Along with the development of broader curric ula, and elective subjects and courses, has come the establishment of special professional col leges and colleges of applied science. Medical schools had appeared at the University of Penn sylvania and at Columbia and Harvard in the eighteenth century. Law schools were founded early in the nineteenth century, and scientific schools soon after. Some of these institutions were ii1Rfioted with older colleges, others were cstablished independently. The year 1846 saw the foundation of the Union College of Civil Engineering, the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale; and the next year the Scientific School at Harvard was -established. Finally, there ap peared the extension of the work of the liberal arts college into further fields of scholarship and research. the organization of which has given rise to the graduate departments, the uni ve•sities proper of the United States. (See UNI VERSITY.) lint the distinctim of the university from the college or group of colleges for under graduates has not yet been clearly made. Smile institutions calling themselves universities are merely colleges; others consist of several under graduate colleges: in a few cases the name 'uni versity' is restricted to purely graduate depart ments.
It must be added that the professional col leges of law, medicine, and theology are coming 10 have more and more the character of graduate schools. In 1896 Harvard required all student; entering the law school to he college graduates. A similar requirement exists in its medical school, and practically in its divinity school as well. Like steps are being taken at Colum bia, and the matter is being agitated generally throughout the country. It must be noted, how ever, that so far no important movement has been set on foot to make the colleges of applied science graduate schools. In case they follow in the path of the schools of law, etc., the special preparation for the higher professions. together with higher training in research and scholarship. will be left to the university. while the college will represent a higher liberal course prepara tory to these. As it is, the word college is ap plied either to (I) liberal arts colleges. or (2) professional eolleoes admitting undergraduates: and colleges of either type may he parts of uni versities or separate institutions.
The character of the influences and the life surrounding the student in the college Avhich has grown into a large university is essentially different from that to he met with in the smaller colleges which have continued to work in the spirit of the old Colonial institutions. The smaller college affords less opportunity for elec tion, thus bringing about greater uniformity in the work pursued. While it does not allow so much for individual peculiarities, it provides greater chance for intimate social intercourse among students, and between them and the fac ulty, and for a firmer grip of the latter in disci pline. The educational aim is frankly liberal
and social rather than special and individual. Fraternities are an important feature in the social life, athletics prosper, and college spirit is strong. The faculty is even more a teaching body than a learned one. the reverse of which tends to be the ease in the larger universities. Many believe that the smaller college afford: a better liberal education for one who will later take up a profession or pursue special lines of research at a university. Again. the entrance requirements of the smaller college are often not quite so severe as at the university college, and this makes possible a shortening of the long period of preparation for a profession. On the other band, the attendance at the smaller college is not increasing in proportion to that In the col legiate departments of the universities. The length of the liberal college course has been a matter of much agitation. Many advocate its redaction to three years: and President Butler. of Columbia, in his first annual report to trustees of that university. proposed to award the BA, degree at the end of the second year of un dergraduate study. According to the present sys tern, a student, beginning at six years of age, and progressing at the normal rate, will enter the college at eighteen, and not until twenty two begin his special professional training. To gain time, in many universities, the senior collegiate year is allowed to be partly spent in professional work. At Chicago the spe cialized work may begin in the junior year. The system of credits, too, generally in vogue, by which the satisfactory completion of a certain amount of work entitles a student to his degree, without regard to the t hue required to accom plish it. often renders graduation possible in less than four years.
The entrance requirements and curricula of the colleges have varied widely. Many colleges, especially in the West and the South, are yet lit tle more than high schools. Some of the States have, however, interfered to determine what in stitutions shall be authorized to grant degrees, and it is highly desirable that this example should be universally followed. Attempts have also been made among the better colleges to insure greater uniformity in entrance require ments. The colleges of the Middle States and of Maryland united in 1899 in the formation of a general entrance examination hoard. In the West, the State universities set the standard for collegiate entrance requirements within their ,Reveral commonwealths.