805

TABLE 20.-Extent to which various specific agencies assisted in the financing of the research problems of graduate students in land-grant institutions

Candidates for Ph. D. degree Candidates for M. S. (or M. A.)

Agricultural College of Utah.

University of Vermont..

Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College.....

State College of Washington.

West Virginia University.

1 Other special research agencies, 2.

Classification and Characteristics of Offerings

There has been very little standardization of the courses offered to graduate students. The characteristics of a graduate course are necessarily somewhat difficult to define. In practically every university of the United States a considerable proportion of the work credited toward advanced degrees is taken by graduate students in classes to which undergraduates are also admitted. Statistics published in 1926 by Wilkins indicated that about 40 per cent of the registrations at the University of Chicago on the part of graduate students were in courses designated as primarily senior college

courses. The same was true for Harvard and Wisconsin. At Minnesota the percentage of graduate registrations in upper classes of undergraduate courses was found to be about 25. He concludes, "From the viewpoint of the graduate school, the senior college is an indispensable companion." 48

There are those who disagree very sharply with the policy of utilizing undergraduate courses for graduate students and also with the policy of admitting undergraduates to the same classes with graduate students. Greenlaw (1926), for example, insists that there should be

Sharp differentiation between graduate and undergraduate work. The two can not be combined except in very elementary courses. The difference is in content and in method. An undergraduate course, handled as knowledge reduced to systematic form by a master and transmitted to students, may be more advanced in content than a purely graduate course which is conducted as training in the method of research."

One group would differentiate the graduate work very sharply, the other believes that the sharp line of demarcation should come at the end of the junior college.

The survey of the situation not only in land-grant institutions, but in others as well, indicates that in many cases four groups of courses may be recognized. For the purposes of the present survey, these may be defined as follows:

Group 1 courses.-These are courses or subjects usually open to graduate students only. They are usually advanced in character and differ in purpose and content from the undergraduate courses. Here are to be included the opportunities for research, the conferences, and the graduate seminars. Here also will usually be included those courses which individual professors have made distinguished because of their own contributions to the field or to their unusual ability to organize and present material in subjects which are undergoing fluctuations.

Group 2 courses.-These are courses usually defined as open both to graduates and to undergraduates of the senior college or upper division. If we are to follow the reasoning of Wilkins, who insists that the line of demarcation between junior and senior colleges is much more real and should be much more emphasized than that between the senior and graduate college, it is quite apparent that some of the courses offered to advanced undergraduates may be entirely suitable for graduates. These are usually advanced courses

46 Ernest H. Wilkins. In Association of American Universities, Proceedings, 1926, p. 63. 47 Edwin Greenlaw. In Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States, Proceedings, 1926, p. 243.

frequently having a long list of prerequisites. In many cases they are the tool courses. As previously stated, a considerable proportion of the work taken by candidates for master's degrees in our standard universities is in courses belonging to this group. It seems selfevident that not every course offered to senior college students should be available for graduate credit, certainly not for major graduate credit. There is, of course, the danger that inadequate courses may be included by a faculty anxious to increase its list of graduate offerings. It would seem that in many fields such a mixture of senior college students and graduates is entirely defensible in certain courses. This is particularly true in some of the technical and scientific fields.

Group 3 courses.-These may be defined as courses primarily of senior college grade which may be taken by graduate students for minor but not for major credit. They include subjects which may be essential to the proper development of the major but do not require as long a sequence of prerequisities. Very frequently, particularly in land-grant graduate fields, the research problem of a student will involve the securing of some special course or technique with which he is unfamiliar. For example, graduate students in a field such as horticulture may require for their research certain techniques which are taught in senior college chemistry, courses usually taken only by students who are specializing in this field. They are courses which are not sufficiently advanced to be appropriate to a graduate in the field of chemistry but are entirely appropriate as supporting work to students majoring in other fields. Whether or not these are actually granted graduate credit is somewhat beside the point, for it is inevitable that the majority of graduate students must needs have the training secured in such courses. This does not mean that relatively elementary courses should be utilized for this purpose. A graduate student in genetics, for example, may find an advanced course in statistical methods in mathematics very helpful, even essential. Very probably it would be a course not ordinarily taken by undergraduates except those who are taking mathematics as the field of specialization.

Group 4 courses.-These are undergraduate courses which should not be allowed to graduate students for graduate credit, though frequently they must be taken by graduate students to make good deficiencies. Not infrequently there are deficiencies in mathematics or modern languages. These should be corrected as promptly as possible. If such deficiencies are present to any great degree, it is probable that the student should be registered as an undergraduate until such work has been completed. If the deficiencies are not

extreme, it is customary to allow them to be made up during the term of residence as a graduate student. In some cases, certain of these subjects and the manner in which they are taught or handled will be of considerable significance to the graduate school.

Enrollment of graduate students in courses of the various groups. It is quite apparent that any arbitrary scheme of classifying graduate courses such as that already outlined will not fit the customs or practices of all institutions. An attempt was made, however, to get an idea as to the proportion of such courses which are offered in various land-grant institutions. The results are tabulated in Table 21 in so far as the methods or classifications in use at these institutions made it possible.