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Origins of the Terms “Major” and “Minor” in American Higher Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Phillip W. Payton
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Extract

Perhaps one of the mostly highly complex developments in the history of American higher education has been that of majoring, or the ever-growing specialization in the undergraduate curriculum. Certainly much of this has stemmed from the modern industrial revolution, which has produced a need for trained experts in a vast number of specialized fields. Institutions of higher learning have become divisive and differentiated, and the principle of election and the requirements of graduate schools have served as entering wedges for undergraduate concentration of studies in one or a few closely related subjects.

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , June 1961 , pp. 57 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © 1961, University of Pittsburgh Press 

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References

Notes

1. See Freeman Butts, R., The College Charts Its Course (New York, 1939), based on Butts's The Development of the Principle of Election of Studies in American Colleges and Universities, (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1935).Google Scholar

2. Cowley, W. H., “An Appraisal of American Higher Education,” (unpublished lecture notes, Stanford University, 1956), 452–59. The present writer gratefully acknowledges Professor Cowley's counsel and instruction.Google Scholar

3. Johns Hopkins University, Official Circular No. 7, Register for the Preliminary Year 1876–77 (Baltimore, 1877), 18–19.Google Scholar

4. Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Register for the Second Year, 1877–78 (Baltimore, 1878), 21.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., 22, 24.Google Scholar

6. Johns Hopkins University, Register for the Year 1880–81 (Baltimore, 1881), 36.Google Scholar

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12. Johns Hopkins University, The Johns Hopkins University Circulars, No. 4 (Baltimore, 1880), 39.Google Scholar

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