courses to the professional needs of the prospective teacher. Ameri can graduate schools, like the universities of Europe, have in this matter proceeded on the assumption that the most important thing for the teacher of mature pupils is to know his subject. The method of its presentation may then safely be left to his individual judgment. The typical American graduate school admits as students only those who hold a bachelor's degree from a college or university of recognized standing. It confers two orders of degrees, the master's degrees and the doctor's degrees.2

1

To secure a master's degree one year of postgraduate study, devoted as a rule to not more than three subjects, one of which, called the major subject, receives the bulk of the student's attention, is usually required. Many universities also demand a thesis embodying the results of a small piece of research.

The minimum period of postgraduate study for a doctor's degree is usually three years. The time spent and the number of courses taken, however, are of secondary importance. To receive the degree it is necessary that the candidate not only demonstrate in examination his mastery of his special field but also by means of a dissertation or thesis make an original contribution to knowledge in that field. Most universities require the dissertation to be published. The examinations are both written and oral. In fact, the requirements for the American degree of doctor of philosophy parallel closely those proposed by the German universities for the same degree. American universities have recently attempted to demand of candidates for the degree a somewhat longer scholarly preparation and a more substantial thesis.

THE SUMMER SCHOOL.

The academic year is as a rule approximately nine months long. It usually extends from the middle of September to the middle of June. Many universities and colleges now either maintain a special summer school during about six weeks of the vacation period or carry on a summer session lasting throughout the summer months. Summer schools, which generally are confined to the undergraduate and graduate departments of arts and sciences, serve two main purposes. They enable teachers in elementary and secondary schools to pursue special courses of study for professional advancement. They offer opportunities to college or university students who have failed to complete all the work required in the regular term to make good these deficiencies. In addition, summer schools are to some extent patronized by other classes of persons. While in the majority of summer

1 A. M., M. Com. Sci., M. F., M. L., M. Ped., M. S., M. S. in Agr., Cer. Eng., Chem. Eng., C. E., E. E., E. Min., Mech. E., Met. E.

2 Ph. D., Sc. D., Phar. D.

Two years of postgraduate study are required for the master's degree at Yale and Johns Hopkins Universities. (See Section VI, pp. 133-135, 157, 158.)

schools the courses are planned with special reference to the needs of teachers, nevertheless the student whose interests are not pedagogical generally finds summer courses in most of the subjects ordinarily offered by the institution during the regular winter terms. The more advanced courses usually are not given in summer.

Summer schools present special attractions to the foreign student. If he happens to arrive in the United States in June or early July he may profitably use his time and prepare himself for his later regular matriculation by enrolling in a good summer school. Opportunities for the study of English are commonly offered. After he has begun his collegiate or professional course he may shorten the period of study and also learn something of different universities by frequenting summer schools. It is possible to complete from a sixth to a quarter of a year's work during a summer course.

EQUIPMENT.

Such is the organization of a typical American university, but no account of these institutions, however brief, would be accurate unless it mentioned the astounding array of material appliances possessed by almost every one. In no other country has education been the recipient of such large and numerous benefactions from philanthropic men and women. The greatest of these have gone to American universities. Furthermore, the prosperous Commonwealths have contributed huge sums for the equipment of their State institutions. Certain of the richer universities are provided with almost everything they can possibly need to make their work effective.1 A description of a single great university plant would occupy too much space to be included in such a brief survey as this, but a citizen of another country who has never seen an American institution may form some idea of the magnitude of these establishments by the subjoined statements of the value of grounds and buildings of leading universities as reported to the United States Government: University of Illinois, $3,895,970; University of Michigan, $4,627,347; University of Wisconsin, $6,444,626; Cornell University, $7,627,347; University of California, $9,865,492; Harvard University, $11,000,000; University of Chicago, $11,698,223.

SPECIAL RESEARCH FOUNDATIONS.

American higher education has recently been reinforced by a group of special foundations established to further scientific and sociological research. Most of these owe their origin to the generosity of a single individual of large means. While not educational institutions, these foundations have made possible numerous investigations which have not only affected educational thought and prac

1 For statements of laboratory and library facilities, see Section VI. Special attention is called to the immense and rapidly growing libraries of the higher institutions.

tice, but have also raised the prestige of science throughout the United States. They should therefore be reckoned among the scientific resources of the Nation. Prominent among these institutions are the Russell Sage Foundation, the Carnegie Institution, the General Education Board, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

CHAPTER III.

INDEPENDENT TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS.

In addition to the great universities giving instruction in practically all the departments of knowledge and including in their organization all types of higher professional schools, there are numerous other institutions of less complex organization. In fact, as has already been stated, the university is a comparatively recent creation. Many of these other schools, colleges, and institutes antedate the origin of universities. It is also true that many kinds of professional training can be quite as successfully and often as economically carried on in separate institutions established for that purpose alone. Some of the foremost training schools for engineering, medicine, dentistry, law, theology, and other callings are independent institutions not connected with any university.

3

2

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology,' for example, offers courses in the various branches of engineering and applied science. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is devoted chiefly to civil, electrical, mechanical, and chemical engineering. Stevens Institute of Technology gives only courses in mechanical engineering. The College of Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore and Jefferson Medical School of Philadelphia are not affiliated with universities. Among theological schools the majority are independent institutions, as, for example, the Newton Theological Institution (Baptist), the Theological Seminary of the General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States, and nearly all Catholic theological seminaries. Several States have established from the proceeds of the land grants special colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts separate from the State university, as, for example, the Michigan Agricultural College, the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.5 In range and content the courses given at these independent institutions are similar to those of the corresponding professional departments of the large universities. Some of the schools of engineering, indeed, have become famous throughout the world for the high excellence of the work done in one or more departments.

1 See Sec. VI, pp. 162, 163.

Ibid, p. 184.

3 Ibid, p. 177.

See p. 16.

For further details, see Sec. VI, pp. 151–153.

CHAPTER IV.

INDEPENDENT AND DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES.

Numerically the most important of the institutions not included in the organization of some university are the independent colleges offering courses in arts and sciences,1 the majority of which confer the bachelor's degree. They present a wide variety of types and almost as great a variety of scholastic standards; nevertheless certain generalizations can be made concerning them.

As a rule the independent colleges give instruction in a more limited range of subjects than are open to candidates for bachelor's degrees at the larger universities. For instance, as against the 45 branches which the Harvard undergraduate may select, Carleton College offers work in the following: Astronomy, Bible, biology, chemistry, economics, education, English, French, German, geology, Greek, Hebrew, history, Latin, mathematics, philosophy, physics, political science, sociology. Williams College in the following: Art, astronomy, biology, chemistry, economics, English, geology, German, government and political science, history, Latin, mathematics, philosophy, physics, public speaking, Romance languages. Reed College in the following: Biology, chemistry, classical languages, economics, education, English, Germanic languages, history and political science, mathematics, philosophy, physics, psychology, Romance languages, sociology.

The curricula of these institutions, then, are more nearly comparable to those of the French lycée and the German Gymnasium and Oberrealschule, most of the studies included being sanctioned by age-long tradition as appropriate training for the first degree in

arts.

Reference has been made to the principle of election, in accordance with which the student chooses to a greater or less extent the subjects which shall compose his college course. Certain colleges of high standing have from conviction resisted the encroachments of this relatively new theory in higher education. For instance, at the leading Catholic institutions, which stand committed to a fixed educational procedure, courses in arts offer little freedom of choice. The courses leading to the degree of A. B. at Wabash College and William Jewell College are also largely prescribed. On the other hand, many independent colleges provide as extensive opportunities for election as their resources will permit. These differences in academic policy may properly have weight with the foreign student seeking a collegiate education in the United States.

The test of the excellence of a college, however, is not the multiplicity of its offerings, but the quality of work done. The stronger

1 Some of these institutions are called universities. See above, p. 13.

colleges, perhaps a quarter of the whole number, enforce a standard of accomplishment for the bachelor's degree every whit as high as that maintained by the best universities. The universities themselves readily concede this. They accept for advanced study the holders of degrees from these colleges on the same terms as their own graduates.1 The foreign student need have no hesitation, therefore, in choosing an independent college rather than the collegiate department of some larger university as the institution in which to secure the A. B. or B. S., provided he assures himself in advance that the degrees of the college of his choice are valid educational currency. Among the colleges recognized by the larger universities are, on the one hand, some 2 which offer instruction only in the rather circumscribed group of studies which have for generations formed the basis of the A. B. course, and, on the other, institutions 3 which more nearly approximate the scope of university undergraduate departments.

Probably the most striking difference between the independent colleges and the universities is the difference in size, which also involves a profound difference in the institutional life. The independent college is commonly known as the small college, for the reason that its students usually number from 100 to 500. Universities of the type described frequently enroll from 1,000 to 5,000 students. The foreign observer may be led to wonder why it is that small colleges persist and multiply in a country so liberally provided with large institutions, many of them State supported, giving the same opportunities for general education. The principal reasons are the following:

The prime mover in the foundation of most American colleges has been some religious denomination. The college so founded draws chiefly children of members of its denomination, and in a peculiar sense may be said to serve the denomination, although communicants of other sects are, as a rule, freely admitted. Thus there are Methodist colleges, Presbyterian colleges, Catholic colleges, Lutheran colleges, and many more. Those who believe that higher education must not only be imbued with the spirit of religion, but definitely correlated with a particular religious doctrine, and interpreted

1 At its meeting in 1913, the Association of American Universities, composed of the following 22 institutions-University of California, Leland Stanford Junior University, Yale University, Catholic University of America, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Kansas, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, Clark University, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska, Princeton University, Cornell University, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, University of Wisconsin-recommended that the degrees of 119 American institutions be recognized by foreign universities as of equal value with the degrees of the members of the association. Of these 118 institutions, 53 were colleges or technical schools of the type under discussion.

2 For example, Albion College.

For instance, Oberlin College.

• See Sections VII and VIII.