The aim of the constituent colleges is to prevent the admission to college on certificate of students not prepared for college work. Students from schools not on the board's list of approved schools may always enter any of the colleges by passing the entrance examinations.

CLASSIFICATION.

There is evidence of a general change of attitude toward the vexed question of classification of colleges. The procedure of the administrative officials who have undertaken to classify is becoming more empirical. The officers of the classified institutions, on the other hand, are growing decidedly less suspicious. The two parties are coming to see the identity of their interests and to avoid, on the one side, the inscrutable and inexorable demeanor of a vehmic tribunal, and, on the other, the supersensitiveness to unfavorable criticism which has been common in the past. The inadequacy of any hard and fast definition to describe the great variety of colleges has become increasingly apparent. Every definition must be applied with discretion and should be elastic enough to allow certain deviations from strict orthodoxy. Classifying agencies are recognizing this. There is also a growing conviction among college executives of the ultimate value of honest and restrained statements concerning the equipment and performances of their institutions. They are beginning to perceive the benefits that will accrue from the recognition of the defects of these institutions and to appreciate the fact that classifying bodies are friendly and not hostile forces.

The question of classification now appears to have become by common consent the question of classifications. Colleges can, and doubtless should be, classified on several bases; in other words, with respect to their qualifications and equipment for various different purposes. The principal efforts at rating colleges within the year seem to point to a tendency to limit future classifications to distinct and homogeneous groups of institutions, or to specified categories of college work. This tendency is illustrated in the efforts toward classification mentioned in the following paragraphs.

RECOGNITION OF THE JUNIOR COLLEGE.

State education officials in three States, acting under authority of law, have taken steps toward the recognition of the junior college and have suggested tentative working definitions of this type of institution.

THE WISCONSIN, MISSOURI, AND VIRGINIA SCHEMES.

As noted in the report of the Commissioner of Education for 1912, Wisconsin, in the preceding year, authorized its normal schools to give two years and no more of college work. The college depart

ments of these normal schools were thus in effect made junior colleges. The University of Wisconsin has now formally provided for their affiliation with it on such terms that normal-school students or graduates who were prepared to enter the university at the time of entering the normal school, and whose studies have been approved by the university faculty, may be transferred to the university with full credit. Thus the graduates of these normal schools receive junior standing in the colleges of letters and science, agriculture, and engineering, and are admitted to the law school or the medical school.

In Missouri seven institutions giving part of the four years' college course are affiliated with the State university as junior colleges. The university has issued detailed regulations for this affiliation, the most important of which are these:

1. The requirements for admission to the work of the affiliated college must be the equivalent of those of the college of arts and science in the University of Missouri (15 units).

2. If a preparatory school is maintained in connection with the college, its work must be approved by the University of Missouri. 3. The course of study in the college must be 2 years in length and the college year 36 weeks.

4. For graduation from the college the student must complete satisfactorily 60 semester hours of work, which must be the equivalent of that required in the first 2 years in the college of arts and science in the University of Missouri, including the courses prescribed for these years by the university.

In addition, there must be adequate library and laboratory equipment, and a sufficient number of well-trained teachers devoting themselves to specialties to insure work of college grade.

The State Board of Education of Virginia, in its circular of information for 1914, concerning the certification of teachers, provides for granting a junior college certificate to—

a graduate of a registered institution in Virginia which does not comply fully with the definition of a college, but which offers an approved four-year course at least two years in advance of the standard four-year high school, with one year's work of college grade in English, history, mathematics, and science.

This regulation obviously serves as a very general and tentative definition of a junior college.

Much more thoroughgoing and specific prescriptions for the recognition of the junior college were adopted by the Virginia Association of Colleges and Schools for Girls, in June, 1913. The essential parts of the association's definition are:

That any school desiring rank as a junior college (a) shall agree to prefix the word "junior" when applying to itself the term "college"; (b) shall have at least five instructors, each devoting himself to a single field; (c) shall fully meet the college entrance requirements for courses and examinations *; and (d) shall within

* *

five years present at least three students who gain by examination advanced standing of not less than 2 years (30 hours) at some one of the standard colleges asked to cooperate with us in this process of standardization, namely, Vassar, Smith, Goucher, Wellesley, and Mount Holyoke.

The committee on standardization, which formulated these regulations for the association, was continued and has been very successful in arranging for close and cordial cooperation with the standard women's colleges just mentioned in testing the work of the junior colleges of Virginia. The action of the association, therefore, promises to have considerable influence in determining the sphere and the range of the junior college not only in Virginia, but in other States as well.

THE APPROVED LIST OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES.

The recommendation by the Association of American Universities of a group of American colleges and universities to the Prussian Kultusministerium was in effect a classification of undergraduate institutions on the basis of their fitness to prepare students for graduate study and research. The motives that actuated the association in recommending this list form an important part of the history of international educational relations. They are summarized briefly in the association's report for 1913.

In 1905 the University of Berlin memorialized the Association of American Universities to the effect that its faculty recognized every bachelor's degree acquired at an American university as the equivalent of the German Maturitätszeugnis. But the construction subsequently placed by the University of Berlin upon this statement restricted its provisions to the institutions included in the Association of American Universities. The action of the University of Berlin was afterwards imitated by other Prussian universities and the universities of Holland. In consequence only those American students who had won their bachelor's degrees from institutions represented in the association were allowed to matriculate at Prussian and Dutch universities.

Feeling that such discrimination was unjust to the other collegiate institutions of the United States, the association appointed a committee to consider and report a remedy. The committee soon discovered that the task of making a list of the colleges of the country whose degrees might be regarded by the association as of equal value with the college degrees conferred by the universities embraced in its membership was impossible, with such machinery as the association itself had at hand. It therefore recommended that a list of accepted institutions be compiled to consist of the three following groups:

(1) The members, present and future, of the Association of American Universities. (2) Those other institutions on the accepted list of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

(3) Those institutions which are not included in the accepted list of the Carnegie Foundation because they are in some sense sectarian, as defined in the terms of gift of the fund, but otherwise conform to its standards of acceptability.

At the request of the committee, the Carnegie Foundation furnished the names of the institutions mentioned under the last two headings. Including the 22 members of the association, 119 colleges and universities were named. The association then passed the following resolution:

Resolved, That this association recommend to the Prussian Kultusministerium and the corresponding ministries of the other German States that for the present there be recognized as the equivalent of the German Maturitätszeugnis not only the bachelors' degrees conferred by the members of this association, but also the degree of those other American colleges and universities which are on the accepted list of the Carnegie Foundation or which are certified by this foundation as of equivalent standing but excluded from its accepted list for other than educational reasons.

THE NORTH CENTRAL ASSOCIATION'S POLICY.

The most radical and suggestive proposal with respect to classification offered within the year was that made by the commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and adopted by the association at the meeting held in Chicago, March 21, 1914. It will be remembered that the association several years ago set up certain standards for colleges and universities which constituted a very detailed and specific definition of an acceptable college1 under 12 heads (including admission and graduation requirements, faculty training, financial stability, equipment, and curriculum). The definition gained wide circulation not only in the territory of the association, but throughout the country. Some of its provisions were embodied in subsequent attempts elsewhere to define a standard college. In 1913 the commission reported a list of 73 colleges in the territory of the association which conformed to the standards, and hence were eligible for membership in the association.

The 1914 report alluded to above recommended a total change in the policy of the association. Because of the novelty of the proposal, certain paragraphs are here quoted verbatim:

The present standards for colleges and universities were evidently drawn up with the college of arts and science as the chief if not the sole object of consideration. The association obviously has before it two possible courses. The present standards can be maintained and strengthened, when membership in the association will be limited; or a policy of expansion can be adopted which will necessitate a modification of the standards and a thorough revision of the approved list.

The small, exclusive membership seems at first sight to have certain advantages. The relation to high schools seems to be relatively simple. The association promises

1 See Rep. of Commis. of Ed., 1913, Vol. I, pp. 20-21.

to be fairly homogeneous. The standards are relatively easy to enforce. On the other hand, it is to be noted that even the present small list includes institutions of widely different character. For example, about one-half of the institutions on the approved list pay their faculties less than $30,000 per annum, while at the other end of the list are institutions paying their faculties $500,000 or more. These figures show that in range of courses and in point of size the institutions now on the list differ very widely, so that the effort to keep relations within the association simple can hardly be expected to succeed.

All these considerations led the commission to the recommendation which it now submits, that the list of approved institutions be enlarged. It is recommended that an alphabetical list of all institutions which continue the education of students beyond 15 units of high-school work be prepared. Following the name of the institution shall be set down an exact statement of certain facts, such as the following:

(1) Number of the faculty in independent charge of classes.

(2) Number of faculty with the degree of doctor of philosophy.

(3) Number of matriculated students.

(4) Number and type of degrees granted in course.

(5) Number of elementary courses of instruction actually given. (6) Number of advanced courses.

(7) Number of professional courses.

(8) Expenditure for salaries.

(9) Hours of class instruction required of members of the faculty. (10) Material equipment.

This list shall then be submitted to the commission and the commission shall determine its standards with the facts before it. Thus the commission shall determine the limits permitted in each of the categories above described. Furthermore, the categories which are deemed essential to admission to a classified list shall be determined, and the list shall then be made up automatically, subject to annual review. The approved list and the facts which it presents shall be published.

The commission does not, it will be observed, offer in this plan any definition of a junior college, nor does it distinguish between colleges and universities, or colleges and normal schools. It recommends rather a comprehensive formula, including all grades of institutions. It anticipates that the result of the adoption of this plan will be the ultimate development of a system of rating which may be used for high schools as well as for higher institutions.

SURVEYS OF HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.

Several important investigations in relation to the organization and management of higher institutions have been undertaken or completed during the past year. Reference was made in the last report to the establishment by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, in January, 1913, of a division of educational inquiry in connection with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The division is provided with an endowment of $1,250,000, and under the terms of the gift is instructed to "carry on investigations concerning universities, colleges, professional schools, and systems of education generally," and to make public such of its findings as the trustees of the Foundation may think valuable.

THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION'S REPORT ON EDUCATION IN VERMONT.

The opportunity was offered for the Foundation to put this new endowment to important use in an educational investigation more