obliged to quicken his pace, and in three years he becomes a doctor of medicine, or in four a doctor in law. This triennium or quadriennium also is a maximum, and is only required in the more important universities. In many institutions less time is required, as the statistics quoted show.

RECRUITING OF PROFESSORS.

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The requirements which must be fulfilled in France before a candidate can receive the appointment of professor do not obtain in the United States. Anybody who chooses may call himself a professor "(Discourse of President Jordan, Proceedings, p. 34). But the great universities at least make the greatest efforts to obtain a personnel which shall be of the highest rank. Cardinal Newman's saying is often quoted in America, "Install your universities in hovels or tents, if you will, but give them great teachers." The Americans do not install their universities in hovels, but they do try to give them great teachers, and for this purpose they resort to aid on every side. The titular professor of the chair of European history at Leland Stanford University is Dr. Andrew D. White, who was envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from the United States to Germany from 1879 to 1881, and in 1892 to Russia. His name gives reputation to the chair assigned him. At the same university Mr. Harrison, who was Mr. Cleveland's predecessor as President of the United States, is the professor of constitutional law. These are things which are only seen in the United States, and we would have difficulty, in France, in imagining a former President of the Republic, Mr. Grévy, for instance, giving lectures on law. Of course, it is hardly necessary to say the salaries of the university professors are large. They also enjoy all sorts of facilities for their work. They are allowed to visit Europe periodically and study on the spot, at some university, the progress of their favorite science. When Mr. Stanley Hall was nominated as president of his university, and before he assumed his duties, he made a lengthy visit in Europe to examine the organization of higher education there. A great number of American university professors have studied in Europe, especially in Germany. They also move about a good deal in their own country and change their residence frequently, on account of the great number of institutions and the difference in the salaries.

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WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR?

American pedagogy has clearly conceived, in its dreams for the future, even if there is no present realization, that the function of a university professor is not only to transmit ready-made knowledge to his students, but that his mission is to create knowledge as well-that is to say, to add to the patrimony of acquired truths and extend the field of knowledge by original researches. President Jordan says that "a professor to whom original investigation is unknown should not find a place in a university. The day will come when our universities will understand that the most useful of its professors may be those who give no lectures, but devote all their strength and time to profound investigation. Their presence and example are, perhaps, a hundred fold more valuable for a body of students than the lectures of other teachers." The idea of a higher instruction looking to the future rather than the past and opening out new ways to science is, therefore, not new to American pedagogy. It even appears that in certain universities it dominates with some exaggera tion and diverts a certain number of teachers from their original duties. It we may believe a Harvard professor, who has described the spirit and tendencies of that university in the Educational Review [for April, 1894, an article by Professor Santayanal, it sometimes happens that some of his colleagues, in the exclusive preoccupatien of their investigations and personal work, come to forget and neglect their professional occupations. He says: "There still remain at Harvard some professors of the old school, with whom intimate and moral relations with the students is the first care, but for the typical young professor the principal interest is science," and we are shown these teachers demonstrating with indifference and almost with dis

dain the well-known principles, which are, however, the foundation of instruction, and only becoming animated when they come to speak of the novelties and discoveries of the day. They aspire to be scholars and are teachers only by accident.

STUDIES, TEACHERS, AND METHODS.

Speaking in a general way, it may be said that the best American universities sensibly approximate the ideal of higher instruction, but in the greater number of universities of second or third rate the common defects are excessive specialization, a dribbling out of knowledge, the want of a broad initiation into the principles of science, and an anxiety to get a diploma as soon as possible. Of these institutions the criticism may be repeated that has already been made of English colleges. "In them letters are not literary enough and science is not learned enough; in the former they only study texts and in the latter processes." (Quotation from Demogeot et Montucci, De l'enseignement secondaire en Angleterre.) Whatever may be the speculative efforts of friends of the university in the United States, it is not in vain that their surroundings are utilitarian, so that their institutions are like scholastic oases planted in an immensity of workshops, grain elevators, cattle yards, docks, and manufactories of every kind, and that they have the formidable task of maintaining the rights of thought and opening the springs of moral and intellectual life in the midst of a society which is a prey to an infernal industrial activity, and is, as it were, possessed or bewitched by the demon of business. It is impossible that the universities themselves should not be affected, in their tendencies and spirit, by the practical and positive character of the entire nation. Even in the schools of the greatest renown the methods in repute would not accord with our ideas. In the law school at Yale, for example, the methods consist largely in learning by heart. The lecture rooms have the significant name of recitation rooms. Properly speaking, there is no didactic course, no lectures ex cathedra. The student studies his textbook in his own room and is questioned upon it in the lecture room, the teacher limiting himself to giving explanations upon the subject studied. "It is the conviction of the faculty of law," say the Yale programmes, "and it is also the tradition of the entire university, that precise and durable impressions of the principles of every abstract science are best acquired by the study of text-books at leisure in the student's room, and supplemented by the questions and explanations which are given in the recitation room." We must add that this method of instruction is not of general use in American law schools. At Harvard, for instance, the method by recitation is formally repudiated; the regulations declare that it is not desirable to memorize pages of text-books. In the law schools, as in all others, care is taken to favor practical exercises, and the students are encouraged to discuss the subjects taught, either by themselves or under a professor. So in the scientific schools extreme importance is attached to manipulations and laboratory experiments; without suppressing theoretical instruction, greater attention is given to the practical side, to things which the student learns by himself in the laboratories, which are admirably furnished with all the instruments and appliances of research.

One thing which acts as a constraint upon the full development of American universities is that they find difficulty in freeing themselves from the traditions of secondary instruction. (Secondary in the French sense, as here used, relates to the lycée, which corresponds to our high or preparatory school with two years of our colleges.)

They started, for the most part, with being simply colleges, and only gradually have the schools of law and medicine, of letters and higher sciences been added to the primitive colleges, usually by the wills of generous benefactors, like so many annexes, which are rather juxtaposed than associated and fused together in a harmonious plan. New departments, institutes of fine or industrial arts, of music, schools of veterinary medicine or electricity or archæology are constantly added to ED 9637*

a pedagogical domain which is constantly widening, and this indefinite branching out is not always crowned with success. Harvard, for example, has recently found that it is difficult for studies which are too dissimilar to prosper side by side. The Bussy Institution, which was established there at great expense, only had six students in 1892-93: In many years it has only conferred three or four diplomas of bachelor of agricultural sciences, most of its students being only amateurs.

The great evil which pervades the whole system of American education is that it is without definitions and delimitations. In France we do not mix different things, and are fond, perhaps excessively so, of logical regulations. We allow only welldefined categories and precisely determined divisions. In American institutions, on the contrary, everything is confused and intermixed. Secondary instruction is divided into two portions, one, corresponding to our grammar schools (classes de grammaire), in the high schools and academies, and the other, which is nearly equivalent to the higher classes in our lycées, in the colleges and the universities. Out of 2,000 students at Yale, only some 500 take the higher instruction. Of 1,300 at Cornell and 1,000 at Princeton, there are not over 200 who take university courses, properly so called. Everywhere the collegians, the under graduates, that is the students of secondary instruction, form the great majority. Anyone can see the great disadvantage of this coexistence of two kinds of instruction which are profoundly distinct in their character and objects. Is there not danger that the interests of one or the other might be sacrificed; that the secondary instruction might become too specialized and too technical, so as to lose its proper character, which is to give a general culture to the mind? May it not be that professors who teach both in the university and the college (at least as far as letters and science are concerned) might either import into their secondary instruction the requirements and habits of learned research which do not belong to it, or, conversely, might they not introduce into their higher instruction the elementary methods of college instruction, whereby the higher culture would be lowered and lessened, the line of demarcation between the two not being well defined? If we complain in France-and not without reason-that the professors of the faculties of letters and sciences are impeded in their proper work of scientific investigation and original work by the heavy and tedious drudgery which the baccalaureate examinations impose upon them several times a year, in America the evil is still greater, because there the professors not only have charge of the examinations but of the studies which precede them besides.

[M. Compayré devotes a short notice each to students, clubs and university extension, and concludes this introductory review with presenting the views of well-known American university presidents upon higher education in America. He can not refrain from admiring the spacious and sometimes even palatial buildings of universities and schools.] "Undoubtedly," he says, "the largest and finest buildings in America are generally those of banking and commercial houses or hotels, but the buildings for educational institutions, whether universities or primary schools, are the rivals, at least, of church edifices both in size and the ornamental character of their architecture. Externally they look like strongly built chateaux or citadels with towers, buttresses and battlements. Within, with their large, vaulted halls, their colonnades and bas-reliefs, they resemble temples. Ah, what fine class and lecture rooms there are at Harvard and Yale! How spacious and convenient, with plenty of light and air! It is impossible to visit them without thinking how good it would be to study or lecture in them."

[The remaining chapters of the work are devoted to details of the various universities and their programmes. We pass to the chapter on instruction in philosophy, to which, as the highest branch of learning, M. Compayré devotes considerable attention, and give the following extracts.]

AMERICA HAS AS YET NO ORIGINAL PHILOSOPHY.

The story goes that an intensely patriotic citizen of Chicago once asked his fellowcitizens if they would like to establish a school of "American geometry." We need not be astonished at this naive outburst of nationalism in the midst of a people which voluntarily affects to depend on itself alone, and which would like to show itself original in all things. It must be acknowledged, at any rate, that there is yet very little originality in philosophy in America despite very laudable efforts in that direction, and that if an American geometry is impossible, there is, properly speaking, no "American philosophy." Undoubtedly there has been a great change since De Tocqueville wrote, in all truth, "I believe that there is no country in the civilized world where so little attention is given to philosophy as in the United States. The Americans have no philosophical school of their own, and they care very little about those which divide Europe. They hardly know even their names." On this point, as on some others, the reflections of the author of "Democracy in America" have become somewhat antiquated. Time has been moving, and to keep oneself au courant and not fall behind in studying a nation particularly active and alive, which is always going ahead, one must strike the balance of its progress every year and almost every month. The Americans of to-day differ in their intellectual and moral condition from those described by De Tocqueville nearly as much as some of their large cities-Washington, or Chicago for instance-Chicago especially—are different now from what they were fifty years ago. Even in the domain of philosophical speculation, where progress is least perceptible, meritorious attempts have been made in these latter days, and some interesting results have been reached, especially in direct contrast to what De Tocqueville affirmed, and what he was justified in saying, half a century ago. It is true that the works of European philosophy, preferably the latest, are now studied with ardor and often with enthusiasm, and it would not be paradoxical to say that German philosophers are better known and more frequently translated and read at the present time in America than in France. However, De Tocqueville uttered a permanent truth when he said that "the social condition of the Americans turns them away from speculative studies." Withont taking too strictly the humorous adage which the Americans themselves repeat, that philosophers are as rare in America as snakes in Norway, we must acknowledge that they are not numerous, and it is not difficult to discern the reason of their rarity.

SUPREMACY OF THEOLOGY, OR, AT LEAST, THE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT.

What strikes us at first is that philosophy is much more under the influence of religious belief in the United States than in Europe. The "servant of theology" is far from having shaken off the old yoke in most American colleges and universities. The State University of California, for instance, announces itself as nonsectarian, but it nevertheless remains religious in tone, as its president declares. In a country where theology and religious thonght are diversified and separated into an infinity of distinct sects and denominations, philosophical thought finds in this same diversity a semblance of freedom and easily accommodates itself to each creed. And, on the other hand, a vague, undefined Christianity is always exercising its sway, even over the most enfranchised minds, so that, in one way or another, it is almost always under the patronage of religion that philosophy strives hesitatingly to develop itself.

THE NONTHEOLOGICAL SPIRIT IS RARE IN AMERICA.

The "lay" spirit, as we understand it in France, is a rarer thing than would be expected in the free American society. Even when they believe that they do not belong to any religious denomination, that they are unsectarian, the educational institutions, as we have said, can not always detach themselves from biblical traditions. Here is a striking example: "When I visited Girard College," says M. Paul de Rouziers [la vie Americaine, p. 656], "the janitor asked me if I was a clergy

man. I was surprised, and made him repeat the question; and when, after I had answered in the negative, I was admitted into the building, I related the circumstance to the president. 'These are the instructions,' he replied, 'because Girard, the founder, declared in his will that no minister of any denomination should ever cross the threshold of the college.' 'But what is the meaning of that handsome chapel?' I asked. 'It is for religious exercises. We have prayers there morning and evening, and on Sunday one of us gives a lecture on the Bible.' 'And do you think that the shade of Girard is pleased with these lectures?' 'Oh, you know the Bible is unsectarian."" So here is a collego which its founder, a French freethinker grown rich in the United States, endowed generously on the condition that no clergyman should ever be admitted to it, and whose legatees, faithful as is usual in America to tho wishes of the testator, really believe that they are carrying out his will by refusing, very vigorously it is true, the entrée of the college to clergymen even for a visit, while they throw the doors wide open to the sacred books of Christianity. In such a medium-of men completely imbued with Christianity, even when they belong to no denomination-philosophy-that is to say, the spirit of independent research which goes right on to the conquest of truth, without caring either for the beliefs which it may injure on its way or the dogmas which it will have to contradict ultimately-philosophy necessarily remains the privilege of a select number of enterprising and bold men. The crowd of thinkers continues to move in the narrow and impassable circle in which traditional opinions inclose the steps of human reason without feeling its limitations or aspiring to a liberty of which they feel no need. We have examined a great number of catalogues of American colleges. Philosophy is certainly represented in them, but in the most elementary and humble form. Ingeneral the president of the college takes charge of instruction in philosophy, which is usually moral and pedagogical and most often designed as an instrument of edification or of Christian moralization rather than an ensemble of free and scientific research. The professor is rarely a specialist in philosophy; he unites with that accidental instruction other and very different kinds. If it is true that in Spain, as is said, there are still professors of Latin and singing, and if we remember to have known at the college of Soréze in France a regent who boldly styled himself "professor of rhetoric and physics," this confusion of things which, with us, is a very rare exception, is of very frequent occurrence in America.

THEOLOGICAL TENDENCY OF PHILOSOPHICAL INSTRUCTION.

But it is not only the insufficiency or the want of specialization on the part of the teachers which compromises the future of philosophical studies in the United States. The primordial cause of the evil-we must repeat-is the semitheological tendency of the instruction. This tendency is favored and developed by the private nature of most of the secondary and superior institutions of learning. In France, political and social centralization, of which the university is the scholastic expression, undoubtedly has its inconveniences and dangers. But it at least permits the State to disengage a sort of general conscience from the ensemble of diverse and often contradictory individual aspirations, which becomes the rule of education and elevates university studies above all sectarian spirit and any particular religious tendency. In our lycées and faculties a teacher of philosophy is not responsible to any one except his own conscience and society-the nation at large. Now, the nation is neutral as far as religious opinions are concerned, and consequently theological prejudices do not enter the philosophical lecture room. In America, on the contrary, where the system of private initiation prevails, so fruitful from other points of view, where colleges and universities owe their existence for the most part to the liberality of some private individual enriched by commerce or industry, who has become philanthropic in his old age, and where the institutions are under the supervision of a committee of trustees who are the vigilant depositories and guardians of the will of the founder, and sometimes under the direction of the founder himself, if he is still alive, it is to be feared that the freedom of the teacher of philosophy may often be only a myth.