Dewey and Graduate Study
The fact that students such as Cooley were able to take Dewey's courses as graduate students was in large measure the result of Dewey's appointment in 1892 to a committee to study graduate work. This committee was charged with exploring how graduate work could be elevated and given greater structure and coordination. A separate program of graduate study had long been envisioned at Michigan, but the only result had been a haphazard offering of graduate study that lacked a clear definition of what constituted graduate work, distinguishing it little from undergraduate work. Advanced degrees were awarded but had been diminished by the fact that many were presented as a matter of course rather than by examination. The introduction of the credit system in 1878 gave some regulation to the awarding of advanced degrees, but the main requirement for a master's degree was the preparation of a thesis that involved little faculty supervision, and doctoral degrees were often bestowed more for diligence than for scholarship.
After reviewing descriptions of recommended graduate courses from the faculty, Dewey's committee considered creating a distinctly separate school with its own faculty and facilities devoted to graduate study; the committee abandoned the idea due to the prohibitive cost and lack of resources. Instead, the committee proposed the establishment of a graduate department using existing faculty and resources within the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. The graduate department would be overseen by an administrative council consisting of the dean as chairman and nine additional members. The administrative council would handle admission, registration, examinations, and the coordination of course and degree requirements. The committee's report was presented to the faculty in March 1892. Along with the recommendations, the committee noted that the library facilities were inadequate for graduate work and urged the Regents to petition the state legislature for funds for the "purchase of books needed to carry on the work of investigation and original research."65 The library's holdings at the time of the report were given as 82,347 volumes, 15,930 pamphlets, 226 maps, and 331 periodical subscriptions.66
After much deliberation the core of the committee's report was adopted, resulting in the establishment of a graduate school within the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. The first announcements appeared in the summer of 1892. The administrative council was made up of President Angell as chairman, and the heads of each department. The council drew up requirements for doctoral degrees, including what was expected of the dissertation. Dissertations were required to be printed, and recommendations on paper, typography, and layout were given.67 The council also eliminated the requirement of a thesis for the master's degree, determining that the writing of a thesis left too little time to conduct research of any scientific value. Graduate work now required one major and two minors and it was left to each department to outline the graduate courses and marshal the necessary resources.68
Philosophy courses had already been set up to allow for advanced work that was easily adapted to graduate work. The levels of instruction as given in 1890 were described by Dewey in an article about the Department of Philosophy: "Elementary courses are conducted mainly by text-book and recitations; the Intermediate courses by lectures and assigned readings, reports and essay-writing. The Advanced courses are pursued by class discussions, conversations" and on the "basis of work done independently by the student."69 After the establishment of the graduate school, doctoral candidates in philosophy were required to become familiar with the outlines of the history of philosophy and the main issues in ethics and psychology. They then had to select a major field of concentration and two minor fields.
In a description of graduate work in philosophy, Dewey provided a detailed list of the topics and philosophers that would be covered and called attention to courses in other departments that paralleled work in philosophy. The description gives interesting insight into how Dewey saw the interdisciplinary relationship between philosophy and other departments. Of particular note was the implied support he was giving to offerings in education: "the history of philosophy generally falls in either with work in history, or with some field of ancient and modern literature . . . Courses in Political Science, Political Economy, Constitutional and Comparative Law . . . are appropriate accompaniments to the subject of Ethics. Work in Psychology may be taken collaterally with Biology, Physiology or Histology. It also forms a natural combination with the study of education."70 The Science and the Art of Teaching graduate offerings similarly noted that the "closest affiliations . . . are with the philo-sophical studies. Here the closest connections are, in philosophy, with Psychology, Logic, and Ethics."71
Dewey's colleague from the political economy department, Henry Carter Adams, delighted in the new graduate school, viewing it as a revolution that would define the institution's character and establish Michigan as a true university. He also saw the graduate school as a broader experiment in social values, "recognizing that the University of Michigan is at present the most prominent representative of popular education, it is not too much to say that far-reaching social and political results are bound up in this experiment of a graduate school." The establishment of a graduate school at Michigan was proof that popular education, unlike privately endowed schools, was "more delicately adjusted to the intellectual needs of the nation, and in closer sympathy with the social aspirations of the people."72
In prose nearly identical to Dewey's, Adams wrote, "Education is not a thing that stands alone, to be judged by the polish of its machinery; it is part of the organic life of the people, and it is most effective when it reflects most perfectly the spirit of the times." To be sure, he added, "Education must be progressive." Being the practical economist, Adams also was cognizant of the fact that the success of the graduate school was dependent upon the willingness of the state to fund it, noting, "people will never consent to pay taxes for schools of the highest grade or for the endowment of research."73 It was up to the university to justify the tax support. To Adams, the creation of a graduate school was a major step toward fulfilling public expectations.
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