COLLEGE DE FRANCE 59 COLLEGES FOE WOMEN 4. Extra Curricidum Activities: These cannot be omitted in any account of the present American college. There has been a tremendous and not altogether de- sirable growth of non-scholastic interests in college life. These interests attract students more than scholarship. As yet they have not been properly organized and vitalized with the spirit of culture. Athletics, fraternities, and social life are now ahead of any study in the curricu- lum. From the foregoing it appears that no definition of the term "college" has yet secured general acceptance. At the same time influences are working from many quarters looking to the establishment of certain minimum attainments, financial, and educational, that every college must possess. These are an endowment of at least $200,000, or an annual income from taxes of $40,000, not less than eight de- partments, each having at least one full- time professor, regular appropriations for laboratories and library, and satisfactory salaries. Some States limit the granting of charters by some such provisions and educational societies have urged such limitation as a universal requirement. The future of the American college has been much discussed. The college is threatened by the high school and junior college on the one side and by the uni- versity and professional schools on the other. None the less the American col- lege — even the detached cultural college — survives to-day and is being strength- ened. It has no counterpart either in England or on the Continent of Europe. It has inherited respect and affection ac- cumulated through hundreds of years and in spite of many changes still re- mains in some respects our most typical American educational institution. COLLEGE DE FRANCE, a celebrated institution founded by Francis I., in 1530, originally a College de Trois Langues merely, is now a very important educational institution, giving instruc- tion over a very wide field of literature, history, and science. It is independent of the University of France, is directly under the Minister of Public Instruction, and is supported by the government. As in the Sorbonne, the lectures are gratu- itous. The College comprises two fac- ulties, one literary, one scientific; each has about 20 professors. COLLEGE FRATERNITIES, socie- ties existing in American colleges which are named from the letters of the Greek alphabet and therefore commonly called "Greek Letter Societies." They are secret organizations only in their grips and passwords. They are organized chiefly for literary and social purposes and are found among women students as well as men. The first of these fraternities, the Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at William and Mary College, in Virginia, in 1776. On account of the troubled state of the colony during the Revolutionary War, the original chapter ceased to exist in 1781, but branches, or "chapters," as they are called, had al- ready been established at Harvard and Yale, and by these other branches were afterward organized. It still exists as the chief society, indicating scholarly distinction in 50 different colleges. Of the general fraternities now in existence the first, the Kappa Alpha, was founded at Union College in 1825. There are women's college fraternities, the oldest being the Pi Beta Phi, founded at Mon- mouth in 1867. A number of journals are published by the societies, the oldest still in existence being the "Beta Theta Pi," established in 1872. The oldest women's journal is the "Golden Key," established by Kappa Kappa Gamma in 1882, now known as the "Key," COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, an educational (non-sect.) in- stitution in Manhattan Borough, N. Y. ; organized in 1848; reported at the end of 1919: Professors and instructors, 270; students, 10,763; president, S. E. Mezes. COLLEGES FOR WOMEN, institu- tions of higher learning, designed to give women practically the same advantages of instruction and research as are af- forded to men. They are of three types; independent or separate colleges; co-or- dinate or affiliated colleges, connected more or less closely with an older college for men, and coeducational colleges. I. Independent colleges for women of the same grade as those for men are peculiar to the United States. The ear- liest foundation was Mount Holyoke Col- lege, opened as a seminary in 1837; re- organized as a college in 1893. The first charter for a collegiate institution found- ed only for women was granted Elmira College in 1855. The four colleges, Vas- sar, opened in 1861; Smith, in 1875; Wellesley, in 1875, and Bryn Mawr, iii 1885, are ranked among the leading col- leges of the United States. II. The affiliated colleges for women are five: Radcliffe College, at Harvard University, opened in 1879; Barnard Col- lege, at Columbia University, in 1889; Woman's College, of Brown University, in 1892; College for Women, of Western Reserve University, in 1888; Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, at Tulane University, in 1886. In all these colleges the standards of entrance and gradua- tion are the same as in the men's col-
