Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/740

After the "curriculum," in which many studies are laid down with numerous text-books for each, comes a list of optional studies, with the extra prices affixed. Here we find "music on harp" quoted at $30, and "comparative philology" at 17.50. Italian, French, Spanish, and German, are ten dollars each; so that comparative philology may be regarded as given at a wholesale price. Languages are so much cheaper in a bunch than they are singly.

But the degrees given at Neophogen afford one of the most interesting items concerning the college. They are eighteen or twenty in number, and among them some are of considerable novelty. For example:

"A. M. will be given to any male, and M. A. to any female, who, after having received A. B., shall also graduate in penmanship and book-keeping, phonography and mnemotechny, comparative philology, and Anglo-Saxon, and in French, or German, or Spanish; and to a B. S., completing these same (preceding) additional or extra studies, the degree of M. S. (Master or Mistress of Science).

"M. E. L. (Master or Mistress of English Language), to any student graduating in the schools of humanities, and of history and moral science; and in common-school written arithmetic, elementary algebra, geometry, and the trigonometries and mensuration; in political economy and metaphysics; in penmanship and book-keeping, phonography and mnemonics, comparative philology and Anglo-Saxon.

"B. A. LL. (Bachelor (or Maid) of Ancient Languages).

"B. M. LL. (Bachelor (or Maid) of Modern Languages).

"B. M. (Bachelor (or Maid) of Music), to .any graduate in music.

"B. M. and D., in Music and Drawing.

"B. M. and D. and P., in Music and Drawing, and Painting.

"B. F. A. (Bachelor (or Maid) of Fine Arts), to graduate in the three preceding, and also in wax-work."

But mere quotations cannot do full justice to this extraordinary catalogue. I will, therefore, give only a very few more, quite hurriedly, and leave the reader to seek for fuller details in the original document. Under the head of "specialties" a variety of studies are given, English, elocution, oratory, and typography, being made especially prominent. As for etiquette, this passage will speak for itself:

"It is not a matter of choice, but compulsion. The course of training in etiquette is, in great part, original. It has been said that manners make the man; if not true, they at least cannot be neglected. Here it is the theory with continued practice. We think we have the politest students in America. The salutation, the bow, the courtesy, the word, the tone, the look, the inflection—vocal and physical; the attitude, the hand, the feet, the spine, and the eye, are all observed and studied, and the students daily exercised in them."

Another passage of striking merit runs as follows:

"What has brought discredit upon diplomas of this age? What so greatly reduced the respectability of the word graduate in this age of nostrums and charlatanry? Anwser. Silly parents, and incompetent and unscrupulous teachers.