May 27, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



815 



one instructor was attended by three stu- 

 dents. There were about two thousand stu- 

 dents in the college^ electing about ten 

 thousand courses, and the classical lan- 

 guages represented about one twentieth 

 part of the average college education of 

 the Harvard bachelor of arts. This degree 

 means that the student studied Latin at 

 the secondary school, not that he followed 

 a different course in college from that of 

 the student who receives the B.S. degree. 

 But the bachelor of science degree unfor- 

 tunately does not mean that the student 

 has had a scientific education. It means 

 usually that he has not studied Latin at 

 school and has probably entered college 

 #ith easier requirements. It is said that 

 to receive the doctor's degree at Heidel- 

 berg without honors is a cei-tificate of 

 idiocy. A degree that simply means that 

 a student has not studied Latin as a boy, 

 that his parents did not send him to a 

 fashionable preparatory school, that he per- 

 haps entered college with lower require- 

 ments and pursued a shorter course, can 

 scarcely be held in high esteem, and a so- 

 ciety of scientific men can not rejoice to 

 see the name of 'science' attached to it. 



If we were drawing up a Napoleonic 

 code, probably no one would propose to 

 give different kinds of degrees for different 

 kinds of college work. Where the field was 

 clear Johns Hopkins and Stanford adopted 

 one degree only. Chicago, it is true, took 

 the three conventional degrees, and stu- 

 dents of commerce become bachelors of 

 philosophy; let us hope that idealism will 

 be radiated from the packing houses of the 

 city. Cornell, Michigan, Minnesota, Wis- 

 consin, Texas and other universities have 

 abandoned the multiplicity of degrees. In 

 some institutions the professors of classical 

 languages, having lost the substance, cling 

 to the shadow of the bachelor of arts, but 

 unwisely as it seems to me, for their naked- 

 ness is uncovered. Thus, according to the 



last catalogue at hand, there were 2,248 

 undergraduate students in the University 

 of California, of whom only 284 — 107 men 

 and 177 women— were in the course leading 

 to the A.B. degree. 



I should prefer to see the bachelor's 

 degree conferred with specification of the 

 institution and major subject— bachelor of 

 Harvard in classical languages, bachelor of 

 Michigan in zoology, etc., but this is doubt- 

 less out of the question. It seems that for 

 scientific work at college the bachelor of 

 arts degree should be awarded unless the 

 bachelor of science degree can be! given a 

 proper standing. 



Substantial agreement has been reached 

 in favor of granting the doctorate of phi- 

 losophy for about three years of graduate 

 work with research, without reference to 

 the direction of work or to the character 

 of the first degree. Harvard, Princeton 

 and one or two other institutions have the 

 degree of doctor of science, but it is sel- 

 dom conferred. The difference between 

 the D.S. and the Ph.D. at Harvard is that 

 in the case of the fonner the man may not 

 have studied Latin in the secondary school. 

 Harvard, in order to be consistent, estab- 

 lished the M.S. degree three or four years 

 ago, but it was wisely permitted to die in 

 infancy, and the jewel of consistency must 

 be abandoned or secured by doing away 

 with the D.S. The evidence that a man is 

 worthy of the doctorate of philosophy 

 should be given by the publication of the 

 thesis, the appeal being made to experts 

 throughout the work. An oral defense of 

 the thesis before the faculty became anti- 

 quated in Germany before we borrowed it. 

 In my opinion the doctorate of philosophy 

 is a professional degree, signifying practi- 

 cally that the recipient is competent to 

 teach and to carry on research in his spe- 

 cial subject. All teachers can not be ori- 

 ginal thinkers, nor should investigation be 

 confined to a few teachers. Physicians, 



