Rhodes scholarships, Frank Aydelotte, and collegiate honors education.

Rinn, Anne N.

Rhodes Scholarships enable 32 American students per year the opportunity to study at the prestigious Oxford University in England. Many of these scholars return to the United States to lead impressive careers in the fields of politics, law, business, medicine, and so on. An often-unrecognized detail, though, is the prominence of education as a career choice of Rhodes Scholars. In fact, education is the highest-ranking career choice of Rhodes Scholars and has been since the inception of the scholarships. Education is also the field in which scholars have had the most impact. Many Rhodes Scholars have become deans of medical schools and law schools and presidents of colleges and universities, in addition to the many others who have served as professors and lecturers throughout the United States. Within the field of education in the United States, an unnoticed development exists that is almost entirely the result of the implementation of the Rhodes Scholarships, namely that of honors education at the collegiate level.

HISTORY AND RATIONALE OF THE RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS

The Rhodes Scholarship was established in the late nineteenth century, with the first selection of Rhodes Scholars from the United States entering Oxford University in 1904. The scholarship was conceived by Cecil Rhodes, who had attended Oxford University intermittently from 1873 until 1881 (Mallet, 1927). Rhodes had been working as a diamond miner, later founding a mining company, but sought to attend Oxford University in order to gain social prestige (Schaeper & Schaeper, 1998). He was vastly wealthy because of his business endeavors, enabling him to fund the Rhodes Scholarships after his death. Between the years of 1877 and 1899, Rhodes wrote a series of seven wills which reflected his ideals and general aspirations about leadership and union among nations, the last of which outlined the Rhodes Scholarship (Aydelotte, 1946).

The will concerning the Rhodes Scholarships was published and made available to the public in 1902, causing great interest among scholars throughout the world. In 1899, Rhodes had established scholarships for the United States and the colonials, including Canada, Australia, South Africa, Rhodesia, New Zealand, Bermuda, and Jamaica, with a codicil added in 1901 providing for German students (Wylie, 1932). Rhodes' rationale for these scholarships, which allowed foreign students to study at Oxford, was simple. In 1901, he explained, "a good understanding between England, Germany, and the United States of America will secure the peace of the World, and educational relations form the strongest tie" (as cited in Wylie, 1932, p. 291). He wanted to provide "future leaders of the English-speaking world with an education which would broaden their views and develop their abilities" (Kenny, 2001, p. 1). Rhodes strongly believed English-speaking people were best suited to lead the world toward union and harmony. While the peace of the world may not have been secured through the Rhodes Scholarships, the sharing of instructional methods throughout the world later proved a very important contribution.

Rhodes provided these scholarships for able men, based upon scholastic ability and achievement, solid character, leadership abilities, and a proficiency in outdoor sports. Intellect and character were given the most importance, and, while athleticism was considered important, "no man should be given a Scholarship primarily because of athletic prowess, nor lose an appointment for the lack of it" (Aydelotte, 1946, p.22). Rhodes fundamentally wished for the Rhodes Scholars to be men of influence who would serve to better the world. Through education, he aimed for the creation of international understanding, good will, and friendship (Aydelotte, 1917/1967).

While the condition that Rhodes Scholars were for men only seems strange, this was acceptable in the early twentieth century. No women's groups in the United States or any other country objected to this exclusion of women until the 1970s. The first group of women to accept Rhodes Scholarships entered Oxford in 1977 (Schaeper & Schaeper, 1998). Also strange is the exclusion of minorities from obtaining Rhodes Scholarships. Rhodes specifically declared that neither race nor religion should be a factor in the selection of scholars, but he probably did not mean for race to describe skin color. Rather, he meant for race to identify a nation or culture. The Rhodes trustees went against Rhodes' probable intentions, though, and allowed for the acceptance of minority students. Although a black student obtained a scholarship in 1907, no other minority students received a Rhodes Scholarship until 1963. This was not due to the lack of British acceptance of minority students but to the lack of acceptance by fellow American Rhodes Scholars (Schaeper & Schaeper, 1998).

THE FIRST RHODES SCHOLARS

Rhodes Scholars could work towards a Bachelor of Arts degree (B.A.) in one of the Honor Schools or could enter for a research degree, which was an advanced degree, such as the Bachelor of Letters (B. Litt). Because applicants had to have completed at least two years of college or university in their home country, and because most applicants had already attained a B.A. in their home country, many Rhodes Scholars went on for a research degree (Aydelotte, 1946).

Many Americans thought Oxford to be an entirely social experience. An Oxford student was not required to attend classes, and much of one's day was spent in conversation or interaction with other scholars. Indeed, one's choice of college was even more of a social decision than an academic decision, as classes and lectures, if attended, were open to anyone, regardless of his college (Aydelotte, 1917/1967). The function of the college was somewhat similar to the function of an American Greek fraternity in that it created smaller social environments in a large college or university (Aydelotte, 1946). However, if engaged in properly and not idly, the Oxford man could attain knowledge unavailable to most Americans. Through interaction with other intellectual minds, the social life:

 ... offers Oxford men an opportunity of acquiring, in the numberless
 discussions which this social life makes possible, an openness and
 alertness of mind, a certain independence in thinking, and a
 readiness, which it is almost impossible to acquire in any other
 way. Perhaps there is no teaching equal in value to good
 conversation. (Aydelotte, 1917/1967, p. 8-9)

The intellectual and academic experiences of the Rhodes Scholars, including pedagogical practices like the tutorial system and the pass/honors approach, were unlike anything they had ever experienced in the United States.

TUTORIAL SYSTEM

The tutorial system at Oxford dates far into the university's history, although many changes have occurred over time. At least as early as the sixteenth century, tutors existed more for social reasons than for intellectual purposes. The earliest tutors were not actually teachers but were intended to serve the role of personal guardians (Mallet, 1927). By the late nineteenth century, the tutorial system had taken primarily an intellectual purpose although many students turned to their tutors for social and moral advice as well.

A first-year student was paired with a tutor immediately upon arrival at Oxford, the tutor belonging to the subject area that the student intended to study. Plans were made at once to prepare a program of study, including suggested readings and lectures to attend (Bailey, 1932). The tutor did not force lectures or readings on a student. The role of the tutor was to support the student in his academic endeavors and to guide him toward the successful acquisition of the knowledge needed to pass his final exams, and was anything but "molly-coddling" (Aydelotte, 1917/1967, p.15). The tutor only gave suggestions, with the majority of a student's education remaining in his own hands.

The tutorial system at Oxford was highly individualized. Students would meet at least once a week with their tutor, either individually or in groups of two or three. Each student would have prepared an essay, based on his readings, which was read aloud to the group. The tutor would make comments and criticisms, inviting the same from other members of the group. The session was very informal, usually resulting in a discussion among the group members or between the tutor and the student (Bailey, 1932). The students could not hide as if they were in a large class. Rather, each student was expected to speak and to contribute to discussions (Learned, 1927). The tutorial method was not one of direct instruction but rather "a companionship in discussion or discovery, and the greatest aid to the pupil should be the intimacy he form[ed] with the mind of one farther on the road than he [was] himself" (Bailey, 1932, p.253).

The majority of instruction at Oxford was given by method of individual tutorials (Aydelotte, 1944; Learned, 1927). Students did not attend classes or obtain credits as they did in the American universities. No courses were ever required, attendance was never taken, and even lectures were not mandatory. "Whereas the American undergraduate takes courses, the Oxford man studies a subject" (Aydelotte, 1946, p.66). Independent work was the basis of the Oxford education, with the Oxford tutorial acting as the foundation. The tutorial did not replace other methods of instruction but served to help the student process information that was gathered elsewhere through independent reading, lectures, and so on (Moore, 1968). The main advantages of the tutorial method of instruction were personal attention and the adaptation of instruction to individual needs (Crosby, 1922), as well as the development of critical thinking skills (Learned, 1927).

PASS/HONORS APPROACH

The undergraduate degree that was given at Oxford during the early twentieth century was one based on examinations and a minimum residency requirement. As previously explained, students did not attain a degree on the basis of courses or credits. Instead, students obtained the undergraduate degree by taking two examinations. The first exam was taken during the first or second year of study for the purpose of demonstrating intellectual competency, and the second exam was taken as a final exam at the end of study (Learned, 1927). A student could take the exams in the form of pass or honors. The pass degree was considered to be an easy attainment and was usually reserved for future teachers or businessmen, or for those who were not strong students but recognized the importance of attending a university. The honors degree was of high caliber and was necessary for any professional career (Aydelotte, 1944).

The development of the pass/honors approach at Oxford began in the early part of the nineteenth century. Dr. John Eveleigh, the Provost of Oriel College of Oxford from 1781 until 1814, holds the greatest responsibility for the development of the competitive system of examinations for honors (Brooke, 1922). In 1800, a statute, originally designed by Eveleigh and several others, was passed that required all students studying for either the bachelor's or master's degree to take a comprehensive final examination as a means of obtaining one's degree. Alongside this examination, "Extraordinary Examinations" were offered as a way for superior students to separate themselves from the rest of their classmates (Mallet, 1927, p.168).

Initially, the extraordinary examinations were not popular among the students, likely due to the increase in standards for the pass degree. Between the years 1802 and 1805, only ten students applied for the extraordinary examinations. However, in 1807, the class system was introduced, whereby the scores from the extraordinary examinations were divided into two classes, resulting in an increased interest in the extraordinary examinations. The First Class consisted of those students "worthy of some eminent commendation" and the Second Class of those students who showed "laudable progress." A third category existed for those students not worthy of special mention but who had satisfied the examiners, thus passing (Mallet, 1927, p.169). In 1809, the Second Class was divided into two parts, thereby creating a Third Class. By 1830, largely because of the newfound popularity of the extraordinary examinations, a Fourth Class in honors was provided (Mallet, 1927). Oxford thus awarded the degrees of First Class, Second Class, Third Class, Fourth Class, and pass. The honors examination was thereby separated from the examination for the pass degree, resulting in the first notion of modern honors education (Guzy, 1999).

The honors examinations typically consisted of eight to twelve three-hour papers. The examinations usually allowed for some choice among which questions to answer, but the guidelines were never set in stone. The examinations were designed to test ability and not knowledge, so students were to answer those questions they believed would most fully demonstrate their ability. Each paper was then submitted to a group of three to five examiners, including outside examiners from other universities, and a grade was given by majority vote. A student's class thus depended on the result of the scores on all of the papers combined (Learned, 1927).

INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION

Honors education in the United States was not a new idea prior to the development of the Rhodes Scholarships, but its occurrence was quite rare. Private Eastern colleges were among the first institutions of higher education to provide any sort of honors approach to academically superior students in the United States (Cohen, 1966). The prevalence of honors education in private Eastern colleges likely happened for two reasons. First, throughout the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, private Eastern colleges were much smaller than public and state colleges and universities, resulting in less difficulty implementing curricular change. Second, private Eastern colleges generally were more selective in their admissions requirements than other institutions. These more select students might have been more willing to engage in greater academic responsibility than students at less selective institutions (Guzy, 1999).

Early attempts at honors are known to have occurred in eight institutions: 1) in 1873 at Wesleyan College, honors were awarded at commencement, 2) in 1882 at the University of Michigan, the University system was established, 3) in 1888 at the University of Vermont, the award of honors was given on the basis of a thesis, 4) in 1905 at Princeton University, the preceptorial system was announced, 5) in 1909 and again in 1920 at Columbia University, attempts at honors programs were made, 6) in 1912 at the University of Missouri, Reading for Honors was implemented, 7) in 1921 at Smith College, an honors program was started, and 8) Harvard University initiated several different programs throughout the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century (Aydelotte, 1944).

It was not until a prominent Rhodes Scholar returned from Oxford that collegiate honors education in the United States was truly established. Frank Aydelotte is often considered the founder of honors education, as he is largely responsible for the spread of this movement throughout the country.

FRANK AYDELOTTE

After earning a bachelor's degree in English from Indiana University and a master's degree in English from Harvard University, Frank Aydelotte was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship in 1905. Aydelotte was a Rhodes Scholar from 1905-1907, giving him abundant opportunity to study the Oxford system of instruction (Brooks, 1927).

Aydelotte received the Bachelor of Letters degree (B.Litt) in 1907. Although he always hoped to return to Oxford for the doctoral degree in literature, he never did. However, in 1937, Oxford University awarded Aydelotte an honorary degree: Doctorate of Civil Laws for success in administration. In addition, between the years 1925 and 1931, Aydelotte claimed three other honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, Oberlin, and Yale, and in 1953 he received the award of Knight of the British Empire from the Queen of England for his public service efforts between Britain and the United States (Blanshard, 1970).

In 1908, Aydelotte returned to his alma mater as an Acting Associate Professor in the Indiana University Department of English, and he then accepted a position teaching English at Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) in 1915. In 1921, Aydelotte accepted the position of president at Swarthmore College, after receiving several offers for presidency at other institutions, including Reed College (Blanshard, 1970). Having implemented some Oxford ideas both at Indiana University and at MIT, Aydelotte was looking for a place to implement an honors program for undergraduates. He was well prepared to start such a program because of his previous experiences, and Swarthmore seemed just the place to do so (Aydelotte, 1944).

Rationale for honors. Preceding World War I, the enrollment in colleges and universities was relatively limited in the United States, usually including only those who could afford to attend college. Many of these students were bright, allowing them to work alongside other bright students and to be challenged and intellectually stimulated. Any need for variation in instruction based on ability was very low. Although attempts at honors programs had been made at several colleges and universities, most educators were not in any rush to make serious adjustments.

After the war, college experience and usually a college degree became a requirement for many white-collar jobs, causing a tremendous increase in enrollment (Aydelotte, 1944). Between 1890 and 1925, enrollment in colleges and universities grew 4.7 times faster than the general population (Rudolph, 1962/1990), and, between 1910 and 1920 alone, the enrollment in colleges and universities increased by nearly 60 percent (Bureau of the Census, as cited in Blanshard, 1970). This increase produced a great variety in types and abilities of students. The unprecedented gains in enrollment provided educators with direct evidence of individual intellectual differences. The great numbers of students served to set an average intellectual pace, forcing educators to wonder how to best meet the needs of the brightest students on campus (Coss, 1931). The previously unimportant need for honors reform was quickly hastened at this point in history (Brooks, 1927).

In a democratic nation such as the United States, one might argue for a democratic education as well. Indeed, in the early part of the twentieth century, democracy in education meant equality in education, or an equal opportunity to obtain an education by all. Americans seemed to advocate that colleges and universities should serve everyone equally, very unlike the elitist British notion of higher education. "To the democratic philosophy that every one can and should go through college the college has responded by becoming the sort of institution through which any and every one can go" (Learned, 1927, p.45). In trying to serve everyone, colleges and universities had to focus on the average student, as serving the average student meant serving most students. The influx in enrollment only worsened this habit.

The word "democracy" is often used to denote equality (Bryce, 1959). Aydelotte did not disagree. Rather, he believed the word "democracy" was misconceived. Perhaps as a result of his experiences at Oxford, he did not believe democracy to mean giving equal schooling or equal education to all. Rather, while everyone should be given an equal opportunity for education, everyone should also be given an opportunity to fulfill his or her own capabilities (The Swarthmore College Faculty, 1941). He believed that "we must learn to see the error in that superficial interpretation of democracy which assumes that all men are equal in intellectual ability... [I]n recognizing individual differences we are paying the truest homage to the worth of all individuals" (Aydelotte, 1944, p.11). By being held to the same requirements as all students, the brightest students were being held back and limited in their intellectual potential. "The academic system as ordinarily administered is for these better and more ambitious students a kind of lock step; it holds them back, wastes their time, and blunts their interest by subjecting them to a slow-moving routine which they do not need" (Aydelotte, 1944, p.14).

Honors at Swarthmore College. Swarthmore College served as a convenient place for Aydelotte to begin his conception of honors work in the United States. This convenience arose in large part from faculty acceptance of Aydelotte's ideas, but also from the nature of the college itself. Swarthmore College was one of three Quaker colleges in Pennsylvania, and Aydelotte believed the Quaker tradition to play a large role in the eventual success of his honors program because of the liberal mindset of the faith. As Quakers were always a minority religious group in American history, they had developed a liberalism in which they did not fear ideas or change simply because they were not popular or well known. Quakers were said to look at ideas based solely on the merit of the idea (Aydelotte, 1940), thus easily allowing the faculty of Swarthmore to consider and accept Aydelotte's proposal for honors education. Even though the idea was relatively new and not thoroughly tested, honors education appeared to have a great deal of value at a time when higher education was rapidly changing.

Aydelotte's ideas for honors education were given in his inaugural address as president of Swarthmore in 1921:

 Perhaps the most fundamentally wasteful feature of our educational
 institutions is the lack of a higher standard of intellectual
 attainment. We are educating more students up to a fair average
 than any country in the world, but we are wastefully allowing the
 capacity of the average to prevent us from bringing the best up to
 the standard they could reach. Our more important task at present
 is to check this waste.

 The method of doing it seems clear: To separate those students who
 are really interested in the intellectual life from those who are
 not, and to demand of the former in the course of their four years'
 work, a standard of attainment for the A.B. degree distinctly
 higher than we require of them at present and comparable perhaps
 with that which is now reached for the A.M....

 We could give these more brilliant students greater independence in
 their work, avoiding the spoon-feeding which makes much of our
 college instruction of the present day of secondary-school
 character. Our examinations should be less frequent and more
 comprehensive, and the task of the student should be to prepare
 himself for these tests through his own reading and through the
 instruction offered by the College: he should not be subjected to
 the petty, detailed, day-by-day restrictions and assignments
 necessary for his less able fellows. (Aydelotte, 1921, p.23-24)

In this inaugural address, many of Aydelotte's ideas are clearly a result of his education and experience as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, as he was able to distinguish between the American system that was suitable for the "average" and the British system that was more suitable for the "brilliant."

The first honors program at Swarthmore College was inaugurated in the fall of 1922, after one year spent in planning (1921-1922). Faculty initially agreed upon only two programs, English Literature and Social Sciences, resulting in only these two programs available for students the inaugural year. In 1923, French, German, Mathematics, and Physics were added; in 1924, Electrical Engineering; in 1925, the Classics, namely Greek and Latin; and in 1926, Education and Chemistry. By 1940, all departments at Swarthmore offered honors work (The Swarthmore College Faculty, 1941).

From its conception, Aydelotte decided the honors program at Swarthmore should only be open to juniors and seniors. The first two years of college would be spent taking regular courses and gaining a broad base of knowledge, and then at the end of their sophomore year, students would be allowed to apply for honors. With faculty agreement, the student would be allowed to begin honors work in the fall of his or her junior year. Acceptance was based on both intellectual achievement and individual personality characteristics. Intellectual achievement consisted of the student's grades only in the department in which he or she wished to study (Aydelotte, 1931), and generally had to consist of A's and/or B's (Brewster, 1930). In other words, if a student was going into Mathematics, only grades in previous mathematics courses would be reviewed. Individual personality characteristics necessary for honors study included independence and self-regulation (Aydelotte, 1936). Without these, a student was not believed to be able to succeed with honors work.

Aydelotte did not wish for honors students to major in only one subject, though, because he believed the interrelation between courses to be a valuable asset. A "major" generally consisted of three core departments, all of which were related (Brooks, 1927). For example, a student studying English Literature might focus on English, history, and philosophy. One subject was the major subject, which in this case was English, and two other subjects were the minor subjects, or history and philosophy. This method was modeled from the Modern Greats at Oxford, a program that combined political science, philosophy, and economics (Blanshard, 1970).

Although it was decided to admit students only at the beginning of their junior year, three students who were at the end of their junior year in the spring of 1922 petitioned to participate in the honors program for their remaining collegiate experience in the fall of 1922. These students were accepted, becoming the first three graduates of the honors program at Swarthmore in June of 1923 (Brooks, 1927). Eight students comprised the first junior class of honors students in the fall of 1922 (Aydelotte, 1944). By the spring of 1939, 636 students had graduated with honors, indicating the relatively quick expansion of the honors program (The Swarthmore College Faculty, 1941).

Also from its conception, Aydelotte had carefully planned for the structure and implementation of the honors program at Swarthmore. Although he did not directly transplant Oxford methods of instruction, Aydelotte adapted the methods he was familiar with to fit American higher education (Aydelotte, 1931; Brooks, 1927). The honors program at Swarthmore was initially based on the philosophy of active learning, the tutorial system, and the pass/honors approach, all of Oxford.

Aydelotte believed that the best education should be an active process and not passive. By merely attending a class and sitting through a lecture, a bright student would not learn to his or her best ability. According to Aydelotte, "the best and only education is self-education" (The Swarthmore College Faculty, 1941, p.6). Thus he removed the lecture method for honors students, making attendance at all classes and lectures entirely voluntary, similar to Oxford. Aydelotte called his approach "reading for honors," as students would be required to learn on their own, almost entirely through reading. Even the term "reading" originated from Oxford, as in British higher education one did not "major" in a subject. Rather, one "read" in a subject (Schaeper & Schaeper, 1998). Learning was largely individual from that point on. Aydelotte's reasoning for this individualized method was also related to the degree of responsibility placed on the student. He believed honors students were capable of taking on the responsibility necessary for individualized learning, thereby allowing them to cultivate their knowledge at a much deeper level than the average student (Aydelotte, 1927).

Creating an honors program that consisted almost entirely of independent study was quite revolutionary at the time. Most colleges and universities in the United States relied upon large group lectures, especially with the increases in enrollment. The inception of an honors program required a great deal of monitoring and patience on the part of faculty, students, and administrators. Although many issues had to be resolved at first, the program stabilized relatively quickly (Cummings, 1986).

Instead of using the highly individualized tutorial method of Oxford, Aydelotte adapted this method to what he called a seminar, which also closely resembled the German seminar method. The seminar was "a system of informal instruction by the professor to a small group of students" (Bryce, 1959, p.472), although Aydelotte's seminar involved little instruction and relied mostly on discussion like a tutorial. Aydelotte chose this method for several reasons. First, American professors were more likely to lead a seminar well than a tutorial, which was usually reserved for only the best and most experienced professors at Oxford. Also, by allowing students to discuss their ideas in small groups of other students and one or two professors, Aydelotte believed these discussions could be quite intellectually stimulating to all involved (Aydelotte, 1931, 1944).

The seminar method worked as follows: The reading students were to do was divided into eight parts, corresponding with the four semesters of the junior and senior year. Four parts consisted of a student's major subject, and he or she spent two parts each on the two minor subjects (Aydelotte, 1936). Students generally took two seminars a semester, allowing for a total of eight seminars (The Swarthmore College Faculty, 1941). In each seminar, students studied various topics of the subject. Within these larger topics, the reading was broken down into weekly topics. Students would all read the common readings, and then, within a seminar, each student was given a topic about which to write a short paper, the format of which varied among professors. In the seminar, the students would discuss both the readings and each paper, allowing for a variety of opinions and ideas (Aydelotte, 1931, 1944). This exchange of ideas is very similar to the exchange of ideas at Oxford.

As previously mentioned, the course and credit system was completely eliminated for honors students. Instead, a method was adopted much like the pass/honors approach at Oxford. An honors degree was based solely on the passing of a final examination, given at the end of the senior year. The honors student was given a syllabus of material he or she was expected to master, and then the same syllabus was given to an examiner unaffiliated with the college at the end of the senior year from which to design a final examination (Aydelotte, 1944). After two years of regular coursework and two years of independent study, the honors student took between seven and ten three-hour written examinations and an oral examination, all conducted by external examiners (Aydelotte, 1936; Learned, 1927). In addition, honors students had to develop a reading knowledge of two foreign languages, also tested by external examiners (Brooks, 1927). These comprehensive exams eliminated the necessity for students to merely memorize facts and regurgitate the information. Rather, they had to have a firm grasp of the principles and interrelation of the content areas as well as the ability to think about and evaluate all of the material they had covered (Aydelotte, 1936).

External examiners were generally asked to serve for three years, from such colleges and universities as Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and Yale University (Brewster, 1930; Brooks, 1927). The external examiners were asked to serve for only three years at a time in order to keep a constant rotation of examiners. In this way, the exams were never routine, and the information on the exams could never be guessed ahead of time (Spiller, 1933). Each student had three examiners, based upon the one major subject and two minors subjects of his or her honors work. Upon completion of the written and oral examinations, these three examiners decided on the award of Highest Honors, High Honors, or Honors, and, in rare cases, a pass degree (Aydelotte, 1931). The degree of Highest Honors was very rarely attained, with High Honors regarded as quite a distinction as well (Brooks, 1927). The ratings of Highest Honors, High Honors, and Honors corresponded with the Oxford ratings of First, Second, Third, and Fourth, although the American system did not adopt a rating parallel to the fourth.

The honors program at Swarthmore served to provide students with "the incentive to excellence, freedom from cramping restrictions, intimate faculty-student relationships, the demand for self-activity in education, emphasis on substance rather than credits, and the correlation of knowledge" (Brewster, 1930, p.510). At the time, Aydelotte and the faculty of Swarthmore firmly believed that their honors plan would spread throughout the United States (The Swarthmore College Faculty, 1941).

In an attempt to disseminate information about honors in the United States, Aydelotte wrote Honors Courses in American Colleges and Universities in 1924. Due to the popularity of the report and the growth in honors across the country, he updated the report only one year later (Aydelotte, 1925). Indeed, the first publishing resulted in a doubling of the amount of honors programs in the United States, allowing the second edition to include nearly one hundred programs. Aydelotte also heavily advocated for the appointment of Rhodes Scholars as college and university presidents in order to further spread the influence of Oxford. It is generally believed that dozens of Rhodes Scholars owe their high-ranking positions to Aydelotte's endless lobbying (Schaeper & Schaeper, 1998).

In 1944, Aydelotte published his most famous piece, Breaking the Academic Lockstep: The Development of Honors Work in American Colleges and Universities. This book was the first book ever written that was entirely devoted to honors programs in the United States (Guzy, 1999). Aydelotte discusses Oxford and Swarthmore, and he provides in-depth reviews of honors programs in the United States, the result of his extensive travel funded by the Carnegie Corporation to visit colleges and universities across the country.

CONCLUSION

Among other important contributions, the Rhodes Scholarship has opened the eyes of many Americans to the importance of the Oxford University method of instruction (Aydelotte, 1944). Many prominent Rhodes Scholars, such as Frank Aydelotte, have entered the field of education upon returning to the United States, bringing with them innovative methods of instruction. Indeed, Aydelotte's presidency at Swarthmore College allowed him to implement the tutorial method, comprehensive examinations, and the distinction between the pass and honors degrees in his seminal honors program. While the ideas Aydelotte and others brought with them and incorporated into American higher education were not exact replications of the English methods, they were adaptations to growing American needs (Aydelotte, 1944; Learned, 1927).

Aydelotte and the faculty of Swarthmore College were correct in their assumption that their honors program model would spread throughout the United States. What they might not have estimated is the tremendous variety of honors programs that now exist. Today, nearly all colleges and universities in the United States have some form of honors programming (Schaeper & Schaeper, 1998), whether it be in the form of general honors programs or departmental honors programs, honors programs at two-year colleges or four-year colleges and universities, honors contract courses or honors seminars, traditional honors programs or experimental honors programs, and so on. Aydelotte's acceptance of a Rhodes Scholarship and his later presidency at Swarthmore College certainly set in motion an unprecedented growth in American higher education through the form of honors programming.

REFERENCES

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--(1922). History of the operation of the Rhodes scholarships in the United States. In F. Aydelotte (Ed.), Oxford of today: Manual for prospective Rhodes scholars (pp. 211-226). New York: Oxford University Press.

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--(1927). Breaking the academic lock-step. School and Society, 26(666), 407- 410.

--(1931). Honors courses at Swarthmore. In Five college plans (pp. 59-70). New York: Columbia University Press.

--(1936). The university system at Michigan: Honors day address, May 1, 1936. Michigan Alumnus, XLII(23), 228-233.

--(1940). Report of the president: Reviewing the period 1921-1939. Bulletin of Swarthmore College,37(4), 1-20.

--(1944). Breaking the academic lock step: The development of honors work in American colleges and universities. New York: Harper & Brothers.

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The author can be reached at: arinn@indiana.edu

ANNE N. RINN

INDIANA UNIVERSITY