Present Standards of Higher Education in the United States. Bulletin, 1913, No. 4. Whole Number 511
Author: MacLean, George Edwin
Date: 1913-00-00
Type: Historical Materials
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Liberal Arts,Fine Arts,Medical Education,Theological Education,Professional Associations,Dentistry,Academic Standards,Law Schools,Pharmaceutical Education,Music Education,Universities,College Entrance Examinations,Definitions,Required Courses,Public Agencies,Accreditation (Institutions),Engineering Education,Secondary Schools

For many years there has been carried on in the United States by various national and State organizations a vigorous agitation for a clearer definition and improvement of standards in higher and professional education. Committees and commissions have labored and reported. Sometimes these reports have been published and given wide circulation; in other cases they have been quite inaccessible to persons engaged in the study of educational standards. The need for a comprehensive and judicious discussion of the development of standards in education has been keenly felt and often expressed by individual institutions, and licensing or standardizing agencies, such as State boards of education and of medicine. The history of the work of the American Medical Association and of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, for example, in elevating the standards of medical education is illuminating for all who are concerned with the process of bettering educational standards, no matter what the particular field of their effort may be. Among the organizations laboring for this definition and improvement of standards in large sections of the country or in the whole Nation are the National Association of State Universities, the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, the Association of American Universities, Association of American Medical Colleges, the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools (typical of sectional associations), and the National Conference Committee on Standards of Colleges and Secondary Schools. The information presented in this bulletin is pertinent to matters now much discussed by educational workers, and it contributes valuable information in permanent form for establishing a better perspective and for mapping out further progress. The bulletin is divided into nine chapters, as follows: (1) Present standards of liberal arts colleges; (2) Standards of theological schools; (3) Standards of medical schools; (4) Standards of law schools; (5) Standards of schools of engineering; (6) Standards of schools of dentistry; (7) Standards of schools of pharmacy; (8) Standards of schools of fine arts and music; and (9) Standards of universities. The following are appended: (1) Definition of Requirements by the College Entrance Examination Board; (2) Definitions of Unit Courses of Study and Requirements in Certain Subjects by the Commission on Accredited Schools and Colleges of the north Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools; and (3) Some Standardizing Agencies. An index is included. Individual sections contain footnotes. [Best copy available has been provided.]