COLLEGE 59 versity. Its origin was due to the impulse given to learning in the "West by the labors of exiled Greeks from Constantinople, and to the solicitations of Guillaume Bude, a disciple of Johannes Lascaris. Its professors have always borne the name of lecteurs royaux. At first having chairs of but three ancient languages, it has now 28 professors and distinct courses, em- bracing astronomy, mathematics, mathematical physics, experimental physics, medicine, com- parative embryology, chemistry, natural history of organic and of inorganic bodies, the law of nature and of nations, comparative legislation, political economy, the ethics of history, archae- ology, the Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish languages, the Chinese, Mantchoo Tartar, Sanskrit, and Greek languages and literatures, Latin poetry and eloquence, Greek and Latin philosophy, the mediaeval and the modern French languages and literature, the foreign modern European languages and literatures, and the Slavic languages and litera- tures. All these courses are gratuitous. Among the distinguished men who have taught in this college are Gassendi, Tournefort, Lalande, De- lambre, Cuvier, Ampere, Thenard, Batteux, Eollin, De Guignes, Delille, Andrieux, Syl- vestre de Sacy, and Abel Remusat. This col- lege and the jardin des plantes are almost the only establishments of public instruction in France which survived the tumults of the first revolution. Besides the colleges under the direct control of the university, there are in France a large number of proprietary colleges, denominated colleges libres according to the law of 1850. The great majority were founded by the clergy ; but not a few are under exclu- sive lay government. Among the latter class are the colleges Ste. Barbe, Stanislas, Rollin, and Juilly ; among the former we may mention the college Ste. Genevieve, belonging to the Jesuits, and the college de Yaugirard, both of high excellence in scientific and classical edu- cation, as well as the college des Cannes, which under the late Bishop Cruice had the reputation of one of the best scientific schools in Paris. In Rome many colleges have been founded for the purpose of training able mis- sionaries for the various nations of the globe. The college of the Propaganda was founded in 1627 by Urban VIII., for the education of young men of every color and nationality. The col- legia Romano was built in 1582 by Gregory XIII., and has ever been exclusively under the management of the Jesuits ; besides the splen- did library and the Kircherian museum, the Roman observatory is also attached to this college, and under the direction of Fathers de Vico and Secchi has rendered important services to modern science. There are moreover the collegium Germanicum, the English, Irish, and Scotch colleges, and two founded by Pius IX., the collegium Americanum for natives of the United States, and the collegium Eispano- Americanum for natives of Spanish America. "When a separate college contains within itself all the faculties and privileges of a university, it is often designated by the latter name, and therefore the terms college and university are in many cases used indiscriminately. Thus Trinity college in Dublin is also called a uni- versity, and there is no fixed distinction be- tween colleges and universities in the usage of the United States. All American colleges con- fer degrees in the arts, and the older and more flourishing of them have faculties and give in- struction also either in medicine, divinity, or law, or in a few instances in all the professional studies. (Particular accounts of colleges are given under their names in special articles. See also UNIVERSITY.) The following table, ar- ranged in the alphabetical order of the states, presents a general view of the universities, colleges, and collegiate departments in the United States in 1872, as reported by the United States bureau of education, omitting however many institutions of little importance. The list reported by that department com- prises 298 institutions, and the names of 52 others were given from which no information had been received. Many of these institutions, though classified as colleges, are doubtless such only in name, being in fact merely ordinary high schools; but owing to the great diffi- culties of classification, the results here given possess as high a degree of accuracy as can practically be attained. Many of the colleges in the list have professional schools connected with them which are not included in the re- sults given. Business colleges and institutions for the superior instruction of females, as well as technical and professional schools, are also excluded. For each institution having a pre- paratory school, the statistics for that depart- ment and for the collegiate department proper are presented separately. Of the 298 institu- tions reported, 217 report collegiate students in attendance. The total number of instructors in all the institutions was 3,040, and of students 45,628, including 19,476 in the preparatory courses, 19,260 in collegiate courses, 6,694 un- classified, and 198 resident or post-graduate students. Among the students were 5,680 fe- males, of whom 4,261 were in the preparatory and 1,419 in the collegiate department. The course of study in 209 of these institutions is reported to be four years, in 9 three years, in 7 two years, and in 25 more than four years, in- cluding evidently the preparatory and collegiate courses ; while 48 make no report of the num- ber of years in the course. At the last com- mencement the degree of A. B. was conferred in course upon 1,963 persons, the degree of A. M. in course upon 746, and various honor- ary degrees were conferred upon 341. There were, however, 124 institutions that made no report of the degrees conferred in course. In Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Min- nesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington territory, no institutions are reported to have conferred the degree of A. B.
