ut fifty colleges and
universities have established theological faculties and about 125
independent theological schools have been founded as the result of
denominational zeal. A majority of all these institutions require at
least a high school diploma for admission; half of them require a
college degree. Nearly all offer a three-year course of study and
confer the degree of bachelor of divinity.

Previous to the Civil War the great majority of legal practitioners
obtained their preparation in a law office. Though the University of
Pennsylvania attempted to establish a law school in 1791, and Columbia
in 1797, both attempts were abortive, and it remained for Harvard to
establish the first permanent law school in 1817. Even this was but a
feeble affair until Justice Joseph Story became associated with it in
1830. Up to 1870 but three terms of study were required for a degree;
until 1877 students were admitted without examination, and special
students were admitted without examination as late as 1893. Since then
the advance in standards has been very rapid, and in 1899 Harvard
placed its law school upon a graduate basis. Though but few others
have emulated Harvard in this respect, the improvement in legal
education during the past two decades has been marked. Of the 120 law
schools today, the great majority are connected with colleges and
universities, demand a high school diploma for admission, maintain a
three-year course of study, and confer the degree of LL.B. Twenty-four
per cent of the twenty thousand students are college graduates. In
some of the best schools the inductive method of study--i.e., the
"case method"--has superseded the lecture, and in practically all the
moot court is a prominent feature.

Entrance into the medical profession in colonial times was obtained by
apprenticeship in the office of a practicing physician. The first
permanent medical school was the medical college of Philadelphia,
which was established in 1765 and which became an integral part of the
University of Pennsylvania in 1791. Columbia, Harvard, and Dartmouth
also founded schools before the close of the eighteenth century, and
these were slowly followed by other colleges in the early decades of
the nineteenth century. During almost the entire nineteenth century
medical education in the United States was kept on a low plane by the
existence of large numbers of proprietary medical "colleges" organized
for profit, requiring only the mos