April 3, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



531 



the other hand, the college has gradually 

 pushed itself upward, relegating its lower 

 years to the secondary school, and absorb- 

 ing two of the years which would naturally 

 belong to the university. In most of our 

 larger institutions the fourth collegiate 

 year is frankly given to investigation or to 

 the beginnings of university work. In 

 fact, though not in name, it belongs to 

 the university rather than to the college. 

 In a general way the admission to the Ger- 

 man university— or graduation from the 

 secondary school, Gymnasium or Real- 

 Schule— corresponds with the end of the 

 sophomore year in the best organized 

 American colleges. In England, where the 

 university as such is still in a state of 

 probation, the conditions are not very dif- 

 ferent, so far as degree of advancement 

 on the part of the student is coneeraed. 



Recognizing these conditions, there is a 

 strong movement in Germany to introduce 

 the American college, to set off the last 

 years of the Gymnasium or Rcal-Schule, 

 as an intermediate stage between the local 

 preparatory school and the school of tech- 

 nical training and investigation. 



In America there is a tendency to sepa- 

 rate the college into two parts, the junior 

 college, of two years, in which the work 

 is still collegiate, and the university col- 

 lege, in which the work of the university 

 begins. This separation, first accomplished 

 at the University of Chicago, is still little 

 more than a name. About the University of 

 Chicago many collegiate institutions have 

 become junior colleges, that is, institutions 

 which recommend some or all of their 

 students to the universities at the end of 

 the sophomore year. This arrangement is 

 in many ways desirable. It is better for 

 the university to be as far as possible free 

 from the necessity of junior college in- 

 struction. It is better for the student at 

 this period to enter an institution with 

 large faculty and large resources. Fur- 



thermore, if the junior college has the 

 teachers and conditions it ought to have, it 

 is in very many cases better that the stu- 

 dent should take his early training there, 

 rather than as a member of the enormous 

 mass of freshmen and sophomores our 

 great colleges are now carrying. 



It is safe to prophesy that before many 

 years the American university will abandon 

 the junior college work, relegating it to the 

 college on the one hand and to the gradu- 

 ate courses of the secondary schools on the 

 other. Under these conditions its disci- 

 pline and its methods of instruction will 

 approximate those of the universities of 

 Germany and other countries of Europe. 

 Under these conditions the assistant pro- 

 fessor of to-day will mostly find professor- 

 ships in colleges; the professor will be an 

 original scholar and investigator as well as 

 a teacher, and the rule of Lehrfreiheit and 

 Lernfreiheit will be established as a matter 

 of course. It goes without saying that uni- 

 versity conditions in America will difiier in 

 many ways from those of Germany. It is 

 not likely that American legislative bodies 

 will make a degree from the university a 

 necessity for professional work, or its ab- 

 sence a bar to preferment. The trained 

 man in America will have to take his 

 chances with the rest, and for a time the 

 " practical man," or even the ignoramus, 

 may seem to distance him. But in so far 

 as training is genuine, it will justify itself 

 in every walk in life, and its value in the 

 long run will be the more appreciated that 

 it has no official attestation. 



Thus far Stanford University has been 

 a large college, well ordered for the most 

 part, giving good instruction and with the 

 highest collegiate standards. Its univer- 

 sity work, though not extensive, has justly 

 commanded respect. 



The present condition of the university 

 does not represent the original aim of the 

 founders nor the ideal of the president. It 



