Chapter I.
Introduction.
We are living in an age of school reforms and pedagogical experiments. The question of higher education in particular is warmly debated in England, France, Germany, and the United States. The respective merits of rival educational systems are topics of lively discussion and comment in numberless books and articles. New "curricula" are planned on all sides, and new courses are offered in the various seats of learning. Not long ago it was stated that "the American College was passing." Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and other leading schools, now accept the studies of the professional schools as meeting the requirements of the last year in college. Yale University was also reported as making ready to follow in the wake of Harvard and abolish the study of Greek as a requisite for admission. The University of Michigan, abandoning the attempt to distinguish between forms of admission or courses of study pursued in the college, will give up degrees like bachelor of letters or bachelor of philosophy, and confer on all its students indiscriminately at graduation the degree of bachelor of arts, in this respect following what is substantially the procedure of Harvard. Harvard, with its system of election, election in the preparatory schools, in the college, and in the professional schools, is the fore-
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