136 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. Xo. 448. 



terminate with the sophomore year, that 

 the junior and senior years should be dis- 

 tinctively years of professional education, 

 as in reality they are becoming in most of 

 the better universities of the United States. 

 He would have it that every student 

 should orient himself, should decide what 

 he expects to do in life by the beginning 

 of his junior year. 



On the other hand, it seems also appar- 

 ent that the freshman and sophomore 

 years are gradually being eliminated from 

 the college and relegated to the so-called 

 schools of secondary education. There 

 are many high schools which would will- 

 ingly, and could with advantage, take over 

 the work of the first one or two years of 

 the college. The average college instruct- 

 ors of the first and second years do not 

 compare over favorably with those in the 

 upper classes of the high schools, and the 

 cost of instruction is not much greater. 

 By thus distributing the work of these two 

 years in many more institutions a far 

 greater number of young men and women 

 would receive the benefits of higher edu- 

 cation. We all know how much the pro- 

 pinquity of the college has to do in influ- 

 encing the average high school graduate. 

 Every college town sends a much larger 

 proportion of its youth to college than do 

 towns less favorably situated. I doubt 

 not that if the universities of our country, 

 and especially the state universities, should 

 encourage such an extension of the high- 

 school course we soon would have students 

 entering the junior year from nearly 

 every city of fifteen or twenty thousand 

 inhabitants, and that too in larger num- 

 ber than now complete the sophomore year 

 in our colleges. And I have no doubt, 

 were President Butler's suggestion to be- 

 come a reality, that hundreds of our high 

 schools would soon become colleges, col- 

 leges moreover that would do better work 



than does the average coUege of the pres- 

 ent time. 



Moreover, I believe that such a plan is 

 the only one which will preserve the bache- 

 lor degree from extinction. ^Tien it be- 

 comes the rule that the medical diploma is 

 given only after a six j'ears ' course of work 

 from the present high school graduation, 

 who is there that will care for the bache- 

 lor degree midway? Twenty years hence 

 there will be fewer bachelors of science or 

 arts among medical graduates than there 

 are at the present time, and not more than 

 one in ten of our physicians now possess 

 the degree. When the engineer is required 

 to have the professional degree of C.E. or 

 M.B. there will be very few students who 

 will strive after the bachelor degree. In 

 other words, it seems to me that the tend- 

 ency of American higher education is 

 toward the German system. When our 

 high schools become Gymnasia and Real- 

 schulen our universities will begin where 

 theirs do, at the beginning of the junior 

 year. 



At a recent meeting of college educators 

 of prominence at Evanston the subject of 

 the abridgment of the college course was 

 discussed, with but little approbation. 

 The literary student, the student of the so- 

 called cultural courses, almost unanimously 

 opposes any suggestion of the elimination 

 of the college. Fortunately or unfortu- 

 nately, however, college educators do not 

 control college education, and he is a wise 

 man who keeps closely in pace with the 

 world. If the world demands that special 

 education shall begin with the junior year 

 or earlier, that the college shall end with 

 the sophomore j^ear, aught we may do or 

 say will avail little; the controlling causes 

 are social, not educational. 



Within the past few years there has been 

 an extraordinary increase, both relatively 

 and absolutely, as regards men, in the at- 

 tendance of women in the college and uni- 



