Bachelor of Arts

“ Each degree with us will represent an intelligible fact, the exhibition of a certain amount of knowledge. But, it is not to this consideration I wish to direct your minds so much as to the conclusion that, if the degree of Bachelor of Arts be held an imperfect one in Europe, where it may and often does represent the acquisition of a very wide circle of knowledge, much more must it possess that character here, where it indicates a comparatively contracted circle. ”

“ A Bachelor of Arts is one who makes love to a lot of women, and yet has the art to remain a bachelor. ”

“ To three subjects we still attach an exceptional degree of importance, inasmuch as without a knowledge of English, one of the languages which we technically call classical, and Mathematics, it is impossible for any student to obtain the Degree of Bachelor of Arts. ”

“ In modern universities the significance of the degree of bachelor, in relation to the others, varies; e.g. at Oxford and Cambridge the bachelor can proceed to his mastership by simply retaining his name on the books and paying certain fees; at other universities a further examination is still necessary. But in no case is the bachelor a full member of the university. The degree of bachelor (of arts, &c.) is borne by women also. ”

“ B. B.A. An abbreviation of Baccalaureus Artium, Bachelor of Arts. The first degree taken by a student at a college or university. Sometimes written A.B., which is in accordance with the proper Latin arrangement. In American colleges this degree is conferred in course on each member of the Senior Class in good standing. In the English universities, it is given to the candidate who has been resident at least half of each of ten terms, i.e. during a certain portion of a period extending over three and a third years, and who has passed the University examinations. ”

“ Some of these opponents have gone so far as to assert that the customary college degree, Bachelor of Arts, stands as definitely for Latin and Greek as the degree M.D. stands for the study of medicine. Now, inasmuch as the college is the school in which, according to the best authorities, our young people are expected to gain a higher degree of education than the lower schools, academies, and high-schools can give them, the question. What constitutes the basis of higher education? ”

“ It is obvious that in a general college course, a study of the religious, social, and political factors in civilization that does not include art among these factors is incomplete.
The question under discussion concerns the teaching of art to the candidate for the bachelor of arts degree, and this question will be solely kept in view. Since, however, graduates in science, engineering, law, medicine, etc., are not exempt from the needs of artistic culture, they too should have at least an effective minimum of art instruction.
Art a social activity
Art is recognized as a social activity. ”

“ To be at the head, or 'to head the roll,' is an object of ambition, while 'to foot the roll' is anything but desirable."
MIDDLE BACHELOR. One who is in his second year after taking the degree of Bachelor of Arts.
A Senior Sophister has authority to take a Freshman from a
Sophomore, a Middle Bachelor from a Junior Sophister.—Quincy's
Hist. Harv. Univ., Vol. II. p. 540.
MIGRATE. In the English universities, to remove from one college to another.
One of the unsuccessful candidates migrated.—Bristed's Five
Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 100. ”

“ The Bachelor of Arts from Vassar who is going to be a stenographer, and who is taking her year of graduate study at Simmons, will go to work at the end of the year and then, six months later, if she has made good, will get from Simmons the degree of Bachelor of Science. At that point in her life she will have two degrees and seventeen years of schooling behind her. A big background. But we are beginning to do some training for almost everything.
Did you ever see a school of salesmanship for department-store women employees? ”

“ In England the mere Degree of Bachelor of Arts has been so eclipsed by the Honor Examinations, that it has become little more than a matter of form, and as it may be attained with very slight merit, so its attainment carries very little weight. ”

“ It is in this licence that the whole significance of the master of arts degree is contained; Inception. for what is technically known as admission to that degree was really nothing more nor less than receiving the chancellor's permission to “incept,” and by “inception” was implied the master's formal entrance upon, and commencement of, the functions of a duly licensed teacher, and his recognition as such by his brothers in the profession. The previous stage of his academic career, that of The bachelor of arts. ”

“ It is true, however, that such a course as that outlined above demands a large amount of time, compared with the results attained; and while successful courses in Representation are offered in certain colleges, the great mass of college students, who cannot hope to acquire a high degree of skill, would hesitate to devote a large part of their training to technical work, even if college faculties were willing to grant considerable proportions of credit for it toward the bachelor of arts degree. ”

“ The length of time necessary to graduate as a Bachelor of Arts is, for a fellow-commoner three years and a half, for a pensioner or sizar four years. Instruction is communicated by means of public and private lectures; examinations are held quarterly, at which, premiums are adjudged to the best answerers in science and classics, with great liberality on the part of the board, and impartiality on that of the junior fellows, who are the examiners ”

“ Two young ladies are to graduate at the close of this term.
We receive ladies and gentlemen on the same terme and conditions; take them together into the recitation-room, where they recite side by side; require them to pursue the same course of study; and, when satisfactorily completed, give them degrees of the same rank and honor—Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts to gentlemen, Laureate of Science and Laureate of Arts to ladies. ”

“ The work of the university is organized in seven undergraduate courses, partially elective, leading to the bachelor's degree in arts, science, pedagogy, philosophy, mining, and both civil and electrical engineering. ”

“ No girl who is going to marry need bother to win a college degree; she just naturally becomes a "Master of Arts" and a "Doctor of Philosophy" after catering to an ordinary man for a few years. ”

“ Some, to their credit, recognise Art in its narrower sense, to a certain extent, and confer degrees for proficiency in some of its branches. If there are Doctors of Music, why should there be no Masters of painting, of Sculpture, of Architecture? I should like to see Professors of the Fine Arts in every University; and instruction in some branch of their work made a part of the Arts curriculum.
I just now expressed the opinion that, in our ideal University, a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge. ”

“ The bachelors may have assisted in the education of the younger arts students and of the glomerels who are mentioned below, but normally instruction in the arts course was given by masters, and in the higher faculties by doctors. ”

“ There is a wider extent of learning, a wider field of study required for a degree in Arts than that which necessarily would be required for the degree of L.M., and I think it is a matter of congratulation that the great success which has been manifested in the examinations, has attended those who have sought to graduate in Arts. ”

“ Other efforts are experimental, but this one thing we know—that men are turned out from this course who are practically unmatched for quality, culture, and power; even the average B.A. shows up better than his compeers, and a degree in Arts signifies more than one in any other faculty.
We return thus to my original contention—that letters, primarily, are the content of knowledge ”

“ The degree of Associate of Arts is conferred on deserving scholars in the state schools; and exhibitions (up to £200 a year for four years) enable pupils to study at the higher schools or colonial or European universities. ”

“ But the majority of students, it is to be expected, will avail themselves of the permission accorded to them to specialise to a greater or less extent their studies after they have passed the First Examination in Arts. ”

“ Here and there are knots of Bachelors of Arts, in their ampler gowns with fur-lined hoods, some only removed by a brief three years from their undergraduate days, others who have evidently allowed a much longer period to pass before returning [Pg 2] to bring their academic career to its full and complete end. ”

“ As for you, gentlemen, who have this day been created Bachelors of Arts, Mental and moral improvement. I have to call your attention to the fact that your Degree is, in the phraseology of the middle ages, an imperfect one. ”

“ I have had frequent occasions to address all sorts of bachelors on their graduation, of science and arts and letters and pedagogy, but this is my first opportunity to address ladies crowned, at least symbolically, with the laurel berries of the bachelorhood in art. We are apt to think of young ladies rather as masters of arts innumerable, and as needing no degree to attest their abilities. ”

“ There is far too much effort at variety rather than thoroughness in study. However hard both professors and students may labor, it can not be possible in a four-years' course to fill a lad, who has previously had but a common-school education, with a satisfactory knowledge of Latin, high mathematics, Euclid, history, English grammar and composition, chemistry, organic and inorganic, geography, geology, mechanics, electricity, polarization of light, and various other studies usually required for the master of arts honors examination in a British university. ”

“ Scarcely any of those who have taken honours during the last few years, have come to their examinations from "private study," and sixteen out of the twenty who have taken the degree of Bachelor of Science are from the colleges connected with the University. ”

“ This broadening of the requisites for admission is the last step in a series of changes by which, at Harvard College, scientific culture has been placed on the same footing as literary culture, and recognized as an equally fitting preparation for the degrees in arts. ”

“ The School of Education has been organized within the University for the specific purpose of preparing teachers for the high schools of the State. To graduate from the School of Education and thus receive the B.A. degree and the Bachelor's Diploma in teaching, which is accredited by law as a first-grade professional certificate, and also to be recommended for teaching specific subjects in the high-school, an applicant is required, first, to have specialized, academically, in the subject to be taught. ”

“ Whether in course or by indirection, whether by a cramming tutor or by examiners with prizes and foundation scholarships, education according to the English notion of it is arrived at. I looked over the Examination Papers of the year 1848, for the various scholarships and fellowships, the Lusby, the Hertford, the Dean-Ireland, and the University, (copies of which were kindly given me by a Greek professor,) containing the tasks which many competitors had victoriously performed, and I believed they would prove too severe tests for the candidates for a Bachelor's degree in Yale or Harvard. ”

“ However, as in their examination, those of them who have obtained places in the honor classes, have exhausted the subjects entering into the academic curriculum, they are subjected to no after-test in Arts for the attainment of the higher degree. ”

“ At the age of twelve he entered the university, where ho speedily distinguished himself above not only his equals, but his seniors in years, to so great a degree that when only sixteen he received the diploma of master of arts from the hands of his own father. ”

“ See European War.
Arts, the name given to certain branches of study in the Middle Ages, originally called the 'liberal arts' to distinguish them from the 'servile arts' or mechanical occupations. These arts were usually given as grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Hence originated the terms 'art classes', 'degrees in arts', 'Master of Arts', &c., still in common use in universities, the faculty of arts being distinguished from those of divinity, law, medicine, or science. See University. ”

“ Besides the college of liberal arts there are in most of them colleges or schools of law, medicine, engineering in its several lines, education, pharmacy, dentistry, commerce, industrial arts, and fine arts. ”

“ For the Bachelors of Arts of this year are not the representatives of the students who Matriculated three years ago, but consist of stray students of various years, who, from one cause or another, did not proceed to their degree at the usual time. Are there equal grounds for congratulation when we look not at the numbers but at the Qualities of the students. ”

“ The methods of instruction in the universities are the lecture, discussion and work in laboratory or seminary—the latter transplanted from the German universities. The degree of Master of Arts is conferred upon students who, after one year of university residence and study, pass certain prescribed examinations. ”

“ You all graduated in Arts before you were permitted to graduate in Law, and although a somewhat lower test in Arts is accepted at present as a preliminary condition for graduating in Medicine and Civil Engineering, the same principle is recognized in all the professional degrees. ”

“ The [Pg 29] immediate business is to make the master's degree a real thing, an honest thing, to make it the sign of a higher standard than the bachelor's degree, whether the bachelor's standard be fixed high or low. Let there be some kind of standard, some kind of test. Its particular shape, whether an examination, or a disputation, or the writing of a thesis, or anything else, need not now be discussed. I ask only that there should be a test of proficiency of some kind, and that there should be the widest possible range of subjects in which proficiency may be tested. ”