viding for the grant of 30,000 acres of land for each representative and senator, to be devoted to the support in each state of a higher institution of learning, in which technical and agricultural branches should be taught. Within twenty years every state in the Union had taken advantage of this splendid endowment, either to found a new state university which would comply with the requirements as regards courses of instruction or to establish an agricultural college as an independent institution, or in connection with some already existing institution. Not only do some of the finest state universities like those of California, Illinois, and Minnesota owe their origins to the Morrill Act, but others owe to it their real beginnings as institutions of collegiate grade. Up to the passage of the Morrill Act a dozen state universities struggled to maintain themselves with meager revenues and few students. They were trying to do broad academic work, but by no means reached the standards of the strong colleges in the eastern part of the country.

The establishment of state-supported and state-controlled universities in the commonwealths organized after the close of the eighteenth century by no means put an end to the establishment of colleges upon religious foundations. Denominational zeal was very strong in the decades preceding the Civil War, and the church was the center of community life in the newly settled regions. The need to provide an intelligent ministry and also a higher civilization led to the establishment of many small sectarian colleges in the new states. Despite the fact that practically all of them would today be considered only of secondary grade, they accomplished a splendid work and provided ideals and standards of intellectual life in a new country whose population was engaged chiefly in supplying the physical needs of life. The response made in the Civil War by the institutions of higher education throughout the United States, whether privately or publicly supported, was a magnificent return for the sacrifices endured in their establishment and maintenance. Everywhere throughout the North the colleges were depleted of instructors and students who had entered the

ranks, and in the South nearly all the colleges were compelled to close their doors. Upon the shoulders of their graduates fell the burden of directing civil and military affairs in state and nation.

3. THE MODERN ERA

Were a visitor to Harvard or Columbia in 1860 to revisit it today, the changes he would observe would be startling. The elective system, graduate studies, professional and technical schools, an allied woman's college, and a summer session are a few of the most noticeable activities incorporated since 1860. It would be impossible to set any date for the beginning of this transformation, so gradual and subtle has it been, but the accession of Dr. Charles W. Eliot to the presidency of Harvard College in 1869 and the establishment of Johns Hopkins University in 1876 are definite landmarks.

This chapter is a history of the American college, and space will not permit of a detailed description of these activities but simply of a narration of the way they developed and of the forces which brought them into being.

It has already been mentioned that the curriculum of the average American college at the beginning of the nineteenth century differed but little from the curriculum followed in the middle of the seventeenth. The reason is simple. The curriculum is based upon the biological principle of adaptation to environment, and the environment of the average American of 1800 differed but slightly from his ancestor of a century and a half previous. The growth of the curriculum follows, slowly it is often true, upon the growth of knowledge. The growth of knowledge during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was slow and insignificant compared to its marvelous growth in the nineteenth century, particularly in the last half of it. The great discoveries in science, first in chemistry, then in physics and biology, resulted in their gradually displacing much of the logic and philosophy which had maintained the prime place

The curric

ulum and

the elec

tive system

in the old curriculum. The interest aroused in the French language and literature by our Revolution; in the Spanish by the South American wars of independence; and in the German by the distinguished scholars who studied in the German universities during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, caused a demand that those languages as well as English have a place in the curriculum. This could be secured only by making them partly alternatives to the classical languages. The Industrial Revolution, based as it was upon the application of science to industry, not only gave an impetus to the establishment of technical schools, but by revolutionizing the production and distribution of wealth pushed into the curriculum the science that deals with wealth, political economy. The growth of cities that followed in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, the conflicts between the interests of classes, viz., landowners, capitalists, and laborers,― the rapid decay of feudalism and the spread of political democracy following the French Revolution, the expansion of commerce to all corners of the globe and the resulting development of colonialism, all these human interests gave a new meaning to the study of history and politics which caused them to secure a place of great prominence in the curriculum during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

It is perfectly obvious that as the time at the student's disposal remained the same, if he were to pursue even a part of the new subject matter that was gradually admitted into the curriculum, the course of study could no longer remain wholly prescribed and he would have to be granted some freedom of choice. The growth in number of students also produced changes in administration favorable to the introduction of the elective system. In the early history of the American college one instructor taught a single class in all subjects, and it was not until 1776 that the transfer was made at Harvard from the teaching of classes by one instructor to the teaching of each subject by one instructor. With increase in numbers the students were unable to receive in each year instruction by every member of the teaching

staff. In spite of the quite obvious advantages of the elective system, it was obstinately resisted by the defenders of the classics and also of orthodox religion and at first made but slow progress. Thomas Jefferson gave it the first great impetus when he made it an essential element in the organization of the University of Virginia in 1825. Francis Wayland, president of Brown University and one of the few college presidents of his day who were educators in the modern sense, made a splendid exposition and defense of it in 1850 in his "Report to the Corporation of Brown University on Changes in the System of Collegiate Education." But the elective system waited upon the elevation of Charles W. Eliot to the presidency of Harvard in 1869 for its general realization; in 1872 the senior year at Harvard became wholly elective; in 1879, the junior year; in 1884, the sophomore year; and in 1894 the single absolute requirement that remained in the entire college course was English A. The action of Harvard was rapidly imitated to a more or less thorough extent throughout the country.

Probably no two colleges administer the elective system in the same way. There has been a considerable revulsion of opinion against unrestricted election of individual subjects. In many colleges the subjects of the curriculum were arranged into groups which must be elected in toto. This resulted in the multiplication of bachelor's degrees, each indicating the special course-arts, science, philosophy, or literature which had been followed. At the present time the tendency is to prescribe the subjects considered essential to a liberal education chiefly in the first two years and to permit election among groups of related courses in the last two. This has maintained the unity that formerly prevailed and introduced greater breadth into the curriculum. It has also brought the new bachelor's degrees into disfavor, and today the majority of the best colleges give only the A.B. degree for the regular academic course. Valuable modifications in the elective system are constantly being adopted. One such is the preceptorial system at Princeton and elsewhere, under which the preceptors personally super

German influence and graduate study

vise the reading and study of a small group of students and can therefore advise them from personal knowledge of their capacity. Another is the system of honor courses adopted at Columbia and elsewhere, whereby a distinction is made between mere passmen and students desirous of attaining high rank in courses that are carefully organized in sequence.

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The introduction of new subjects into the curriculum of the college and the adoption by it of the elective system owe much to German influence upon American education. Though this influence was partly exerted by the study of the German language and literature, it resulted chiefly from the residence of American students at German universities. The first American to be granted the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from a German university was Edward Everett, who received it at Göttingen in 1817. He was followed by George Ticknor, George Bancroft, Henry W. Longfellow, John Lothrop Motley, Frederick Henry Hedge, William Dwight Whitney, Theodore Dwight Woolsey, and a host of scholars who shed luster upon American education and scholarship in the mid-nineteenth century. Most of these men became associated with American colleges in some capacity and had a profound influence upon their ideals, organization, and methods of teaching. They came back devoted advocates of wide and deep scholarship, of independent research, and of the need of such scholastic tools as libraries and laboratories. But especially did they give an impetus to the movement in favor of freedom of choice (Lernfreiheit) in studies. Only by the adoption of such a principle could the pronounced tastes or needs of individual students be satisfied.

Some slight effort had been made in the first four decades of the nineteenth century by a few of the colleges to conform to the desire of students for further study in some chosen field, but the results were negligible. In 1847 Yale established a "department of philosophy and the arts for scientific and graduate study leading to the degree of bachelor of philosophy."

The first degree of doctor of philos