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DISCUSSION. 159 
should be discussed by that body and answered ; namely : What institu- 
ons in the United States are qualified to confer the degree of Doctor 
of Philosophy ? This list, increased or perhaps diminished from time to 
Lime, is to be made known in the journal selected. Likewise there should 
be published each year the names of all successful candidates, with the 
names of the institutions respectively, the titles of the dissertations, and 
-he subjects in which examinations were held. Such action would be the 
greatest check to the degradation of this degree. Candidates would hesi- 
sate long before applying to an institution which bad not been approved 
by this board, and institutions would correct abuses, and seek to obtain 
its recognition. The public would be enabled in some degree to ascertain 
who procured their degree in some mysterious way, and who, on the other 
2and, were adjudged worthy thereof by institutions properly accredited. 
This organization should embrace also other institutions not conferring 
yraduate degrees, for most of the questions that need to be carefully 
sonsidered pertain to undergraduate work. The organization should be 
careful, however, to form rules for its own protection. It need scarcely 
be said that this body could exercise no authority in the matter under 
discussion. Its duty would be to designate certain institutions competent 
n certain departments to do this higher work, without any reference to 
other institutions making the same claim. These latter may or may not 
ask that their qualifications also be considered. If the actions of such a 
body be conducted with great deliberation and fairness ; if its members 
san judge questions without a bias in behalf of their own institutions ; if 
‘hey stand for and honestly act as representatives of higher education, 
and not as those seeking to further the interests of this or that college or 
aniversity, there will soon reign order instead of chaos ; their decisions 
will be looked upon by the public as final, and higher education, with all 
pertaining thereto, will be raised to a plane far above that on which it now 
stands. 
DISOTTSSION. 
PRESIDENT GATES, of Iowa College, Towa, thought the suggestion of the paper a bold 
one, that we should so far depart from our American tradition as to form some kind of 
an organization, to have an organ, and determine what institutions shall confer the 
doctor's degree, and which shall not, He did not know whether such a course was 
feasible, but would be very giad if the discussion could take a line which would indicate 
some such possibility. 
He had looked into the possibilities concerning legal action. There is no hope 
in that direction. There seems to be nothing left but an informal, non-legal organi- 
zation, such as has been recommended. Those who live in the East have, of course, 
their own problems to face, but they scem to be ignorant of the struggles which 
sducators in the West have on hand at this point. They not only do not appreciate 
the situation, but they do not seem to be aware of it. There are many people who 
ave in some way gotten the degree of Bachelor of Arts who could not get into the 
‘freshman class of a respectable college. 
As for the higher degree of Doctor, surely if there is a degree which in scholastic 
aireles should be honored by being kept pure, it is the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.