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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

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
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1939), based on Butts's The Development of the Principle of Election of Studies in American Colleges and Universities, (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1935).Google Scholar

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

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