vantage of the schools, the colleges, and the community. With the present sharp division of secondary schools into those which prepare boys for college and those which do not, the important decision for or against a college education must generally be made for a boy as early as his fourteenth year. If there existed a large class of schools having a programme of studies which on the one hand sufficed to admit their graduates credibly to college, and on the other furnished an appropriate training for boys who at eighteen are to go into business or technical pursuits, this all-important decision might be postponed to a more suitable age.

Besides increasing the number and variety of schools which fit boys for college, the new requirements will, it is hoped, have some influence to improve the methods of teaching history and science in all schools. The previous efforts of the faculty to get science introduced into the preparatory schools have had but little success, because the former requirements could be met by committing small manuals to memory. The new requirements are also expected to assist in bringing down the average age of admission to eighteen or thereabouts. At present about two-fifths of the freshmen are over nineteen at entrance-a condition of things which the faculty views with Report of Dr. William Pepper, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania.

concern.

It is, indeed, a matter of great importance that there should be some general agreement between the leading colleges of America as to the requirements for admission. As schools which prepare students for college are constantly increasing in number and in the area over which they are distributed, it becomes all the more urgent that a certain stability on this point should be attained. It takes several years for the work in a large school to become thoroughly adapted to the requirements for admission to the colleges for which its students are preparing; it may be assumed that the frequent and extensive changes of recent years must have severely taxed the resources of these schools and interfered with the efficiency of their instruction. There is reason to hope, however, that less change and less variety will occur in the future. Unless the conditions of life in America become greatly altered, it would seem that the requirements for admission to our colleges have now reached a standard as high as it is desirable for them to be carried.

What seems to be needed, therefore, is not any further advance of the standard for admission to college but a fuller development of the system of residence after graduation, for the prosecution of advanced studies, or of original investigation. This demands the establishment of scholarships, tenable for one, two, or even three years. Some of them may be unendowed, bearing merely the title, and the free access to academic privileges, but for the most part they should be endowed, so as to yield not less than $500 per annum, a sum barely sufficient for the support of the scholar, in addition to the necessary outlay for books, &c.

INCENTIVES TO STUDY.

Report of the President of Harvard University for 1885-'86, pp. 9-10.

The natural working of the elective system has always been interfered with by the marking system of the college, a system which made too fine distinctions and undertook to compare results which were in reality not comparable. The faculty last year did away with the minute percentage system of marking and substituted a classification of the students in each course of study in five groups, the lowest of which includes those who have failed on the course. It is hoped that this grouping system will afford sufficient criteria for the judicious award of scholarships, honorable mention, and the grades of the bachelor's degree, while it diminishes the competition for marks and the importance attached by students to college rank in comparison with the remoter objects of faithful work.

Three measures, intended to increase the amount of personal supervision exercised over the less diligent or less thoughtful students, were discussed and adopted by the faculty in the course of the year 1885-86. The first provides that every student shall satisfy his instructor in each of his courses of study, in such way as the instructor may determine, that he is performing the work of the course in a systematic manner; and that any instructor may, with the approval of the dean, exclude from his course, at any time, any student who has neglected the work of the course. The second measure was intended to prevent careless choice of studies by restricting the liberty of changing from one course to another after the work of the year has begun. To this end no change of elective courses is to be allowed after November 1, except by leave of a committee of the faculty, to whom application must be made in writing with a full statement of reasons. Both these new measures are working well in the year now current. The third measure was adopted at the instigation of the Board of Overseers. It provides a committee of the faculty on special students, which is to supervise their admission, their plans of study, and their work with their chosen instructors. The committee is essentially a committee on advice to a class of students who especially need advice. It has worked so well that the faculty is inclined to con

sider the expediency of extending the method, with some modifications, to the freshшan class. A committee of fourteen or fifteen members could divide the freshman class among themselves, each member supervising the plans and the work of about twenty students, the great majority of whom would need very little attention from

him.

Report of Dr. F. A. P. Barnard, President of Columbia College, for 1885-'86, pp. 19, 20. To the undersigned it would seem to be preferable to abolish graded scales altogether and to make public no other scholastic distinctions than proficient and deficient. This need not prevent the affixing a numerical valuation to the performances of each student in each particular study, in a record kept for the consultation of the faculty, in case any question should arise affecting such student individually. This is the plan which has been followed in the School of Mines ever since it was opened, more than twenty years ago, with results entirely satisfactory. It was not imposed by authority, but grew up naturally as the simplest test for the accomplishment of the object for which the school was instituted, viz, to make well-qualified engineers. If we should, in like manner, in the school of arts, limit our endeavors to the effort to make well-educated young men and cease to trouble ourselves with questions of their relative merit, then there can be no doubt that the results would be equally satisfactory. An incidental advantage, moreover, would be derived from the change, viz, that we should hear no more of the frauds in examination, concerning which recently so much has been said, and concerning which statements have been published of absurd and disgraceful exaggeration.

There is no doubt that there is a great deal of effort made in all colleges to deceive examiners by the use of fraudulent devices in the filling out of examination papers; but any sensible man who will study the nature of the problem will easily perceive that success to any important degree in such an undertaking is a moral impossibility; and even though it should be strictly true, as has been confidently asserted, that such attempts are made by three out of four, or, as others say, nine out of ten, of the entire body of the students, this fact is only evidence of the general prevalence of a hope and not by any means a proof of an accomplished result. But it is further evidence of a sad degree of demoralization, among young men pursuing together a course of liberal education, which it is desirable to eradicate at any cost.

CONDUCT OF STUDIES.

Report of E. 8. Holden, A. M., President of the University of California, for 1886, p. 19. A committee of the faculties at Berkeley has been in session twice weekly during the past 6 months, with the object of recommending for the adoption of the various faculties some changes in the present scheme of lectures and tuition. These will be submitted at the proper time to the faculties, and, if approved by them, will be recommended to the Board of Regents. I, however, consider these changes to be so important that I desire to introduce here a scheme exhibiting their general nature, although the faculties may make important alterations. This scheme, together with the principles which have guided the committee in its action, are given below. In proposing the following scheme of studies for the various courses for the consideration of the faculties, the committee endeavored to work to the following principles:

1. The formation of a justly-balanced whole in the curriculum of each course is the vital matter. The total time assigned to each department should be determined by its relative importance in such a whole.

2. The claims of the various departments to the time of the student are estimated by means of the number of hours per week laid down in the curriculum.

3. The plan of 3-hour courses has been adopted as the one which adjusts itself best to the time schedule of recitations and lectures.

4. The particular way in which the time so assigned is to be used is, in general, left to the heads of the departments.

5. For each hour per week laid down in the curriculum the officer of instruction may require 2 hours of preparation from the student, but no more.

6. But the hours laid down for work in the laboratories and for field practice do not imply any time for preparation.

7. It is regarded as essential that physics shall be prescribed and that it shall be studied as early as possible, both in the form of lecture-room exercises and with experimental work by the students themselves.

Report of the President of Columbia College for 1885-'86, pp. 33, 34.

The conclusion is justified, on all grounds on which the question can be placed, that after the age of about 19 years it is the most judicious educational policy to adapt the studies of the individual to his clearly-ascertained mental characteristics. This may be done either by prescribing to him such a course of study as his instructors may judge, as the result of observation, to be best adapted to his capacitic and therefore most likely to be profitable to him, and requiring him to pursue it

by giving to himself the liberty to choose such as are most in harmony with his tastes. Either course will naturally lead to results substantially similar; but better than either would be a combination of the two-that is to say, to permit the student to choose, but to require him to submit his choice to his instructors for ratification. The plan of elective study adopted in this college in 1880 was in accordance, in the main, with this theory. An almost unlimited freedom in the choice of studies was permitted to the junior and the senior classes-history, political economy, and the English language and literature only being obligatory, these being regarded not as disciplinary studies, but as being a part of that knowledge which should be possessed by every well-educated man. From the reports of the undersigned for the years 1882 to 1885, inclusive, it appears that the consequences following the introduction of this system, in the improvement of the scholarship of the junior and senior classes, were striking and palpable. In November, 1884, however, the freedom of election in the junior class was largely restricted, being reduced from 11 hours per week to 5. As this change was directed after the academic year 1884-85 was considerably advanced, and, therefore, after the elections for the year had already beenmade, it could not be carried into effect until October, 1885; and it is as yet too early to draw any inferences as to the consequences of the change as regards scholarship, the records which have been gathered under the new system covering a period of only 4 months. One result, however, which was not anticipated, and was certainly not intended, has been to reduce considerably the number of persons electing the modern languages, especially the German, after the sophomore year.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE B. A. degree.

Report of the Provost and Treasurer of the University of Pennsylvania, pp. 10, 11.

It may be observed here that the question of the position of the study of the classics in American colleges is no longer as to whether a university degree shall be given at the close of any course which does not include both Latin and Greek, for this is settled in the affirmative; but it is now limited to the particular point whether the degree of bachelor of arts (B. A.) shall be given for such a course.

It is difficult to show why this should not be done, in theory at least, but the practical difficulty lies in the fact that the study of English, French, and German, as now conducted in the preparatory schools, cannot replace, for the purposes of mental discipline, the traditional thorough drill in Greek. The advocates of the modern languages, as an elective substitute for the classics, should see to it that the method of studying the former acquires equal vigor, uniformity, and thoroughness with that which has been developed in the case of the classics by centuries of continued appli

cation.

The experience of all professors of English in American colleges is that students do not come to college adequately prepared for profitable instruction in advanced studies of English. In French and German the case is usually even worse. In many instances the student who elects one or both of these languages as substitutes for the classics has scarcely advanced beyond the rudiments of either tongue. It is needless to say that before the proposition to permit an election between Greek and modern languages in the requirements for admission to the course leading to the degree of B. A. can be discussed fairly it must be shown that the preparatory study of French or German has been as honest, thorough, and systematic as that devoted to Greek. When this becomes the case in the best preparatory schools it will be possible to determine practically the relative merits of the two studies as means of mental training. The university has been making progress in this direction.

SYSTEM OF FELLOWSHIPS AT JOHNS HOPKINS.

Report of President Gilman for 1886, pp. 15, 16.

Much of the success of the institution is due to the system of fellowships. Every year 20 young men who have given evidence of their attainments and of intellectual promise are selected by the authorities as fellows, and are encouraged to devote all their time to the study of some branch of knowledge in which they have already shown proficiency. During the first 10 years this honor has been bestowed upon 134 individuals. The subjects to which they have been devoted are these:

While resident among us as fellows, or as fellows by courtesy (an honorary distinction without emolument), these honormen have been regarded as leaders among the students. They have been recognized as holding an intermediate position between the faculty and the great body of pupils; they have been efficient members of the various literary and scientific associations; they have occasionally given lectures on special topics to which they were devoted. The principal features in the method of appointment here adopted have been followed in other institutions both in this country and in Great Britain.

SCHOLARSHIP SYSTEM AT JOHNS HOPKINS.

Report of President Gilman for 1885-'86, pp. 16, 17.

The founder of the university in his will made use of this language: "I further request the trustees of said university to establish, from time to time, such number of free scholarships in said university as may be judicions, and to distribute the said scholarships among such candidates from the States of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina as may be most deserving of choice because of their character and intellectual promise, and to educate the young meu so chosen free of charge." The best method of carrying out his wishes has been a matter upon which some difference of opinion has prevailed, and different modes of appointment have from time to time been adopted by the trustees. Our records show that 235 students from the three States named have received free tuition during a part or the whole of their course of study among us. One hundred and fifty of these were appointed Hopkins scholars. As experience was gained in the bestowal of these scholarships, it was generally admitted that they ought to be awarded not as a charity to the needy but as an honor to the meritorious. Accordingly, during recent years, examinations have been held, and the scholarships have been given to those among the applicants who showed the highest attainments. All the Hopkins scholarships carry free tuition, and some of them designated as honorary have an additional stipend.

There is a third class of scholarships, 10 of which are open to the bachelors of arts of this university and 10 to graduates of this or of other institutions who may be engaged in the prosecution of their work among us. These appointments are likewise bestowed as honors.

No other prizes have been offered, and no formal announcements have been made of the comparative standing of the students. Records are kept by the several instructors and are reported at appointed times to the collective authorities. The results of his examinations are known to every student, and are annually communicated to the parents. But these checks are chiefly valuable as a warning to those who are in some way negligent and deficient. The students generally, undergraduates as wel as graduates, do not require the stimulus of comparative marks and competitive examinations. They are encouraged to study for the sake of the knowledge and power which they will acquire, and not for the sake of surpassing their comrades.

There has been a remarkable freedom from boyish manifestations of a mischievous spirit. The accessibility of the teachers and their abstinence from annoying and petty supervision, have doubtless contributed to a good understanding with their pupils. Other reasons for the prevalence of good order might be suggested, but whatever the cause, it is a pleasure to record the fact that during the first ten years of our academic history there has never been a breach of decorum requiring the action of the faculty.

NOTES FROM UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE CATALOGUES.

The following notes from the catalogues of universities, colleges, and science schools present particulars which do not admit of tabulation. The statistical record of these institutions will be found in Tables 39, 43, and 44:

ALABAMA.

At the University of Alabama there are 2 general departments of instruction, the academic department and the department of professional education. In the former there are 10 and in the latter 3 schools. The schools of the academic department are so arranged as to form the classical, scientific, and engineering courses, leading to the degrees of bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of engineering. The "department of professional education" fits its students for the practice of law, and may be completed in 9 months by diligent study. The endowment of the university, which has been fixed at $300,000, and from which an annual income of $24,000 is received, was obtained by the sale of a township of land set apart for a seminary of learning when the State was admitted into the Union. Military discipline prevails. At Howard College, Marion, special attention is paid to English composition and elocution.

The board of trustees of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, Auburn, passe resolution in August, 1885, adding the words "Alabama Polytechnic Institute"

usual title, to signify the increased facilities for practical instruction in the sciences. A course in pharmacy was established during the year, and its students will occupy all their time in the laboratories of the chemistry and natural history departments. The department of manual training will embrace a 3-years course when completed, and will afford thorough instruction in wood and iron working.

ARKANSAS.

The Arkansas Industrial University has just passed through an eventful year. At the meeting of the Board of Trustees in June, 1885, all the chairs of the faculty were declared vacant, the president alone being retained. The year 1885-'86 opened with an entirely new faculty of 7 instead of 9 professors and a materially altered course of study. The new curriculum embraces 4 technical and 3 general courses, the former being the agricultural, normal, engineering, and business courses, and the latter the English, general science, and language. Post-graduate courses were also arranged. Mechanical engineering has been added during the year, and mining engineering will be introduced during the coming year. The normal department, suspended during 1884-'85, has been revived, and as now conducted is highly successful. Without an additional appropriation from the Legislature a school for manual training has been organized on a limited scale, and the results, as far as may be judged in the short time, have been satisfactory. Free-hand drawing is obligatory upon all students except seniors. Successful experiments have been made in the dormitory system, and the State has been asked to furnish additional buildings for its general adoption. The young ladies are required to take physical exercise daily under instructors, and the males are organized as a corps of cadets. A preparatory department, under 1 professor and 5 assistants, is connected with the college. A new heating apparatus for the building has been supplied at a cost of $8,000, and general repairs have been made.

CALIFORNIA.

The University of California was founded by an act of the Legislature approved March 23, 1868. The museums are excellent, and the scientific and mechanical apparatus is constantly being improved. With the special appropriation of the State of $10,000 a new students' astronomical observatory was completed during the year and well equipped with all instruments necessary to the study of astronomy, including a fine telescope of 6-inch aperture. A metallurgical laboratory has been erected and is now being fitted up with a 15-horse-power engine and all appliances used in metallurgy and assaying. An experimental laboratory for mechanical work has just been completed and provided with engines and appropriate machinery. The famous Lick Observatory will be, when completed, under the charge of the regents of the university and will form a department of the institution. A gymnasium has been presented, and a sum of money has been received from the State during the year for its enlargement and better equipment. Among the new departures in 1885-86 in methods of instruction are noted the introduction of extensive vacation work in topographical surveying and practical railroad work for the class in civil engineering; lectures by the professor of agriculture on the chemistry and analysis of wines; the revival of the course in botany; a course in Spanish. Military science is taught throughout.

The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, has under its control the College of Medicine, Los Angeles, the Chaffey College of Agriculture, Ontario, and Maclay College of Theology at San Fernando. The two last have been opened during the last year, both having been endowed by donations from private individuals. The instruction in the College of Agriculturo is the most practical possible and is designed as a training school for scientific farmers.

At the Pierce Christian College, College City, a course of the "theory and practice of teaching" will soon be introduced."

Hesperian College, Woodland, expended about $5,000 in improvements upon buildings and grounds during the year 1885-'86.

The facilities of Napa College, Napa, were increased during the year by the erection of a new building, three stories high, 175 by 80 feet in its dimensions, and costing $40,000. A well-equipped gymnasium has been provided, and daily exercise is required of all students.

Santa Clara College, Santa Clara, pays special attention to English composition. An artificial lake for swimming and a gymnasium afford opportunities for physical ex

ercise.

The University of the Pacific, San José, has erected for the preparatory and business departments a new building at a cost of $45,000. The normal department offers a thorough training in pedagogy. The foundation has been laid for new courses in law and theology. The cabinets of physical and mechanical apparatus were largely increased in 1885-'86 and are now considered excellent. An astronomical observatory has been equipped with a fine Alvan Clark telescope and other instruments necessary to the thorough study of astronomy.