Degree

“ 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. ”

“ The degree in which the study of certain subjects cultivates certain faculties is a matter on which we are far from agreeing. Nor is it decided—in fact we have scarcely begun to discuss—what faculties most need cultivation. ”

“ All qualities and all faculties which are manifested to us in a limited degree, when we conceive of them as unlimited and without degree, become proofs that what exists in a measurable and limited degree may exist without limitation and without degree. ”

“ What are academical degrees so dearly purchased for, but place? and can a professor answer it to his trust or interest, to disparage precedence? For what other reason in nature but precedence, did a great man of my acquaintance lately become a double grand compounder for his degree? and another, undeceive mankind, or rather deceive women, and suffer himself to be pronounced a venerable man in spite of his youthful looks? ”

“ Let a man have the degree, if he shows himself capable of scholarly or scientific treatment of some branch of some subject, but not otherwise. The bachelor's degree should show a general knowledge of several subjects, which may serve as a ground-work for the minuter knowledge of one. The master's degree should show that that minuter knowledge of some one subject has been gained. The complete degree should show, if not the actual presence, at least the very certain promise, of literary eminence or intellectual power. ”

“ Through long custom, we have one degree which is admirably adapted to use as a decoration. This is the title of Doctor of Laws, which has come to be the patent of practical success in any line of activity, not incompatible with a reasonable degree of refinement and intellect. ”

“ The lower degree is meant to mark a certain measure of proficiency in the studies of the faculty; the higher degree is meant to mark a higher [Pg 28] measure of proficiency, that measure which qualifies a man to become, if he thinks good, a teacher in that faculty. ”

“ I shall go right on through the High School, and then I shall attend College and get a Degree. When I have taken my Degree then I will be the human It. My scholarly Attainments and polished Manner will get me past the Door and into the Inner Circle of the Hot Potatoes. ”

“ In the universities of the middle ages the conferring of a degree in any faculty or branch of learning meant the right or qualification to teach in that faculty, whence the terms magister, “master,” and doctor for those on whom the degree had been granted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ No schoolmaster ought to introduce books into his school, teaching that 69 miles make a degree. What do we mean by a degree? The use of the word degree is to define inclination, and it ought to be looked upon as defining a measure of inclination only, and not as defining a measure of length. ”

“ It will be readily admitted, that a degree conferred by an university, ought to be a pledge to the public that he who holds it possesses a certain quantity of knowledge. ”

“ I would prescribe one of the classic tongues, Greek or Latin, as a compulsory study to the day of graduation, the one royal road to a knowledge of all that is finest in letters and art. 1 would force every student to reason closely all through his college days; while no man not trained to observe, and equal to tests in observation, should receive a degree. ”

“ With this foundation, what hope is there that, in working for the degree, the student will leave the beaten track and take to science, when he has Greek, English, Modern Language, and History from which to select his optional subjects? ”

“ Unlesse after due triall and examination, he be found equall in Learning, to the best or most part of that Classe, to which he desires to ascend, by over-leaping a mid-Classe, or to the best or most part of those who are to be graduat, if he supplicate to obtain any degree before the ordinary time. ”

“ Those who looked forward to a University degree, or any career in which public examinations must play an important part, were placed on the "Collegiate" side, and trained accordingly in the necessary classics, mathematics and physics, which would fit them for matriculation, or as candidates for certain scholarships. ”

“ What is higher has a greater degree (or it has a greater number of degrees) of something definite; what is lower has a less degree or number of degrees. Their quality, as higher and lower, is referable to quantity. ”

“ A man degrading for any other reason cannot go out afterwards in honors."—Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 98.
I could choose the year below without formally degrading.—Ibid., p. 157.
DEGREE. A mark of distinction conferred on students, as a testimony of their proficiency in arts and sciences; giving them a kind of rank, and entitling them to certain privileges. This is usually evidenced by a diploma. Degrees are conferred pro meritis on the alumni of a college; or they are honorary tokens of respect, conferred on strangers of distinguished reputation. ”

“ When fourteen years old, he took his bachelor's degree, after a rigorous examination not only in the classics but astronomy, mathematics, jurisprudence, and theology, at an age when most youths would have been accounted brilliant if able to enter that high school with credit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is only in modern times that the conferring of a degree follows upon a set written examination. For six hundred years the aspiring bachelor and master obtained their status by public disputations in the schools. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I had taken a pretty good degree, and after that I had to go to an expensive crammer for three months to be sure of a decent place in that exam. I was nearly at the top in classics, history and law, but my higher maths let me down. Good God! ”

“ 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. ”

“ In 1858 I received the degree of D. S. from the Lawrence Scientific School, and thereafter remained on the rolls of the university as a resident graduate. ”

“ The course of education is extended to four years, at the end of which those who take a degree, who are not many, become masters of arts, and whoever is a master may, if he pleases, immediately commence doctor. ”

“ There has been of late an increasing recognition of the justice of giving pupils different degrees of credit for work which they do in one and the same course. The student who carries a course in algebra with a high grade undoubtedly learns more than the student who does low-grade work in the same class. ”

“ He was very nearly plucked when examined for his bachelorship in arts, and obtained his degree only by special favour, a term used in that university to denote want of merit. He is said to have been idle and irregular ”

“ In most American universities a sharp Organization. distinction is made between undergraduates and graduates, between those who are candidates for the baccalaureate degree (A.B., S.B., and Ph.B.) and those who are engaged in higher professional study, like law, medicine and theology, or in the manifold branches of modern science, like philology, historical and political science (including economics) , philosophy (including logic, ethics and psychology) , mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, &c. ”

“ The full course of the upper colleges lasts seven or nine years,-the first three in ‘philosophy,’ followed by The upper colleges furnish training in ‘philosophy’ and theology. four or six in theology. The training in ‘philosophy’ now includes not only logic, metaphysics, psychology, ethics, and natural theology, but also work in algebra, 135 geometry, trigonometry, analytics, calculus, and mechanics, and such natural sciences as physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and physiology. A successful completion of the course leads to the degree of Master of Arts. ”

“ CLASS. A number of students in a college or school, of the same standing, or pursuing the same studies. In colleges, the students entering or becoming members the same year, and pursuing the same studies.—Webster.
In the University of Oxford, class is the division of the candidates who are examined for their degrees according to their rate of merit. Those who are entitled to this distinction are denominated Classmen, answering to the optimes and wranglers in the University of Cambridge.—Crabb's Tech. ”

“ In addition to specific exercises and devices which ensure accuracy in special points, we should observe certain general rules which will be described and treated under the heading of gradation.
10. Gradation
Gradation means passing from the known to the unknown by easy stages, each of which serves as a prepara [23] tion for the next. If a course or a lesson is insufficiently graded, or graded on a wrong basis, the student’s work will be marked by an excessive degree of inaccuracy. If a course is well graded, the student’s rate of progress will increase in proportion as he advances. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was certainly originally intended that the degrees which require only a knowledge of the classics should be taken at an earlier age, in order to admit of a residence after they were taken, during which the student might devote himself to science or composition, and those habits of reflection by which the mind might be formed, and a practical advantage drawn from the stores of knowledge already acquired. ”

“ Our universities and colleges vary so little in this phase of the administration of the curriculum that the detailed distribution of the grades of a few institutions for a few years will fairly represent the practise, except in two or three universities, throughout the country. The grades A, B, C, D usually represent degrees of excellence between 100 per cent, and 60 per cent, of some undefined thing and are all pass marks. ”

“ In America, this degree is conferred, without examination, on Bachelors of three years' standing. At Harvard, this degree was formerly conferred only upon examination, as will be seen by the following extract. "Every schollar that giveth up in writing a System, or Synopsis, or summe of Logick, naturall and morall Philosophy, Arithmetick, Geometry and Astronomy: And is ready to defend his Theses or positions: Withall skilled in the originalls as above-said ”

“ In the abstract or at large, apart from the needs of a particular situation in which choice has to be made, there is no such thing as degrees or order of value. ”

“ In many cases, the diploma that the student carries home with him at the conclusion of his course is nothing less than a gold brick. It has made him believe that he has gotten an education, when he has actually never had an opportunity to find out what an education is.
I have in mind a young man who came to us from one of those little colleges to which I have referred where he had studied Greek, Latin, German, astronomy, and, among other things, stenography. ”

“ The classes are arranged into a number of sections, according to their class rank, as determined at the previous annual examination, or according to rank in some particular study—for instance, for instruction in engineering the first class is arranged according to merit in philosophy, and not according to general merit or class rank. ”