Degree Racket

[The honorary degree system is] a sham and a shame. . . . If a man is made a doctor of laws, the public has a right to know whether it means he has fought a battle, or is on the right side in politics, or is the donor to the extent of $5,000 and upwards.

So thundered Yale's late Professor Daniel Coit Gilman (later first president of Johns Hopkins) in 1867. Nobody took his thunderings very seriously, not even Professor Gilman; he eventually accepted nine honorary LL.D.s himself. Today U.S. colleges and universities hand out some 1,300 honorary degrees a year, four times as many as in Gilman 's day. Last week a brash young scholar proposed wholesale reforms in this big little business.

He was Stephen Epler, 33, dean of the Southern Oregon College of Education. Mr. Epler investigated honorary degree-granting at nearly 300 colleges and universities, picked out seven (Harvard, Columbia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Nebraska, California, Smith) for detailed study. Some of his findings:

> Harvard was the first college to grant an honorary degree. In 1692 the college made its president, Increase Mather, an honorary Doctor of Sacred Theology.

> Yale in 1723 set the style for the coming centuries by awarding the first honorary M.D. to a degreeless physician named Daniel Turner, who had given the college -L-16 worth of books. (Wags quipped that the degree stood for Multum Donavit-"he gave much."

> By 1910 honorary M.D.s and Ph.D.s had been virtually disgraced (but Bing Crosby got an honorary Ph.D. from his Alma Mater, Washington's Gonzaga University, in 1937). Today the usual honorary degrees are LL.D. (Doctor of Laws), Litt.D. (Letters), Sc.D. (Science), D.D. (Divinity). But Investigator Epler found that most people could not distinguish these from earned doctorates. Most frequent earned degrees corresponding to the honorary ones: Ph.D. (given in various fields), J.D. or J.S.D. (Doctor of Law or the Science of Jurisprudence), Sc.D. (Doctor of Science), Th.D. (Doctor of Theology).

> Businessmen, seldom kudized before 1900, now get one in twelve of the degrees. Says Epler: "Few were scholars or men of academic achievement. Their power in the financial world and their financial contributions to universities were probably the real reasons for granting the degrees." A shining example, in Epler's view, is Harvard, which has led most colleges in kudizing its trustees and rich donors (including J. P. Morgan Sr. and Jr.).

> When Harvard gave an honorary degree in 1833 to Andrew Jackson, Alumnus John Quincy Adams, assailing Jackson as "a barbarian who could hardly spell his own name," raised such a row that Harvard kudized no other President for 39 years (Grant was the next).

> Alltime kudos champion is probably Herbert Hoover (52). Noting that Franklin Roosevelt has only half as many, Epler observes: "The opposition to Roosevelt, common among the wealthy, may account in part for his fewer awards."

> Silliest kudos (awarded in 1939): Beaver College's "Doctorate of Fortitude and Faith" to Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd; Newark University's "Doctorate of Canine Fidelity" to Bonzo, a Seeing-Eye dog.

> Highest in Epler's estimation are Stanford, Cornell and Vassar, which give no honorary degrees. Runners-up: the Universities of Texas, Minnesota, Illinois, South Dakota, whose kudos goes only to persons of intellectual eminence.

Epler's principal reform would be simple: let college faculties and "accrediting agencies" decide who gets honorary degrees. College presidents, however, show small enthusiasm for this suggestion. Of the 241 he queried, most agreed that honorary degrees were often bestowed to bring a college cash or publicity, but only 11% would abolish the present system. Businessmen feel the same way. One of them made the time-honored crack: "Most colleges get rich by degrees."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.