Bachelor's degree

“ It often happens, in truth, that the degree of Bachelor of Arts is conferred at one institution, on such as would be utterly incapable of acquiring it at another; and, at the close of his college career,—which differs in length in different institutions,—every individual receives the first degree in the arts: the examinations instituted being a matter of form, and, too often, of farce. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Her entrance requirements to the college and to the schools of medicine, law, dentistry and divinity have been higher than those of any other American university. A bachelor’s degree is requisite for entrance to the professional schools (except that of dentistry) , and the master’s degree (since 1872) is given to students only for graduate work in residence, and rarely to other persons as an honorary degree. In scholarship and in growth of academic freedom Germany has given the quickening impulse. ”

“ The program of study in Columbia College makes it possible for a well qualified student to satisfy the requirements for both the bachelor's degree and a professional degree in law, medicine, technology or education in five to eight years according to the course. ”

“ The requirements for the ordinary Bachelor’s degree in the Honour Schools are very high and rigid; all work is concentrated along one definite line. ‘Specialization’, as generally understood, is not an apt designation of the course of study. There is a very considerable amount of general reading to do—much of it in private and during the Vacations—of which the examination requirements hardly give an adequate idea. ”

“ No one who has exceeded a certain number of Terms reckoned from his matriculation is admitted to the examination.
In all cases, however, candidates for any Bachelor’s degree (except occasionally for the ‘research’ degrees) , will find the system of instruction the same. This consists partly of lectures, University or College, and partly of personal tuition, provided by the College. All work, whether it be lectures or work done for and with the Tutor, is governed by, and planned to meet, the requirements as fixed by the Examination Statutes. ”

“ Rhodes Scholars who have taken their Bachelor’s degree at some Colonial or American University will generally be able to avail themselves of this latter regulation. All candidates for these degrees in Letters or Science—and this applies also to those reading for the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law (see p. 93) —should be sure to provide themselves with the necessary credentials. ”

“ Aged candidates, he says, who have passed through an interval of sixty years from attaining their bachelor's degree, and who have attended the three last examinations for the higher, are, if unsuccessful the fourth time, entitled to an honorary degree. ”

“ Requirement of one year of graduate study. Each candidate shall submit evidence that in addition to the academic and professional courses required for the Bachelor’s degree, he has completed at least one year of graduate study, doing full regular work, though not necessarily a candidate for a degree, in an approved graduate school as hereinafter defined. Such graduate study shall include at least one full year course of advanced or graduate work in at least one of the subjects in which candidate expects to be recommended for certification. ”

“ Every degree was meant to be a reality; it was meant, as the word degree implies, to mark some kind of proficiency; a degree which does not mark some kind of proficiency is an absurdity in itself. A degree conferred without any regard to the qualifications of the person receiving it is in fact a fraud; it is giving a testimonial without regard to the truth of the facts which the testimonial states. Now this is glaringly the case with the degree of Master of Arts as at present given. In each faculty there are two stages: the lower degree of bachelor, the higher degree of master or doctor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ L. L. Lawrence, an attorney, who lived near the college campus. My work was not very hard, but took a great many hours each day. By diligent application to my studies I found it possible to make up the branches in which I was deficient in the preparatory department, and to graduate with my Bachelor’s degree on the 1st of June, 1901. Having to do the manual labor that I did and at regular hours, established in me regular habits, both in meeting engagements and in preparation for classes, which I have found in later life invaluable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every graduate had an equal right of teaching publicly in the University the subjects competent to his faculty and to the rank of his degree; nay, every graduate incurred the obligation of teaching publicly, for a certain period, the subjects of his faculty—for such was the condition involved in the grant of the degree itself. The bachelor, or imperfect graduate, partly as an exercise towards the higher honour, and useful to himself, partly as a performance due for the degree obtained, and of advantage to others, was bound to read under a master or doctor in his faculty a course of lectures ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ When fifteen years of age, he entered Columbia College—an institution which, in after years, was to owe much to his labors—and, at the age of nineteen, received therefrom the •degree of bachelor of arts. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Today, building on that tradition of excellence in education, HBCUs confer the majority of bachelor's degrees and advanced degrees awarded to black students in the physical sciences, mathematics, computer science, engineering, and education. ”

“ But it is perfectly well understood that in this community the degree of Bachelor of Arts is for most men the one essential condition of admission to the noble fraternity of scholars, to what has been called the "Guild of the Learned." ”

“ Students may take the last two i years of the bachelor's course in the professional school, and as they may enter at mid-year and receive a credit of one half year on the entrance examinations, they may obtain the A.B. degree for a college residence of one and a half years. Students receive extra credits for high standing and deductions for low standing, the excellent system being thus introduced of letting quality of work as well as hours of attendance count for the degree. ”

“ The first graduating class was that of 1867, and comprised four members, to whom were given temporary certificates stating that they were “entitled to be admitted to the First Degree of Liberal Arts,” as the propriety of awarding the degree of “bachelor” to women was questioned at that time; in 1868 these certificates were replaced by diplomas bestowing the degree of A.B. The present equipment includes more than twenty buildings, and the campus has an area of about 400 acres. ”

“ BACHELOR. In the universities of the Church, bachelors are persons who have attained to the baccalaureate, or taken the first degree in arts, divinity, law, or physic. This degree in some universities has no existence, in some the Candidatus answers to it. It was first introduced in the thirteenth century, by Pope Gregory IX., though it is still unknown in Italy. Bachelors of Arts are not admitted to that degree at Oxford and Dublin till after having studied four years at those universities. At Cambridge, the regular period of matriculation is in the October term ”

“ BACHELOR SCHOLAR. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a B.A. who remains in residence after taking his degree, for the purpose of reading for a fellowship or acting as private tutor. He is always noted for superiority in scholarship.
Bristed refers to the bachelor scholars in the annexed extract. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not only should we adhere to our faith in university education, but we can find reasons for raising the standard of a part of university work. Even now, no student should receive a professional degree who has not previously obtained at least a complete high-school education; and the time may come when, in all institutions, at least two years of college life will be required as a basis for a doctor’s or a lawyer’s degree. Graduate courses have become a prominent feature of many American universities, and year by year larger numbers of students seek higher degrees. ”

“ On the virgin lawn, in a spot that will someday lie in the shade of a great oak, a group of students sit, sprawl, lie. The oldest of them is sixteen, and it is true that not one of them has any reverence for college degrees, because the entrance requirements demand the scholastic level of bachelor in the arts, the sciences, in language and literature. ”

“ I trust that the interest—the enduring and increasing interest—which is taken in these annual meetings, will tend to increase in their minds the importance of a University degree, seeing that it is the hall-mark of their scholarship, and that it not only qualifies them for admission to the highest employment open to their ranks in this country, but will so stimulate them, I trust, to rise still higher in the career which they have chosen for themselves. ”