Doctor of Philosophy

“ In seven out of ten of the text-books of the classics edited for college use, the notes are written, not for freshmen and sophomores, but for those who have already attained or are going to attain the degree of doctor of philosophy, a degree that was first made in Germany. This blight of the doctor’s degree has invaded not only our courses in the classics, but every course in the university curriculum that can in any sense be called a humanistic course. ”

“ He was in the class below me at college. He left the law school four years ago and I got my Ph.D. the year before that.”
“Then you're a Doctor of Philosophy!” I exclaimed. “That explains everything. I'm sure Doctors of Philosophy never smile.”
And then, if you'll believe it, he actually did it! Actually smiled, I mean! It wasn't much of a smile; just a sort of wrinkling around the outer corners of the eyes and the merest moving of his mustache, but it seemed a veritable triumph. ”

“ But one and all, in final analysis, agree that the college prepares for no special vocation, and the technical school for a too special vocation.
The failure of the technical school is not due to the over-specialization of the doctor of philosophy or German-trained research student. The average doctor of philosophy can at least think in the terms of his own narrow division of the world's knowledge, whether he is gifted with scientific imagination or not. ”

“ To our surprise we were given to understand in reply that the quality per se of the man signified nothing in this connection, and that three magical letters were the thing seriously required. The College had always gloried in a list of faculty members who bore the doctor's title, and to make a gap in the galaxy, and admit a common fox without a tail, would be a degradation impossible to be thought of. We wrote again, pointing out that a Ph.D. in philosophy would prove little anyhow as to one's ability to teach literature ”

“ I deprecate the tendency, seen in some quarters, of setting up as the symbol of the standard of qualification for the high school teacher, the doctor's degree. I do not want the boys and girls of our high schools taught, or rather directed in their upward development, by mere specialists—doctors of philosophy, who know everything about nothing, and nothing about everything. ”

“ A young man, after a fine record for scholarship in high school, took up a course of scientific study in college. He found the field so alluring that he went on to a university course, taking his degree of Doctor of Philosophy with a careful and thorough research requiring a marvelous technique of manipulation. ”

“ At the other end of the scale of mental development, let us assume, is the possessor of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from any of the great universities, since this is the principal degree the possession of which tends to show the possession of unusual mental powers, if not necessarily of wisdom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I've studied now Philosophy
And Jurisprudence, Medicine,—
And even, alas! Theology,—
From end to end, with labor keen;
And here, poor fool! with all my lore
I stand, no wiser than before:
I'm Magister—yea, Doctor—hight,
And straight or cross-wise, wrong or right,
These ten years long, with many woes,
I've led my scholars by the nose,—
And see, that nothing can be known! ”

“ Not more than half of them will accomplish anything after their doctor's theses, but the others may perhaps have their places filled by those who enter research work otherwise than by the ordinary academic routine. When we remember, however, that about 5,000 physicians and lawyers are graduated each year, the number taking the doctorate of philosophy seems to be small—not in proportion to the population and wealth of the country. ”

“ On account of her extraordinary attainments she received a doctor’s degree, and was appointed professor in the philosophical college, where she delivered public lectures on experimental philosophy till the time of her death. ”

“ Whoever he may be, and since he seems to care so very little for his name himself, and looks at it from such a philosophical point of view, we ought not, perhaps, to be too particular about it; whoever he may be, he is unquestionably a Doctor of the New School, the scientific school, and will be able to produce his diploma when properly challenged ”

“ Rather would we take these words in the sense in which they were first proclaimed by the philosophy of Geneva, in the sense in which the first citizen used them for the foundation of his truths; thus, that which is produced by nature is good; all inclinations, all impulses of men derived from nature, are good; and every mis-usage of nature is an outrage which she punishes with misery and pain. All the principles of the art of curing at Gräfenberg, attested as they are by thousands, are dictated by that instinct which nature has given to every human being as his inheritance. ”

“ But if by research we mean the discovery of new truth and the creation of new lines of activity, then research is indeed the highest function of the university. When we find the man who can advance knowledge and the applications of knowledge to human welfare, be he student or professor, him we should all serve and reverence. But we do a grievous wrong if we assume that this man is found, and should be found, only in the faculty of philosophy. ”

“ If during the course of my studies I succeed in making myself known by a work of distinction, will you not then consent that I shall study, at least during one year, the natural sciences alone, and then accept a professorship of natural history, with the understanding that in the first place, and in the time agreed upon, I shall take my Doctor's degree? ”

“ Accordingly, the first year of study is arranged to be passed under the care of one professor of philosophy, who, without inculcating any system, shall train the students to reflection in the nature of the problems of thought and knowledge, shall indicate to them how the special sciences branch off from philosophy, and shall give literary and critical notices by way of introduction. ”

“ The specialist in scientific investigation has the prerogative of a certain one-sidedness; we justify many a freak in his narrower field which can not abide the test of criticism. But what is to become of philosophy, if it abandons the general principles of knowledge, whose authority it is its office to establish for the special sciences? ”

“ But, while counselling you to pursue, with all the earnestness and assiduity of which you are capable, the particular branch of knowledge which natural inclination and aptitude, strengthened and methodized by academic discipline, may urge you to follow, and which the circumstances of your future life may render practicable, I should fail in my duty were I to abstain from inviting your special attention to the claims of one department of thought. It may not be the fashion now-a-days to profess a high regard for speculative philosophy and metaphysics. ”

“ If I may judge by my own experience, or by what I have at times observed in others, either when as a youth I was an academical student, or when afterward, as a visitor at several of the German universities, I took part in the scientific pursuits, and occasionally as a lecturer propounded my own views and opinions, a decided and striking division seems to subsist between philosophy and the peculiar scientific studies proper to the future wants of life. ”

“ I hope not all those who have received the degree of doctor from some philosophical faculty, or who have printed something which they call philosophical, or who, perhaps, are themselves members of some philosophical faculty? ”

“ This prevalence of the spirit of research is the reason why, as the Report of the Dean of the Graduate School points out, the Philosophical Department has a larger number of graduate students who have carried on graduate studies elsewhere than any other Department of the University. The table of the Dean which records these migrating graduate students who come to us for advanced work after graduate studies at other universities, is as follows: Mathematics 6, Natural History 7, Political Science 7, Modern Languages 11, Classics 14, History 15, English Literature 16, Philosophy 20. ”

“ In the School of Literæ Humaniores the studies are based on classical literature and on history, "but a large number of students approach philosophical study from other sides. Students of such subjects as mathematics, natural science, history, psychology, anthropology, or political economy become naturally interested in philosophy, and their needs are at present very imperfectly provided for in this university." ”

“ But the hasty and ill-considered application of scientific generalization or social conception is an equal if a rarer fault. The teacher must master for himself the science and the philosophy of his subject and be critical practitioner as well. ”

“ Philosophical instruction that succeeds in the task outlined above will have accomplished much. Nevertheless, it cannot attain its goal unless the student is introduced to the study of the human-mental world which constitutes a large portion of the field assigned to the philosophical department: the study of psychology, logic, ethics, and the history of philosophy. These branches deal with things in which the human race has been interested from its early civilized beginnings and with which the young persons entering college have had little or no opportunity of becoming acquainted. ”

“ When this first course is completed, the studies are then separated according to the broad divisions of philology, philosophy, history, and natural science. The old division of faculties in no way corresponds to the guiding principle of university training, that it shall deal with the scientific use of the understanding. Law, e.g., is on the one side professional merely; on the other, when it has a scientific aspect, it falls under history and philosophy. Medicine, in so far as scientific, rests upon, and should be included under, natural science. ”

“ After this they are permitted to choose what other of the higher studies them liketh to follow, whether it be divinity, law, or physic, so that, [Pg 255] being once masters of art, the next degree, if they follow physic, is the doctorship belonging to that profession; and likewise in the study of the law, if they bend their minds to the knowledge of the same. ”

“ But both inside and outside of the Universities and Academies the scientific spirit and acquisitions of the nineteenth century have most profoundly, and on the whole favorably, affected the development of its philosophy. In the wider meaning of the word, "science,"—the meaning, namely, in which science = Wissenschaft,—philosophy aims to be scientific; and science can never be indifferent to philosophy. ”

“ In practice, indeed, the matter becomes enormously complicated, yet extensive administrative machinery regulates every case with due justice. In the legal and medical faculties, everything is dependent on the final examinations of the year. In the philosophical two, or more often three, years of study after the bachelor’s degree lead to the doctorate of philosophy. ”

“ A professor of history has to deal with contemporary facts, to describe the successive changes in the form of government in France, etc. A professor of philosophy has to deal with questions of theodicy and morals; and even in pure psychology, materialistic and deterministic theories have to be passed upon ”

“ There is also a special doctorate, the “doctorat d’Université,” awarded on a thesis and an oral examination; and there are diplomas (Diplômes d’Études supérieures) awarded on dissertations and examinations on subjects in philosophy, history and geography, classics or modern languages, selected mainly by the candidate and approved by the faculty.
2. Professional Examinations. (a) Teaching.—University examinations for degrees having ceased to be used as technical tests of teaching capacity, new examinations have been devised for this purpose. ”

“ But the higher education has been transformed, and mainly by the application of scientific methods, and of the philosophic spirit, to the study of history, economics, and the classics. When we are called to defend the pursuit of metaphysics or the study of the classics, either as indispensable to the discipline or to the enlargement of the mind, we are not called on to defend the methods of a generation ago. ”

“ The Institutes, or Theory of Knowing and Being, commences with a definition of philosophy as a 'body of reasoned truth,' and states that though there were plenty of dissertations on the subject in existence, there was no philosophy itself—no scheme of demonstrated truth ”

“ And now, if I may take for granted that the true and adequate end of intellectual training and of a university is not learning or acquirement, but rather, is thought or reason exercised upon knowledge, or what may be called philosophy, I shall be in a position to explain the various mistakes which at the present day beset the subject of university education.
I say then, if we would improve the intellect, first of all, we must ascend; we cannot gain real knowledge on a level ”

“ Not a few of the students who belong to this group remain loyal to philosophy through three or four years. A second group of students need our courses as preparation for divers scholarly or practical aims. The future lawyer, teacher, physician, minister, scientist, or philanthropist knows that certain courses in ethics or psychology, in education or logic afford the most solid foundations for his later work; there is hardly a course in our Division which is not adjusted to some kind of professional study. ”