Febeuaey 28, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



331 



The idea that a student who has com- 

 pleted a college course has something yet 

 to learn, if he chooses the career of a teach- 

 er or scholar, does not appear until quite 

 recently to have taken strong hold of the 

 minds of those who had charge of the edu- 

 cational interests of our country. Per- 

 haps it would be better to put it in this 

 way : They do not appear to have thought 

 it worth while to make provision in the sys- 

 tem for those who wanted more than the 

 college gave. The college has for its object 

 the important work of training students 

 for the duties of citizenship, not primarily 

 the duties of scholarship, and no one 

 doubts that, in the main, they have done 

 their work weU. Nor does any one doubt 

 that, whatever may come, the college has a 

 leading part to play in this country. Col- 

 legiate work by its very nature necessarily 

 appeals to a much larger number than uni- 

 versity work. But college work requires 

 no apologist nor defender. It appeals 

 strongly to the American people, and it is 

 well that this is so. The college is in no 

 danger of annihilation, though the indica- 

 tions are that it will undergo important 

 modifications in the future as it has in the 

 past. Upon this subject much might be 

 said, and I feel strongly tempted to enlarge 

 upon it, notwithstanding the intention al- 

 ready expressed of confining myself to 

 problems more directly connected with the 

 university proper. 



There is, however, one phase of the col- 

 lege problem that is so closely connected 

 with that of the university that I cannot 

 avoid some reference to it. There is a 

 marked and rapidly growing tendency to 

 make college work the basis of the work in 

 professional schools. As is well knoA\Ta, 

 some of our medical schools now require a 

 college degree for admission. The average 

 age of graduation from our leading col- 

 leges is so high that the students cannot 

 begin their professional courses until they 



are from twenty-two to twenty-three years 

 of age on the average. Then, too, the 

 length of the professional courses is greater 

 than it formerly was, so that some of the 

 best years of life are taken up in prepara- 

 tory work. One thing seems to admit of no 

 denial, and that is that, in so far as it pre- 

 vents students from beginning their pro- 

 fessional studies or their work in business 

 life until they have attained the age of 

 twenty-two or twenty-three, our present 

 system is seriously defective. The defect 

 is one that must be remedied. Various 

 efforts are now being made looking to im- 

 provement, but it is not yet clear how this 

 problem will be solved. 



In this country the name university in 

 the new sense is frequently applied to one 

 department, and that is the philosophical 

 department. This has to deal with philol- 

 ogy, philosophy, history, economies, mathe- 

 matics, physics, geology, chemistry, etc. ; in 

 short, it comprises all branches that do not 

 form an essential part of the work of the 

 departments of medicine, law and theology. 

 A fully developed university, to be sure, in- 

 cludes at least four departments — the 

 medical, the legal, the theological, and the 

 philosophical; or, in other words, the uni- 

 versity faculty comprises faculties of medi- 

 cine, of law, of theology and of philosophy. 



The new thing in educational ivork in 

 this country is the philosophical faculty of 

 our universities. 



This meets the needs of those students 

 who. having completed the college course, 

 and having, therefore, had a good general 

 training that fits them for more advanced 

 study, wish to go forward in the paths of 

 learning, and, so far as this may be pos- 

 sible, to become masters of some special 

 branch. Most of these students are prepar- 

 ing to teach in colleges and elsewhere, so 

 that the philosophical department of the 

 University is to-day a professional school 

 just as much as the medical or the legal de- 



