Honorary degrees are conferred by 47 of these institutions, 20 of which are institutions in the medical sciences.

It should be noted that many degrees, perhaps most of those in these fields, are given not by independent professional schools but by universities for work in their constituent schools of medicine, music, business, and law.

7. Junior Colleges

Under this heading are included not only standard 2-year junior colleges but a number of other 2-year institutions, as shown below.

Of this second-largest group of 577 institutions of higher education, 107, or 19 percent, report they confer no degrees of any type, as follows: junior colleges, 65; teachers colleges (all county institutions in Wisconsin), 23; business colleges, 7; technical institutes, 6; and Bible schools, 6.

All of the remainder use some form of the associate's degree, the most frequent being Associate in Arts, 415; Associate in Science, 94; Associate in Applied Science, 48; and Associate in Commerce, 20. The Associate in Arts is the only degree awarded by 265 junior colleges (publicly controlled, 169; privately controlled, 96), including all of the publicly controlled junior colleges in California.

Three publicly controlled and five privately controlled junior colleges report conferring honorary degrees: the publicly controlled institutions conferring honorary associate degrees in arts, science, and humanities; the privately controlled institutions (holding charters as 4-year colleges) giving honorary doctorates in law, literature, and divinity.

Chapter IV

Degrees for Women

OR ALMOST THREE CENTURIES of higher educational his

FOR

tory in America, academic degrees were conferred only on men. Higher education for women did not begin until the first half of the 19th century. In fact, grave doubts were expressed of the propriety of any academic degrees for women. Thus Miss Beecher, one of the pioneers in higher education for women, sister of Henry Ward Beecher, writing in 1835, considered the "bestowment of college degrees on females" as of questionable propriety. She wrote that "It certainly is in very bad taste, and would provoke needless ridicule and painful notoriety." 1

When, a few years later, the first women students in higher educational institutions, especially in colleges exclusively for women, were ready for graduation, it thus seemed particularly inappropriate to the authorities of some of the institutions to confer "bachelor's" degrees on these young women. Hence, a considerable number of institutions in the latter half of the 19th century adopted as appropriate feminine substitutes at the baccalaureate level the designations, Mistress of Arts, Maid of Arts, and Sister of Arts.

Of these new degrees, the degree of Mistress proved the most popular and quickly extended into a number of specialized fields, including Mistress of Art, Mistress of Classical Literature, Mistress of English, Mistress of English Literature, Mistress of Liberal Arts, Mistress of Liberal Learning, Mistress of Music, Mistress of Philosophy, Mistress of Polite Literature, and Mistress of Teaching.

Maid of Arts was not as widely used, but it is reported by the Commissioner of Education in 1879 as used at Waco University, Texas. In the next 5 years its use spread to institutions in Kentucky, Georgia, and South Carolina. In addition, Maid of English and Maid of Philosophy are found, and in the far West, in an Oregon institution, Maid of Science. The use of Sister of Arts, however, was short lived. It was reported only at Wheaton College, Illinois, from 1873 to 1876.

1 Catherine E. Beecher: An Essay on the Education of Female Teachers. New York; Van Nostrand & Dwight. 1835. p. 5. See also comments on this essay: "Miss Beecher's Essay on the Education of Female Teachers," American Annals of Education, 5: 275278, May 1835.

The origin of these feminine degrees, however, at least that of Mistress, far antedates first reports of them by the U.S. Commissioner of Education. It has not been possible to determine with certainty their first use, but Beaver College, Pennsylvania, a college for women established in 1853, reports that its first two graduates in 1856 received the degrees of Mistress of Liberal Arts and Mistress of English Literature.

In 1872 the Commissioner of Education reported 39 degrees conferred by "Institutions for the Superior Instruction of Women": M.E.L., 15; M.A., 13; M.L.A., 7; M.M., 3; and M.P., 1.2 That the "Mistress" plan was not universal, however, even in colleges for women, is shown by the fact that the same report states that 12 "bachelor's" degrees were conferred by other colleges for women.

In the report of the Commissioner of Education for 1885-86, the number of recipients had increased so that the Mistress of Arts was reported as given to 180 graduates in 26 institutions; the Mistress of English Literature to 75 graduates in 16 institutions; the Mistress of Music to 16 graduates in 6 institutions; and the Mistress of Liberal Arts to 12 graduates in 4 institutions.3

After 1886 the Commissioner of Education reported only the number of graduates from colleges for women, without indicating their different degrees. It is probable, however, that use of the "Mistress” and analogous degrees declined during the last decade of the 19th century. But that it did not cease for at least another quarter century is shown by the fact that as late as 1924 the catalog of Burrett College, Tenn., announced the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science for young men, Mistress of Arts and Mistress of Science for young women. Burrett College closed its doors in 1924 or 1925. Its practice was quite unusual if not unique since the college was coeducational, whereas most of the "Mistress" and similar degrees mentioned above were conferred by colleges for women.

Another early solution of the problem of the appropriate degree for women graduates, followed by a few institutions in the 1870's, was to confer on women the standard bachelor's degrees of B.A., B.L., B.L.A., and B.S., but to report the women receiving them as Graduate in Arts, Graduate in Letters, Graduate in Liberal Arts, and Graduate in Science. The women graduates are thus listed by the Commissioner of Education.

Still another solution of the same period was the use of laureate degrees for both sexes. Thus Laureate of Arts, Laureate of Letters, Laureate of English Literature, and Laureate of Science were all conferred on women.

Presumably referring to Mistress of English Literature, Mistress of Arts, Mistress of Liberal Arts, Mistress of Music, and Mistress of Philosophy.

Commissioner of Education, Annual Report, 1885-86, p. 588-589.

Wesleyan College, Ga. (chartered 1836), claims the distinction of the first graduates from a chartered college for women, 11 young women comprising its first graduating class in 1840. What degree did they receive? Fortunately this question can be answered, even if somewhat unsatisfactorily, from a contemporary record, for the college has in its historical collection the diploma given to the first member (alphabetically) of that pioneer class, Catherine Brewer. This diploma reads in part as follows:

The President, as the representative of the Faculty of the Georgia Female College, gives this testimonial, that Miss Catherine E. Brewer, having passed through the regular Course of Study in that Institution, embracing all the sciences which are usually taught in the colleges of the United States, with such as appropriately belongs to Female Education in its most ample range, was deemed worthy of the First Degree conferred by this Institution, and accordingly it was conferred upon her on the 16th of July 1840. By Testimony or which the signatures of the President and Faculty and the Seal of the College are hereto affixed.'

Affixed are the signature of the president, George F. Pierce, and of three professors of mathematics, of natural sciences, and of languages. While this is an interesting document historically, it is disappointing in studying the subject of degrees, because it mentions only the "first degree," without any designation of its field. The catalog of the college for 1855-56, the earliest one available in the Library of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, gives the names of all alumnae from 1840-55, but does not designate their degree. The catalog for 1865-66 gives names of alumnae to 1860, and after that date classifies them as "first degree" and "second degree." The catalog for 1871-72 speaks of the "second degree in English literature." The catalog for 1874-75 gives the names of all previous graduates, listing them in each class as A.B., beginning with the first class in 1840, and as A.M., beginning in 1860. It would appear that after that date, therefore, all graduates were known retroactively as "Bachelors" of Arts.

Oberlin College (opened 1833), the first coeducational institution to admit young women on the same basis as men, graduated a class of nine men and three women in 1841, all with the Bachelor of Arts degree.

During the 20th century, no distinction has been found for the most part between degrees for men and for women, except as a matter of natural selection due to subject matter studied, and even in this respect there is no subject the exclusive preserve of either sex. Thus in 1957-58 women received 133 degrees in engineering, 4 in forestry, and 4 in military science. On the other hand, in the same year, men were awarded 54 degrees in nursing and 52 in home economics.

Copy supplied by Ruth H. Young, Librarian, Wesleyan College, January 12, 1960.

Doctoral Degrees.-The first professional doctor's degree earned by a woman was the Doctor of Medicine, conferred on Elizabeth Blackwell, a native of England, in 1849 by the Medical Institution of Geneva, New York, now the College of Medicine of Syracuse University.

The first research doctor's degree earned by a woman was the Doctor of Philosophy conferred in 1877 by Boston University on Helen Magill, whose dissertation subject was "Greek Drama." Miss Magill was the daughter of the second president of Swarthmore College. Later she became the wife of Andrew D. White, the first president of Cornell University and later ambassador to Germany. Mrs. White died in 1944 at the age of 91.

The first degree of Doctor of Science earned by a woman was conferred on Caroline W. Baldwin (Mrs. Charles T. Morrison) in 1895 by Cornell University with a dissertation "A Photographic Study of Arc Spectra.”

The first earned Ph.D. from a college for women was conferred by Smith College in 1882 on Kate Eugenia Morris (Mrs. Charles Morris Cone).

Between 1877 and 1900, 229 doctor's degrees of the research type were conferred by 29 institutions on women, the majority being doctors of philosophy, but including also 17 doctors of pedagogy from New York University, beginning in 1891, and 4 doctors of science from Cornell University, beginning in 1895.5

Honorary Degrees.-Data on honorary degrees for women are meagre. However, R. A. Smith found that, in the half century from 1882 to 1932, honorary degrees were conferred on at least 217 women by 123 American institutions of higher education. He was unable to find a record of any honorary degrees conferred on a woman earlier than 1882, but he does not give the name of the institution awarding this 1882 degree nor of its recipient. He tabulates the ages of the 217 recipients, which varied from 31 to 99 years. The oldest was Emily Howland, educator, who in 1926 received an honorary degree from the University of the State of New York (the State Department of Education) the first woman to be so honored by that body. The youngest was Eva Le Gallienne, actress, who in 1930 was given an honorary doctorate by Smith College. Three years earlier, however, when she was only 28, she was given an honorary degree of master of arts by Tufts College. It has been estimated that about one percent

Walter C. Eells, "Earned Doctorates for Women in the Nineteenth Century," Association of American Colleges Bulletin, 42: 644-651, Winter 1956. This article gives the names of each woman, name of degree, with date and institution.

Ray A. Smith, Women Recipients of Honorary Degrees in the United States. Unpublished master's thesis, New York University, 1935. 29 p. ms.