there is a special room for spectrum analysis, a good museum, and a well-fitted biological laboratory; the biology laboratory at Smith is also well supplied. We did not visit the science building at Bryn Mawr. The observatories at the Colleges are mentioned in Chapter V. We have been informed that some years ago the science teaching in American schools was very poor; the impulse to improve it came from the Colleges. The science work in a High School is generally under the charge of a College graduate, a specialist. Harvard demands for its matriculation examination, not only practical work from every student, but the presentation of his laboratory note-book, countersigned by the teacher, to show that he has spent a certain time, and gone through a certain series of experiments, in the laboratory. This measure is said to have had great influence in inducing schools to provide laboratories.

IN

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN.

N America as in England, University education for women has been modelled on the system already existing for men. It is therefore necessary before giving an account of Women's Colleges, to say something about the American ideal of University education in general, which differs considerably from that current in England. To do so is however a somewhat presumptuous task; all that is to be said is already in print in Mr. Bryce's great book,1 in the chapter entitled "The Universities." He there points out that, though there are several hundred bodies entitled by law to give degrees, there are not more than twelve, and perhaps only eight or nine, which are, in the true sense of the term, Universities. There are, however, about thirty or forty smaller foundations which give a good, though limited, college education; below these stand 200 or more which are really schools. We have already classified the Universities in respect to their organization: the intellectual side is now to be discussed.

The English distinction between a College and a University does not obtain in America; there the

1 See chap. ci.

words are used indiscriminately for degree-giving bodies. The more precise writers, however, are endeavouring to introduce a more accurate terminology, using the word College of an institution giving a general preparatory education in the liberal arts, and the word University, in its true sense, of a great corporation devoted to the advancement of knowledge, whose students have already attained intellectual manhood. We shall not attempt to observe this distinction in the following pages; we shall rather use the words college education and university education as synonymous. In America, however, the question of this differentiation in higher education is one of extreme importance: on it depends the whole future of the smaller Colleges. They must either sink into being secondary schools, or, remaining as Colleges, act as stepping stones to the Universities proper for those students who will become scholars indeed. This question does not however concern women's Colleges so particularly that we need enter into detail respecting it. The course of study which we shall now consider is a more vital matter.

The American ideal is to give the undergraduate some general culture, to introduce him to all the chief departments of study, to teach him something of each; in order, first, that he may receive the training which each gives (it being assumed that each subject trains a particular part of the mind); and, second, that he may be able to specialize later, when he has found out his own particular aptitude. Another reason was also given to the writer by an

American educator; namely, that in a new country where men change their occupations easily, where new problems constantly press on them, and where, as in frontier life, division of labour is not thoroughly organized, versatility and a general knowledge are more important than scholarship and a thorough acquaintance with one subject. Be that as it may, the fact remains that specialization is not regarded with favour in America, except among a few. Originally classics, mathematics,

and philosophy were the staple of a college course; but when science, modern languages, economics, etc., claimed a place in the curriculum, it became clear that some choice must be allowed. No human being could learn all these subjects in the four years of a college course. So began the system of electives-that is, students were allowed to choose. some subjects, greater liberty being given in the later years of the course, and a certain amount of classics, mathematics, science, and English being generally required. This system of certain prescribed and certain elective subjects still widely prevails, the women's Colleges following it to a greater or less extent.

A student of one of the English Universities is not likely to be favourably impressed by this system; it appears to encourage superficiality, and to fritter away time, while the student can never acquire that sense of the vastness of knowledge and the arduousness of really good work, which is one of the greatest advantages of a university education. There is, however, an admirable custom

of "post-graduate work" in all the best Colleges in America which provides for the scholar, as the ordinary system provides for the average person. Mature students who have taken a degree (often in another and, it may be, an inferior institution) come to the greater seats of learning to study one subject, and to learn how to pursue original investigation. Such work may be compared in standard with what is done for the triposes at the University of Cambridge; but, as it is not limited by any examination, it is free, and partakes more largely of the character of research. For the sake of post-graduate study, and for other reasons, students often work at two or even more Universities, as in Germany. In some places the work done in one institution will count towards a degree in another. The poorer

Colleges thus have an important work in reaching persons who, but for their influence, might never obtain any higher education at all, and who may be stimulated to go on to a real University, when once they have tasted the sweets of learning.

The objections to the system of so much prescribed and so much elective work are so strongly felt in some quarters that two other systems have been elaborated. One is the "group" system, first worked out at Johns Hopkins, and adopted for women at Bryn Mawr. It allows some specialization, combining subjects in groups of two: we give a fuller account of it in describing Bryn Mawr. The other is the pure elective system of Harvard, which permits of absolute freedom of choice, demanding for the B.A. degree a certain quantity of work