V.

DISCUSSIONS.

ON PERMITTING STUDENTS TO TAKE STUDIES IN PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS WHILE PURSUING A REGULAR UNDERGRADUATE COURSE.

This question is distinctly one of practical, and not merely theoretical, importance. It relates to a condition of affairs that has gradually, almost imperceptibly, come into existence at the universities and colleges whose organization includes one or more professional schools. Its significance, however, is not confined to institutions of that class and grade. Every college, however small or distant, some of whose students look forward to the study of law, medicine, theology, or applied science, after graduation—and where is there a college that will not be included in such a description ?-is directly interested in the answer that this question receives, for reasons that will presently appear.

Two distinct points are involved: (1) the advisability of allowing students to pursue certain studies usually called professional, as part of a regular undergraduate course for the degree of Bachelor of Arts; and (2) the advisability of counting such studies as part of the equipment for two degrees, the general degree of A. B. and the special or technical degree in law, medicine, theology, or applied science. My own conviction is that both courses of action are not only advisable, but desirable. The grafting of certain preliminary professional studies on the undergraduate course will (1) still further enrich the courses leading to the A. B. degree, (2) stimulate professional education and render it more liberal and less formal and pragmatic, (3) meet the demand for a shorter period of study in college and professional school combined, without sacrificing the interests of either.

The strong and steady tendency away from narrow and strictly required courses of study, and the introduction of the group and elective systems, have greatly enriched and dignified the degree of Bachelor of Arts. That historical degree no longer stands for a single and necessarily one-sided sort of

mental cultivation. Its possibilities are now almost infinite, while the general balance, between the studies pertaining to man and those pertaining to nature, is well preserved. One by one the natural sciences, the modern languages, the historical and political sciences, and the ancient languages other than those of Greece and Rome, have been admitted to the undergraduate curriculum. This has been a distinct gain to scholarship and to many-sided intellectual training. Why, then, should the learned professions not be permitted to make their contribution? The very adjective "learned," so often and so familiarly applied to them, indicates that the professions are not based upon some peculiar technique or form of knowledge that is out of all relation to general human culture. While, of course, their applications lead into a region that only the highly trained specialist can explore, their whole theoretical basis, their scientific side, is merely a branch or limb of the great central trunk of learning. The learned professions participate, therefore, in their less technical parts at least, in those permanent elements of discipline and culture that distinguish the so-called liberal studies-those worthy of a free man, as the ancients put it. This simply means that any broad and liberal plan of professional study contains subjects that have a value as part of a general education, entirely distinct from their significance as Propaedeutik for technical practice. Some institutions of the first rank have practically borne witness to this fact, although without raising the specific question now under discussion. An examination of the most recent catalogues of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton shows that the following subjects, all of which are to be found on the programmes of the professional schools of the first rank, are open to undergraduate students: common law, municipal law, constitutional law, history and institutes of Roman law, public international law, and history of diplomacy, on the side of public and private law; physiological chemistry, anatomy, histology, and embryology, on the side of medicine; and church history, history of religions, Old Testament legal literature, history of Israel, science and religion, Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic, and Arabic, on the side of theology. It will not be denied that all of these are fit subjects for college study, or that the A. B. degree is not fuller and richer for their presence in the curriculum. It is just these studies, and others like them, that it is now proposed to allow formally to

count toward the degree of A. B., even though they constitute part of a professional course as well.

The action proposed will also affect professional education itself favorably. It is a melancholy fact that hitherto the standards of professional education in this country have not been high. Proprietary schools, run for revenue only, and the lack of a strong, intelligent public sentiment as to what amount of general education should be demanded of lawyers, physicians, and ministers, have combined to make it possible for illiteracy and a professional degree or license to go hand in hand. The universities have set themselves to correct this evil, so far as their example and authority can do so. Obviously a university is not doing its ordinary duty, much less aiming at a high ideal, when it allows its professional schools to be used as mere hothouses to force immature students up to a point where they can just pass the minimum requirements for a license to practice. Unless the professional schools of a university are broad in scope and liberal in spirit, and unless they insist upon a reasonable amount of general education as a requisite for admission, they are open to the severest criticism. Yet the material demands of our time and the constant clamor for strictly utilitarian work in professional schools, and as little of that as possible, are a strong force in the opposite direction. It is the privilege and the duty of the great body of arts and sciences that the Germans group together in their Philosophical Faculty, to render needed assistance in liberalizing and broadening the professional studies. The presence of the two in the same university organization means much; their interdependence and close coöperation in the way indicated means a great deal more. The student who lives in an atmosphere of literature, art, science, and philosophy, can hardly pursue his professional course in an unthinking and routine way. This plan will also meet the demand for a shorter period of study in the college and professional school combined, but without sacrificing the interests of either. The professional course will occupy three years as now, and the course for the A. B. degree will remain the traditional four years in length. Neither will lose; rather both will gain. That this is a very real advantage will be readily recognized by those who appreciated the full meaning of the movement for the shortening of the college curriculum, which reached its greatest force and velocity about one year ago. It is an ad

vantage which will promptly be seized, especially by those who are looking forward confidently to the day that we all hope for, when the university will shut out absolutely from its professional schools all those students who shall not have had a college course for at least two, and perhaps three years. Both at Columbia College and at Cornell University the step contemplated by the title of this discussion has been taken. The senior in Columbia College is required to pursue studies that secure his attendance for fifteen hours each week. In May, 1890, the action was taken that permitted a portion of this time to be devoted to subjects in law or in applied science. Ten of the fifteen hours may be spent in the study of law, or the entire fifteen may, if the student desires it, be given to applied science. It is a perfectly safe prophecy that in the near future the same option will be accorded in the case of medicine, and perhaps in that of theology as well. In the academic year 1890-91, 17 seniors out of 50 who were candidates for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, took advantage of the new arrangement to study law, and 23 applied science. In 1891--92 the numbers are 12 and 21 respectively, out of a class of 37. No objection to the plan has been raised in any quarter, and those charged with its immediate administration agree that it works admirably.

Cornell University has, by recent legislation, taken the same position on this question. Either juniors or seniors in good standing are permitted, under appropriate restrictions, to elect studies in the Law School. As at Columbia, such studies form part of the work of two degrees. At Cornell, however, this formal action cannot be called a change in policy, as was the case at Columbia, because for years pastas the Dean points out in his report for 1890-91-students in the general courses have been permitted to elect special work in the technical departments.

It is also asked whether, if the policy indicated is to be generally entered upon, the student should be permitted to count the professional, or so-called professional, studies chosen by him as part of his undergraduate course, for both degrees, the general and the special. I cannot regard this question as worthy of either serious or prolonged discussion. A degree is an entirely arbitrary symbol. It is granted or conferred when the work required for it is completed. If a student completes successfully the work required for two degrees or ten degrees, why should he not have them? There is a curi

ously perverse tendency in this country to magnify degrees and regard them as ends in themselves, while conferring them lavishly alike upon the just and upon the unjust. I am unable to share that view; and looking upon them merely as symbols, can see no good reasons for withholding a degree simply because part of the work done for it was at the same time part of the work required or counted for another. Columbia the work done for the degree of Master of Arts counts toward the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and work done in the Union Theological Seminary for graduation, is counted as part of the equipment for the higher academic degrees. At Harvard the course in the Law School counts at once for the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and, if completed with distinction, for that of Master of Arts as well. Doubtless instances might easily be multiplied.

The most far-reaching consideration in connection with this discussion is, however, the effect of the adoption of this policy on the smaller colleges, those that have an academic course only and no professional schools. Frankly, I think that the effect will be to draw off students from the colleges to the universities at about the end of the sophomore or junior year. A student can save time and broaden his opportunities by transferring himself to the university at that point. This differentiation between the college and the university must come; it is coming every day. During the last generation the college has been pushed too far upward. The waste of time in the lower schools, and the great pressure of new subjects of study, have caused this. Now that the university has been developed, however, the same reasons are no longer operative. The college can begin its work earlier, by resting its freshman year upon the public high school, instead of leaving a gap of a year and a half, or two years, between them. It can retain its four years' course, and yet yield its students to the university at eighteen or nineteen. Its treasury will not be depleted nor its influence diminished. Not only because the plan under discussion commends itself as right and advisable, but because it will hasten the readjustment of our institutions for higher education on what seems to me a wiser and more efficient basis, I am unreservedly in its favor.

COLUMBIA COllege,

NEW YORK.

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER.