Table 1.-Number of Institutions, by Control and Type, Reporting Current Use of Associate's Degree

Reference to chapter IX shows that 137 varieties of associate degrees are reported as currently conferred by American institutions. It also lists 12 such degrees not currently in use. By far the most common degree is the Associate in Arts, reported by 529 institutions. It is the only degree authorized for use in the public junior colleges of California, and one of the two authorized in New York.

Next most frequent is the Associate in Science, given by 122 institutions. Other associate degrees reported by each of 20 or more institutions are: Associate in Applied Science, 81 (authorized by New York Board of Regents); Associate in Business Administration, 37; Associate in Education, 32; Associate in Engineering, 32; Associate in Secretarial Science, 25; Associate in Commerce, 25; and Associate in Business, 24.

It is often thought that the associate's degree is conferred only by junior colleges and other 2-year institutions, and it is frequently referred to as a "junior college" degree. That this is far from the case, however, is shown by the fact that more than 150 4-year institutions included in the present study (see table 1) report use of various associate degrees.11 American Universities and Colleges (1956 edition) reported that 235 of the 969 accredited 4-year institutions included in it, conferred more than 14,000 associate degrees in 1954–55. The 1960 edition of the same volume shows that 222 of the 1,035 listed institutions, conferred almost 14,000 associate degrees in 1958-59. The University of California alone conferred more than 27,000 associate degrees between 1942 and 1959.

A total of more than 14,000 associate's degrees were conferred by junior colleges in 1941, when it was estimated that more than 125,000 such degrees had been conferred up to that date.12 A total of almost 40,000 associate degrees were conferred by junior colleges in 1958–59,

11 It is also conferred by at least seven 4-year universities in the Philippines. H. M. R. Keyes: International Handbook of Universities, Paris: 1959. pp. 217-226.

13 W. C. Eells, op. cit., pp. 23-24.

almost a third of them by California institutions.13 It is estimated that the total number of associate degrees conferred to date by all types of institutions in the United States is in excess of half a million. The only institution that has used the associate's degree as a 4-year degree is Harvard University, which for 15 years awarded it as equivalent to the bachelor's degree, but for work completed by extension: "In 1910, the President and Fellows, and the Board of Overseers voted to confer the degree of Associate in Arts upon nonresident students who have attended the class exercises, completed the other work, and passed the examinations in the University Extension Courses (including summer courses) equal in number and standard to the courses required of a resident student for the degree of Bachelor of Arts." 14 Forty such 4-year degrees were awarded from 1913 to 1929. Use of the degree for this purpose was abandoned in 1933 because of its increasing use as a 2-year degree.15

2. Bachelor's Degree

The bachelor's degree, sometimes designated the baccalaureate 16 degree, and usually representing completion of a 4-year course of study of collegiate grade, is the oldest academic degree used by American institutions of higher education. The degree of Bachelor of Arts was first conferred in 1642 on nine young men, comprising the first graduating class of Harvard College. Yale conferred its first Bachelor of Arts in 1702; Princeton in 1748; William and Mary in 1753 or earlier; Pennsylvania in 1757; and Columbia in 1758.17

The Bachelor of Arts was the only earned degree used in American colleges for the next 125 years after its first use at Harvard. During that period 3,805 such degrees were conferred on young men completing their courses in the six colonial colleges existing in 1767.18

18 Compiled from American Junior Colleges (Fifth edition). Washington: American Council on Education, 1960. Associate in Arts. 31,845; Associate in Science, 7,195; others, 807. 14 Harvard University, Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates, 16361930, Cambridge, Mass., p. 1129.

15 Under date of May 10, 1933, President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard, wrote to the president of the American Association of Junior Colleges renouncing the use of the associate degree and announcing the Adjunct in Arts as a substitute. "It seems wise to stake out a claim in this way to a new name for a degree. *** I should be grateful if you would make a note of our claiming possession of it in fee simple." For the entire letter see W. C. Eells, op. cit., p. 21.

16 From the Latin baccalaureus from baccalaris "under the influence of" and laurus, "laurel" used as a designation of honor, distincton, or fame. Compare laurel wreath, and poet laureate.

17 Walter C. Eells, Baccalaureate Degrees Conferred by American Colleges in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Washington: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare: Office of Education, May 1958. (Circular No. 528). pp. 5-7.

18 Ibid., p. 36.

The next bachelor's degree to be used was the Bachelor of Medicine or as it was then more commonly known, the Bachelor of Physic, conferred on a class of 10 members in 1768 by the College of Medicine in Philadelphia, one of the forerunners of the present University of Pennsylvania.1 The first degree of Bachelor of Law was conferred by the College of William and Mary in 1793 on a man who 4 years earlier had received a Bachelor of Arts from Hampden-Sydney College. No other earned degrees were conferred by American institutions during the 17th and 18th centuries although a few honorary degrees of different types were conferred in that period. (See chapter VIII for data on early degrees in various specific fields.)

By 1800, 19 colonial colleges had conferred a total of 9,144 degrees on 9,108 individuals, an average of only 58 degrees per year. The 36 duplicates among them were chiefly degrees in arts followed by others in medicine bestowed on the same individuals.20

It may be noted that it required 82 years of higher educational history in America to produce the first thousand holders of earned bachelor's degrees. But only 21 years more were required for the second thousand such degrees; 15 years for the third thousand; 9 years for the fourth thousand; and 8 years for the fifth thousand. Not until 1759, however, were more than 100 baccalaureate degrees conferred in a single year.21 This may be contrasted with the situation today when the number conferred annually is almost 400,000.

The Bachelor of Arts is the baccalaureate degree conferred by the largest number of higher educational institutions in the country. A total of 1,005 institutions report its use, including practically all of the liberal arts colleges and many of the universities and State colleges. Second in frequency of institutions conferring baccalaureate degrees are the 779 institutions which confer the Bachelor of Science. Baccalaureate degrees reported by 50 or more institutions each are the following:

19 For further information on this degree, see chapter VIII, section 18, "Medical Sciences."

30 Walter C. Eells, op., cit., pp. 33-36.

Ibid., p. 85.

One of the most striking features about the bachelor's degree is the great proliferation of some of its simple types. Thus in chapter IX will be found 27 varieties of Bachelor of Music, 29 varieties of Bachelor of Fine Arts, 108 varieties of Bachelor of Arts, and no less than 426 varieties of Bachelor of Science.

The late Raymond A. Kent, president of the University of Louisville, stated that the first Bachelor of Science degree was conferred by Yale University on four graduates of the Sheffield Scientific School and that the Bachelor of Philosophy was inauguarated by Brown University in 1850.22 This statement, however, is in error, as far as Yale University is concerned. The official historian of Sheffield Scientific School says this degree was first conferred in 1919,23 by which time scores of other institutions were using it. No Bachelor of Science degree is listed in the Yale official catalog before 1915 although, rather strangely, Yale conferred the Master of Science degree beginning in 1899.

The degree of Bachelor of Philosophy was inaugurated by Brown University in 1850 and conferred on one man in 1851. It was conferred at Yale University in 1852 upon the first graduates of the newly established Sheffield Scientific School.24

The class of 1851 of Harvard University, consisting of four members, was the first to receive the Bachelor of Science degree from that institution,25 probably from any institution. From 1851 to 1905 the B.S. degree was conferred only upon students registered in the Lawrence Scientific School; after 1905 on students of Harvard College also.

Harry N. Rivlin and Herbert Schueler. Encyclopedia of Modern Education, New York: Philosophical Library of New York City, 1943, p. 220.

23 Russell H. Chittenden, History of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, 1846-1922, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1928, p. 326, 564.

24 Russell H. Chittenden, op. cit., p. 76. "It was voted that candidates for the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy entering upon a course of study in the Chemical School, be hereafter examined in Arithmetic, Algebra, Plane Trigonometry, and the elements of Physics and Chemistry." A rather strange use of the term "Philosophy." Certainly "Science" would have been more appropriate as the designation for a bachelor's degree for such a curriculum.

Samuel E. Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936, p. 280.

In 1901 the Commissioner of Education wrote:

There seems to be a tendency among the institutions of higher education toward adopting the single degree of Bachelor of Arts as representing a general liberal college culture. This degree can no longer be accepted as representing only a classical education, as it is the only degree now conferred by 137 institutions on the completition of what are known as liberal in contradistinction to technical courses of study. The dropping of the Ph. B., B.L., and B.S. degrees has been going on for some time."

26

The Commissioner was right as far as tendency to drop the degrees of Bachelor of Philosophy and Bachelor of Literature were concerned, for only 12 institutions report that they still confer the former and only 4, the latter; but he could scarcely have been more wrong regarding the Bachelor of Science degree, which, as shown in the baccalaureate degrees reported, is given in its simple form by almost 800 institutions and has spread out into more than 400 forms.

The present study shows that of 745 liberal arts colleges which give bachelor's degrees, only 115 reported that they confer the Bachelor of Arts only. Thus not only is the number somewhat reduced from 137, but the proportion of the total number is much smaller since the number of liberal arts colleges in 1960 is probably twice as great as it was in 1900.

3. Master's Degree

The earned master's degree in general now represents one year of work in advance of the baccalaureate, in a few instances 2 years." Prior to the 1870's, however, it had quite a different meaning, being conferred in cursu, in course.

The Commissioner of Education first reports master's degrees in 1872, distinguishing those that were honorary and those conferred "in course." He stated that the master's degree, in course, "usually is conferred 3 years after graduation on bachelors of arts who are engaged in literary or professional pursuits and who pay to their college a fee prescribed by its regulations."

This type of master's degree was conferred by Harvard College on five of the nine members of its first graduating class. At first, Harvard required an interval of only 2 years between the bachelor's degree and the master's degree, in course, but this requirement was changed to 3 years for the class of 1653 and later classes.

The master's degree, in this sense, was conferred on thousands of baccalaureate graduates of many colleges almost automatically prior

Commissioner of Education, Annual Report, 1900-1901, p. 1613. 27 Harvard University requires 2 years for the Master of Education.