Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 October 23

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October 23

Doctor of Letters vs.Doctor of Humane Letters

What is the difference (if any) between Doctor of Letters and Doctor of Humane Letters? The articles are unclear. I realize that the talk pages would be the place to ask this, but those have been inactive for several years. 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:28A8:8A3A:F3CD:A344 (talk) 04:30, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

The Litt.D is a genuine academic degree, awarded for distinguished scholarship in the humanities. The D.H.L is a purely honorary degree, awarded to the great and the good without having any specific connotations of academic (as opposed to societal) achievement. This page has a more comprehensive description than our current article. Tevildo (talk) 08:00, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:28A8:8A3A:F3CD:A344 (talk) 15:33, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

High schools and elementary schools

Why is it rare for high schools to be placed right beside elementary schools?Uncle dan is home (talk) 22:24, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Seniors hazing freshmen is enough already. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:31, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

High school students old enough to drive might also tend to run over elementary school students who are too short to see. StuRat (talk) 22:35, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh right. My HS had thousands of kids, no parking spaces but a subway entrance on the property line. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:18, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's generally true. But one thing to keep in mind is that a reasonably-sized city tends to have more elementary schools than high schools. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:50, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Really any well-planned city. You have to figure a steady birth rate, and there will be at least twice as many children born during the 9 years served by an elementary school as there are for the four years of high school. For those cities that divide up k-6 as elementary, 7-9 as middle, and 10-12 as high school it's the same principle. -Nunh-huh 04:09, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

The article on intermediate schools says the exact grades 6-8 sometimes change cause of feeding area population changes. So they don't need new construction if the junior high gets full, just rename it and move the lowest grade to PS's. Makes sense. I was wondering why my school system has JHS's, IS's and MS's with different grades and no rhyme or reason, that's probably why. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:24, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Where are you referring to? The primary school I went to was right next to the secondary (which I didn't manage to get into despite all my other siblings having gone to it because of insufficient places). I could see it from across the fence. My secondary school wasn't that close to a primary school, although it wasn't that far from it and the primary school was fairly close to another secondary school. Nil Einne (talk) 04:02, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Probably a different dynamic in the UK. My primary school in London was adjacent to the local grammar school, but one was built just before and one just after the Great War, and both on land donated by the same wealthy lord of the manor, who was selling up and moving to the countryside. Alansplodge (talk) 10:18, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

• In the county I live in, there are many situations where the schools of different levels occupy the same campus. Here you can see two elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school on one campus. Here you can see an elementary and high school together. It probably depends on a plethora of factors, including the size of the plot of land, the local population densities, etc. The OP's premise is faulty, because they have not yet established that it IS rare (for any given value of "rare") --Jayron32 12:46, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Here in Michigan, elementary schools (grades 1-5, typically) are small, so they won't be overwhelming and can be placed in walking distance, while we then have middle schools (grades 6-8, typically), a bit bigger and farther away, on average, and then high schools (grades 9-12, typically) are the biggest (only one in my school district) and likely to be the farthest, so they can offer athletic and academic facilities and equipment a smaller school couldn't afford. There were about 60 students per grade in my elementary, 180 in my middle school, and 600 in my high school. So, that would mean there couldn't be a high school near most elementary schools, but there could still be a high school by some elementary schools in the district.

We also had a case where a former high school was used simultaneously as an elementary and middle school, using different wings of the building. StuRat (talk) 14:19, 24 October 2016 (UTC)