March G, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



367 



country, and now there are few of our large 

 universities which do not recognize it in 

 giving prominence to university work in 

 what are called graduate schools. 



But in one respect the conditions in our 

 graduate schools are very different from 

 those obtaining in the German universities, 

 for the instructors in our graduate schools 

 are also, almost without exception, teachers 

 in the undergradute or collegiate depart- 

 ment and are comparable, as some one has 

 pointed out, to a Gymnasiallehrer who also 

 lectures in the university. And in this lies 

 a serious defect, for it has led to the en- 

 croaelunent upon the collegiate course of 

 studies which properly belong to the uni- 

 versity or graduate course. The enthusi- 

 astic teacher who is also an investigator 

 finds his greatest pleasure in leading his 

 students on toward investigation and he is 

 too often inclined to carry them with him 

 into that kind of work before they have 

 received a foundation of sufficient breadth 

 and solidity to make such a course ad- 

 visable. And the adoption of an extensive 

 system of electives in the collegiate course 

 has favored the development in this way 

 of precocious investigators who so fre- 

 quently are like the seeds which fell in 

 places where they had not much earth and 

 forthwith sprang up, "and when the sun 

 was up they were scorched; and because 

 they had no root they withered away." 



I have recently been looking over a num- 

 ber of college calendars with a view to 

 ascertaining the extent to which specializa- 

 tion might be carried by undergraduates. 

 And let me say in passing that as a result 

 of the examination of the calendars my 

 opinion as to the intellectual capabilities 

 of the American vindergraduate has been 

 greatly increased. The young man who 

 can successfully thread his way among the 

 multitudinous courses with their limita- 

 tions and continuations as stated in the 

 larger calendars, and from these select as 



consistent and suitable a course as the 

 majority do, manifests a degree of intelli- 

 gence and perspicacity which augurs well 

 for the race. 



It would be both unprofitable and tedious 

 to give you the complete results of my 

 studies in this direction, but I may briefly 

 indicate what I found to be the ease in 

 regard to specialization in one subject, 

 namely zoology, in three or four of our 

 leading colleges. The different standards 

 employed in estimating the credit value of 

 a course renders an exact comparison of 

 several colleges somewhat difficult, but so 

 far as I can understand the schedules pre- 

 sented the results are as follows : In four of 

 our most influential universities I find that 

 a student out of the total number of sched- 

 uled hours may elect in zoology in A, 33 

 per cent. ; in B, 41 per cent. ; in C, 45.5 

 per cent., and in D, 68.3 per cent. This 

 represents undergraduate work only and 

 the enormous inequality of the courses in 

 the different institutions is most striking, 

 D university, for example, allowing over 

 twice as much specialization in zoology as 

 A. This difference is necessarily associ- 

 ated with great differences in the amount 

 of time devoted to the humanities or non- 

 scientifie studies, and these also stand in 

 relation to the amount of specialization in 

 scientific studies as a whole, which the 

 various curricula permit. Thus in A a 

 student in zoology may take an additional 

 30 per cent, of his studies in other sciences, 

 making a total of 63 per cent, of scientific 

 studies; in B he may take 44.3 per cent, 

 additional in science, or a total of 86 per 

 cent. ; in C an additional 44 per cent., or 

 a total of 89.5 per cent. ; and in D 26.7 

 per cent., or a total of 95 per cent. Or, to 

 state the reverse of the story, a student in 

 A may secure his A.B. degree only after 

 taking 37 per cent, of his work in non- 

 scientific studies ; a student in B may grad- 

 uate with 14 per cent, of his studies in non- 



