students is creating a tendency to shorten the course to three years, in order that young men may not be kept back too long from entering upon their professional studies. The four-year course, however, no longer leads solely to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, nor has this old degree itself remained unmodified."

"With the foundation of schools of science which aimed to give a modern form of liberal education based mainly on the physical and natural sciences, and yet only too often gave, under this name, a technological course, or a somewhat incongruous mixture of technical and liberal studies, the degree of Bachelor of Science came into use as a college degree. . . . Still other degrees of lesser importance also came into vogue and obtained a footing here and there to mark the completion of a four years' college course. . . . The organisation of such courses was naturally embarrassed by grave difficulties which are as yet only partially overcome. . . . The present drift, however, of opinion and action in colleges which offer more than one Bachelor's degree is more reassuring than it was some twenty years ago. There is a noticeable tendency, growing stronger each year, to draw a sharp line between liberal and technical education, and to retain undergraduate college education in liberal studies as the best foundation for technical studies, thus elevating the latter to a professional dignity comparable with law, medicine, and divinity and if this happy result can be considered assured, then the undergraduate college course, the sole guarantee of American liberal culture, will have a good chance to organise itself in accordance with its own high ideals, however imperfectly it may have realised these ideals in the past. Another hopeful tendency which is gradually gathering strength is to give the various Bachelor's degrees more definite significance by making them stand for distinct types of liberal or semi-liberal education. Three such types are now slowly evolving out of the mass of studies with increasing logical consistency. . . . First comes the historical academic course, attempting to realise the idea of a general liberal education, and consisting of the classical and modern literatures, mathematics and science, with historical, political and philosophical studies added, and leading to the Bachelor of Arts degree. The second is the course which aims to represent a strictly modern culture, predominantly scientific in character, and culminating in the degree of Bachelor of Science. As this course originated in the demand for knowledge of the applied sciences in the arts and industries of modern life, the ideal of a purely modern liberal culture, predominantly scientific was not easy to maintain. . . . Conscious of this difficulty, many schools of science have been giving larger place in the curri culum to some of the more available humanistic studies. Fuller courses in French and German have been provided for, and the study of English has been insisted upon with sharper emphasis Economics, modern history, and even the elements of philosophy, have found a place. . . . The college of to-day provides a four years' course, consisting generally of a mixture of prescribed and elective studies in widely varying proportions . . . and, at the

Methods of end of the course, there is a multiform instead of a uniform Instruction. Bachelor's degree, or, in some instances, a "simple Bachelor's degree of multiform meaning," while the average age of the students has increased at least two years."

Form of Government.

Income.

Students'
Expenses.

In Section VII., which deals with Modes of Instruction, Professor Fleming West records that " Instruction is still mainly conducted by recitation and lecture, the recitation finding its chief place in the earlier, and the lecture in the later, part of the course." But other forms of instruction are included . ́. . In all except the elementary courses in science, the laboratory plays a most important part, and even in the lectures in the introductory courses in physics, chemistry or biology, full experimental illustration is the rule. Then, too, the library serves as a sort of laboratory for the humanistic studies. Students are encouraged to learn the use of the college library as auxiliary to the regular exercises of the curriculum. Certain books are appointed as collateral reading, and the written examination at the end of the term often takes account of this outside reading." The combination of these three methods seems to exercise a stimulating effect on the eager students, and acts, I was told, as a spur to the indolent; it also offers just what is desirable in the treatment of Household Science with advanced students.

The form of government is simple. A college corporation, legally considered, consists of a body of men who have obtained the charter and who hold and administer the property. Where a particular State has established a college or even a university, which regularly includes a college, the members of the corporation are commonly styled regents, and are appointed by the State to hold office for a limited term of years. But most colleges have been established as private corporations. In this case the title is vested in a board of trustees, sometimes composed of members who hold office for life, or else composed of these associated with others who are elected for a term of years. The president and professors usually hold office for life. In some places provision is beginning to be made for the retirement of professors on pensions as they grow old. Instructors and sometimes assistant professors are appointed for a limited time, such appointments being subject to renewal or promotion. In the larger colleges the president is assisted in his administrative work by one or more deans. By immemorial tradition the president and faculty are charged with the conduct of the entire instruction and discipline. They have the power to admit and dismiss students. The conferring of degrees belongs to the corporation, but this power is almost invariably exercised in accordance with recommendations made by the faculty. . . . In State colleges the income is derived from taxation, in others from endowments, often supplemented by annual subscriptions for special purposes. . . . State colleges receive few private gifts. But the private colleges are cut off from dependence on the State, and have to rely on these (private gifts). This stream of private liberality flows almost unceasingly. The expenses of individual students vary greatly. In some places there is no

charge for tuition; in others they must pay as much as $100 or $150. In little country colleges the total cost for a year often falls within $300; in the larger old eastern colleges, drawing patronage from all parts of the land, the student who must pay all his bills, and receives no aid in the form of a scholarship, can hardly get along with less than $600 or $700, exclusive of his expenses in the summer vacation. . . . Moreover, many colleges possess scholarships which are open to able students who need temporary pecuniary help. The young American of narrow means, if he be of fair ability and industry, can almost always manage to find his way through college."

According to the last available Report of the United States Commissioner of Education (1899-1900), there are now 480 Universities and Colleges (excluding those for women only); though it must be borne in mind that a considerable number of these are independent of State endowment or control. About 725 per cent. of the total number are co-educational; in fourteen over 1,000 students are enrolled.

in House

Of the State universities, or colleges, as they are variously Province described, about thirty have already initiated courses in House- and History hold Science, the subject being based upon a course of study of Courses which qualifies for a Bachelor of Science degree; and as many more hold have introduced some more or less organised form of this work into Science. their curricula. The Household Science department is usually housed in the college of agriculture, but its students follow general courses in science, art, literature, languages, and so forth, with the students in the other colleges. The idea that domestic subjects have any claims to associate on terms of equality with the studies carried on by college undergraduates savours of suspicious novelty and questionable stability to English minds, so that the statement that their claims to post-graduate study have sufficed to gain them honourable recognition in universities of such standing as Columbia and Chicago will be suggestive of a degree of unconventionality, possible only in a new world untrammelled by age-long traditions. That the movement is not merely an evanescent outcome of a passing fad, or the product of inexperienced or unbalanced womanhood is indicated by the fact that, without exception, it has received the cordial, active support of the other faculties in colleges where it has been inaugurated. Professors of chemistry, biology, geology, art, architecture, psychology, economics and sociology, voluntarily devote time, ability, and influence to further the initiation and success of these courses, not in one, but in all the universities where the subject has been introduced.

Its claims for consideration and for organisation as a college study have been briefly recorded by Miss Isabel Bevier, Professor of Household Science at the Illinois State University, in an address given a few months ago; and no woman is better qualified to "state a case," for, under her highly qualified organisation, what promises to be a model university course is being gradually evolved. Before transcribing her remarks I would remind my readers of Professor Fleming West's opinion quoted above, that a sharper line is being drawn annually in college science courses between liberal and technical education, and that liberal studies are emphasised in undergraduate college education as the best foundation for technical studies, in

Province

order to elevate the latter to a high standard of professional dignity. and History Bearing this in mind it becomes conceivable, and to some thinkers apparent, of Courses that to institute a university course in Household Science does not threaten in House- to lower the college in which it is pursued to the humbler footing of a hold Science cooking school; on the contrary, it raises the whole complex question of -continued. the right nutrition of the human race to its legitimate status in the kingdom of science. Miss Bevier was invited to answer the inquiry," What do you mean by Household Science, and what is its province in a State University?" The following extracts embody the gist of her reply : . . . "It has been said that Household Science includes the study of the agents, the materials, and the phenomena of the household. One needs to pause a moment and repeat the words to appreciate the largeness of the subject-the agents, heat, light, sound, electricity, colour; the materials, the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the houses we live in-who will complete the list? It is well to remember that principles are universal, while their applications are special and peculiar. The general laws of heat are as true for the modern range as for the steam engine. The painter, the decorator and the dyer have each a technical interest in colour, but the woman who would give beauty and personality to her home by a harmonious blending of colour cannot disregard these same principles. By Household Science we mean very largely applied science. Just at this point it seems to me is the weak spot, perhaps it were better to say the uncultivated field, in the education of woman. Our colleges for men long since recognised the value of science and its application. This fact is illustrated by the increase of our technical schools until they number over sixty, and the students in technical courses of college grade number over 20,000 young men. Women have been rather slow to recognise the close relation science sustains to the affairs of the home, and by some strange oversight provision has not been made for them to apply their science in a kingdom peculiarly their own. Is there any good reason why the girl should not apply her knowledge of chemistry to bread, and of bacteriology to the processes of fermentation? I am co-educational enough to believe, generally speaking, that the system which proves most successful in the training of boys will have a similar result with their sisters. I believe it is our privilege to profit by their experiments. They have tested successively the classical school, the manual training school, the technical school; and universities stand to-day because men have felt that the highest development, the truest unfolding of the human spirit, was to be accomplished not by any one kind of school, but by the correlation of the best elements of each. This brings us directly to our topic-the province of Household Science in a State University. I answer:-to provide a place and an opportunity for the correlation and application of the arts and sciences to the home. I know of no one place which affords so many opportunities for the application of science. Neither do I know of a place more fateful for good or evil in the life of the individual or the nation, than the home. As the equipment and advantages of the university greatly exceed those of a single college, so are the opportunities of the Household Science department greatly multiplied. In no other institution to my knowledge can the department have the inspiration and help of expert workers in so many different lines, as well as the advantage of illustrative material of so many different kinds. The college of science can reveal to the students some of the mysteries of the laws of life. The college of liberal arts can give them a truer conception of their own place and work in the world by a study of the history and literature of other peoples and tongues. The eye can be trained to recognise beauty of colour and outline and the hand to express it, by the work of art and design. The architect and decorator can show how to construct and adorn the house beautiful.' A wise selection and correlation of work in these various lines, with the special work of the Household Science department, affords an unusual opportunity for that symmetrical development so greatly to be desired in educational training."

our

The fact that an annual increase takes place in the number of girls willing to devote four years to these courses speaks for the growing recognition of their educational equally with their social

value; for the American girl of 18 is eager to learn, she desires "culture," and would not forego its anticipated attainment for the most "useful" course in the world. Show her the possibilities and advantages of a combination of the two, and the practical side of her character welcomes the opportunity to increase her command of the tools she is called upon to wield throughout her daily life, and to thereby lighten and brighten her tale of work; her social instincts are stimulated by the increased worth and happiness she can add to human existence, and her intellectual abilities find satisfaction in the scope afforded for their profitable exercise. The innate mechanical instincts characteristic of the American of to-day furnish an "energy" for application far more conspicuous than is the case with the descendants of older civilisations.

The first college course in the subject was organised in 1875 by Miss Lou. C. Allen, in what was then described as the "Industrial" University at Champaign (Ill.), now the University of Illinois. Her object was to place instruction in household arts for young women upon a level with instruction in agriculture, horticulture, and the mechanic arts for young men. Miss Allen was made Professor of Household Science, constituted a member of the Faculty, and carried on the classes for several years. The department was only abandoned after this period of good work, because, on Miss Allen's marriage, no suitable person could be found to take her place. Some work in Domestic Science was started in the Kansas State Agricultural College the same year (1875); at first in the form of lectures only, but, later, practical work was introduced, and in 1878, Mrs. May B. Welch, the wife of the President of the Agricultural College, induced the trustees to open a definite Household Arts Department, which for some years she herself conducted. The continuity of this course has been uninterrupted: at the present time one year's study of the subject is obligatory on all female students, while a complete four-years course is open to those who desire to avail themselves of such opportunities. Thus, tentatively, the movement began; and its present phase of hopeful development is the outcome of quiet perseverance, strenuous effort, and assured conviction on the part of the college women who have pioneered its passage into the universities. To them is now accorded the well-earned encouragement of increasing support from the public, from the press, and from their male colleagues. This is accorded on the grounds of the value of a comprehensive, practical knowledge of household economics as a factor in the promotion of national efficiency, of the home happiness and stability which must underlie such efficiency, and for its recently recognised worth as a focus for the application of the sciences and

arts.

Three specimen college courses have been selected for reference Typical in this Report as typical of the leading features which distinguish Courses in those at present organised. That at the State University of Household Illinois is framed to prove that, as to laboratory work and methods generally, the subject is of an equal educational value with other

Science.