July 15, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



75 



most encouraging, for the number of grad- 

 uate students in our universities has more 

 than doubled within the past five years. 

 Columbia University alone has almost 700 

 resident candidates for the higher degrees 

 registered under its graduate faculties of 

 political science, philosophy and pure sci- 

 ence, the majority of whom are preparing 

 themselves for the teaching profession. 

 And here we have another encouraging fea- 

 ture of the educational development of our 

 country, viz., the improved facilities for 

 intellectual growth offered to our teachers 

 by means of summer schools, extension 

 courses, public lectures, and similar enter- 

 prises conducted under the auspices of our 

 leading universities. At its summer ses- 

 sion of 1903 Harvard enrolled almost 1,400 

 students, and almost 700 students are at 

 present pursuing resident work at the 

 Teachers College of Columbia University, 

 which this year is also giving extension 

 courses to 1,600 students. 



Having called attention to the difficulty 

 of making direct comparisons of the growth 

 of higher education in Germany and the 

 United States, let us at least examine some 

 of the salient features, of this growth in 

 both countries. Viewed from the stand- 

 point of increase of proportion of students 

 to the entire population, the comparison 

 slightly favors the United States, although 

 the difference is not great, and the advan- 

 tage would be lost entirely were we to make 

 due allowance for the differences in concep- 

 tions discussed above. The following fig- 

 ures will serve to illustrate this point: In 

 1870 the United States had a population of 

 38,000,000, which by 1900 had increased to 

 76,000,000, i. e., it had virtually doubled. 

 In 1872 there were 8.52 students of both 

 sexes in all branches of higher education to 

 each 10,000 inhabitants, whereas in 1900 

 there were 19.13, somewhat more than twice 

 as many. In Germany the increase between 

 1870 and 1900 was a little less than double, 



from 8.83 to 16.78 students for every 10,000 

 males, the total population of the country 

 having increased from 41,000,000 in 1871 

 to 56,000,000 in 1900. We must also take 

 into consideration the fact that the United 

 States is growing much more rapidly than 

 the German Empire. In the last decade of 

 the nineteenth century the population of 

 Germany increased 14 per cent., while that 

 of the United States increased almost 21 

 per cent., and this great increase in the pop- 

 ulation of our own country is comprised 

 largely of immigrants, of whom only a rela- 

 tively small proportion is interested in 

 higher education. Another interesting fact 

 is brought out by comparing the actual 

 numerical growth of the student body of 

 the two countries, and employing this basis, 

 the comparison would again favor the 

 United States. Between 1889 and 1900 the 

 total number of students in attendance at 

 the German universities increased 36 per 

 cent., whereas in America between 1890 and 

 1901 the total increase* in the number of 

 undergraduate and resident graduate stu- 

 dents in universities, colleges and schools 

 of technology amoimted to 86 per cent., 

 and there would be little change in the rela- 

 tive growth were the comparison extended 

 to cover the past thirty years. 



One of the most interesting points ad- 

 duced in the article mentioned is the 

 marked change in the distribution of the 

 students among the different classes of in- 

 stitutions, the figures demonstrating that 

 the schools of technology have since 1892 

 expanded uninterruptedly and much more 

 rapidly than the general universities. The 

 reason for this expansion is to be sought 

 not so much in the existence of lower en- 

 trance requirements for the schools of tech- 

 nology, nor in the circumstance that sev- 

 eral schools have been permitted to confer 

 an engineering degree, although both of 

 these factors have some bearing on the de- 

 velopment in question. We must go 



