The Pioneering Colleges: The New American College,

Governance, Curriculum, and Faculty, 1790-1869

Les Goodchild, Santa Clara University
The Pioneering Colleges—Class 3

Overview of Today’s Class

 How do we understand the development of
American colleges from 1776-1861?
 Old-Time College
 Antebellum College
 Multipurpose College
 Three Schools of Historical Interpretation
 Traditional View
 Revisionist View
 Innovationist View
 Pioneering Colleges—Boosterism by churches
and states
The Pioneering Colleges—Class 3

 Governance structure of the colleges

 Public
 Private
 Theory of lay governance
 Churches
 The Dartmouth College Decision of 1819
 The Yale Report of 1828
 The New Colleges of the West—Women, Blacks,
Catholics
 Small Group Discussions
 Going to Mills College for Class 5
What accounts for the American
college development in this era?
Frederick Rudolph’s (1962)
Designation of the
“Collegiate Way” for the
new American colleges of
the Republic
 Old-Time College
 Antebellum College
 Multipurpose College
 Pioneering Colleges
 How historians wrote

 The Old-Time College—college historians in the

1930s and 1940s described the 19th century in
terms of what last century was like—focused on
college foundings
 The Antebellum College—by the 1950s and
1960s college historians used the Civil War as a
demarker, following mainline American
historians—focused on democratic curriculum
 The Multipurpose College—the colleges offered
many studies based on the local needs of the
community—focused on the mission of the
colleges
 Three schools of interpretation
for these colleges
The Traditional View—the Old-Time College
 Frederick Rudolph’s The American College and University (1962) followed
the idea of Tewksbruy (1932) that 700 colleges had been founded after
the Revolution and before the Civil War. Most fail—only 250 survive,
an 81% failure rate.

 These colleges were founded as

local agents of the religious
denominations to bring religion
to the community.
 Richard Hofstadter (1955) called
this the “Great Retrogression”
where schools of the
enlightenment became
“bastions of educational,
political, and ideological
conservatism”
 Three schools of interpretation
for these colleges
The Revisionist View—the Antebellum College
 Colin Burke’s The American Collegiate Populations: A Test of
the Traditional View (1982) revised the number of college
foundings—claiming that many were not colleges at all.
He claims not that many founded—and of those 249
survive—only a 17% failure rate
 Natalie Naylor’s “The Antebellum College Movement”
(1973) notes that these colleges contributed to the
democratization of higher education by expanding
postsecondary opportunities to local areas, thereby
improving the quality of education there.
 Earle Ross’s (1942) Democracy’s Colleges offered sciences
and engineering studies that broadened the utility of
these schools.
 Three schools of interpretation
for these colleges
The Multipurpose College—Innovationist View
 Roger Geiger’s The American College in the Nineteenth
Century (1995/2000) points to the variety of college
offerings at the schools in the west from 1850 to 1890:
 from brick laying (trades)—leading to the “people’s college”
and land-grant colleges, such as Iowa State College (1862)
 for classical studies for women—leading to Troy Female
Seminary (1822)
 from classical studies for the professions of divinity,
medicine, and law
 Yet another view is possible
 A fourth school of interpretation

The Pioneering Colleges of 19th Century

 Goodchild’s “Western College Expansion, 1818-1945:
Churches and Evangelization, States and Boosterism”
offers a new geographical interpretation combining other
aspects of the previous three interpretative schools.
 D. W. Meinig’s The Shaping of America
(1986/1993/1998) points to the geographical aspects of
development that rise of towns across the
Appalachians and wagon trails west created the
demand for higher education
 Stanford’s William Cowley in 1950s called this era one
of renaissance because of the use of various types of
curricula
 Douglas Sloan’s The Scottish Enlightenment and the
American College Ideal (1971) noted that as early as 1760
brought science into the American college curriculum
 Governance in the New
Republic: States and Colleges
College Governance Shifts
 Yale from 1792 to mid-1800s 7
alumni replaced representatives
from the General Assembly
 College of Philadelphia becomes
the University of Pennsylvania in
1789, only governor left on board
 King’s College to Columbia
College in 1783 legislators off the
board
 Massachusetts legislature
reorganized Harvard’s governance
structure in 1810 and 1812. With the
loss of state funding in 1823, college
becomes independent
 William and Mary College
becomes a state university through
efforts of Jefferson in 1779
 Governance Changes

 Increase in lay governance

 New lay members of community
 Trustees are elected or appointed
 Terms created for being on governing boards
 Rise of denominational colleges—private charters
 Public colleges—new state universities in New York,
Pennsylvania, Georgia, Virginia, and Vermont
 Yale College—Board of Trustees has no faculty on it and
growing polarization of faculty from president and
trustees occurring—leading to growing denominational
orientation
 The Dartmouth College Case
of 1819
College Governance Shift
from Public to Private
 Dartmouth College case of 1819
offers a new governance model for
colleges
 Dartmouth College chartered by
the Crown on December 13, 1769
and founded by Eleazar Wheelock
 Wheelock dies and wills that his
son John Wheelock become the
president, but then he dismissed by
trustees after 10 years due to power
struggle over who would appoint
faculty
 Trustees appoint Francis Brown
president
 The Dartmouth College Case
of 1819
 John Wheelock goes to New Hampshire Legislature
(Democrats) and asks for them to create Dartmouth
University (John keeps College records and seal)
 University trustees take over buildings
 Now the old College trustees (all Federalists) sue in state
court to gain records, seal, and buildings
 College trustees lose in state Supreme Court (controlled
by Federalists)
 College trustees move to appeal decision to the U.S.
Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall (most
Federalist court)
 Daniel Webster, an alum, defends the College trustees—
his famous defense at the end of the trail
 Marshall sides with the College trustees and his decision
creates the law on corporations and private corporations,
justices vote 5 to 1 in favor
 The Dartmouth College Case
of 1819
 Marshall sides with College trustees and Webster
 Marshall contends that Dartmouth was not a civil or
public institution nor was its property public. Rather he
claimed it was a private eleemosynary (i.e., supported by
charity) institution. Its object was to benefit the public—
not a public institution under public control.
 State cannot change the charter of an institution without
the consent of its trustees
 Marshall defines nature of a corporation in the United
States in this case
 The Dartmouth College Case
of 1819: Interpretations
Two Schools of Legal Interpretation
 John Whitehead (1986) claims the Dartmouth Decision
had little effect; recognition of private versus public
higher education did not come until after the Civil War
 States paid little attention to the law
 States still fund “private colleges,” including Harvard
 Seen as a fight over the religious orientation of the
president
 Jurgen Herbst (1976/1982) claims Dartmouth Decision
was the outcome of a long stream of such decisions. It is
the magna carta of private higher education.
 Marshall wished to protect colleges from legislative
interference
 Creates a private institution without direct
denominational control—and spawns private colleges
across the country
 Creates a decision for rights of private corporations
doing business under the Constitution
 The Yale Report of 1828:
Faculty and Curriculum

 http://www.yale.edu/about/video.html
 What should be taught in the
college curriculum?

After the Revolution,

the colleges and the
professors began
changing their
curricula
•Yale—Ezra Stiles
teaches the sciences
•William and Mary—
Jefferson drops
divinity and Hebrew
 William and Mary
 Jefferson establishes an American curricula
 Center for new learning—dropping religion
from the curriculum—to a secular orientation
 Professorships in public administration,
modern languages, medical sciences, natural
history, moral philosophy, natural law,
international law, and the fine arts
 Modern languages center on studies in
French because of France’s help in the
Revolution in 1779
 University of Virginia
 Jefferson creates an American state university
with the founding of the University of Virginia
in 1825
 8 different schools formed—ancient
languages, modern languages, mathematics,
natural philosophy, natural history, anatomy
and medicine, moral philosophy, and law
 Earned degrees with written and oral
examinations
 Curricula influences other southern colleges
and state universities over the next 50 years
 Reactions to Curricular
Developments
 In 1828, President Jeremiah Day and Professor
James Kingsley publish the Yale Report in
opposition to these “new modelled” forms:
“What is the appropriate object of a college? . . .its object is
to LAY THE FOUNDATION OF A SUPERIOR
EDUCATION: and this is done at the a period of life
when a substitute must be provided for parental
superintendence. . . . The two great points to be gained in
intellectual culture, are discipline and the furniture of the
mind expanding its powers, and storing in with
knowledge. . . . A commanding object, therefore, in a
collegiate course, should be, to call into daily and
vigorous exercise the faculties of the student.”
 Importance of the Yale Report

 The Yale Report influenced colleges and

universities for more than a century
 The Yale Report upheld the liberal arts tradition of
instruction in Greek and Latin as a way to form
educated citizens and prepare them for professional
education (in divinity, medicine, and law)
 Review of the 1824 Yale curriculum
 Yale had the largest enrollment of all the colleges
 Great geographical distribution of students
 Greatest number of alumni of any college
 Of the 75 colleges by 1840, 36 had presidents who
graduated from Yale
 The last college to require Latin of all undergraduates
finally dropped it in 1972
 Three Schools of Interpretation

 The Conservative Interpretation—the Report is

a reaction to curricular developments and is an
attempt to bolster an ancient language based
liberal arts curriculum (Rudy, 1960; Schmidt,
1957)
 The Liberal Interpretation--the Report is an
open-minded and liberal defense of the classical
languages (Hall, 1982; Pak, 2008; Solan, 1971)
 The Utilitarian Interpretation—the Report
supports liberal education as a preparation for
the professions
 Pioneering Colleges of the West

 Moving beyond the former colonies, new states to the

west and south encouraged the founding of colleges on
the frontier beginning the Americanization process:
 Catholic colleges with Georgetown in 1789, St. Louis
University in 1818, the University of Notre Dame in
1842, and Santa Clara University in 1851
 Women’s colleges with Troy Female Seminary in 1822,
Georgia Female College in 1836, and Mount Holyoke
College in 1837
 African Americans with Avery College in 1849,
Lincoln University in 1854, and Wilberforce
University in 1856
 Oberlin College allowed coeducation and African
American students to enroll in 1834 , thus becoming
the quintessential American college
 Oberlin’s American Mandate

 In their 1839 statement, Oberlin College faculty

set the standard for American higher education.
Their proclamation called for:
“. . .the hearty recognition of equal human rights s
belonging to all whom God has made in his won image; a
deep sympathy with the oppressed of every color, in
every clime; and a consecration of life to the well-being of
suffering humanity—& finally this paramount principle,
that the cultivation of moral feelings is the first object in
education, Gospel love to God & man, the first of all
acquisitions and more precious than all other disciplines.”
 The American college of this era created
missions fully integrating both religious and
educational aims.
 References

Geiger, R. (2000) The American college in the nineteenth century.

Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
Kelly, B. M. (1974). Yale: A history. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Pak, M. S. (2008). The Yale Report of 1828: A new reading
and new implications. History of Education Quarterly 48(1),
30-58.
Rudolf, F. (1962). The American college and university: A
history. New York: Vintage Books.
Stites, F. N. (1972). Private interest and public gain: The
Dartmouth College case, 1819. Amherst, MA: University of
Massachusetts Press.
Whitehead, J. S. (1973). The separation of college and state:
Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Yale, 1776-1876.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.