Honorary degree

“ In the university, noblemen are exempted from the public exercises for the degree, &c., by which they attain a degree called honorary. At the same time, the fees they have to pay for matriculation, and on all other occasions, are much higher. ”

“ If anything could increase one’s respect for the benefactor it would be his refusal of this kind of recognition of his services. However there is no harm in very occasional exceptions, because these shout the exceptional circumstances and confuse no one. It is different altogether when to create an honorary degree list Mr. Anybody and Mr. Nobody are called upon to step up. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was always singularly modest as to his claims upon recognition; but it gave him genuine pleasure when in the last year of his life his university conferred upon him an honorary doctor's degree in divinity, and his college made him an honorary fellow. ”

“ Honorary degrees are an affront to the men who have won real degrees by years of hard study. With two or three hundred colleges in this country, each scattering honorary degrees around and multiplying them every year, all degrees have lost something of their value and significance.”
“How shall we address you then?” asked Larry.
“Simply as ‘Mr. Dunbar.’ The President of the United States is entitled to no other address than ‘Mr. President.’ In a republic certainly [288] ‘Mr.’ ought to be title enough for any man. Call me ‘Mr. Dunbar,’ please.”
“Well, now, Mr. ”

“ On the other hand, think of the men who have been struggling all their lives to make this country a little bit of a democracy: take the very truest and bravest of them—how many honorary degrees have they? How many has Louis D. Brandeis? Not one! How many has Robert M. LaFollette? Not one! How many have William E. Borah, Samuel Untermyer, Clarence Darrow, Lincoln Steffens, Fremont Older, Frederick C. Howe, John Haynes Holmes? Not one to divide among them!
No, the academic honors are reserved exclusively for the darlings of the plutocracy, the henchmen and retainers of special privilege. ”

“ Honorary membership in a famous society, or honorary degrees, have great value if wisely awarded. Both are highly prized, form an excellent stimulus to continued work, and as they are both priceless, and without price, they in no way diminish the capacity for work. I recently had occasion to compare the progress in various sciences of different countries, and found that the number of persons elected as foreign associates of the seven great national societies of the world was an excellent test. ”

“ In this order we marched to Sanders Theatre, where, after the usual Commencement exercises, came the conferring of the honorary degrees. This, it seems, is always considered the most interesting feature at Harvard. It is not known, until the individuals appear, upon whom the honorary degrees are to be conferred, and those receiving these honours are cheered by the students and others in proportion to their popularity. During the conferring of the degrees excitement and enthusiasm are at the highest pitch. ”

“ There seems to be no reason why honorary degrees, scholarships, and fellowships should not be bestowed for proficiency in knowledge that relates to the health of mankind, as well as for distinction in classical and mathematical study. ”

“ As a title of address, “his honour” or “your honour” is applied in the United States of America to all judges, in the United Kingdom only to county court judges; in university or other examinations, those who have won particular distinction, or have undergone with success an examination of a standard higher than that required for a “pass” degree, are said to have passed “with honours,” or an “honours” examination or to have taken an “honours degree.” In many games of cards the ace, king, queen and knave of trumps are the “honours.” ”

“ In general, however, we now understand by titles of honour what Selden calls “honorary titles,” i.e. distinctive designations implying rank and dignity, not office or vocation. The broader definition would cover all titles, including those of military and ecclesiastical rank, of municipal office and of university degrees. The narrower definition, which it is proposed to adopt for the purposes of this article, would cover only what in the United Kingdom are known as the “titled classes,” which embrace only those whose titles are meaningless save as a mark of rank. ”

“ We honor the successful teacher, we honor the investigator of Nature's laws, we honor the upright director of affairs—and our late associate had all these claims to our regard; but we honor most of all the noble manhood—and of such make are the founders of great institutions. In comparison, how empty are the ordinary titles of distinction of which most men are proud! It seems now almost trivial to add that our associate was decorated with a Doctor's degree, both by his own university and also by the University at Cambridge ”

“ In other words, to what degree do I value my faculties and my attainments for their own sakes? or are they chiefly prized by me on account of the distinction which they confer, or the superiority which they give me over others? Am I aware that immediate influence and a general acknowledgment of merit are no necessary adjuncts of a successful adherence to study and meditation in those departments of knowledge which are of most value to mankind;—that a recompense of honours and emoluments is far less to be expected ”

“ And may you all, of whatsoever degree and in whatsoever faculty, never forget this; that the University has Committed her honor to the keeping of each and every one of you. No one individual can be guilty of a mean or ignoble action without in some measure casting a tarnish on the lustre of his University; and it may be that hereafter, if ever you should be tempted to swerve from the broad straight path of honor and truth and duty, the recollection of this fact, even if you had no higher or better angel to turn to, may save you from peril in the hour of temptation. ”

“ How fully these anticipations have been realised, how all the "best men" have come forward, we acknowledge with feelings of gratitude and pride. May we now hope that, in thus forming one fresh bond of union among the lovers and professors of Literature in this country, we have contributed towards a recognition of Literature as an honorable profession, and hastened the time when the claims of Literature, Science, and Art to some of those honorary distinctions hitherto exclusively conferred upon the Naval, Military, or Civil Servants of the Crown, will be admitted and acted upon. ”

“ Is any definition of privilege implied? Define honor as taught in a college and honor as taught in the business world. Can a State University afford to maintain the kind of honor that forces it to "remain loyal to unpopular causes and painful truths"? Is the honor that seeks "to maintain faith even with the devil" foolish? Write a report on the state of honor in your college or university such as Washington or Lincoln would have written after investigating conditions in the student politics of the institution, or conditions in examinations and quizzes. ”

“ Besides the written examination, a "practical" examination of three hours is required to show the student's ability at laboratory work. These three honor schools are the most important, and may be regarded as representative. After a man has taken one honor degree, for example, in literæ humaniores, he may take another, for example, in modern history. He then becomes a double honor man, and if he has got a first class in both schools, he is a "double first." ”

“ Gentlemen, stand by your Order and maintain its honour. Regard yourselves as knights-errant sent forth to do battle for the cause of Virtue and Learning. Then quit you like men, be strong; strong in principle, strong in purpose. Fulfil your honourable vocation, and justify by your future conduct the confidence which this University reposes in you by granting you its diploma. ”

“ It [Pg 85] would make their position far more definite and respectable, because all would then be considered honourable to a certain degree, as being the reward of merit; instead of which, too often, they are convenient items of patronage in the hands of the Principal and Fellows, the nomination to them depending on private interest, which, by no means insuring the nominee’s being a gentleman by birth, while it is wholly careless of his being a scholar by education, tends to lower the general standing of the order in the University. ”

“ This institution embraced the whole body of officers belonging to the army and navy, both French and Americans. The right of admitting as honorary members persons of eminence of any nation was also assumed. This adoption of honorary members gave the right only of partaking present munificence, and the enjoyment of the honor during their own lives, however they might have been distinguished in name or character. ”

“ While I thus appear the humble advocate in recommending an ardency for early achievement, I would at the same time urge a gradation of recompence, or of honorary grants, suited to the feelings of every description of its agents. These have been of old standing, and have undergone many a change, alternately adapted to the fluctuating manners of society. Many a useful hint might be gleaned from the institutions of the Greeks and the Romans, and as human nature never alters, they might well be applied to ourselves. ”

“ Whatever degrees you carry from school or college, whatever distinction you may acquire in your career, no title will ever mean quite so much, will ever be quite so noble, as that of gentleman.
"A keen and sure sense of honor," says Ex-President Eliot, of Harvard University, "is the finest result of college life." The graduate who has not acquired this keen and sure sense of honor, this thing that stamps the gentleman, misses the best thing that a college education can impart. ”

“ Now I argue from this, and I think it may be fairly inferred, that those who come to this University are content to look to the first honour they obtain as the only object for which they come to the University. They look upon the honour as a sort of certificate which will enable them to obtain preferment and emolument, and do not seek to obtain University honours for the sake of learning and intellectual culture. ”

“ A class of honorary retired academicians was established in 1862, and of honorary retired associates in 1884. The first honorary foreign academicians were elected in 1869. The honorary members consist of a chaplain, an antiquary, a secretary for foreign correspondence, and professors of ancient history and ancient literature. These posts, which date from the foundation of the Academy, have always been held by distinguished men. ”

“ That academical honours, or any others should be conferred with exact proportion to merit, is more than human judgment or human integrity have given reason to expect. Perhaps degrees in universities cannot be better adjusted by any general rule than by the length of time passed in the public profession of learning. ”

“ To teach a code of honor is one of the main purposes of education; a college cannot say, "We teach academic studies," and throw the responsibility for honor on parents, on preliminary schools, on undergraduate opinion, on each boy's conscience. Honor is taught by the companionship, the standards, the ideals, the talk, the actions of honorable men; it is taught by honoring honorable failure and turning the back on all manner of dishonorable success. ”

“ In the extraordinary examinations a certificate of honor and grace as teacher of primary elementary teaching, and another as superior shall be conceded.
Art. 108. The competitive exercises for these rewards shall be begun on the twentieth day of June, at twelve o’clock in the morning, before a tribunal composed of five instructresses, under the presidency of the directress.
Art. 109. Those scholars who shall have obtained the mark of excellent in all the exercises may become candidates for the degree of elementary and superior revalida for extraordinary reward. ”

“ Gentlemen of the Senate,—The honour which has just been conferred is one which should always be rare, conferred with discrimination, and founded on general acceptance. The Chancellor's speech. I am sure that these requisites are fully satisfied by the degree that has just been conferred. It is rare, for it is, indeed, at this moment unique. ”

“ Believe me that we have sympathized with you in your long labours, and experience, in common with all who value education, a heartfelt delight in being thus able to congratulate you. While some of your body will no doubt enter upon a fresh academical course, with a view to further honours, others of you will probably at once enroll yourselves in some honourable profession. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Such men are an honor to themselves and to their profession, as well as to the free institutions of our country—those institutions which recognise virtue and talents as the only passports to honor and renown. ”