Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/524

 45 8 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO views. They were, indeed, to an unusual degree victims of gross misrepresentation, but when the facts became known, the objects of these attacks were, perhaps it may be said, invariably vindicated. Andrew Sloan Draper, Commissioner of Education of the State of New York, speaking at the April, 1905, Convocation, on "The Rational Limits of Academic Freedom," while fully point- ing out and strongly insisting on these limitations, said this: However the matter analyzes, and whatever the explanation, these Ameri- can universities are the finest illustrations of human power and human reason and human freedom working together for beneficent ends which the minds and hearts of men and women have brought about. This question came up once more in 1909 and President Judson spoke in unequivocal terms for the freedom of teaching. In 1900 the University escaped making what many believed would have been a serious mistake. It was, as has more than once appeared in these pages, one of the basic ideas of the plan of organi- zation that the work of the first two years of the undergraduate course was college work, while in the last two years true university work began. This was the reason for the division into the Junior and Senior Colleges. President Harper, wishing to mark the com- pletion of the Junior College work and the passing of the student into the higher university work of the Senior College, proposed a new degree, that of Associate, to be conferred at the close of the Junior College course. He felt that there were many advantages connected with the conferring of such a degree, and was much inter- ested in the matter. The proposal was before the University two or three years, perhaps longer. In the President's Report for 1898-99 he discussed the question at length. The more it was dis- cussed and the more President Harper reflected, the more doubtful he became about the invention of a "degree" to be conferred when a college course was only half over. He became convinced at last that this would cheapen all degrees, and particularly those of the University of Chicago. Finally the word "title" was agreed upon by all parties as a happy solution of the difficulty, and at the Janu- ary, 1900, Convocation, the President announced that the faculties and the Congregation had united in recommending to the Board of Trustees the conferring of the title of Associate in Arts, Literature,