July 13, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



45 



The university senate was reorganized as 

 the academic council. The new body con- 

 sisted oi all professors, assistant professors 

 and adjunct professors in all departments 

 of the university. The degrees of Ph.D. 

 and S.D. were instituted. The principal 

 functions of the academic council were the 

 administration of these degrees and the 

 degree of A.M., and the superintendence 

 of the advanced instruction, James Peirce 

 was elected secretary of the council at the 

 first meeting and continued to hold this 

 position until 1889, when the chief func- 

 tions of the body were transferred to the 

 administrative board of the graduate 

 school. In this capacity he practically 

 had charge of the graduate instruction. 

 He was behind every movement for giving 

 the student greater privileges, as he was in 

 favor of every change calculated to im- 

 prove the quality or to raise the standard 

 of instruction. In 1873^ there were at 

 the university forty candidates for the 

 higher degrees. In 1894-5, the last year 

 of his official connection with the graduate 

 school, there were 255 resident graduate 

 students, and 17 non-resident graduate 

 students. The courses intended for ad- 

 vanced students were after 1872 regular 

 elective courses and appear in the catalogue 

 with the other electives. In the catalogue 

 for 1875-6 appears for the first time a 

 separate list of courses, twenty-five in num- 

 ber, intended especially for graduate stu- 

 dents. In 1894-5 there were given 77| 

 courses intended primarily for graduates, 

 101^ intended for graduates and under- 

 graduates. The development of the grad- 

 uate instruction from 1872 to 1895 was 

 steady but marked by no striking change. 

 Of interest in this connection are the 

 closing words of the last report made to 

 the president of the university by James 

 Peirce as dean of the graduate school. He 

 writes in 1895: 



I account it a high privilege that I have held 

 the position of executive officer of our graduate 

 department since it was first established in Janu- 

 ary, 1872. I have seen it struggle for years against 

 the coldness and scepticism of many members of 

 our own faculty and against untoward conditions 

 in its constitution and in outward circumstances; 

 and I now have the happiness of beholding it the 

 acknowledged representative of the best culture, 

 the most advanced science and the highest liberal 

 learning of the university. I am fully conscious 

 that I can claim nothing for myself in this prog- 

 ress, beyond a faithful service and an earnest en- 

 deavor to rivet attention to the highest ideals of 

 intellectual work as furnishing the only true 

 basis of the development of such a school. The 

 graduate school is a genuine outgrowth of the 

 demands of a generation of students now coming 

 forward in America; and it is destined within a 

 few years, as I confidently believe, to an expansion 

 which will make its present prosperity look small. 

 To this university it is already rapidly becoming 

 the much needed regenerator of the motives and 

 principles of student life; the open door which is 

 admitting to us a national constituency; the 

 western window letting in a fiood of warmth and 

 light to dissolve academic selfishness and narrow- 

 ness, and to quicken us in the discharge of our 

 highest duty, that of devotion to the service of 

 our country and our time. When its own rela- 

 tions to the college proper have been satisfactorily 

 established, through a wise readjustment of the 

 grounds of our several degrees, it will gather 

 into one bright focus the influence and authority 

 of the scholarship of this university, and will 

 carry on the name of Harvard to be still a con- 

 spicuous symbol of light and power to the com- 

 ing century, as it has been to that which is near- 

 ing its close. 



From the time of his father's death, in 

 1880, James Peirce was at the head of the 

 mathematical instruction of the university. 

 At the beginning of his service the teach- 

 ing force was composed of one professor 

 and two tutors; at the time of his death 

 there were in the department of mathe- 

 matics -five professors, one assistant pro- 

 fessor and two instructors. In 1854 the 

 instruction offered embraced the required 

 elementary freshman and sophomore work, 

 and three elective courses. In 1905-6 



