Category: Columbia

The economic historian Vladimir G. Simkhovitch appears to have been one of several voices encouraging a major rethink of the organization and administration of graduate education at Columbia in the mid-1930s. President Butler thought that after a half-century of graduate education in the United States, it would be reasonable to consider the kind of reforms needed to adapt to the changing circumstances without compromising the purpose of training Ph.D.’s, namely to produce research as well as train young scholars in the methods of research.

Butler tasked the philosopher Frederick J. E. Woodbridge (1867-1940) to head up the faculty committee that included Simkhovitch. 

While this post does not deal with the content of graduate education in economics, it is useful to see the larger institutional debates that undoubtedly at least in part reflected the experience of economics departments at that time.

Woodbridge’s major point is that the composition of the graduate student body had changed, becoming far more heterogeneous and concerned with the Paper Chase (Ph.D. degree increasingly seen primarily as a job market signal, especially for extra-academic employment). But there is much more in the report and much of it will be familiar to 21st century educators.

______________

November 18, 1936

CONFIDENTIAL

Professor F. J. E. Woodbridge
39 Claremont Avenue
New York City

Dear Professor Woodbridge:

I enclose a letter written me by Professor Simkhovitch under date of November 10 [not in file] which I would like you to read and return to me at your convenience.

Having this in mind and various other suggestions and criticisms which have come to me during the last year or two, I am proposing at the next meeting of the University Council to appoint a committee of nine to study this whole question as it now exists and to see what improvements if any can or should be effected in our rules governing the awarding of the Ph.D. degree and their administration. I am going to put upon the committee a number of men who are not administrative officers but who will look at the matter from the standpoint of university teachers and research workers. I want you to serve as chairman of that committee in order that it may have the dignity and the invaluable guidance which it will so greatly need.

My suggestion is that the committee should meet at least once or twice at your apartment so that you could clear the ground from the viewpoint of your own experience and reflections, and then that the vice-chairman, who will be Professor Westermann, should guide the work of the committee with such supervision and attention as you would feel able to give. Whenever there would be a meeting which you wish to attend, it should be held in your apartment.

You will be able to render a new and very great service to us all by inspiring and guiding the work of this group. In substance, our rules governing the Ph.D. degree have not changed for a generation and perhaps conditions have become such that they should be altered. Whether that be true or not, it will be a very helpful thing to have the whole ground gone over from the viewpoint of 1936-1937.

Sincerely yours,
[signature stamp]
Nicholas Murray Butler

______________

FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE
525 West 116^th Street
New York City

Nov. 22/36

My dear President Butler:

I was sorry to miss you this afternoon when you called. Professor Egbert had taken me to his apartment for Sunday dinner and I did not return until nearly four. I am particularly sorry because I should have liked to talk with you about the interesting proposal you have made to me in your letter of November 18.

I shall be glad to serve as chairman of the proposed committee and to serve actively. Dr. Norton S. Brown has convinced me that I should be prudent in the matter of my health, not in order to avoid sudden death, but in order to avoid a lingering and progressive illness. I have, however, considerable liberty so long as I spend most of my time in a horizontal position. So I see no reason at present why I should not expect to attend regularly the meetings of the committee either at my apartment or at my office and still keep perpendicularity within limits. It is worth trying.

The problem of instruction and degrees under the Graduate Faculties is now, as I see it, defined by the students who come to us and not by our academic traditions. I fear that this fact is too much overlooked. Our requirements still look admirable on paper, but they are lacking in realism because they presuppose a different student situation than the one with which we are faced. Our students as a rule are neither stupid nor incapable, but very few of them have learned in college how to study effectively. Our colleges are to blame, but we can not wait upon a reformation of the colleges. Our business is to produce teachers who will reform the college. Indeed, attempts to reform education in this country by beginning at the bottom seem to me to be futile. We must begin at the top. This is difficult, but it is something which well deserves study by a group interested primarily in teaching. I shall be glad to contribute what I can to such a study and I thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Sincerely yours
(SIGNED)
Frederick J. E. Woodbridge

to
President Nicholas Murray Butler
Columbia University

______________

[Sent to each of the names listed below]

November 24, 1936

Professor F. J. E. Woodbridge
Department of Philosophy

Dear Professor Woodbridge:

For several years past I have been receiving from members of the faculties, from alumni, and from graduate students, suggestions relative to the conditions upon which the degree of Doctor of Philosophy is at present conferred and to the requirements for that degree. Many of these suggestions have been in criticism of existing practices and have urged that these be carefully examined with a view to their improvement.

In view of these suggestions, both oral and written, I beg now to appoint a Committee, consisting of members of the Graduate Faculties, to make a thorough study of this whole subject and to submit a report thereon to the President, before the close of the present academic year if possible, in order that this report may be laid by him before the University Council and the Graduate Faculties concerned, for their consideration. The Committee is designated as follows and will meet at the call of the Chairman.

Frederick J. E. Woodbridge — Chairman
Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy

Dino Bigongiari —
Da Ponte Professor of Italian

[added pencil note:  Leslie C. Dunn (12-11) Professor of Zoology]

John R. Dunning —
Assistant Professor of Physics

Isaac L. Kandel —
Professor of Education

Frank Gardner Moore —
Professor of Latin

Ralph L. Rusk —
Professor of English

Vladimir G. Simkhovitch —
Professor of Economic History

Harold C. Urey —
Professor of Chemistry

William L. Westermann —
Professor of Ancient History

Faithfully yours
[stamp signature]
Nicholas Murray Butler

______________

Remarks of the Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, Chairman, at the first meeting of the President’s Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, held on December 9, 1936.

[Pencil note: sent to members of Committee, Dec. 11, 1936]

The inquiry which the President has asked this committee to make can not, I think, be disassociated from a general inquiry into the educational problems with which the Graduate Faculties are at present faced. I should like to begin our deliberations with a few remarks on this subject.

For the past fifty years at least, education in this country has been lacking in stability. I may cite my own experience in illustration. I began my teaching in 1894 at the University of Minnesota. From that year to the present, I have repeatedly with others been engaged in educational reorganization and reform. There is no need to go into details. Teachers as old as I am have had the same experience if they have been active in college and university administration. They have witnessed periodic reorganizations which have varied from the gentle to the violent without, however, exhibiting a progressive approach to a stable educational policy. It is even now expected that a new president will reform the institution of which he is put in charge, that a new dean will reform his school, and that a new department head will reform his department. President Hutchins’ recent lectures at Yale on “The Higher Learning”, no matter what one may think of their content, are illustrative of a prevalent temper of mind.

About the beginning of this period of turmoil graduate schools began to appear. They adopted a fairly well defined educational policy, borrowed largely from abroad rather than built upon American social and economic conditions. To this policy they have in the main adhered although there have been many changes in the administration of it. Graduate schools proceeded on an assumption which, for a time, was justified, namely, that the bachelor’s degree as awarded by American colleges represented a fairly uniform intellectual background and discipline on the part of students who entered the graduate schools. When I came to Columbia in 1902, this assumption was questionable, but still had considerable evidence to support it. Today it has no evidence at all to support it. Yet, in principle and is generally expressed in printed regulations, the graduate school is still what it was originally conceived to be — a school who students are like-minded, have a general education adequate as a preparation for advanced instruction and research, and have the ambition to attain scholarly distinction in some branch of learning. The realistic fact is that the graduate school has now a student body radically different from the type which it, in principle, presupposes. This is a fact which, I think, calls for study on our part.

It is also a fact that the personnel of the graduate faculty is not of the kind which its principles call for. To this fact also we should pay attention. I put it aside for the present because I feel that the student body is the subject for the initial study. A clear understanding of what the student body is like on to lead to suggestions of effective ways of dealing with the student situation.

Dean McBain in his report for the period ending June 30, 1935, gave the results of a preliminary study he had made of certain factors like residence, employment, full and part-time registration, which enter into the determination of the character of the student body. It is a report with many important implications which, as he points out, require farther study and should be supplemented with personal interviews. I think this ought to be undertaken.

My own experience as dean led me to the conviction that the majority of our graduate students are here for no clearly defined purpose. They are here, I might say, from force of habit reinforced by the conviction that continued going to school is a good thing, socially, intellectually, and vocationally. They take pride in being known as graduate students at Columbia and candidates for a degree. Less than half of them, however, take the pains to secure a master’s degree although the requirements for that degree are well within their time and ability. Clearly the presence in the graduate school of so many students of this kind has an effect upon its intellectual character. I do not suggest their elimination. I would suggest, however, that their presence should not be allowed to determine methods of instruction or requirements for degrees.

I do not wish to anticipate the inquiries of the committee, but there are certain facts which it may be advisable to keep in mind from the start. Faced with the student body we have, the problem of their instruction seems to be of first importance. In any consideration of this problem, it is important to remember that the students as a rule have never really had the opportunity of a free election of courses, either in college or in the graduate school. Their studies have been pursued under a system of planned supervision all the way from the preparatory school to the attainment of the doctor’s degree. I must regard it as unfortunate when students after the age say of 18 are continuously subjected to a system of supervised study. The prolongation of intellectual immaturity and of the habits of tutelage is the inevitable result. Our system of higher education in America seems to breed intellectual passivity instead of intellectual activity. The graduate school ought, I think, to put a stop to this. Not only is it bad for the students, it is also bad for departments. Departments unnecessarily multiply courses and, under a system which fosters the supervision of election, students are often debarred from taking advantage of what the graduate school has to offer outside of the departments of their major interests.

Departmental sequestration of students would be less objectionable if we could presuppose that they had had a general education of consequence and now have the intellectual habits of the scholar. They have, as a rule, neither. The colleges rather than the students are to blame because in colleges generally subjects seem to be studied for some other purpose than the understanding of them. We can not wait on a reform of the colleges. Their reform in this matter depends on securing a different type of teacher on their faculties and we ought to provide that type of teachers.

The problem of instruction in the graduate school is in a very real sense a de novoproblem. It involves a transformation of intellectual habits and outlook. It involves freeing students from tutelage, forcing them to become familiar with the more conspicuous problems in the field of learning generally, arousing in them respect for disinterested study, and awakening in them a clear understanding of what they are doing. This may sound like elementary instruction, but I fear that it is the kind of instruction that few of our best students have ever had. To presuppose that they have had it is a great mistake.

I propose, therefore, for your consideration as something to undertake first a study of the character of the student body. I propose farther that the study begin with inquiries made, not by a sub-committee, but by the members of this committee individually, for the membership is representative of the three graduate faculties. I am inclined to think that individual reports in matters of this kind are of greater value than the report of a sub-committee. The individual guided by a few general suggestions can be left free to follow the lead of important matters which turn up in the course of his inquiries, and individual points of view in a matter like this are highly desirable. I wish to avoid the questionnaire for that instrument is, I fear, to successful in concealing information. Personal and free interviews with students are more revealing. I would suggest that interviews with the better students, like past and present holders of scholarships and fellowships, are particularly desirable, but each member of the committee will naturally use his own discretion in this matter and be guided by his own experience.

The inquiry may take the general form following:

1. A continuation of the inquiry begun by Dean McBain in his report of June 30, 1935. There is much in the report suggesting the advantage of personal interviews.
2. A study of the relation of undergraduate studies to graduate studies to ascertain what sort of preparation, general specific and auxiliary, students have had and how their studies in the graduate school are related to that preparation. Here personal interviews are important in order to find out what the expectations of the students are and how the undergraduate courses of a student ought to be supplemented if, in two or three years say, he can be regarded as a competent scholar.
3. A study of the experience of teaching officers with students. What do they find students to be like and what do they find they can and cannot expect from them? This sort of information ought to be valuable as throwing light on what instructors are actually doing.

These three suggestions are made to indicate lines of possible advantageous inquiry. The individual members of the committee will use their discretion in dealing with them.

The next meeting of the committee will be held Saturday morning, December 19, at 10 o’clock in Room 704 Philosophy to consider such progress as the inquiry may have made in such other matters as may be presented by members of the committee.

Frederick J. E. Woodbridge
Chairman

December 12, 1936

______________

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK

February 18, 1937

To the Members of the Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy:

Following the suggestion made at our meeting on February 13, 1937 I am sending you the memorandum I then read having changed it a little in view of the discussion that followed. The memorandum is not offered as recommending a plan, although it is in the form of one, but rather to focus attention on certain points which are deliberations have brought pretty much to the front. It raises, besides many general questions three specific ones:

1. Should candidates for the degree be given a radically different status from that of graduate students generally?
2. How much individual freedom and responsibility should candidates have?
3. How far should the control and responsibility of individual professors, particularly those immediately concerned with the candidate’s progress be emphasized as over against that of departments?

The opening paragraphs of the memorandum are an attempt to define the meaning of the degree in terms of our present procedure. Then follows a reference to three matters which have been emphasized in our discussions: (1) limitation of numbers, (2) definition of “department” and “subject” and (3) matriculation. The last is presented in the form of the plan referred to above.

The degree of Ph.D. at Columbia and elsewhere generally represents the satisfactory completion by college graduates of two or more years of graduate study of a “subject” under the direction of a “department” in the writing of a “dissertation” acceptable to an examining committee appointed by the Dean. The student is expected to defend his dissertation before this committee and the committee may examine him on subjects related thereto and also extend the examination farther if it seems fit to do so. The diploma is a certificate by the University that all this has been properly done. It is supposed also to be a certificate of scholarly competence, and such competence is regarded as the important consideration. How far this supposition is realized depends almost exclusively on the administration of departmental regulations.

Holders of the degree enjoy social and economic advantages. They may be saluted as Doctor and that means prestige. They form a group generally recognized as particularly eligible for a variety of paying positions, and thereby have an economic advantage over others of equal and even greater competence who are not holders of the degree. It is easier to “place” in these positions one who holds the degree than one who does not. In other words, the degree has the effect of dividing aspirants for these positions into two classes, the eligible in the ineligible. This may be said to be the particular privilege appertaining to the degree and, naturally, that privilege influences students to undertake graduate study who otherwise would not do so.

What the degree means administratively and what it means socially and economically define a situation with which we may work, but which we are powerless to change in its general character. Whatever administration is set up, university degrees, and particularly the degree of Ph.D., will carry with them social and economic advantages. They will be sought by many for that reason alone. The situation would obviously change of itself if holders of the degree turned out to be generally of little or no distinguished competence. Suspicion that the character of the present student body and laxity in the administration are responsible for a lowering of standards of competence, is the sole reason for anxiety about this degree. There is enough ground for this suspicion to make it desirable to consider ways and means of bettering the administration.

Students are now admitted to the University under the jurisdiction of the Graduate Faculties solely on condition that they have an acceptable bachelor’s degree or have had an education equivalent to that represented by such a degree. Here the Office of University Admissions has jurisdiction. Since the bachelor’s degree does not represent any uniformity of education, the student body is very miscellaneous in intellectual background and discipline. It is miscellaneous also in attendance and in the division of time given to study into other pursuits. Columbia, because of its location, attracts many students whose attendance is dependent on their convenience and who are often obliged to make their attendance incidental. Because of the circumstances, admission to graduate study is not regarded as equivalent to acceptance as a candidate for a degree. For such acceptance, students have to satisfy requirements supplementary to those for admission and these are fixed by departments under certain general and uniform provisions made by the Faculties.

Changes in the requirements for admission to graduate study are probably neither necessary nor wise. Changes in the requirements for candidacy may be both. Here seems to be the natural point of departure for reform of our present practice regarding the degree of Ph.D. if such reformists thought expedient. The selection from the student body, so diversified in its character, of properly qualified candidates for the degree, is of first importance. There is a diversity of opinion regarding how, when, and on what conditions the selection should be made. Among suggestions offered in this connection there are here noted as topics for consideration.

1. Limitation of the number of candidates in departments.

The departments should restrict the number of candidates to the quota they can adequately provide for. This naturally raises the question of the meaning of adequate provision and illustrates how we have repeatedly found suggestions interlocking. Perhaps, however, adequate provision may be defined independently in a preliminary weight at least. It may be defined in terms of presently available space and equipment and presently available staff. There seems to be no doubt that the larger departments especially are overburdened with candidates and unable to give them the desired attention. Still further increasing the size of the department does not seem to be an adequate remedy for it is evident that large numbers account for many of the difficulties we now encounter. Fewer candidates would be a decided advantage.

2. Redefining “department” and “subject”.

This is a matter well deserving attention. Personally I question every departmental division of the field of knowledge and every “classification of sciences” except the most general. The labor of investigation may be divided, but the “scheme of things” presses upon us all in its entirety. Our own departmental divisions have grown out of budgetary and administrative convenience and historical accidents rather than out of educational wisdom. They overlap in their interests as do our three faculties. All this is very patent when our announcements are examined. Furthermore there is a tendency to multiply and sub-divide departments and there is confusion in the distinction between “department” and “subject”. Departments are sometimes subjects and subjects are sometimes departments. This is also patent from the announcements. All this confusion tends to make “specialization” too much like an exclusion of relevant matters in a focusing of attention. It begets the alarm of “narrow specialization” in ignorance of the fact that “broad specialization” would be a calamity.

3. Matriculation examination.

Here there is such a difference of opinion that I venture to propose an outline a plan to be criticized, acutely aware that it is open to many objections.

1. Matriculation examinations should be regularly scheduled in the examination periods at the end of each winter in spring session.
2. They should be both written and oral.
   1. A written examination on specified subject matter prepared by the department and read by at least two readers.
   2. A written examination of the comprehensive objective type now coming more and more into use as a test of general equipment and mental traits; this examination to be prepared by a committee of the faculties.
   3. An oral examination by the professor expected to be in charge of the candidate’s future work who may associate others with him.
   4. An oral examination in the reading of French and German. This might be part of (3).
   5. judgment should be rendered on the examination as a whole so that applicants, if accepted as candidates, are accepted without conditions; in the examination as a whole should be the last ceremonial examination to which candidates are subject.
3. Students accepted as candidates should be required to be in full time residence for at least three semesters subsequent to matriculation during which period they would pay a flat tuition fee and have the freedom of the University which means that they should be free to attend any courses open to general regulation and be obligated for no other work in them than that which attendance implies. The special work on which they are engaged should be pursued under the direction of the professor in charge of it who should consider himself obligated to see to it that they use the freedom of the University effectively.
4. The dissertation should be prepared under the direction of the professor in charge. When it has progressed far enough for a preliminary judgment, it should be submitted to a committee of criticism for such suggestions as the committee considers pertinent and it should periodically thereafter be so submitted until the professor in charge and the committee are satisfied of its merit. There will be no final examination or defense of the dissertation as at present.

Among the effects such matriculation would have are the following:

1. No student would matriculate until after one semester after admission.
2. Every recipient of the degree would have had at least three semesters in full residence and at least one — the one prior to matriculation — in full or partial residence.
3. The award of the degree would depend on what candidates accomplished after matriculation.
4. Individual professors rather than departments would be responsible for the direction of the work of students after matriculation substituting thus individual for corporate responsibility.
5. The number of candidates would be controlled by the number of students for whom individual professors assumed responsibility.

The object of this proposal is to make of the post-matriculation period a period with a social and intellectual status radically different from the present among candidates for the degree and the professors in charge of their work. It has the additional object of making it possible greatly to reduce the number of candidates and to increase the responsibility of professors. Responsibility cannot be administered. It is, however, more acutely felt when the emphasis is personal and social than when responsibility is shifted to administrative machinery. One more comment: although the responsibility of professors is increased many present distractions from their work would probably disappear.

I raise the question whether in our report to the President we should formulate any specific plan for regulating the award of the degree. There is just complaint about the present situation. Perhaps we should confine our report to an indication of the places in the present administration where improvements might be made. I think, however, that it would help to clarify our own minds and make our work more effective, should the faculties undertake a revision of requirements, if we worked out a scheme for such a revision ourselves. If the degree ought to have greater scholarly and personal significance then it now has, we have, I think, an obligation to be prepared to do more than indicate where improvements might be made.

Respectfully submitted,
FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE
Columbia University

______________

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Department of Philosophy

May 12, 1937

President Nicholas Murray Butler
Columbia University

Dear Mr. President:

Your Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy begs leave to make the following preliminary report and asks to be continued.

The problems of the degree are bound up with the system of general education in the country. This would obviously be true in any event, but at the present time the problems are complicated by the fact that general education in this country has been undergoing constant reformation for the past fifty years and has not yet attained sufficient stability to serve as a basis for constructive and consistent planning by graduate schools. “An acceptable bachelor’s degree” is now, generally, the sole requirement for admission to these schools and that degree has long since ceased to represent uniformity in intellectual background and discipline. There is constant complaint that the recipients of it are “uneducated.” The complaint often means little more and that the complainer does not like the education which the recipients have received. There is, however, one fairly uniform complaint free from personal prejudice, and this is that far too many college graduates have not attained that intellectual maturity which enables them to know their own minds, to estimate their own work in relation to its specific and general bearings, to study independently, and to be actively aware of the instrumentalities needed for such study. They evidently expect that such deficiencies, so far as they are aware of them, will be made good under the tutelage of their instructors, after entering the graduate school and as their work proceeds. They may have good minds and be intellectually alert, inquisitive, ambitious, and even precocious, but they are generally lacking in experience of the intellectual discipline which marks the scholar.

The situation was different, because it was much more simple, when graduate schools began to be established in this country. The prime motive for these schools was desire to provide at home the sort of opportunity which college graduates found for continued study in European universities. In those days our colleges had, as a rule, a fairly uniform and much restricted curriculum. It had the great advantage, however, of submitting students to many years of discipline in a few subjects which usually carried them as far in them as most of the recipients of the master’s degree and many of the doctors are today carried in the same subjects. They attended our graduate schools for reasons like those which still led to many of them to go abroad, for an enlarged intellectual and cultural experience, for a freer opportunity for independent study, and to win scholarly distinction. Graduate schools could then frame their organization and set up the requirements for their degree with the knowledge that their students were, in general, much alike, differing in ability rather than in intellectual background and discipline. They could regard the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as the recognition of matured and independent scholarship and as a certification of ability both to teach and to investigate. Graduate schools were in fact what they were conceived to be, institutions for advanced instruction and research based on a college education conspicuously uniform in intellectual character.

The situation today is very different. The familiar causes which have brought the change about need not be rehearsed. Some of the consequences need to be emphasized. Graduate schools, for example, have had an effect upon the colleges which was not originally expected. The original expectation was clearly that colleges and graduate schools would supplement each other to the advantage of both. Something else happened. The College tended more and more to look upon itself as the final custodian of general education and upon the graduate school as a school for the training of specialists. This tendency was fortified by the advancement of professional schools to university status which led them to look to the college for preparatory training for their own students. It was repellent to the colleges to be forced into the position of preparatory schools and this repulsion was reinforced by social pressure. One finds abundant evidence of all this in the educational literature since the opening of the century. The question of the place of the college in the general system is still in debate. Dear as “the dear Old College” is to the hearts of alumni, there are many serious students of education who question the wisdom of its continuance beyond what is now usually represented by its first two years. The Junior College and then the University with its various schools is the sequence which has many advocates. Our colleges naturally resist this recommendation to commit suicide in the interest of a plan commended for its rationality alone. They insist that a liberal education in the interest of an enlightened citizenry, socially minded, is their obligation; beyond that lies the University. The old College with its narrow and restricted curriculum did produce specialists although they were marked under the title of liberally or classically educated persons. The new college with its vastly enlarged and freer curriculum and the consequent meaning given to the adjective “liberal” has removed from the bachelor’s degree any standard educational significance.

As a consequence the graduate school is put into a position it was not originally intended to occupy. Admission to it in terms of a bachelor’s degree is not a definition of acceptability for candidacy for its degrees unless these degrees are themselves transformed into a certificate for the completion of courses of study adapted to the character of the student body entering. The emphasis tends to shift from subjects to persons with the studies accommodated to the varied antecedent preparation of the students and to the varied purposes for which they seek the degrees. Provision is expected, for example, for the study of German philosophy with no knowledge of the German language, for the study of statistics with no adequate preparation in mathematics, for the study of one branch of science with no adequate knowledge of intimately related other branches or even of the science itself. After admission it is hoped that such and similar deficiencies will be made good. In short the graduate school is forced to recognize that admission to it does not carry with it the presumption that an admitted student is a fit candidate for a degree. It carries the contrary presumption. His fitness is usually subsequently determined, but it is clear that subsequent determination becomes more and more embarrassing the longer it is deferred. Tests of endurance encroach on tests of fitness.

Another important consequence of educational and social changes which affects the graduate school is the estimate of its degrees in terms of values other than those originally intended. They were intended to mark the progress of college graduates in scholarly and teaching proficiency. Only in that sense were they professional degrees and that sense is still the one proclaimed in announcements. It is not, however, what may be called their present operative sense. Their possession rather than what they are supposed to represent has become an important asset in securing positions of greater diversity in character, in discharging, without examination into fitness, the qualifications for entrance upon various careers, and enhancing social distinction. Much of this sort of thing is natural enough, for university degrees, even in a democratic society, will humanly be regarded as honors irrespective of the merit of their possessors. This frailty may be dismissed with irony rather than with condemnation. It becomes more than a frailty when it becomes educationally operative. When the degree is sought, not as a recognition of merit, but as a qualification for advancement and when social and economic pressure effectively supports the seeking of it for that purpose, the graduate school, if it yields, has lost control of its own degrees. The assumption, for example, that are very large number of graduate students indicates an eagerness for scholarship, is absurd. It indicates rather the pressure of social and economic circumstances which tend to warp the graduate school from its professed purpose.

Large number of students and particularly rapid increase of numbers have had an unfortunate effect on faculty personnel. Hasty and ill-considered appointments, especially in the junior grades, are made under the pressure of instructional needs and with the perilous expectation that they will be temporary — an expectation too frequently fulfilled by their becoming permanent. For the instructional needs tend to increase instead of to diminish. The failure of graduate departments to reproduce their leaders is too conspicuous. There never seems time to do what would be done if there were time to do it: That is a much too common complaint. There is too much pitiful discussion of how much time should be given to “teaching” and how much to “research.” It is pitiful because that sort of division of a scholar’s time is the sad confession that what scholarship is has either been forgotten or never known.

Adverse criticism, some of it querulous but much of it sound, of the recipients of graduate degrees, is another consequence of the changes noted above. The taunt that college graduates are uneducated is repeated in the case of holders of graduate degrees, and, it is safe to say, with as much force. In both cases the taunt needs to be discounted. Yet it is clear that the difficulty of securing well-trained teachers and scholars for our colleges and universities has increased in spite of the fact that graduate schools have been operative for half a century. This is a very serious matter. The thing that is conspicuously rare in the product of our graduate schools is a thing eminently desirable, namely, a living sense of the continuity of learning and of the dominant ideas that have characterized it. Our graduate schools can claim no exclusiveness in the matter of a genuinely intellectual society, but obviously they should be citadels in such a society. As it is, they are over-departmentalized and departmentalization is in danger of running riot. The catchword for this is “narrow specialization.” But specialization is highly to be commended as a potent factor in the division of intellectual labor. It is narrowing only when pursued in an atmosphere of narrowness, only when not straying beyond one’s own little field is looked upon as a virtue instead of a vice. Such a moral distortion is the great enemy of an intellectual society. Our graduate schools have not done and do not do what they might to make this distortion less current. They have assisted it by dividing and subdividing departments, by multiplying “subjects,” and by the “proliferation” — an apt biological simile — of courses to such an extent that “the course” or “courses” tend to become what teachers “give” and students “take,” often in shameful ignorance of their intellectual purpose and justification.

It is apparent from the foregoing that your Committee has had much to occupy its attention. In our study of the situation, many questions have been considered upon which we are not yet prepared to make recommendations, such as limitation of the number of entering students, quotas for various departments; fellowships, scholarships, and stipends of various sorts; fees by points or a flat fee; clearer definitions of such terms as “attendance,” “residents,” “subject,” “department,” “full-time” and “part-time” students; nature of graduate study, course requirements with the implication of supervised registration or free registration with more emphasis on independent individual study; responsibility to the public independent of the matter of degrees; limitations of faculty and departmental control; ultimate requirements for the degree. We are convinced that the conception of graduate degrees as evidenced by the published profession of graduate schools should be maintained, but that the methods of maintaining it need revision in view of existing conditions. At present we have but one recommendation to make and it affects the entrance upon graduate work.

Your Committee began its studies with an examination of the student body involved, starting with the investigation begun by Dean McBain in his report for the academic year ending June 30, 1935. The result of this study was the conviction that it has become necessary to distinguish more clearly and definitely than is now done, candidates for the degree from the entire student body and the distinction should be gone as early as possible in order that, by progressive steps, a group of candidates may be selected for whom particular provision should be made. We make no recommendation touching the present requirement for admission generally. We do, however, recommend that for presumptive candidates for both the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy the general requirement for admission be supplemented by a departmental examination to be satisfied upon entrance and before registration is complete. The master’s degree is included in the recommendation in order that candidacy for it may not operate as a substitute for the proposed examination and also to safeguard that degree more effectively than is now done. The recommendation is presented in the following form:

A qualifying examination for prospective candidacy for the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy shall be given by departments at the beginning of each session and prior to the completion of registration. Only students who have satisfied this examination, normally upon entrance, will be regarded as prospective candidates.

1. The ground to be covered in the examination shall be specified by each department in terms of clearly defined subject-matter, with an indication of the literature important in preparation for it. The examination shall be designed to show whether the student is sufficiently grounded in the subject in which he expects to specialize and whether he has a satisfactory background of general culture and scholarship, command of English usage, and ability to read such foreign languages as the department may require.
2. The examination including that in foreign languages shall be written, and the quality of the writing be used as a test of the student’s command of English.
3. The examination shall in no sense be regarded as an examination for a degree and the successful passing of it shall not excuse the prospective candidate from any of the other departmental requirements.
4. Each department shall determine whether students who fail will be allowed to present themselves for a second examination.
5. No substitute in terms of courses to be taken later or of antecedent grades and credits shall be accepted in lieu of the examination.
6. A statement of the examination and its requirements shall be published in the departmental announcements after prior submission for approval to the faculty committee on instruction.
7. Persons were accepted by the Office of University Admissions as graduate students who do not pass the examination shall not be permitted to register for discussion groups, seminars, or such other courses as may be specified by departments.

The effect of this examination properly administered would be, first, to acquaint students definitely with what is expected of them at the time of entrance in the matter of preliminary preparation, secondly to place responsibility for this preparation directly on the student, and, thirdly, to prevent the assumption and its consequences that admission to graduate study is presumptive candidacy for a degree. We recognize fully that graduate schools have, under existing circumstances, obligations to students independent of the safeguarding of degrees, but we recognize also that these other obligations have now given to such safeguarding an imperative emphasis.

This recommendation is a preliminary step, and, if approved by the Faculties, can be put into operation immediately upon its adoption without prejudicing other and perhaps more important matters. We present, therefore, this preliminary report and ask to be continued.

Respectfully submitted
[signed Frederick Jay. E. Woodbridge]
Chairman

[signed I. L. Kandel]
Secretary

______________

May 21, 1937

Professor Frederick J. E. Woodbridge
39 Claremont Avenue
New York City

Dear Professor Woodbridge:

I thank you warmly for your letter of the 20^thand for the interesting and constructive preliminary report made on behalf of the Special Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy which accompanies it. I appreciate to the full the care and guiding attention which you have given to this important problem and shall ask you to continue the work of the committee under your direction until such time as you feel that everything possible has been accomplished.

Meanwhile, will it not be desirable for me to have this preliminary report multigraphed and distributed early in the autumn to the member of the Graduate Faculties for their information?

I shall name a successor to Professor Westermann in a day or two and advise you of his name. It may not be wise to name Professor Jessup since for two years to come he is to give an immense amount of time and work to his very important LIFE OF ELIHU ROOT.

With warm regard and best wishes for your summer holiday, I am

Faithfully yours,
[Stamped signature]
Nicholas Murray Butler

______________

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Department of Philosophy

May 12, 1937

President Nicholas Murray Butler
Columbia University

Dear President Butler:

Thank you for your letter of May 21 acknowledging the preliminary report of the Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. I think it would be advisable to have the report multigraphed and distributed and would suggest that it may be more opportune to have that done now instead of waiting until the autumn. There has been, I find, considerable interest awakened by the work of the Committee and some present curiosity regarding what it has so far accomplished. Under these circumstances I wonder if it would not be more advantageous to send out the report now.

Sincerely yours
[signed]
Frederick J. E. Woodbridge

______________

Source:  Columbia University Archives. Central Files. Box1.1-136—1.1.141, Folder “8/8 Woodbridge, Frederick James Eugene”.

Image Source: Review of “The Paper Chase” (Comedy about Law School life)from in The Law News at Washington & Lee University School of Law, Octobere 30, 2014.