Innovations at the Chicago University.

In the current number of the Nation appears an article on the University of Chicago. It is compiled chiefly from the latest circulars of the University and presents several novelties.

A good example of the enterprising spirit shown is in the organization of the Chicago faculties. We find that separate faculties have formed for "academic" and "university" instruction. The line is drawn between the sophomore and junior years, and the curriculum of these years is wonderfully rich. Among the professional schools which Chicago hopes to establish are not only schools of law, medicine, fine arts, and engineering but also a "school of pedagogy."

As regards professional degrees Chicago has taken an excellent position in abolishing all honorary degrees, and in providing ultimately for the attainments of the degrees of D. D., and L.L. D., in the course. This is a logical result of the transformation of the Ph. D., from an honorary to a regular degree.

"We are sorry," says the Nation, "to see figuring in the announcements the delusive proffer of a course in journalism. We do not say that a course in English may not be so shaped as to be of especial value to an embryo journalist; but the announcement of such a course leads some students to expect more than can be given them in the lecture-room. The proffer in question is particularly objectionable because, in the space of six weeks, the class is not only to study and practice "the art of journalism," but also "periodical literature, literary editorship, and book-making."

The most peculiar feature of the Chicago plan is that the University is to be kept running all the year through, including the summer months. The calendar year is divided into four quarters of twelve weeks each, beginning respectively on the first days of October, January, April, and July; and at the end of each quarter there is to be a recess of one week. Each quarter consists of two terms of six weeks. No student is to be held to an attendance of more than three quarters, or six terms, in each year, so that the normal academic year is no longer than at other colleges. Each student is to begin his academic year whenever he is ready, and to take his quarter's vacation whenever it suits his convenience. He may even take his two terms of vacation, in different quarters. The opportunity of entering the University at the beginning of any quarter will obviously be of advantage to many students. All these advantages, however, might be substantially attained without a summer quarter. This innovation, as far as we can see, will be serviceable to but two classes of students, viz., the very poor and the very ambitious.

"These long courses in short terms, the attempt to keep the University under full steam through the moist heat of a Chicago summer, the encouragement given to the student to compress four years' work into three years - the whole scheme breathes that nervous, restless haste which is one of the most deplorable features of American life; and when our universities come to forget that "school" means leisure, and that high-thinking cannot be hurried, one of the last safeguards against the national vice of over-pressure will be lost."