Other methods, which under certain limitations might be considered a modification of the regular shortening of the college course to three years, obtain. One of them consists in regarding the first year of a professional course as also the last year of the undergraduate. Another method lies in allowing the undergraduate Senior to take a part, and a part only, of his work in the medical or law school, which work is counted toward both the Bachelor's and the professional degree. A further method also lies, in case a college contain no professional school, in permitting the undergraduate Senior to enter a professional school under the general direction of his college, and to count the first year thus begun as the last year in his undergraduate course. The whole question represents a long and serious educational process which is still incomplete. All of these methods and the general conditions prove the increasing influence of the college of liberal learning, and also the increasing oneness of American education.

A certain significance for both the undergraduate education and the graduate and professional training is seen in degrees. The first degree in the present academic order, and probably the first in historic relationship, is that of Bachelor. After more than three centuries of use, and at the time of the founding of the first American college, the term Bachelor had come, both in England and on the Continent, to represent a definite educational process and result. Having probably its origin in ridicule, like many other great names, it stood, at the close of the thirteenth century, for one who is authorized to teach, and to teach in preparation for a mastership. The license of the university rector to give a course of lectures constituted a man a Bachelor. For this degree a certain proficiency in at least Logic and Psychology was necessary, and for the degree of Master of Arts, in addition, some knowledge of Moral Philosophy was required. The time requisite for securing either degree differed in different Continental universities. The period extended from six years in the thirteenth century to three and one-half years in the sixteenth. Finally, in the Continental universities the first degree disappeared, becoming identical with matriculation.

The founders of the first college were moved by the English tradition in respect to giving degrees, as in respect to many other symbols and methods. From the beginning the two degrees were conferred. The first degree is given to "every schollar, that on proofe is found able to read the Originalls of the Old and New Testament in to the Latine tongue, and to resolve them Logically; withall being of godly life and conversation; And at any publick Act hath the Approbation of the Overseers, and Master of the Colledge, is fit to be dignified with his first Degree." 1 The second degree was given for further attainments in Logic, Philosophy, Natural and Moral, and in Mathematics. For the securing of the second degree the candidate was obliged to be ready to defend his theses, and also the Continental tradition was embodied in the fact that at the time of receiving his first degree he was regarded as having qualified to read lectures in public. The intimation of the significance of the two degrees in the first years of Harvard College is to the effect that they stood for the qualifications of the teacher.

It is also apparent that the second degree was in certain cases conferred at or near the time of the granting of the first degree. But the usage soon began of conferring the second degree a year after the granting of the first. For more than two hundred years after the founding of the first college the second degree of Master was usually conferred upon each graduate who had received the degree of Bachelor, and often the length of time was gradually lengthened till it became three years. In certain cases the payment of a small fee was the only necessary condition.

It was more than fifty years after the foundation of the first college that an honorary degree was given. In the year 1692 Harvard conferred upon Increase Mather the degree of Sacræ Theologiæ Doctor (S.T.D.), which has usually been interpreted as the degree of Doctor of Divinity. For the following three-quarters of a century no honorary degree was conferred by Harvard except the degree of Master of Arts. In the year 1771 a second degree in Divinity was conferred upon Nathaniel Appleton, and two years after the same degree was given Sam

'Sibley's "Harvard Graduates," vol. i, p. 14.

uel Locke and Samuel Mather. In 1773 also the first degree of Doctor of Laws was given, being conferred upon John Winthrop, The second degree of Doctor of Laws was given to George Washington,1 upon whom also Yale five years after, the University of Pennsylvania seven years after, and Brown University in 1790 also conferred the degree. In 1779 Harvard conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws upon Horatio Gates, major general of the American army. In the same year also emerges an intimation of the French influence in the giving of the degree of Doctor of Laws to Joseph De Valnais. Evidences of the French influence continue also in the degree being conferred upon Frenchmen in 1783 and 1784. Lafayette received the degree in the latter year. The present custom of conferring this most significant honor upon statesmen is seen in the fact that in the years 1787, 1790, and 1792 Harvard conferred the degree upon Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton.

Proof is not lacking that Yale College also was influenced by the French movement, for in 1779 and 1783 the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon the French minister Gérard, and in 1783 upon Joseph Philippe Létombe.

In this same period similar degrees were conferred by Columbia and Dartmouth. The first honorary degrees given by Dartmouth included both the degrees of Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Laws, which were conferred in 1773. Nine years after John Adams received the degree of Doctor of Laws. Be tween these two dates members of the Phillips family, Samuel and John, as well as President Stiles, of Yale, were the recipients of one of the degrees.

The present American tendency, therefore, of using degrees freely as evidences of public service had an early origin.

Down to the middle of the nineteenth century the two de grees of Bachelor of Arts and of Master of Arts were the only ones conferred as standing for specific intellectual attainments. The degrees of Doctor of Divinity and of Doctor of Laws were also the only honorary degrees. But with the enlargement of the field of knowledge, and with the increasing specialization

"History of Harvard University," vol. ii, p. 167,

in the cultivation of this field, began the creation of new degrees to represent these diverse and special attainments. The first degree of Bachelor of Science was conferred by Harvard in 1851. The growth in the study of modern languages, as well as the enlargement of the field of science, prompted the creation of a literary degree, which has taken the form usually of Bachelor of Literature or of Bachelor of Philosophy. The specialization in degrees has proceeded to a high degree of detail. At the present time no less than two hundred and thirty-eight degrees are conferred. Among the more trivial of new degrees-and most of them are trivial—are many which contain the Bachelorship as applied to specific arts-Bachelor of Accounts, B.Acct.; Bachelor of Business Science, B.B.S.; Bachelor of Elements, B.E.; Bachelor of Elementary Didactics, B.E.D.; Bachelor of Finance, B.F., which was conferred upon five students by the Wharton School of Finance of the University of Pennsylvania in 1884; Master of Domestic Economy, M.D.E., and many others equally, or, if possible, more unworthy of having a place with great historic symbols.

The most important of all degrees of recent creation is the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. This degree, introduced from the German university, was first conferred in the United States in the beginning of the seventh decade. It has in twenty-five and more years come to be regarded as almost exclusively a professional degree. Although it represents in some cases a course of study undertaken for general reasons, yet in most instances it represents special attainments made in order to become a teacher. Historically it has come to represent what the degree of Bachelor stood for in the continental universities six hundred years ago. General learning, proficiency in a certain part of the whole field of scholarship, ability for teaching subjects in their higher relations are embodied in the symbol. It represents the most serious endeavor of the higher scholarship in America, as a symbol of research, of training, and of efficiency.

CHAPTER XXI

THE COURSE OF STUDY OF THE LAST THIRD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

THE improvement which in the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century was made in the course of study was slight. The ancient languages were taught in the first years of Cornell Uni versity, in the seventh decade, in much the same way, and with a similar degree of advancement, in which they were taught in the first years of the University of Virginia in the third decade. The learning of their grammars and the translation of their literatures into English represented the chief material and method of instruction. The other primary discipline-Mathematics-had progressed. Arithmetic had been thrust back into the fitting school, and some new subjects, such as Analytic Mechanics, had become included in the course. The modern languages had also advanced, having gained a regular, though slight, place. English, after a long period of obscure neglect from the beginning, except in Rhetoric, had near the close of the period begun to assert its rights both as Philology, History, and Literature. The sciences were in most colleges still objects of either indifference or contempt. Chemistry was presented largely, though by no means entirely, in lectures and in a few simple experiments performed by the teacher in the presence of the class. In Physics only elementary courses were offered. Botany, Astronomy, and Zoology were taught in their elements, and largely in a descriptive way. Geology had, next to Chemistry, secured a proper place. As early as the year 1840 the Association of American Geologists was formed, being the first national scientific organization created. At the beginning of the fifth decade in states as far south as North Carolina, as far west as Ohio, in New York, and in the New England states geological surveys had been begun. The desire to know the resources of the rocks and the