74 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 498. 



in the male population of Germany be- 

 tween 1870 and 1900, the number of stu- 

 dents in attendance at the universities and 

 schools of technology, mining, forestry, 

 agriculture and veterinary science has 

 grown no less than 163.8 per cent, and 

 allowing graduates of these institutions 

 also to enter into his calculations, he finds 

 that in Germany the number of men of 

 university training has doubled within the 

 last thirty years. The total number of 

 ■university students for 1900 is given as 

 46,520 and the number of males in the pop- 

 ulation of the country as 27,731,000, there 

 being thus 16.78 students for every 10,000 

 males, as against 8.83 thirty years ago. 



In attempting to compare the educa- 

 tional conditions represented by these 

 figures with those of the United States, 

 several obstacles are encountered at the 

 very outset. In the first place, American 

 statistics would not be complete and would 

 not constitute a fair criterion of the educa- 

 tional characteristics of our country, were 

 we to exclude from them all women stu- 

 dents, for aside from the large enrollment 

 at colleges for women and the great body 

 of women pursuing graduate or profes- 

 sional courses at the universities, it is not 

 at all unusual to find the women in the 

 collegiate departments of our larger uni- 

 versities, especially the state institutions, 

 far outnumbering the men. It is scarcely 

 necessary to state that in contradistinc- 

 tion to this state of affairs, the policy of 

 permitting women to study at the Ger- 

 man universities is just beginning to be 

 looked upon here and there with any de- 

 gree of favor. It would hardly be appro- 

 priate to deny woman a place in the intel- 

 lectual activities of our nation, and we 

 shall, therefore, arrive at a fairer basis of 

 comparison if we take into consideration 

 not only the number of male inhabitants, 

 but the total population of the country. 

 Adopting this basis, we find that in Ger- 



many 's population of over 56,000,000 there 

 were in 1900 about eight students for every 

 10,000 inhabitants. 



In the second place, it would be mani- 

 festly unjust to Germany were we to draw 

 conclusions in regard to the relative par- 

 ticipation of the people in higher education 

 in this country and in Germany without 

 first making deductions for the further dis- 

 similarities of conditions that confront us 

 at every turn. The term higher education, 

 as employed in the United States, is a more 

 comprehensive one than it is in Germany, 

 including as it does with us a large number 

 of college students and students in the 

 academic departments of universities who 

 would not be regarded in Germany as uni- 

 versity students. Moreover, in Germany 

 every professional student is in reality a 

 graduate student; ho one is permitted to 

 matriculate in the faculty of law, medi- 

 cine, or theology without possessing the 

 testimonium maturitatis, the equivalent — 

 in general terms— of our baccalaureate de- 

 gree, whereas we can boast of only a few 

 institutions that call for a first degree as 

 a prerequisite for admission to any one of 

 these faculties, notably Harvard Univer- 

 sity for law, medicine and theology, Co- 

 lumbia University for law, and Johns Hop- 

 kins University for medicine. It seems rea- 

 sonable to suppose that at least the more 

 prominent American universities will adopt 

 the higher admission requirements for the 

 professional faculties within the next dec- 

 ade. At all events, even the most strenu- 

 ous opponents of the theory must admit 

 that the recent growth of the Harvard law 

 school, which can point with pride to an 

 enrollment of over 700 students, is a splen- 

 did justification of the lately adopted ideal 

 condition. 



Turning from the American professional 

 schools with their inferior requirements to 

 the so-called graduate or post-graduate fac- 

 ulties, we meet with conditions that are 



