Columbia A. B. Degree.

In view of the recent adoption of a three years' course by the University, more than usual interest is attached to the report recently issued by President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia.

The question brought principally under discussion in the report falls naturally into two parts: How long a preparation shall professional schools of law, medicine, and the like, require of candidates for admission; and how far can the college go toward providing such preparation? To the first part of of this question there seem to be three possible answers. The University may put its professional schools on a par with the college, demanding for both the same secondary school education; it may demand the completion of the present four years' college course for admission to the higher schools; or it may demand the completion of a shortened college course.

In order to decide what part in higher education the college shall play, the last two answers must be considered more at length; though, as President Butler suggests, no general rule for all colleges is likely to prove desirable, for colleges may have "somewhat different ideals to labor for." Taking Columbia as an example, however, the four years' course appears too long. A sentiment against it has been growing up for many years and has been made manifest lately by Harvard's announcement favoring graduation in three years and by Columbia's provision which allows the last college year to be combined with the first year in the professional schools. Both of these plans are criticized, however, as failing to give support to a college course of purely liberal study and as dividing the interest of the student in a way that is satisfactory neither to the college nor to the professional schools.

A better plan would seem to be one by which the college should offer a two and a four years' course, the former to be included in the latter. At the end of the two years' course the bachelor's degree would be awarded-at the end of the four years' course the master's degree. This suggestion seems less revolutionary when it is remembered that since 1860 the standard of requirements for the degree of A.B. has risen steadily, and that the age of its recipients has advanced about two years. President Butler adds: "By taking this step we should retain the college, with its two years of liberal studies, as an integral element in our system; shorten by two years the combined periods of secondary school, college and professional instruction; and . . . at the same time we should retain the four years' course with all its manifest advantages and opportunities to all who look forward to a scholarly career, and for as many of those who intend to enter upon some active business after graduation as can be induced to follow it."