The American College in American Life

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Prefatory Note

WITH the growth of American life has grown the American college. The college has enlarged its constituency ; it has gained in material worth and significance ; it h^s related itself more vitally and more generally to life. It has made appeals of increasing urgency to the American people for sustenance, — and these appeals have not been without avail, — and it has asked also for the privilege of giving itself through its graduates to every worthy cause. It may not be too much to say that the college has tried to, be of the utmost value to man.

These conditions may be interpreted as an intimation of the purposes which have ruled in the writing of this book. The primary aim has been to bring the American college into closer relationship with American life and — so far as

160113 iv Prefatory Note.

may be — to bring American life into a more vital touch with the American college. I have believed, and still believe, that through the securing of this double purpose the college may be able to be a richer blessing to this great life of which the college is a part, and which it is set to serve.

No book of a kind such as this can make any pretence of being complete. This volume includes the consideration of only a few of the more vital questions. Other questions, quite as vital possibly, I hope to be able to discuss in other volumes. For the American college, like American life or the life of any progressive people, is full of infinite suggestions appealing to thought or to action.

C. F. T.

Cleveland, Ohio.

'i

K^

Contents

I. — Its Inckeasing Power .

II. — Cehtain Great Results

III. — Its Influence over and through Individuals ....

I. Its Increasing Power

THE history of college education in America may be divided into three periods. The first period begins with the foundation of Harvard College in 1636 and closes with the opening of the Revolutionary War. The second begins with the close of the Revolutionary War and continues through the first quarter of the present centur)\ The third begins two generations ago and is still in progress. The first period may be called the ecclesiastical period, the second the political, and the third the human. Each period may also be described in respect to the source whence certain of its stronger influences arose : — The first, as the English, the second as the French, and the third as the German.

During the larger part of the first period only three colleges existed — Harvard, William and Mary, and Yale ; — and up to the close of the period only nine colleges had been founded. In this time the predominant influence in the colleges, as in the State, was ecclesiastical, and largely clerical. The Church and the State were in most respects one, — and that one was the Church. In the Church the most influential member was its pastor. The college, too, was governed by the clergyman. The president was himself a clergyman, and the students in large numbers became clergymen. The first Board of Overseers of Harvard College was composed of certain magistrates, and of the "Teaching Elders" of six "next adjoining" towns to Boston. The principle of clerical government continued even longer than this period itself lasted. Ecclesiastical divisions and theological discussions found in the college the staunchest ally or antagonist. Not only was the college governed by clergymen but the clerical purpose prevailed in its education. In the seventeeth century fifty-two per cent, of the graduates of Harvard entered the ministry and of the first thirty-three graduates of Yale College, from 1702 to 1710, twenty-five, or seventy-five per cent., entered the ministry. In the eighteenth century twenty-nine per cent, of the Harvard graduates and forty per cent, of the Yale graduates became ministers.

The ecclesiastical character of the first colleges was simply the realization under new conditions of the purpose for which the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge were established. As the early Oxford reproduced the University of Paris, so the early Harvard reproduced the English Universities. One reading the statutes of the Oxford colleges is impressed with the specific nature of the statements in respect to the ecclesiastical purposes and conditions. ** Established for religious training," ** founded to teach students in the canon law and in theology," *' for the culture of sacred theology ; " these and similar statements are made in the Statutes of the Oxford colleges as embodying the purposes of their establishment. Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, founder of Corpus Christi College, indicated his purpose in the foundation by using in the statutes the image of a ladder, which he applies to the college, on which to mount up to heaven. He also compared the colleges to hives in which scholars, like bees, may make honey for the glory of God. But this condition at Oxford was simply a part of a yet more general condition. All the Universities of Northern Europe were the doors to the Church, and the Church was the door to professional life of every character. In the Universities of Southern Europe the law held a similar place.

Not only were the ecclesiastical purposes and relations of the English university transplanted, but also in many respects the course of study. The courses of study in Oxford and Cambridge were somewhat more extended and of a larger variety than those of the new colleges in the New World, but in many respects they were identical. The founders of the College in the new Cambridge were trained at old Cambridge and the greater number of them at Emmanuel College. The course of study in both the old college and the new was specially designed to educate clergymen.

With the close of the Revolutionary War the ftce which a large body of the American pWplMiad paid to English prescription ceased. It was inevitable that the men who had fought the English in a contest for civil freedom, should feel only a slight sympathy with the educational positions and conditions of the same people. " The leading men of the Revolution, the Otises, the Adamses, the Trumbulls, the Warrens, Hancock, Quincy, and others, caught the spirit of liberty and patriotism in the recitation-room, the library, and among their associates at the College," says Sibley.' It was also inevitable that a people who in winning its independence had received aid from the ancient foe of England should have a warm sympathy with the educational ideas and ideals of its allies. The strongest influence which France exerted upon the new Republic at the time of its foundation was civil and political. ,

The first duty of the new nation was to preserve and to magnify itself. In this endeavor the agency of education became of priceless value. Therefore we find the Ordinance of 1 787, declaring " Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and

' Sibley's Harvard CradtaUs, 1., xi.

The American College.

the happiness of mankind, schools, and the means of education shall forever be encouraged ; " and, therefore, also we find Washington urging the foundation of a national university in order to secure the perpetuity of the new republic. It is to be observed that the Ordinance of 1787 could not probably have been passed simply to secure educational advantages. The people were more interested in the political side of this action than in its educational ; but in the document the political and the educational elements were united. Sentiments expressed in the constitutions of the various States, and in various laws, indicate the prevalence of the idea that the education of all classes should be fostered for the purpose of the preservation of the commonwealth. Education had to do with public and civil relations.

The potency of the French influence is well illustrated by the attempt of Quesnay in 1 780 and 1788 to found a French Academy of Arts and Sciences at Richmond. Quesnay was the grandson of the famous French philosopher and economist, Quesnay, who was court physician to Louis XV. He came to this country to aid in the Revolution, serving as a captain in Virginia. After giving up the military life because of ill health, he travelled through the country, and on these travels conceived the idea of introducing French arts and culture, believing, also, that he could multiply the relations uniting France and this country.^ The institution was to be national, having branches at Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York ; and also international, being affiliated with similar institutions in Europe. It was designed to give what we might now call graduate instruction. Its curriculum was sufficiently broad, including foreign languages ; mathematics ; architecture, civil and military ; painting ; sculpture, engraving ; experimental physics, astronomy, geography, chemistry, mineralogy, botany ; anatomy, human and veterinary ; and natural history. This endeavor interested many people both in America and France. No less than sixty thousand francs was raised toward the endowment. Among the subscribers to the fund were about a hundred of the representatives of the best culture of Virginia. On July I, 1 786, the corner-stone of the building

' Herbert B. Adams's Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia^ 22.

was laid at Richmond, and one professor was appointed. He was Dr. Jean Rouelle. But in 1 786 France was in no condition to enter into schemes of education or other propagandism outside of her own territory, and the formal endeavor came to an end. The extinction of the movement, however, did not mean the extinction of French influence in the United States. In the States of Virginia and the Carolinas, French influence prevailed with great force. The chief agent in putting it down was the Presbyterian power of Princeton ; but yet it showed itself ultimately in the foundation of the University of Virginia, and at the beginning of the century among the students of many colleges. But the French influence was by no means confined to the South. In 1784 the Corporation of Harvard College received an offer from the King of France to furnish a botanic garden which the College desired to establish **with every species of seeds and plants, which may be requested from his royal garden, at his own expense." Through the indifference of the Massachusetts Legislature the College was not able to accept of the offer.^ It is further worthy

'Quincy*s History of Harvard University^ ii., 267.

of note that two years before Albert Gallatin had been granted the right of teaching the French language in the College.

The University of Virginia is the child of Jefferson, and Jefferson in both the strength and "weakness of his character belonged rather to the French than to any other nation. The policy of centralization which the University of Virginia represented was the policy which Napoleon introduced into the higher education of France. The free religious sentiment which the university embodied was an echo, too, of French principles. The endeavors to secure from abroad teachers for its chairs indicates the prevalence of French influences.

In another respect the influence of France was as evil as in the case of the University of Virginia it was beneficent. For never was a period in the history of the higher education when those principles and vices which are frequently denominated French had so large an influence among American students as at the opening of the century. The records show that the students of the time were defiant of authority, in conduct immoral, and in religion skeptical. A general spirit of insubordination

Students of Yale at this time

theniseKes bv the names of th

free-thinkers of France. Writir

College one says : *' French liber

philosophy poured in upon us lik

seemed to sweep almost ever

before it." ' The condition of E

lege was like that of Williams

for the Christian religion, seem

the rule. A wave of immoralitj

gion had for a time submerged al

The third period in the develc

American college dates from abo

the first quarter of the present o

period is not yet closed. It is a

deserves an epithet no less br

word human. The college has 1:

period an ag^encv for nrenanno

Its Increasing Power. n

worthily set before himself. A boy who comes to college, comes not so much to fit himself for a profession as to become a large and complete man. I lately asked a class of young men in college to write answers to the following questions : First, Why did I come to college? Second, Is my purpose in coming to college being met? Third, How is it being met? The answers have a similarity which, although remarkable at first reading, is not so remarkable when all the conditions are considered. Choosing from these papers almost at random, I find that certain students indicate their purpose, as expressed in their own words, as follows :

" My purpose in coming to college was somewhat vague and ill-defined. I was brought up with that idea, and had a general idea that the college man's culture would be a good acquisition. This, however, was but one side of it. I wanted to see through my studies just what lifework would be best fitted for me. I think that being under the training of a college has had its good effect upon me as upon others. I think I have begun to get an earnest determination as to what I shall do in life, and I think my studies here, and the comradeship of my friends, have been valuable." " I came to college," says another, " in order to obtain, by a systematic course of study directed by competent men, that mental training bciiiLr roali/c',1 buiii in the wav of trainiivj The lrjini:i;j, is obt-iir.cd by mciual cxlTi fcrciU stiuiics, in^uI■ing at the same tim quisition of information." " I came to c< a third, " to prepare myself for my life-v a broader education, and also to develc the mental, moral, and physical lines foi lege offers the best chance. My purpo cured. It is being secured by the studie by contact with the professors and my 1 the latter having as much, if not more, taining this end, as that which I get 01 books."

That IS to say, these men are 1 order to fit themselves for life.

This largeness of relationship i by these undergraduates is only t of what the college officer has bee these recent years. At the time ( uration as President of Harvard i860, Cornelius Conway Felton S2

Its Increasing Power.

education, a university education, aims to train the mind in . . . high studies, to make it familiar with inspiring examples, to refine the taste, exercise the judgment, soften the heart, by . . . humanizing arts."

More than a quarter of a century after the inauguration of President Felton, at his inauguration. President Dvvight, of Yale, said :

" It [education] does for the mind what religion does for the heart. It builds up and builds out the man. The man, when it has accomplished its work within him, can use his knowledge and his powers wherever the world may need them, and he will do so if the noble impulses of educated manhood are in his spirit. ... It is the priceless privilege of a University teacher to help the manly youth around him in their souls' living, to make them more generous, more truthful, more fit for life in this earnest and struggling world, more worthy of love and respect."

The president of a scientific school, Lehigh University, said at his inauguration :

" Modern collegiate life is to-day a wonderful microcosm ; — it represents the endeavor of generations of zealous, earnest educators to make this period of youth increasingly profitable. The number and variety of studies have been increased many fold, the proportion of teachers to students has been increased, improved methods of instruction have been brought into play and the equipment of laboratories is lavishly generous. Never before has there been such earnest discussion as to educational methods and values ; the teacher's art has become a science, and he a great power in the land." *

It is, in a word, to the making of a man that the college now gives itself.

This breadth of interest is at once the cause and the result of the increasing number of subjects found in the curriculum. The curriculum of the American college two hundred years after the foundation of Harvard showed very little change or progress. It was one which well represents the attainments of a boy who is now entering college rather than of the man who is now leaving. An English traveller, Weld, visiting Princeton at the close of the last century says of it :

" A large college, held in much repute by the neighboring States. The number of students amounts to upwards of seventy ; from their appearance, however, and the course of studies they seem to be engaged in, like all the other American colleges I ever saw, it better deserves the title of a grammar-school than of a college. The library which we were shown is most wretched, consisting for the most part of old theological books not even arranged with any regularity. An orrery contrived by Mr. Rittenhouse stands at one end of the apartment,

^ Inaugural of President T. M. Drown, October lo, 1895.

but It is quite out of repair, as well as a few detached parts of a philosophical apparatus enclosed in the same glass case. At the opposite end of the room are two small cupboards, which are shown as the museum. These contain a few small stuffed alligators and a few singular fishes in a miserable state of preservation, from their being repeatedly tossed about.'

»» 1

There is in the diary of President Stiles, of Yale College, under date of November 9, 1779, a list of the books in which classes recited at the time when he came into his office. The Freshman class list included Virgil, Cicero, Greek Testament, and Arithmetic, and the studies for each of the three following years are the natural consequences of the elementary work of the Freshman.' The few reminiscences which we have of the studies in the last part of the seventeenth and the early part of the present century, among which those of Edward Everett are prominent, and the formal historical statements respecting the course of study, lead one to believe that for almost two hundred years the American college had remained stationary in respect to its course of study.

It is also evident that the students pursued

' Henry Adams's History of the United States, i,, 129. ^The YaUBook.u., 498.

their studies without great intellectual zest, and that they possessed only a small share of that scholarly interest which now prevails among the better class of undergraduates. But in the last seventy-five years a larger progress has been made in the broadening of the course than was made during all the centuries since Oxford and Cambridge began to receive students. The studies which now consume the larger share of the students* attention, outside of Latin and Greek and Mathematics, have been introduced in the last three-quarters of the present century. The Smith Professorship of French and Spanish was founded at Harvard in i8 15, although instruction in French had been offered to those who desired it as early as 1 780, — a time when this offer made at Harvard reflects the popularity of the French nation in the colonies. I have heard the late Professor F. H. Hedge say that in his time as an undergraduate — he was a member of Harvard's class of 1825 — it was as unusual to hear a person speak German as it would now be to hear one speak Russian. It was not till 1839 ^hat the first Professorship of History was established in Harvard, although, of course, the subject had been taught before, and it represents the first distinct endowment of this Chair in any college. The first incumbent was Jared Sparks.

But the greatest development of this third period has occurred in the teaching of the sciences.^ Chemistry was the first to receive attention. Benjamin Silliman was appointed professor of chemistry and natural philosophy (also teaching geology and mineralogy) at Yale in 1804; and Robert Hare, of Philadelphia, was called to the chair of chemistry in the medical college of the University of Pennsylvania in 18 18.

Both of these men taught chemistry by text-books and illustrated lectures. Hare was a tireless investigator, Silliman a helper of too many good causes to become eminent as an original authority in any. The idea of instruction in laboratory work does not seem to have occurred to either of them. Even Benjamin Silliman the younger does not appear to have had free access to his father's laboratory until he became his assistant in 1837. By this time

' For the statement of facts as to the introduction of instruction in the sciences I am indebted to my associate, Professor F. P. Whitman.

Liebig s laboratory had been established, and the possibility of obtaining practical instruction in chemistry began to draw young men to Germany. Probably this was an important influence in bringing about the change of method which swept over the country about 1850, Yale taking the lead.

In 1842, Benjamin Silliman, Jr., began taking a few favored students into his laboratory. Among them was J. P. Norton, who went in 1843 to study for two years in Edinburgh and Utrecht, bringing back European methods.

In 1847 was established the ''School of Applied Chemistry," under the care of the younger Silliman and Norton. Among the six students of the first year were the well-known professors of the Sheffield Scientific School, Brush, Brewer, and Johnson. This was the beginning of the Sheffield Scientific School.

In Pennsylvania the movement appears to have been similar, in that the applications of chemistry to the arts were the chief reasons urged for establishing a department of applied chemistry in 1850, under the charge of Professor James C. Booth.

At Harvard the same influence was working.

In 1846 Eben N. Horsford, fresh from two years' work with Liebig, at Giessen, was recommended by Professor Webster (of sinister memory) to the " Rumford Professorship of the Application of Science to the Useful Arts," on assuming which he organized at once, in 1847, the laboratory of the Lawrence Scientific School, on the model, as far as possible, of that at Giessen.

But a more notable event was the appointment of the eager young chemist, Josiah P. Cooke, to a position in Harvard College, first as a lecturer in chemistry in 1850, in addition to his duties as tutor in mathematics, and afterward in December of the same year as Erving professor of chemistry and mineralogy. In 1851, Cooke opened a laboratory at his own cost, for undergraduate students, apparently the first recognition of the fact that chemistry may be taught not merely to specialists but to those less advanced, by laboratory methods. This course was formally recognized by the college, and proper accommodations provided for it in 1858.

Dr. Wayland's famous report of 1850 awakened interest in the same direction at Brown, and a working laboratory for chemistry was opened at the beginning of the next college year.

As far as catalogues of that date show, the sciences were still taught in the old way, in 1850, at Amherst, Bowdoin, Dartmouth, Princeton, and the University of Virginia, but by 1852 a chemical laboratory had been established at the last named institution.

The establishment of physical laboratories began nearly twenty years later, those for the study of biology at a later period still, after the value of the laboratory method had been thoroughly established by the experience of the chemists.

The history of the introduction of political economy and economic science into the American college covers a much longer period than it is usually believed to cover. The University of Pennsylvania was the first to make provision for this study. As early as 1 756, a plan of liberal studies was framed, in which, after prescribing

" a preliminary training in logic and metaphysics to develop his powers of thought, the student was to be brought to a knowledge and practical sense of his position as a man and a citizen, and this by a course embracing ethics, natural and civil law, and an introduction to civil history, to laws and government, to trade and commerce y

In 1799, William and Mary College added to its curriculum the subject of the law of nations, and near the beginning of the present century, Adam Smith's great book is found to be among the text-books. In 1820, Harvard introduced Economics into its curriculum and other colleges presently followed. At Yale, Economics was introduced in 1824, at Columbia in 1827, at Dartmouth in 1828, at Princeton in 1830, and at Williams in 1835. The writer^ to whom I am indebted for these facts, states that the almost simultaneous introduction of this study by Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia, Princeton, and Williams was probably due to the industrial revolution which the inventions of Arkwright, Hargreaves, and Fulton had wrought, to the expansion of commerce which followed the close of the Napoleonic wars, to the growth of population, and to the increasing mobility of labor

'James F. Colby, a letter in the New York Nation^ vol. Ixiii., p. 494, dated December 31, 1896.

and capital, which before 1820 gave rise to new political issues in the United States. The addition of Economics to the curriculum of these colleges undoubtedly was facilitated by the appearance, as early as 182 1, of an American edition of Say's Political Economy. This was the first text-book upon this subject used in most of these colleges.

This enlargement of the curriculum is at once cause and result of the college becoming more human. Whatever belongs to man is no longer regarded as foreign to the higher education. To embody Newman's idea of the higher education has become the controlling purpose of the university.

" Education," says Newman, " shows him [the student] how to accommodate himself to others, how to throw himself into their state of mind, how to bring before them his own, how to influence them, how to come to an understanding with them, how to bear with them. He is at home in any society, he has common ground with every class ; he knows when to speak and when to be silent ; he is able to converse, he is able to listen ; he can ask a question pertinently, and gain a lesson seasonably, when he has nothing to impart himself ; he is ever ready, yet never in the way ; he is a pleasant companion, and a comrade you can depend upon ; he knows when to be serious and when to trifle, and he has a sure tact which enables him to trifle with gracefulness and to be serious with effect. He has the repose of a mind which lives in itself, while it lives in the world, and which has resources for its happiness at home when it cannot go abroad. He has a gift which serves him in public, and supports him in retirement, without which good fortune is but vulgar, and with which failure and disappointment have a charm." *

The human interest of the college is further evidenced in the fact that the college now ministers to the higher scholarship as it never has before ministered to it. Newman writes as no one else has ever written of the value of the college in training men ; but the college is not only training men, it is promoting scholarship. Although certain men, great as inventors and discoverers of scientific facts, have not been liberally trained, — one cannot, however, forget that Eli Whitney and Samuel F. B. Morse were graduates of Yale, — yet the impulses for their inventions and discoveries have largely come from the college laboratory. It is ever to be remembered, too, that the great work of such investigators as Agassiz, Gray, Dana, and Morley has been done within college walls. The great institution that Agassiz

' Newman's The Idea of a University^ 178.

— father and son — has built at Cambridge is a part of Harvard, and also the noble and manifold work of the associate of Agassiz, Asa Gray, is an integral part of the same University. The great work of the codification of knowledge and the systematization of facts, which is saving knowledge unto itself and unto the world, and is preventing the human mind from becoming submerged in its own discoveries, is carried on largely in the colleges. Investigations in literature, history, the sciences, political and civic relations of the present time, belong in the largest degree and in an increasing degree, to the best colleges. The purpose which the American college formerly held of training men is no longer the single one ; with this aim is to be united the purpose of advancing scholarship.

The breadth of the field which an education of this period covers is indicated by the number and character of the State universities. These universities have largely sprung up in the last forty years. The majority of them have been founded since the passing of the Land Act of 1862. The State universities of the States west of the Mississippi are certainly