The term "junior college" is now more widely accepted as applying to those institutions, either public or private, which offer the first two years of the standard college course, above and beyond the standard 15 units of high-school work. A variety of factors have, within the past few years, given an unusual significance to these particular years of our educational system. The problem of standardizing the "junior college" and of perfecting its organization seems now to be pressing. There are more than 100 institutions calling themselves junior colleges. About 40 of them have been organized within the past three years. The median date for the organization of the 80 junior colleges considered in this investigation is 1915. Of still greater importance than the rapid growth in number of these institutions is the fact that, seriously affect the present organization of secondary and higher education. The public junior college means an addition of two years to the traditional high-school course. The private junior college presupposes the limiting of the activities of the small college to two years of standard college work. It is clearly evident that if the junior college is accepted as a permanent feature of our educational system, it will involve a reorganization of our traditional institutions. One of the foremost leaders of the junior-college movement, Dean Lange, of the University of California, suggests the following broad questions which he says are inseparable from the junior-college movement as a whole: (1) Shall certain colleges have their heads cut off, and, if so, by whom?; (2) Shall the American university college have its legs cut off, and, if so, where?; and (3) Shall the American four year school be stretched, and, if so, how? The facts that have been collected will be presented in the chapters that follow under the following general heads: (1) Origin and Early Development of the Junior College Idea; (2) Influences Tending to Further the Development of the Junior College; (3) Present Status of the Various Types of Junior Colleges; (4) Progress in the Accrediting of the Junior College; (5) Problems of the Junior College in the Light of This Investigation; and (6) Summary and Conclusions. Questionnaires, tables, and a bibliography are appended. (Contains 23 tables.) [Best copy available has been provided.