with professors in all the faculties and considerably over 2000
students. Monte Video in Uruguay had its origin in a faculty
South America.
of medicine established in 1876, with courses of study
extending over six years. It is here imperative when the
diploma is taken by those who are not natives that it
should be attested by the consul of their own country. Faculties
of law and mathematics were subsequently created, and also a
faculty of preparatory studies corresponding with the gymnasium
or Realschule of Germany. The new “national university of La
Plata” has recently (1905-1908) been opened in the city of that name,
under the auspices of the university of Philadelphia. It claims to
be the exponent of the most advanced theories in relation to subjects
and methods of instruction and to university extension. In the
north of the continent the academy at Caracas is little more than a
branch of the royal Spanish academy for education in the Spanish
language, and is subsidized by the Venezuelan government.
The university of the Cape of Good Hope (see Cape Colony) grants degrees, but is not a teaching institution. An inter-state South Africa. commission, appointed in 1907, recommended the establishment of a Federal University for South Africa with constituent colleges. While the colleges would possess freedom in management and teaching, it was recommended that the university should test all candidates seeking admission to the colleges and for the final examinations for degrees, &c. At the opening of the first Union parliament in November 1910 the ministry announced that a scheme for a national South African University would be submitted. It was also announced that the Beit bequest of £200,000 for a university at Johannesburg (q.v.) would be diverted towards the creation of a teaching university at Groote Schuur, and that Sir Julius Wernher would make a donation towards it of £300,000.
In 1903 a highly influential conference was held at Burlington House to promote closer relations between British and colonial universities, the sittings being presided over by Mr Bryce, Lord Strathcona and Sir Gilbert Parker. The conference held that Great Britain should help the colonial universities to co-operate one with another, and increase their own efficiency by combination and specialization. (J. B. M.)
Universities in the United States.
In the United States the word “university” has been applied to institutions of the most diverse character, and it is only since 1880 or thereabouts that an effort has been seriously made to distinguish between collegiate and university instruction; nor has that effort yet completely succeeded. Harvard, William and Mary, and Yale, the three pioneers of colonial times, were organized in the days of colonial poverty, on the plans of the English colleges which constitute the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Graduates of Harvard and Yale carried these British traditions to other places, and similar colleges grew up in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and later in many other Origins. states. The underlying principle in these institutions was discipline—mental, moral and religious. Dormitories and commons were provided, and attendance upon religious worship in the chapel was enforced. Harvard and Yale were the children of the Congregational churches, Columbia was fostered by the Episcopalians, Princeton by the Presbyterians, Rutgers by the Dutch Reformed and Brown by the Baptists. Around or near these nuclei, during the course of the 19th century, one or more professional schools were frequently attached, and so the word “university ” was naturally applied to a group of schools associated more or less closely with a central school or “college.” Harvard, for example, most comprehensive of all, has seventeen distinct departments, and Yale has almost as many. Columbia and Pennsylvania have a similar scope. In the latter part of the 19th century Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Brown, in recognition of their enlargement, formally changed their titles from colleges to universities. The ecclesiastical, or religious, note was a strong characteristic of these foundations. Protestant evangelical doctrines were taught with authority, especially among the undergraduates, who were spoken of as constituting “the college proper.” In the oldest and largest colleges this denominational influence has ceased to have the importance it once possessed.
Noteworthy innovations came when Thomas Jefferson, the philosophical statesman, returned to the United States from France, emancipated from some of the narrow views by which his countrymen were bound. He led the Virginians to establish, on a new plan, the university of Virginia as a child of the state; and the freshness of his advice, the importation of distinguished foreign teachers, and the freedom of the student from an enforced curriculum awakened admiration and emulation on the one hand, and animadversion on the other. But this university unquestionably led to broad conceptions of academic work, which appeared foreign and even questionable, if not irreligious, to the colonial universities already mentioned, although many of the features which were then regarded as doubtful peculiarities are now familiar everywhere. Following Virginia's example, many of the new states in the West established state universities, most of which included a central college of the colonial type and afterwards one or more professional schools. Freedom from ecclesiastical control is found in all the foundations that make up this second group—the state universities. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and California present distinguished examples of such organizations. In earlier days, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Georgia and other states of the South had anticipated in a limited way the state support of higher education which was made so conspicuous in Virginia. In their plans of education, intellectual and moral, they adhered closely to the college methods which the Northern institutions had introduced from English antecedents. Since 1865 another class of universities has arisen, quite distinct from the colonial establishments and from the wards of the state. These are independent foundations due to individual generosity. The gifts of Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Rockefeller (University of Chicago), Tulane, De Pauw, Clark and Leland Stanford have brought into being universities which have no dependence upon state control,[1] and when a denominational character is assured this fact is not made prominent.
Thus, looking at their origin, we see three impulses given to American high schools, from churches, states and individuals. It is true that all receive from the state some degree of authority as in corporations, but this authority is so easily obtained that in a single city there may be, and in some places there are, several incorporations authorized to bestow degrees and to bear the name of universities. A foreigner cannot understand nor can an American justify this anomaly. The most that can be said for it is that there is complete freedom of organization, and that the best, and only the best, are likely to survive. Another influence, proceeding from the national government, must also be borne in mind. During the Civil War, Congress, led by Senator Morrill of Vermont, bestowed upon every state a certain portion of the public domain in the Far West—“land-scrip,” as it was called—the proceeds of its sale to be devoted to the establishment and maintenance of one or more colleges in each state, where instruction should be given in agriculture and the mechanic arts, not excluding liberal studies, and including military tactics. In some states this bounty was directed to existing universities. New departments were organized in old institutions. Elsewhere new institutions were created. While all these schools were regarded as practical and technical at the first, most of them as they developed became liberal and scientific; and when Congress made later large appropriations for “experiment stations” in the sciences relating to agriculture, an impulse of the most valuable character was given to many departments of scientific research.
This sketch would not be complete without the mention of two foundations, each unique. The Catholic University in Washington has been created by the pope, and in its government the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church is made dominant. Already the Roman Catholics had established, especially under the charge of the Jesuit fathers and of the Sulpicians, excellent colleges for liberal education, as well as schools of theology; but the newer metropolitan university was distinctly organized on a broader plan, in closer accordance with the universities of continental Europe, and with a pronounced recognition of the importance of science. The university of the State of New York is a supervisory (not a teaching)
- ↑ Cornell, however, received New York's share of the Congressional land grant of 1862, and the state is represented on its board of trustees. See Cornell University.
