COLLEGES, AMERICAN. The offspring of European colleges, and possessing at first the same general form of organization. American colleges have gradually undergone changes which make them distinctive. Harvard (q.v.), the oldest, was founded in 1636, under the influ ence of men who for the most part had received their education at Emmanuel College, Cambridge University. The second American college, Wil liam and Mary (q.v.). founded in 1693, and the third, Yale (q.v.), founded in 1701, were mod eled on similar linos. The numerous institutions founded since then have followed very closely the same traditions. During the eighteenth cen tury there were 21 such institutions founded, 9 before the Revolution and 12 afterwards. From 1800 to 1S30 there were 33 such founda tions: from 1830 to 1863 there were ISO: from 1865 to 1900 there were 244, making a total of 480 degree-conferring institutions of college rank.
The early colleges were separate institutions of learning. each a single prescribed course of study leading to the degree of A.B., and, with some additional work, to that of A.M. This course was intended to furnish a . liberal education, and to prepare the student for the Christian ministry or other learned profession. Both Harvard and Yale came under the control of self-perpetuating corporations, and relied for their support on tuition and private endow ments. Most of the earlier and many of the later colleges were controlled in the interest of certain religious denominations, it being frequently part of the organic law of such institutions that the president and trustees should be members of the Church that dominated the school.
The leading changes in the early college sys tem have been the outcome of a for a wider circle of studies in the liberal programme: the development of better systems of secondary instruction, to which mild he intrusted a large part of the work formerly done by the college: the growth of specialized instruction preparatory to the various professions not only of law, medi cine, and theology, but also of the various fields of applied science; and the appearance of higher institutions under the support and control of the States, notably in the West and the South. In many of the colleges, also, e.g. Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, the influence of the sectarian ele ment in control has largely disappeared. The development about the nucleus of a college of liberal arts of colleges for special professional instruction has led to the university, so called, although many institutions bearing that name give very little attention to graduate instruc tion of the true university character.
At first, the Colonial colleges took from the grammar schools students who had barely at tained a fair knowledge of Latin. As the char acter of secondary instruction grew better, the entrance requirements of the colleges grew se verer. As a result, the average age of entrance of students increased, until at Harvard it. is at present over nineteen, an age at which students were commonly graduated in the earlier history of the institution. The curriculum, originally limited to Latin, Greek, a little mathematics, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, and theology, was ex tended by the introduction, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, of astronomy and natural philosophy, and, early in the nineteenth century, of modern languages and the elements of the natural and political sciences. This process of expansion led, by the middle of the nineteenth century, to the elective system (see ELECTIVE CornsEs), fostered by President Wayland of Brown University, and later by President Eliot of Harvard, President Barnard of Columbia, and President Tappan of Michigan. Certain work was still prescribed to the student, but new work was offered from which he was allowed to make a choice. Then, at many colleges, various courses were established, among which election could he made. The required subjects in each course were from some general field, as science, literature, modern languages, or classics, and distinct degrees, as B.S., PhB., B.L., etc., were bestowed upon the graduates of the different courses. Brown, Michigan, and Western institutions, generally, illustrate this plan. Finally, at Harvard in 1869, the right of election was extended to all subjects beyond the first year, the degree of A.B. being given to all graduates of the college of liberal arts. To emphasize the equality of different lines of work thus elected, the Stanford Univer sity has adopted the policy of granting this de gree even to those whose work has been almost entirely in the sciences. Cornell. too, has in this, as in many other respects, assumed the most lib eral attitude in its educational aims.