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institutions. They have been included, clearly labeled as "spurious," in order to furnish information for reference purposes concerning such degrees masquerading as legitimate degrees.

In the following pages, particularly in chapters VIII and IX, detailed information concerning Currently Reported Degrees is given in roman type; that concerning Non-Currently Reported Degrees is given in italics.

4. Definitions of "Degree"

Webster's New International Dictionary defines a degree as “a grade or rank to which scholars are admitted by a college or university in recognition of their attainments; as the degree of bachelor, master, doctor, etc."

Good's Dictionary of Education defines a degree as "a title bestowed by a college or university as official recognition for the completion of a course of study or for a certain attainment." The same source defines an academic degree as "(1) a degree offered for attainment in liberal education; (2) more broadly, a degree conferred by an institution of higher education, regardless of the field of study." It is in the second and broader sense that the term is most commonly used today, and it is so used in this monograph. The same source defines a dozen different types of degrees, including associate, bachelor, master, doctor, graduate, and honorary degrees. Discussion of the principal levels of academic degrees will be found in chapter II.

Two general types of academic degrees are in common use in American institutions of higher education today-earned degrees and honorary degrees. Earned degrees are those which, according to the definition of the Dictionary of Education quoted above, are awarded "for the completion of a course of study"; honorary degrees are those which, according to the same definition, are awarded "for a certain attainment." Chapter V is devoted to a consideration of honorary degrees.

In addition to these two types of degrees, now in common use, one other type has been used in the past, ad eundem degrees. The ad eundem degree is thus described in an official publication of Harvard University:

"By a custom now in disuse, but prevailing during the eighteenth century and the first three decades of the nineteenth, graduates of other colleges, particularly Bachelors and Masters of Arts, were admitted, upon application, to the same degree (ad eundum gradum) in Harvard College." Thus Harvard in 1709 (7 years after Yale

•Harvard University: Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates, 16361930. Cambridge, Mass.: 1930. p. 1146.

University had its first graduate) conferred the A.M. degree on Jared Eliot, of the Yale class of 1706, and on many others in later years. Yale, in 1702, when it conferred a baccalaureate degree on its first graduating class of one man, also conferred Bachelor of Arts degrees ad eundem on four Harvard graduates of 1693 to 1699. Whether this pleasant academic reciprocity extended to other pioneer institutions of early days has not been determined for this study. It may be noted that the Harvard Quinquennial Catalogue lists these degrees under the heading of "honorary degrees" although they were not honorary degrees in the modern sense of the term.

Usage as to what constitutes a "degree" and a "degree with major subject" differs in higher educational institutions today. Thus some use the degree Bachelor of Arts in Education (B.A.E. or B.A. Ed.) or Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering (B.S.C.E.), as a single degree, while other institutions for presumably equivalent curricula award simply the Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science, designating the major study in the fields of Education or Civil Engineering. In the present monograph the designation of the "degree" is given as reported by the institution even though the distinction may not always be observed in practice, especially in cases where no abbreviation was indicated for the reported degree.

5. Development of Degrees

Academic degrees have been in use for more than 800 years, the first known record, being the doctorate conferred by the University of Bologna (Italy) in the middle of the 12th Century. They came into common use among the principal European universities, but were limited for the most part to the doctorate, mastership, and bachelorship. Originally, the doctor's (Latin, teacher from docere, to teach) and master's degrees were used interchangeably, each indicating that the holder was qualified to give instruction to students; while the bachelor's or baccalaureate degree indicated not achievement, but entrance upon a course of study preparatory to the doctorate or mastership. Gradually, however, the bachelor's degree came to mean successful completion of one level of study preparatory to the higher degrees.

'Yale University: Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, 1701-1705. pp. 67, 453.

"Doctors of the Church" was used to refer to some of the earlier Church Fathers, especially Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory, of the fourth century, but these were not academic doctorates conferred by any educational institutions.

The "three titles of Master, Doctor, Professor, were in the middle ages absolutely synonymous."-H. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, 1895, vol. 1,

p. 21.

The University of Bologna at first conferred only the doctorate, first in civil law, later in canon law and in divinity, and during the 13th century in medicine, grammar, logic, and philosophy. The University of Paris and later the British universities soon introduced the preparatory degrees of licentiate and baccalaureate.

From the continent, the use of academic degrees spread to the British universities and was extensively developed, especially at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. The doctorate in music was conferred by these two universities in the 15th century. Today, there is a proliferation of degrees in the British universities comparable with that in American institutions. The latest published reference volume reports 633 degrees and the abbreviations currently used for them in universities of the British Commonwealth.10

It was natural that Harvard University, the majority of whose founders and governing boards were graduates of the University of Cambridge, should follow the British pattern in conferring various types of earned and honorary degrees. William and Mary, Yale, and other institutions later established, also followed the British pattern which became common in the American universities of the colonial period. The great proliferation of academic degrees in America, however, is largely a product of the past century, chiefly of the past half century.

The Oxford English Dictionary quotes Gibbon's Autobiography of 1794: "The use of academical degrees, as old as the thirteenth century, is visibly borrowed from the mechanic corporations; in which an apprentice, after serving his time, obtains a testimonial of his skill, and a license to practice his trade or mystery."

One is tempted to wonder whether it is trade or mystery that attaches to some of the present academic degrees as exhibited in this monograph!

6. Authority for Degrees

The authority to grant degrees in the United States in the case of most of the privately controlled institutions of higher education derives from their formal charters; in the case of publicly controlled institutions, from the legislative enactments creating them, sometimes in the form of individual formal charters, but more often from general or special legislation creating or authorizing certain institutions or groups of institutions. Group authorization is common in the case of State teachers colleges (often in the original form of State normal schools), or junior colleges.

London: Association

10 J. F. Foster, ed. Commonwealth Universities Yearbook 1959. of Universities of the British Commonwealth, 1959. Reports 334 bachelor's degrees, 175 master's degrees, 98 doctor's degrees, and 26 other degrees. (p. xi-xxiii).

Most of the college charters have been granted by State legislatures, and vary greatly in the conditions under which they were given and in the powers granted. Institutions in the District of Columbia have been chartered by the Federal Government, as well as a few specialized institutions outside the District of Columbia, such as the service academies, the U.S. Military Academy in New York, the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, and others. Some of these, particularly the service academies, were not originally given degree granting powers, but have been granted that right in comparatively recent years." The colonial colleges established before 1776 received Royal charters from the British Government.

Most of the institutional charters are very general in their statement of degree granting powers, as a rule giving the institution the right to confer the "usual college degrees."

Following are extracts from charters and basic laws of a few representative colleges and universities concerning the power given their governing boards to confer academic degrees.12 In each of the four groups, the institutions are arranged in order of founding. Present names of institutions are used, although in many cases the institutions bore different names when the quoted provisions for degrees were made.

State universities:

To confer

University of Minnesota (1851): * ** such degrees and grant such diplomas as are usually conferred and granted by other universities. (p. 357)

University of Massachusetts (1863):

as they may determine and prescribe. (p. 315)

such appropriate degrees

University of Illinois (1867): *** such literary and scientific degrees as are usually conferred by universities for similar or equivalent courses of studies, or such as the trustees may deem appropriate. (p. 233)

University of California (1868): *** such degrees * * * as are usual in universities, or as they deem appropriate. *** The degree of bachelor of arts, and afterwards the degree of master of arts, in usual course, must be conferred upon the graduates of the college of letters. (pp. 70, 75)

University of Oregon (1872): * * * such degrees as are usually conferred by universities, or as they shall deem appropriate. (p. 406) Privately controlled universities:

To confer

Princeton University (1746): *** any such degrees as are given in any of the Universities or Colleges in the realm of Great Britain. 422)

See Chapter III-Independent Technological Institutions, for details.

(p.

E. C. Elliott and M. M. Chambers, Charters and Basic Laws of Selected American Universities and Colleges. New York: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1934. Page references are given after each provision quoted below. This volume contains information similar to the brief extracts given for each of 51 selected American institutions of higher education.

University of Notre Dame (1842): * * * such degrees and diplomas in the liberal arts and sciences, and in law and medicine, as are usually conferred and granted in other universities in the United States. (p. 386) Northwestern University (1851): * * * degree of doctor in the learned arts and sciences and belles-lettres, and to confer such other academical degrees as are usually conferred by the most learned institutions. (p. 381)

Marquette University (1864): ✦✦ such honors and degrees in art, literature, and science as shall be appropriate to the courses of instruction prescribed, and as are usually conferred in similar institutions." (p. 299)

any and all literary, scientific,

Cornell University (1865): * *
technical, and professional degrees. (p. 163)
Privately controlled liberal arts colleges:
To confer-

Dartmouth College (1769):

* any such degree or degrees to any of the Students of the said College or any others by them thought worthy thereof as are usually granted in either of the Universities or any other College in our Realm of Great Britain, and that they sign and seal Diplomas or certificates of such Graduations to be kept by the Graduates as perpetual memorials and testimonials thereof. (p. 185)

Oberlin College (1834): * * * such honors and degrees as are usually conferred in similar institutions. (p. 394)

Smith College (1871): * * * such honors, degrees and diplomas as are granted or conferred by any universities, colleges, or seminary of learning in the United States.

Technical institutions:

To confer

(p. 455)

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1824): *** the degrees of civil engineer, topographical engineer, bachelor of science, and such other academical honors as they may see fit. (p. 449)

Stevens Institute of Technology (1867):

propriate to a school of technology. (p. 477)

the usual degrees ap

Carnegie Institute of Technology (1900): ✦✦ to confer the degrees in course, and honorary degrees, viz: Bachelor, Master, Doctor, and Professional Degrees, in pure and applied science and the arts. (p. 83) From these sample authorizations, it is evident that most charters gave institutions practically unlimited powers to confer degrees such "as are usually conferred in similar institutions," or "such as the trustees may deem appropriate," or, more broadly, "any and all degrees." Degrees by other institutions in the United States also carry back to institutional practices in Great Britain as evidenced by the charter provisions of Princeton University (1746) and Dartmouth College (1769).

Only a few of the institutions quoted mention specific degrees, for example, University of California, Northwestern University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Carnegie Institute of Technology. It may be noted that of the three degrees specifically authorized by Rensselaer, one, that of topographical engineer, is not reported as now given by any institution in the United States.

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