DOCTORATES CONFERRED BY AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES
For the past eleven years there has been published in Science each summer an article on the degrees of doctor of philosophy and doctor of science awarded by American universities. It appears from these statistics that during this period 42 institutions have given this highest academic degree to 3,093 students. The number in each consecutive year is represented graphically by the height of the column in the accompanying figure. It thus appears that, with fluctuations from year to year, there has been a decided increase in the number of those officially designated as competent to teach and carry forward research work. The annual number first exceeded 250 in 1901 and 300 in 1905. After remaining stationary for about three years, it is this year 378. The middle lines in the columns represent by their distance above the base line the number of
Doctorates conferred by American Universities
degrees in the natural and exact sciences, the balance of the space to the top of the column representing the number in the so-called humanities, including under this term history and political science. It thus appears that nearly but not quite half the degrees are given in the sciences and that there is a slight tendency for the sciences to gain on the humanities.
Three fourths of the 3,093 degrees have been conferred by seven universities as follows: Chicago, 410; Harvard, 380; Columbia, 377; Yale, 350; Johns Hopkins, 333; Pennsylvania, 257; Cornell, 203. The universities of the Atlantic seaboard, with Chicago, thus hold the position that Germany had twenty years ago. As Americans then frequented the German universities for advanced work, so now they tend to go to these seven universities which are private corporations, though perhaps Cornell and Pennsylvania are on the way to become state institutions. The great state universities of the central and western states will probably witness a large development of their graduate schools in the course of the next ten years, and the south will follow the same course in the following decade. Wisconsin gave 17 degrees this year and 19 last, more than double the average for the preceding ten years. Illinois, which this year received the first special appropriation made to a state university for graduate work, conferred five degrees, as many as had been conferred in the preceding ten years. Michigan, Minnesota and California have, however, remained nearly stationary.
About twice as many degrees are conferred in chemistry as in any other science. The numbers have been: chemistry, 374; physics, 177; zoology, 172; psychology, 157; mathematics,
