influences, in many colleges today all extra-scholastic activities are either supervised by the student council, the members of which are elected by the students, or by a joint body of student and faculty members. The effect in almost every instance has been the diminution of friction between the faculty and students and the development of better relations between them. In some colleges the honor system is found, under which even proctoring at examinations does not exist, as all disciplinary matters, including the decision in serious offenses like cheating, rest with the student council. Student self-government is only one evidence of the democratization that has taken place in the administration of the college during the past two decades. Even more noticeable than student self-government is the tendency recently manifested to transfer more of the control of the government of the college from the board of trustees to the faculty.

With the extension of commerce and the attempt to bring it under efficient organization in the nineteenth century, the demand has been made upon the colleges to train experts in this field. Germany was the first to engage in it, and just before the war probably led the world. France and England have remained relatively indifferent. In America, the so-called "business college" proved entirely too narrow in scope, and beginning with the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce of the University of Pennsylvania (1881), the higher institutions have begun to train for this important field. Some of the colleges of commerce, like those of Dartmouth and Harvard, demand extensive liberal preparation; others, like Wharton and the schools connected with the state universities, coördinate their liberal and vocational work; a few, like that of New York University, give almost exclusive attention to the practical element.

Two other movements might be mentioned as illustrating the attempt to extend the opportunity for higher education to an ever increasing number of people. One is the development of extension courses and the other the offering of evening work to those who cannot attend the regular sessions. These are both steps in the direc

New opportunities in

higher education

The future of the college in

American education

Relation to secondary schools

The junior college

tion of equality of opportunity which is the ultimate aim of education in a democratic country.

The college preceded the high school in time, and when the high school began its career in the middle of the nineteenth century it was made tributary to the college in all essentials. By deciding requirements for admission, the college practically prescribed the curriculum of the high school; by conducting examinations itself it practically determined methods of teaching in the high school. But a remarkable change in these respects has taken place in the past two decades. The high school, which is almost omnipresent in our country, has attained independence and today organizes its curricula without much reference to the college. If there be any domination in college entrance requirements today, it is rather the high school that dominates. Over a large part of the country, especially in states maintaining state universities, there are now no examinations for entrance to college. The college accepts all graduates of accredited high schools i. e., high schools that the state university decides maintain proper secondary standards. This growth in strength and independence has been accompanied by a lengthening of the high school course from two years in the middle of the last century to four years at the present time.

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With the introduction of the principle of promotion by subject instead of by class, the strong high schools have been enabled to undertake to teach subjects in their last years which were formerly taught in the first years of the college. They have done this so well that the practice has grown up in some parts of the country, especially on the Pacific Coast, of extending the course of the high school to six years and of completing in them the work of the first two years of college. This enables more young men and women throughout the state to receive collegiate education, and as the best-equipped teachers in the high schools are usually in the last years and the worst-equipped teachers in the college are usually in the

first years, the system makes for better education. Moreover, it relieves the state universities of the crowds of students in the first two years and permits overworked professors to concentrate upon the advanced work of the last two years and upon research work in the graduate schools. A system which offers so many advantages and is so popular both in the high school and the university bids fair to spread.

While the movement making for the elimination of the college from below has been taking place in the West, another movement having the same effect has been taking place in the East, only the pressure has been from above. The tendency is spreading for the professional schools of the strong universities to demand a college degree for admission. If the full four years of the college are demanded in addition to the four years of the secondary school and the eight years of the elementary school, the great majority of students will begin their professional education at twenty-two and their professional careers at twenty-six, and they will hardly be self-supporting before thirty. This seems an unreasonably long period of preparation compared to that required in other progressive countries. The German student, for example, begins his professional studies immediately upon graduation from the gymnasium at eighteen. Hence the demand has arisen for a shortening of the college course. This demand has been met in several ways. In some colleges the courses have been arranged in such a way that the bright and industrious student may complete the work required for graduation in three years. In others, as at Harvard, the student may elect in his senior year the studies of the first year of the professional school. Another tendency in the same direction is to permit students in the junior and even in the sophomore years to elect subjects of a vocational nature. This has been bitterly contested by those who hold that the minimum essentials of liberal culture should be acquired before vocational specialization begins. Columbia permits a student to complete his college

The abbrecondensed

viated and

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course

and professional studies in six years, and at the end of that time he receives both the bachelor's and the professional degrees.

It is to be noted, however, that these solutions of the problem and, in fact, most other solutions that have been suggested, apply only to a college connected with a university; they could not be administered in the independent college. But a movement has developed in the Middle West which may result in another solution; i. e., the Junior College. It can be best understood by reference to the policy of the University of Chicago. That institution divides its undergraduate course into two parts: a Junior College of two years, the completion of whose course brings with it the title of Associate in Arts, and a Senior College of two years, the completion of whose course is rewarded with the regular bachelor's degree. There have become affiliated with the University of Chicago a considerable number of colleges throughout the Mississippi Valley which have frankly become Junior Colleges and confine their work to the freshman and sophomore years. And this has become true of other universities. It would seem inevitable that the bachelor's degree will finally be granted at the end of the Junior College and some other degree, perhaps the master's, which has an anomalous place in American education in any case, at the end of the Senior College. This has, in fact, been suggested by President Butler. The University of Chicago has also struck out in another new direction. Provided a certain amount of work is done in residence at the University, the remainder may be completed in absentia, i. e., through correspondence courses.

The Junior College movement has had the excellent result of inducing many weak colleges to confine their work to what they really can afford to do. Many parts of our country have a surplus of colleges, chiefly denominational. Ohio alone has more than fifty. The cost of maintaining dormitories, laboratories, libraries, apparatus, and other equipment and paying respectable salaries cannot be met by the tuition fees in any college. The college must either

have a large income-producing endowment, which few have, or must receive gifts sufficient to meet expenses. Gifts to colleges and universities form one of the finest evidences of interest in higher education in the United States, and reach really colossal proportions. In the past fifty years, during which this form of generosity has prevailed, over 600 million dollars have been given, and in 1914 gifts from private sources amounted to more than 30 million dollars. Most of this money is given to the non-sectarian institutions and not to the small denominational colleges scattered over the country. As they are in addition unable to compete with the state universities, they are for every reason justified in becoming Junior Colleges. But this does not apply to the old independent colleges, such as Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth, etc., which have loyal and wealthy alumni associations. They have the support necessary to retain the four-year course and seem determined to do so.

Just what the outcome of the whole question of shortening the college course may be is not now evident. That concessions in time must be made to the demand for an earlier beginning of professional education seems certain. That the saving should be made in the college course is not so certain. A sounder pedagogy seems to indicate that one year, if not two, can be saved in the period from the sixth to the eighteenth year. It is probable that the arbitrary division of American education into elementary, secondary, collegiate, and university, each with a stated number of years, will give way to a real unification of the educational process. Most Americans would regret to see the college, the unique product of American education, which has had such an honorable part in the development of our civilization, disappear in the unifying process. STEPHEN PIERCE DUGGAN

College of the City of New York