literary studies. Such suspension leaves him with
only the school boy's power of expression and appreciation of the
matters outside of his profession. It is an easy abdication of the
professional school's real responsibility for general education toward
young men who have not passed the age to which general education
necessarily belongs.
On the other hand, the requirement of an academic degree for
admission to the technological course may be a complete, but it is also
an essentially illogical, remedy for the lack of general education on the
part of technological graduates. It would perhaps be more accu-
rate to say that this solution is not so much illogical as over-logical.
Good results are claimed for the application of this principle to profes-
sional schools of older type in theology, law and medicine. I have
no disposition to question the validity of these claims. I venture to
deny that such success in the professions mentioned affords an ade-
quate ground for putting technological education on a similar basis.
If the lawyer needs a mainly literary and general education as a basis
for his professional success, this does not carry with it any such infer-
ence for the mining engineer. Analogies are dangerous, but over
against that of the lawyer or the doctor may be put that of
the military officer. Would any one question his need of broad, gen-
eral education ? Would any one suggest that he should be first a col-
lege graduate before being admitted to West Point ?
133
The requirement of an academic degree for admission to the
professional course seems indeed to have no very definite significance
under present academic conditions. The A. B. may mean a course
primarily classical, but under the elective system it may mean most
anything else. The natural effect of an A. B. requirement for admis-
sion to all professional courses would seem to be the further dissolu-
tion of any definite significance as to content which the academic
degree may now have, the further tendency to carry back courses in
applied science into the academic curriculum, and the greater pres-
sure for condensation of that curriculum. The students who take the
college course for its own sake, rather than as a basis for professional
studies, would be more and more subordinated to those who are pre-
paring for professional courses. These latter, if wisely guided in the
choice of electives, might well secure for themselves the best attainable
education, devoting to it presumably not less than six years. I submit,
however, that the requirement of an academic degree for admission
to a professional course is not at all justified by a demonstration that
individual students conforming to this requirement obtain through it
the best education. The choice of the best should be free, not enforced.
Any requirement involving six years of advanced study puts the pro-
fessional course out of the reach of many students well fitted for suc-
cess in it. Because professional schools have at times made the easy
error of requiring almost nothing for admission and this is I believe
not more true of the schools of technology than of those of law and
medicine should it be inferred that the rational alternative is the
opposite extreme of a complete academic course as preparation?
Another most important consideration is that of cost. The sci-
entific professions of the country are recruited very largely from the
families of poor men, and this tendency toward convection between
social classes is of very great value. The cost of a technological educa-
tion is necessarily heavy. If an academic course were a prerequisite,
many of the poor students would be entirely unable to take it. Many
others would go beyond due limits of self-sacrifice and hardship, and
would be permanently impaired in physical and mental efficiency and
vitality. It is not impossible that in the diversified field of American
education it may be desirable that there should be one or more scientific
schools requiring college graduation for admission, but the practical
application of the principle would be gravely hampered by dissimi-
larity in the attainments and scholastic quality of the students.
Under present economic and social conditions the American boy
who desires to become an engineer, a chemist, or an architect, wishes
138
with right to enter the lower ranks of his profession as soon as may
be after attaining his legal majority. He will have much to learn
in these lower ranks from associates of more or less training than him-
self, much to learn by toilsome contact with products of his own indus-
try and that of others, in the mine, the mill and the field. He must
learn by experience how to manage many forms of labor and service.
Much of this apprenticeship differs radically from anything normal
to the experience of the young graduate in law or medicine. The
young lawyer or doctor prepares for a career of independent activity
and responsibility; the young engineer is likely to become a member
of a great industrial organism.
The development of pure and applied science, the increasing com-
plexity of applications of the physical sciences in engineering and
industry render it wholly out of the question to give the essential
training in a thorough manner in less than four years, assuming that
the candidate has at the outset the best preparation which a boy of sev-
enteen can expect to have obtained. Nor is this limit mainly depend-
ent on the relative efficiency of secondary education or the relative
scholastic industry of boys. The work of the scientific school differs
not merely in degree, but in kind from that of the boys' school, and if
a particular boy under exceptional conditions is able to carry his
preparation beyond the usual point, it still remains needful, if not
imperative, for him to spend four years in the professional course. On
the other hand, the average boy will very often find it important, if
not essential, to give five years to that course.
The attitude which the scientific school can take toward literary
education is thus limited by the following considerations:
The boy can be presented by the secondary school adequately pre-
pared for a professional course at about eighteen years of age ; a profes-
sional course of normal scope can be given him during four years of
earnest work ; it is desirable that he should be ready to enter his profes-
sional at twenty-two, or, with some margin for advanced study or
interruptions, at twenty-three. Shall the pressure of professional
studies be allowed to prevent the reservation of a substantial portion
of the four years for general, and in particular for literary studies?
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has stood consistently for
the negative answer to this important question. Its technical courses
have been based on thorough and careful treatment of the fundamental
sciences chemistry, physics, and mathematics, presented not merely
with reference to their applications, but with due regard for their
intrinsic significance as essential elements of a broad general education.
184
To these have been added thorough courses in modern languages,
regarded both as a means to acquaintance with the scientific work of
other countries and as linguistic training.
Besides all this, every course has included a definite allotment of
instruction in general studies of a literary character, in particular,
English composition, and literature, American and European history,
and economics. It is not claimed that these courses under the pressure
of competition with professional subjects, receive all the time and
attention of students which might well be desired. It is held that the
Institute by the maintenance of these courses recognizes, and, so
far as practicable, fulfills its obligations toward the literary education
of the great majority of its graduates. For many of them the rela-
tively brief instruction in literature and history has proved a per-
manent nucleus for subsequent studies of later life. The significance
of economics for any man who is to deal with industrial problems and
processes on a large scale, with necessary reference to cost of produc-
tion, needs no argument. It need hardly be added that literary sub-
jects are required for admission, and it is significant that a recent
considerable increase in the entrance requirements in French and
German has been accompanied by provision that nearly half of the
time set free in the curriculum by this advance should be reserved
for studies of a general character.
The young man whose tastes and circumstances warrant a broader
general education has, so far as the Institute is concerned, the choice
of two plans, one of which is very commonly pursued. He may, first,
extend his Institute course over five years, instead of four, being classed
nevertheless as a regular student, and thus find it possible to include
a considerably greater range of literary study for which opportunity
is offered in connection with the course in general studies. This plan
has not yet been often followed. In the second place, the student may
take an academic course at college in whole or in part, and then enter
the Institute with advanced standing. Such a combined course may
under favorable conditions be completed in six years, or even in five
years, if only the degree of the Institute, and not that of the academic
course, is sought. The Faculty esteems highly the value of this plan,
and offers very considerable latitude in its requirements as to sequence
of studies to a college graduate endeavoring to make such a combina-
tion.
The present year eighty-eight graduates of forty-eight colleges
and universities have entered the Institute in this manner. The
advantages of the plan vary with the student, but may on the whole
185
be summed up more or less accurately as follows : the student passing
at once from the secondary school to the scientific school is apt to
have already a tendency toward specialization in some technical line,
which will often have detracted from his interest in general education.
The direct transition to the professional school gives full effect to this
tendency; the professional point of view is over-emphasized; other
lines of interest are neglected; and intellectual narrowness results.
I do not at all admit that this is the general attitude of students com-
ing to the scientific school without a college course, but I do not, on the
other hand, deny that it applies to too large a minority.
As to the college course as a remedy, the argument seems to me
two-sided. On the one hand the boy of general intellectual interest
and ability, systematically trained, may spend three or four years in an
academic course with continually broadening mental horizon, with
stimulating and inspiring relations with teachers and fellow-students,
and with no lack of earnestness and effort. It need scarcely be said
that this ideal is not the average. The boy graduating from the
secondary school may have so strong a bent toward professional studies
that an interpolated general course would be uninteresting not to
say distasteful particularly if not alleviated by freedom of election, 1
while the principle of free election would logically have led to his fol-
lowing his own preference directly into the professional course. This
difficulty would, I am confident, apply to a relatively large proportion
of students who now take technological courses, students not, to be
sure, of the highest type, but often of marked capacity and professional
promise. In the next place, the average boy of fair ability and
industry without a decided bent in any particular direction, if he takes
the college course as a preliminary to one in applied science, incurs
certain more or less grave risks. If his course is mainly of a classical
character, he may sacrifice time which he needs for the beginnings
of scientific work. It is a serious misfortune for any student not to
have had some laboratory work in the secondary school. Whether he
has had it there or not, he ought on no account to postpone begin-
ning it until he is past twenty-one. If he does this, he will then re-
quire more than normal time, he will undergo the serious embarrass-
ment of entire dislocation between the grade of work which he can do
with his brain and that which he must do with his eyes and hands. It
is not at all unlikely that he will fail, for success in the scientific
laboratory is not possible to all, and fitness for it should be tested early
rather than late.
It has been assumed that the college course has been conducted
136
under favorable conditions, but in a purely academic direction. It
is not an open question, however, that for the average college boy, who
is for the moment under consideration, conditions are rarely ideal.
The whole atmosphere of the college or university is a complex mix-
ture, not merely, or perhaps mainly, of studious effort, but of athletics,
fraternities, and miscellaneous pastimes. The college student may
have learned to do nothing thoroughly well, and if he enter the scien-
tific school after graduation, may be less fit to do its work than he was
four years earlier. He may have learned to depend upon textbooks
rather than observation, on authority rather than on evidence, on the
examination cram rather than on continuous application. He may
have been esteemed most by his fellow-students for his physical prowess
and his social good-fellowship. His perspective of the world around
him may be essentially distorted. He may overcome even this handi-
cap in the professional school, but the effort is painful and the risk
of discouraging failure not small. On the whole, out of ten students
who graduate in the scientific school, perhaps four would have been
greatly benefited by an antecedent academic course, three more would
have derived some benefit, but hardly enough to offset the expenditure
of time, the remaining three would have suffered harm from the de-
moralizing possibilities of the college, or would have failed on account
of natural unfitness for its work. The admixture of college graduates
with undergraduates of the Institute has, in spite of occasional disad-
vantages, had on the whole salutary results. The undergraduates,
outnumbering the others by far, have in general appreciated the
superior maturity and mental breadth of the better men among the
graduates. The graduates, on the other hand, have gained much from
the spirit of earnest application surrounding them. It is certainly
unpleasant for the college graduate to have to take first year chemistry
or drawing with freshmen, but this is rarely necessary if the college
course has been well planned, and if he enters the third year of an
engineering course, the men of his class are not markedly inferior in
maturity.
Statistics have been prepared showing the attendance of college
graduates at the Institute, including all who have entered from 1890
to 1899 inclusive. Their records have been tabulated, and expressions
of opinion have been sought from heads of professional departments as
to the quality of these men as students and their subsequent profes-
sional efficiency. The total number of graduates for the years in ques-
tion is two hundred and eighty-nine; the degrees held by them are as
follows: A. B. (or B. A.) one hundred and sixty-eight; S. B. (or
137
B. S.), sixty-eight; other degrees fifty-nine; the number of colleges
represented, one hundred and twenty-three. The number who have
received the degree of the Institute is one hundred and fifteen.
The records of the Institute and the expressions of opinion on the
part of the heads of professional departments seem to warrant on the
whole the following conclusions : a considerable number of graduate
students have come to the Institute, often as teachers for special pur-
poses, with no expectation of completing any of its courses. These
students have usually had professional experience of some sort, are
past the usual age, and are of decided ability and earnestness. Their
attendance has been of high value to the school, but affords no basis
for argument along general lines.
Leaving these students out of account, leaving also out of account
those who have come to the Institute as graduates of other scientific
schools, it appears that the average quality of work has not differed
widely from the average of the Institute's own students above the first
year. A certain proportion of incompetents are naturally weeded
out in the first year, and may be presumed to have been weeded out
also by college graduation. The best of the college graduates have
done work entirely comparable with the best work of other students,
but by no means superior to it. On the other hand the college gradu-
ates have shown all degrees of incapacity.
As to subsequent professional success, data seems to be inadequate
for any general conclusion. Prior to 1890 the number of such gradu-
ates was comparatively small. Those who have come since that date
have not yet reached the age when superiority of fundamental equip-
ment should have produced decided results. Immediate professional
success is not more open to the college graduates than to the others.
The real question as to their efficiency belongs to the period twenty-
five years or more after graduation. The somewhat exceptional man
who has laid a broad foundation of general education, and who has
made the best use of the social opportunities of college life may cer-
tainly be expected on the one hand to lead a larger and more useful
intellectual life as a citizen and a man, on the other hand to have
marked superiority in all those wider professional fields in which suc-
cess depends greatly on knowledge of men and skill in dealing with
them. Actual evidence in this direction is as yet, however, neces-
sarily limited.
The relation between the independent scientific school and the
professional university department may be considered briefly. In the
United States, independent schools of technology and the university
138
departments have been developed more or less equally with a wide
variety of intermediate types. In the east where conservatism of col-
leges and universities has been relatively more potent, the importance
of independent scientific schools has been greatest, and their success
most notable. From the present standpoint the technological de-
partment of a great university may offer to the academic graduate
better articulation of his general with his professional studies. On
the other hand, the independent scientific school can deal at least
as justly with the graduate of the college which has no professional
departments, and it is certainly open to question whether it is not
wiser for a young man to divide a six year term of higher studies
between two different institutions than to pass from an academic
department to a professional department of the same university.
The decision of this question may naturally turn on a variety of
special considerations, but not infrequently it may be highly advan-
tageous for the student at the threshold of his professional studies
to make an entire change of environment as the German corps stu-
dent does whenever his serious work begins.
It is interesting to note that the relations between the colleges
as such and the professional schools of technology are becoming closer
with the increasing tendency of the college graduates to seek the
scientific schools. Both the colleges and the scientific schools have
much to gain from this tendency, and both may well make what-
ever adjustments, and even minor sacrifices, may be needful. I
have been specially interested the present year in correspondence
with the president of a college, in connection with the publication
by him of a circular on pretechnical studies for scientific students,
outlining a course in college on the basis of which graduates may
enter the third year of an engineering course.
Finally, to vary the point of view, if consulted as to the best
course for a boy completing his high school and desiring a techno-
logical training, I should be inclined to advise somewhat as follows:
Send the boy to college
(1) if time permit;
(2) if he has the capacity for breadth of interest necessary
to derive advantage from a wide range of opportunity, and the
steadiness of character to insure a due proportion of work to play;
(3) if a college is open to him which shall not require Greek
for or after admission, but shall offer him on the one hand mod-
erate freedom of election, on the other hand good instruction in
139
drawing, mathematics, physics and chemistry, with laboratory work,
as well as in the usual collegiate lines.
Under these conditions an admirable education for professional
life may be completed at twenty-three or twenty-four, without trun-
cation or distortion of either the college or the technological course.
The more complete the last condition is fulfilled by the colleges,
the more the existing articulation between the college and the school
of technology is improved, the more will the former attract of an
excellent class of students, the more will the latter gain of broadly
trained men, the higher will become the standard of the engineering
professions.
THE CHAIRMAN:
The discussion will be opened by Director George N". Carman,
of Lewis Institute.
DIRECTOR CARMAN:
I have been glad to give a part of the ten minutes allotted to
me to the reader of the paper, for I am in hearty accord with the
sentiments expressed by Professor Tyler. As I have no intention of
encroaching on the time of my friend, Dr. Gunsaulus, I shall say
very briefly what I have to say. I did think before coming here
this morning that I should want not only ten minutes, but that I
should find it very difficult to compress my remarks within that
time. It seemed yesterday as if the four years' college course, with
all its delightful leisure, was the only thing to be defended. Having
had the opportunity to offer the amendment that we have agreed to,
I feel it is unnecessary at present, and out of order, to discuss the
question further. I have thought, however, if I had the time and
the ability I should like to discuss a phase of the question before
the Conference suggested by what we heard this morning from Pro-
fessor Smith. The presentation of this question of the college as
it is related to the professional school certainly was so complete
that it suggested to my mind the advantage that would be derived
from a similar presentation of the relation of the college to the
work which precedes it.
Many of us know that a certain amount of college work is
often done in the high school and that there is a tendency to in-
crease the high school course to five or six years. Some years
ago I think it was ten or twelve Professor Ladd, of Yale, wrote
an article for one of the magazines in which he said, "The high
school is between the upper and nether millstones of the college and
140
the elementary schools." But today, especially in the West, it may
with some truth be said that the college is between the upper and
nether millstones of the university and the high school, or to use Dr.
Butler's figure there is danger of a short circuit in the educational
field that will cut the college out altogether. President Butler,
however, emphasized the great loss this country would suffer if the
small college and what it has stood for should cease to be.
I was expected, I understand, in this discussion to say some-
thing of technical work in the secondary school, and with that in
mind I have distributed a diagram which I prepared for use on an-
other occasion. I leave this diagram as my contribution on this
particular topic without further comment, and pass for a moment
to another consideration. I believe that too much emphasis was
put yesterday on the college as a place where nothing useful is taught,
the thought being that as instruction becomes useful it loses its cul-
tural value. I for one am not afraid of the bread-and-butter idea
of an education. I do not think it can be ruled out of court.
In closing I want to read two or three sentences from this
week's Outlook: "The end of education is life; the object of life
is service; and that is the best education which fits the pupil for
the best service that he can render. The first service that he can
render to society is to support himself and so not become a burden
on the charity of others." You recall that Ruskin said that "the
best thing any man can do is to earn an honest living." "That all
industry is honorable and all idleness is a disgrace, is the first postu-
late of the new educational movement; that no industry is drudgery
if it is intelligently performed, and no industry is ennobling if it is
performed unintelligently, is its second postulate. It is a far higher
and better thing to make a table intelligently than to preach a ser-
mon, write an editorial, or teach a school mechanically."
THE CHAIRMAN:
The discussion will be continued by President Frank W. Grun-
saulus, of Armour Institute.
PRESIDENT GUNSAULUS:
Mr. Chairman and Fellow Workers: If I could make as good
a speech as this and distribute it I would be as generous as Professoi
Carman. I am sure I am very grateful for his kind reference.
All I wish to say will be in direct and close harmony with what he
has done and what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology so
ably represented here today has done so illustriously before the world.
141
Now, it strikes me, my friends, that if you want to find how
vast, how powerful is the wave of commercialism which is rolling
over us and dashing mercilessly against us, you must stand in an
institute of technology, in a school where you are preparing men to
do what is often called the successful thing in human life. And if
you stand there long enough you will behold the angry surf of
this selfish movement seething in such a manner as will make you
come to a meeting like this and say, when you see the ideal of
education embodied in the four years' course assaulted : "By all
the powers that have entered into American education and into
American citizenship, these waves can go 'thus far and no
farther/ '' There is no kind of school, I suppose, amongst all
the kinds of schools with which we have to do, so certain to detect
how insidious, how pervasive, how plausible, how sincere in its own
fanaticism is the fallacy lurking in the statement that education
must be put into harmony with the latter part of the nineteenth
and the earlier part of the twentieth century, as they have grown
successful chiefly along commercial lines. There is no objection
whatever to the success of the commercial spirit in so far as it is
in harmony with successful manhood. Our age does not lack in
serious, honest criticism in the presence of the vast achievements of
what we call modern civilization; but the question of questions for
the educator to ask today is not, at what age men should go into
life, not how much of youth we can spare to this monster, not at
what periods this or that can be done; but the question for us to
ask is, after this new program is adopted, what kind of men are
we going to have left upon our hands? What sort of heart-
tissue? What kind of soul-fiber? What quality of hand and
head has this man out of which we are to make a noble specimen
of our race? It is very certain that the technical schools of this
country are confronted, as perhaps no other schools are, by the argu-
ment which is coming to us if it may be called an argument as
to the necessity for youth in all the business enterprises of the
country. Our friend who gave us this luminous and really great
paper, Professor Tyler, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
brought back to my mind other days, and I want here publicly to
thank him personally and the institution which he represents for the
determinative foresight communicated to the mind of the late Philip
D. Armour, the founder of Armour Institute. It was under the
leadership of Peter Cooper that this great man of pork and ham and
"sides" came to the conclusion that the kind of men out of which
142
the American future is to be made is the sort of man who will
not object to take time enough to put his youth where God means
youth shall be of most service where it can be educated, where it
can be inspired, where it can be trained, in order that with sea-
soned youth, with intense youth, with law-abiding youth, he may
rest his career upon manhood wherever he goes in the world. The
question of questions in education, then, comes to be just this,
whether we are going to supply these vast influences and these im-
perious instrumentalities of our commercial progress with the youth
out of which of course it may be able to make enormous profits,
out of which it may be able to declare increasing dividends whether
we are going to supply this youth partially trained, or whether we
are going to do our best to keep this youth, to worthily train it and
make it powerful for all the influences of civilization. The work
done by Allan C. Lewis through our friend, Professor Carman and
his able assistants, is a work of greatest value for civilization. It is
a work of radicalism because radicalism is thoroughness and rooted-
ness. It takes the idea that young men and young women are to
be persuaded heroically and self-sacrificingly, and that their parents
are to be urged that, if they are to get degrees they must remain
long enough at least to acquire methods of culture, and then truly
we may give to human society an honestly and thoroughly equipped
man or woman. Today, and too often, we hear the voice of the
father saying, "Here is my boy; graduate him quick." The young
man, callow, soft, vealy, with absolutely no self-control, says, "Gradu-
ate me quick; let me get out into life. This is a strenuous time."
God save us from strenuosity in education. Hustling has got to
be a virulent disease. Twenty-five years hence when we get our
poise we are going to ask some awful questions with regard to the
ferocity with which we are seeking for students in many of our
schools and the criminal facility with which we are pushing them
out into life. The fact presents itself that this nation needs poise.
We need calmness. We need self-control. We need obedience to
the laws of the mind, the laws of growth, the laws of character. No
school is a fit school for any boy in technology that does not give
to that boy so much culture of soul, so much training of brain as
will balance the insistent materialism into which he gets by an over-
training of the hand without the head and the heart. The whole
man is our man. We simply can not afford to cut off the top; lef
us broaden the bottom. Give us any means by which we shall reach
the people who can not reach us, but let us above all things have all
143
of our institutional instrumentalities of education tending toward
true manhood, realizing that mental method is better than informa-
tion, that a trained brain is a matter of character, and that the
best thing that we can give to our country is a broad-minded, self-
controlled, great-hearted, strong, earnest-purposed man.
PRESIDENT JAMES:
(President James extended an invitation to all delegates to
visit the Clinic at Wesley Hospital in the afternoon; and also in-
vited the delegates to visit the University at Evanston.)
On behalf of the University I want to thank you very much
indeed for your attendance here and for the many helpful sugges-
tions which you have brought to us.
DR. FRANCES DICKINSON, OF HARVEY MEDICAL COLLEGE :
Mr. Chairman : I wish to move that we recommend to the Com-
mittee of Fifteen the distribution of its report in printed form;
that the report be sent to each institution invited at least one month
before the next meeting ; that each member present at this first meet-
ing be assessed twenty-five dollars with which to gather material for
this report.
I think the report would take all that, or any other sum that
you may see fit to name. We should have a very wide report of
the entire educational system of the country.
A DELEGATE : Mr. Chairman : I suggest five dollars
Motion not seconded.
DR. FRANCES DICKINSON:
Mr. Chairman: I move that we extend to President James and
his associates our hearty thanks for the invitation extended to us
and for starting this great movement.
Motion seconded.
Motion carried.
ADJOURNED.
144
INDEX.
American Academy of Medicine 17, 22, 28
Amherst College 60
Baker, President James H 129
Baltimore University Medical School 16
Bashford, President J. W 66, 76, 77, 80, 82
Bates, Hon. Arthur L 51
Blanchard, President Charles A 81, 102, 127
Bowdoin College 60
Briggs, Dean 43
Butler, President 17, 20, 26, 27, 97, 128
Carman, Director George N 78, 128, 140
Cassilly, Vice- President Francis 77, 89
Chase, President George C 33
Clark University 60
Coe, Professor 86
Colgate University 63
College and professional school compared 58
College and secondary school compared 37, 72, 79
College awakens the sense of social responsibility 25, 58
College comes close to the people 39
College course now substantially a combined course 108
College, function of, not sharply definable 18, 34
College life a fellowship of the ages 23, 53
College organically connected with our national welfare 23, 33
College tends to postpone the choice of a life vocation 35, 39, 46
College, the ideal 29,37, 47
College the ideal democracy , 23, 39
College the best agency for development of character 24, 45
Columbia Law School 16, 17, 19
Columbian University 60, 61
Combined collegiate and professional course of eight years undesirable. .. 100
Combined course at Columbia University Ill
Combined courses of academic and professional studies 18, 56
Commercialism, spirit of 39, 142
Committee on organization of a national college association 124
Competition for students 91
Compression of time 60, 106
Cooperation between college and theological school 87, 89, 93
Cornell University 17, 19, 21, 79
Crane, Mr 54
Cultural value of professional education 73, 101
Culture must be redefined 129
145
Dartmouth College v 60
Desirability of forming permanent college organization 76
Dickinson, Dr. Frances 54, 119, 144
Dowling, President M, P 27, 57, 58, 122, 127
Dresslar, Professor Fletcher B 55, 56
Eaton, President Edward D 22, 88, 105, 124
Edwards, Dr. Arthur R 98
Eigenmann, Professor C. H 125
Elective system excessive 41, 43, 52, 114, 120
Eliot, President 47, 94
Entrance requirements at different professional schools 16
Fisher, President D. W 54
General education, what constitutes 130
Goodknight, Dean J. L 114
Goucher, President John F 76, 88, 124
Grammar school course should be adjusted 117, 126
Gray, Professor John H 100
Gunsaulus, President Frank W 141
Hadley, President 17
Hamlin, Professor A. D. F 112
Harlan, President Richard 89, 124
Harris, Dr 42
Harvard College 60, 67, 89
Harvard Law School 16, 17
Harvard Medical School 16
Has the college a field peculiar to itself, not covered by the technical
school or by the demands of preparation for the professional
school ? 22-54, 105
High school anchored to secondary methods and ideals 25, 37
Hyde, President 64
If reduction is allowed should it be (a) by acceptance of credits in the
College of Liberal Arts for work done in the professional school, or
(b) by acceptance in professional school for work done in the College
of Liberal Arts, or (c) by combining these plans? 105-129
Importance of conference 13, 15
Iowa State University Medical School 17
Is it desirable that the college course should be reduced in time from
four to three or even two years and correspondingly in amount of
work ? 58-83
James, President Edmund J 13, 124, 144
Johns Hopkins Medical School 16
Kimble, Professor R. G 48
King, President Henry Churchill 124
King, President William F 13, 38, 66
Ladd, Professor 140
146
Legal subjects in the college 95, 107, 116, 125
Leland Stanford, Jr., University Law School 16
Liberal education, what constitutes 65, 82, 90
Little, President Charles J 89
" Professor William A 103
V... v ... 28
" -t Thomas 40
^ , 79
ivx. [ Technology 101, 131
Medicai 97, 98, 103, 116, 120, 125, 126
Merrifield, Jr*. 63, 66, 68
Merrill, President v. 58, 124
Method of time-economy a^ liversity of North Dakota 68
Nebraska University Medical School 16, 18
Needham, President Charles W 71, 75
No one institution competent to outline policy for all 14
Northwestern University 19, 40
No "typical" college course 84
Ohio University Law School 16
Phases of the process of education. 49
Primary school studies not dominated by requirements of the high school. 27
Princeton University 97
Purpose of Higher Education 22, 34
Reaction against time-economy at Cornell University 21
Roberts, President W. C 88, 124, 12.9
Robertson, Professor A. T 15, 92
Rogers, President W. B 89, 124
Roosevelt, President 42
Rush Medical College 17
St. John, Dr. Charles E 89, 124, 126
Schauffler, Dr. R. McE 96
Schurman, President 17
Smith, Professor Munroe 80, 105
Southworth, President Franklin C 84
Spalding, Bishop 30
Specialization the order of the age 71
Steiner, Dr. Louis H , 28
Strenuosity in education 143
Theological subjects in the college 84, 91, 93, 107^116
The present situation 15
The relation of the technical school to the college 130, 140, 141
Time a factor in liberal education 21
Times call for cultivated and cultured men 33, 35, 39, 43
Thomas, Rev. J. H 44
147
Th wing, President ^ 40
Tufts College 60
Tyler, Dr. Harry W 130
University of California Medical School 17, 56
University of Chicago Law School 16, 18, 19, 21
University of Colorado 18
University of Illinois 19
University of Michigan Medical School 16, 18, 19, 21
University of Minnesota Medical School 16, 19
University of Missouri Medical School 16, 18, 19
University of Pennsylvania Medical School 16, 19
University of Wisconsin 19
Vaughan, Dean 21
Wellesley College 62
Western Reserve Medical School 16, 21
What a liberally educated man should know 30
When should specilization begin? 30, 41, 59, 62, 74, 106
"Who's Who in America" 62, 81
Wigmore, Dean John H 95, 121
Wilczynski, Professor Ernest J 118
Williams College 96
Wilson, President Woodrow 25
Women in college 46
Yale University 17, 19, 67, 90, 97
Young, Professor A. V. E 15
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
148
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW
AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS
WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.
AUG 13 1947 Y"
DEC 27 1947 I JUL " '* ~T~6
LD 21-95m-7,'37