UIHistories Project: A History of the University of Illinois by Kalev Leetaru
N A V I G A T I O N D I G I T A L L I B R A R Y
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EXPANSION IN LIBERAL ARTS

185

combined to afford training for general business, for transportation, banking, journalism, and for insurance, but for some years students found little to tempt them except the "general business." As for education, it was an outgrowth of the old "philosophical group,'' and developed from ai few courses in abstract pedagogy to some ten of practical sort, with special work for teachers included also in other departments. In 1899 a Board committee even recommended the establishment of a teachers' college, but this was impracticable. The general broadening of the elective curriculum in both colleges was, moreover, great. In 1894 their work could have been duplicated at any sturdy small college; in 1904 it was of genuine university character. When the decade opened, for example, there were six courses in botany, and when it closed, seventeen. To chemistry much attention had always been paid, and in 1894 there were twenty-one courses offered, but ten years later there were over fifty, with nine more for graduates. In English, which was steadily strengthened under Dr. D. K. Dodge, the student of BurrilTs last year had to content himself, besides the general survey, with a course on Shakespeare, one in nineteenth century poetry, and one in eighteenth century prose. In 1904, though the offering was scanty still, there were over twenty courses besides the general survey, Chaucer and Browning now being honored with special study, and there being even a course in the history of English criticism. The German department of the interregnum had comprised, besides the first two years' work, a year's course in Gothic and Old High and Middle High German. In 1904 there were well over twenty courses, including one each in recent prose fiction and recent drama, and a seminar in modern German literature. History comprised four