judicial purposes was made. In the senate all projects for laws were to be introduced as bills, and were required to pass the customary legislative readings. A room, set apart by the faculty, was fitted up by the students as a senate chamber and court room, and regular weekly sessions of both these bodies were ordered. The judges license those students who desire it, and who pass the requisite examination in the constitution and laws, to practise as attorneys in the college court; but no student is debarred from appearing and pleading in his own cause. All officers, except the senators, hold their offices during a single college term. A week before the election, which is held the second Friday of the term, the student-president puts in nomination two candidates for each office and vacancy to be filled. Ballots with these nominations are printed at the public expense, and the voters erase the names which they reject. Independent nominations may be made by any one; and frequently several tickets are in the field. The contests are sometimes warm and exciting, and call out as much electioneering skill and energy as the elections in larger bodies. As a rule, the government candidates are elected; but sometimes popular opposition leaders are carried into power. In few political communities is the ballot more honestly or more wisely used. The best interests of the government are sought, and good officers, if not always the best, are generally chosen. The experiment introduced into Amherst College during the year is set forth in the following statement: The whole marking system, as lately in vogue, has been abolished. There is an assignment of rank in the award of diplomas, but the old scale of 100, with its 94 plus, its third, second, and first class, and so on, has utterly disappeared. No longer is there any such thing as suspension from college or expulsion. The same result is gained in another way, but no punishment is inflicted as such. When the student enters college, so says the new theory, he becomes a party to a contract. He signs the college laws and engages to keep them. It is a promise made voluntarily as one of the conditions upon which he enters college. He makes it as a man knowing what he is doing and intending to keep it honorably, as he would any other pledged word. If this contract is broken by misdemeanor, it is as in the case of other contracts. The relations of the contracting parties cease. The offending student is no longer regarded as a member of college. He made a contract; he broke it. Ipso facto, his connection with college is ended. There is no faculty meeting, no vote of expulsion, no censure. He simply ceases to be a student, and has no more connection with the college than any civilian. He can attend college recitations if he chooses, for they are free to visitors; but he would come only as a visitor; he would never be called upon to recite. He broke the contract, and the parties are as they were before it was made. The case is very simple, and any student can see at once the wholly new relations in which he stands to the faculty. UNIVERSITIES. The term university, though used in the United States synonymously with college, is also here as elsewhere the expression of an ideal differing from the college in organization, in methods, and in ultimate purpose. A university in this sense of the word makes provision for the continuance of general culture and also for directing culture to its application in some intellectual pursuit. It is, says Prof. Le Conte, "a collection of the highest professional schools gathered about and united to a system of highest general culture." Certain of our older colleges, by virtue of their rich endowments, accumulated resources, and relation to the professional schools grouped around them, are prepared to assume the new character, and during the decade a few institutions have been created with distinctive university characteristics. The development of the university in the United States has not followed any single plan, nor does it promise to repeat exactly in any instance the features of either the English or the German system. The several institutions in our country which may properly be regarded as universities in the higher sense of the word present in the main two fundamental plans: (1) the unmixed university; (2) the university and college proper in one organization. The ideal of the unmixed university is an institation the resources of which are wholly devoted to professional training and to a grade of general culture in natural sequence to that represented by the bachelor's degree. By the strict requirements of the ideal its matriculates would be graduates of colleges studying for the second degrees or spe· cial students pursuing their studies without reference to degrees. Circumstances have not yet rendered possible an exact adherence to this normal idea. Institutions of the second order fall again into two classes. The first comprehends the college proper, whose course leads to the degree of bachelor of arts; one or more scientific schools, leading to the degree of bachelor of science; a higher department of general culture, leading to the degrees of master of arts, doctor of philosophy, and doctor of science; and a group of professional schools. The second class comprehends a group of colleges with distinct faculties and courses of study, leading to the bachelors' degrees, and each having its complement in a post graduate and professional school or course leading to a corresponding second degree. Here again it is proper to observe that circumstances have not permitted the complete realization of the ideal, which would require, as pointed out by Professor Le Conte, that the courses of professional study should be strictly post graduate. With reference to government it is noticeable that as institutions develop more and more the university character the exercise of authority over students is proportionally relaxed. Presumably the student who is a proper subject for university privileges is of an age to be controlled by the customary restraints of society and law; if these are not sufficient he is left to suffer the ordinary consequences. The growth of universities here briefly outlined has not only increased the means and advanced the standards of higher education in our country, but it has given a great impulse to the work of research and the publication of results. The larger knowledge contributes in many ways to our material and intellectual improvement. Its advantages are seen in the application of science to the development of the natural resources of our country, and its influence is felt in the shaping of public policy and in the general conduct of social life. In order that this progress may be maintained, liberal benefactions are necessary for the endowment of chairs and of scholarships and the creation of funds for the work of research and for the accumulation of material aids to instruction. In the last direction much has been accomplished during the decade, but the information has not yet been supplied for even an approximate summary under this head. TABLE X.- SCHOOLS OF SCIENCE. The following statement shows the number of institutions and departments of this class, with instructors and students, as reported to this Office each year from 1870 to 1880, inclusive. The numbers under 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879, and 1880 include the National Military and Naval Academies : 1870. 1871. 1872. 1873. 1874. 1875. 1876. 1877. 1878. 1879. 1880. Number of institutions..... 17 41 70 70 72 74 75 74 Number of students.... 1, 413 3, 303 5, 395 8, 950 7, 244 7, 157 7,614 8, 559 13, 153 10, 919 11, 584 |