Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) installment buying and selling, buying and selling of goods on credit, with the stipulation that payments shall be made at specified intervals in set amounts. The goods may be used by the buyer before...

(Encyclopedia) Qian Zhongshu or Ch'ien Chung-shu, 1910–98, Chinese writer and scholar, grad. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (1933). After attending Oxford and the Sorbonne, he returned (1939) to China and taught at sever...

(Encyclopedia) illiteracy, inability to meet a certain minimum criterion of reading and writing skill. Throughout most of history most people have been illiterate. In feudal society, for example, the ability to re...

(Encyclopedia) Princeton University, at Princeton, N.J.; coeducational; chartered 1746, opened 1747, rechartered 1748, called the College of New Jersey until 1896. Established by the “New Light” (evangelical) ...

(Encyclopedia) de Klerk, F. W. (Frederik Willem de Klerk) frĕdˈərĭk vĭlˈəm də klûrkˈ ...

(Encyclopedia) Cuvier, Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert, Baron zhôrzh lāôpôldˈ krātyăNˈ frādārēkˈ dägôbĕrˈ bärôNˈ küvyāˈ [key], 1769–1832, French naturalist, b. Montbéliard, st...

(Encyclopedia) Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), organization founded by the Treaty of Chaguaramas (Trinidad; 1973, revised 2001) and including Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica...

(Encyclopedia) Cubberley, Ellwood Patterson, 1868–1941, American educator, b. Andrews, Ind., grad. Univ. of Indiana, 1891, Ph.D. Columbia, 1905. He was a pioneer writer in the history of American education and ser...

(Encyclopedia) Food and Drug Administration (FDA), agency of the Public Health Service division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is charged with protecting public health by ensuring that foods...

(Encyclopedia) Bode, Boyd Henry, 1873–1953, American educator, b. Ridott, Ill., grad. Pennsylvania College (Iowa), 1896, Univ. of Michigan, 1897, Ph.D. Cornell, 1900. He taught philosophy at the Univ. of Wisconsin...