Liberal Education for a Land of Colleges

Transcription

1 Liberal Education for a Land of Colleges

2 Higher Education & Society Series Editors: Roger L. Geiger, Distinguished Professor of Education, Pennsylvania State University Katherine Reynolds Chaddock, Professor of Higher Education Administration, University of South Carolina This series explores the diverse intellectual dimensions, social themes, cultural contexts, and pressing political issues related to higher education. From the history of colleges and universities to heated contemporary debates, topics in this field range from issues in equity, matriculation, class representation, and current educational Federal Acts, to concerns with gender and pedagogy, new media and technology, and the challenges of globalization. In this way, the series aims to highlight theories, historical developments, and contemporary endeavors that prompt critical thought and reflective action in how higher education is conceptualized and practiced in and beyond the United States. Liberal Education for a Land of Colleges: Yale s Reports of 1828 By David B. Potts Deans of Men and the Shaping of Modern College Culture (forthcoming) By Robert A. Schwartz

3 Liberal Education for a Land of Colleges Yale s REPORTS of 1828 DAVID B. POTTS

4 LIBERAL EDUCATION FOR A LAND OF COLLEGES Copyright David B. Potts, Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN DOI / ISBN (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: April

5 For Ken, Dan, & Beth and their great-grandfather Bronson Mills Warren

6 This page intentionally left blank

7 Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface ix xi xv Introductory Essay: A Land of Colleges 1 Resources for the Study of Yale s Reports 1 American Colleges: Fall Reports on the Course of Instruction in Yale College (1828) After 84 3 Annotations for Yale s Reports of Yale s Undergraduate Curriculum 1828/29 After The Substance of Two Reports of the Faculty of Amherst College (1827) After Amherst s Undergraduate Curriculum 1828/29 After Remarks on Changes Lately Proposed or Adopted, in Harvard University (1825) After Harvard s Undergraduate Curriculum 1827/ A Note on the Research Context for a Compelling and Cogent Case Roger L. Geiger 227 General Index 235 Index of Institutions 240

8 This page intentionally left blank

9 Illustrations Jeremiah Day: Portrait painted in 1823 by Samuel F. B. Morse, courtesy of Yale Art Gallery, Gift of the Class of James L. Kingsley: Engraving in 1828 by Simeon Smith Jocelyn from a portrait painted by Nathaniel Jocelyn, courtesy of Archives and Manuscripts, Yale University Library 35 Gideon Tomlinson: Miniature profile by Samuel F. B. Morse, done in 1822 for use in his large painting of all U.S. House of Representatives members in chamber, from Rev. Samuel Orcutt, Henry Tomlinson and His Descendents in America (New Haven, CT: Press of Price, Lee, Adkins, 1891) 39 Yale campus in 1828: Engraving on a copper plate by Simeon Smith Jocelyn from a drawing by Henry C. Pratt, published in the 5 February 1828 issue of Souvenir, a journal published in Philadelphia 84 Amherst campus in 1828: Engraving on a steel plate by Fenner Sears & Co. from a drawing in 1828 by architect Alexander Jackson Davis, published in John Howard Hinton, History and Topography of the United States, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: T. Wardle, 1832). The building far left, built in 1828, was known as North College until destroyed by fire in 1857; for those years today s North College, built in 1823, was known as Middle College. 162 Harvard campus in 1828: Engraving on a steel plate by Fenner Sears & Co. from a drawing in 1828 by architect Alexander Jackson Davis, published in John Howard

10 ILLUSTRATIONS Hinton, History and Topography of the United States, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: T. Wardle, 1832) 192 Maps American colleges and universities in 1830 and 1860, reproduced, with adaptations, from Charles O. Paullin, Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1932) 82 x

11 Acknowledgments Frederick Rudolph introduced me to Yale s Reports more than forty years ago in his graduate-level course at Harvard on the history of American education. I am grateful for this initial encounter with a document that I have thought about many times in my professional life as a historian of American higher education, an academic dean, and a professor of American history. I also am indebted to Fred for his generous and gracious encouragement of my historical efforts, even when they may have departed somewhat from interpretations found in his own path-breaking publications. To Fred, Hugh Hawkins, Jurgen Herbst, and Roger Geiger, I owe deep appreciation for reading and volunteering helpful responses to shorter versions of my introductory essay and for decades of caring colleagueship in a field where I was only an occasional participant. College and university archivists provided extensive expert partnership in my attempt to develop the institutional background for understanding Yale s Reports. For an author living in the Pacific Northwest, their aid was essential. Bill Massa at Yale deserves special mention for his thoughtful assistance in facilitating access to a wide range of materials. Over a span of five years, Bill and his counterparts at several dozen other institutions ranging from Maine to Louisiana cheerfully contributed data required to establish a context for the Reports. Others in related domains informed the enterprise. Institutional historians generously shared their expertise. Local historians and the staff at various historical societies supplied facts needed to construct the general picture. Outstanding help during research trips to New England came from the staff of the American Antiquarian Society, particularly Dennis Laurie. My demographic snapshot of American colleges in 1828 is, in large measure, a tribute

12 xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS to this amazing network of partners in the preservation and understanding of American social and cultural history. A special word of thanks is due to Linda Koch Lorimer, vice president and secretary of the university, who invited me to give the Charles G. Trumbull Lecture in October 2001 as part of Yale s tercentennial celebration. This book builds upon preparations for that presentation and upon a paper delivered at the World Congress of Philosophy in The latter yielded several beneficial exchanges with Bill Enteman, a philosopher interested in the Reports. Whatever this book accomplishes stands firmly on the foundation of loving support from my wife. Betsy s patient help with research trip plans, collecting evidence, and editing has stretched across more years than we could reasonably anticipate. * * * The facsimiles of three pamphlets and the illustrations were prepared for publication, with great skill and care, by Michael Martin. Enhancements for the facsimiles included removal of blemishes and blurs that might slow or otherwise distract the reader. Most of them probably were deposited on pages of the original during the almost two centuries since publication. Except for the excision of distracting signature numbers appearing at the bottom of every ninth page, the resulting appearance of each text closely resembles what readers of these pamphlets encountered in the 1820s. Alterations in the maps included several steps. For the depiction of colleges in 1830, various stray dot-like markings from the printing process in 1932 were removed. Several dots were deleted where I could not verify the presence of a college that would meet the criteria for my 1828 list. Lafayette College, for example, had a charter in 1830 but did not open until My adapted map for 1830 includes the fifty colleges in my 1828 list plus six that subsequently opened, reopened after a suspension of operations, or evolved to a collegiate level of instruction: Allegheny (PA), Madison (PA), and Indiana University in 1829; Mississippi, Mount Saint Mary s (MD), and Georgetown (KY) in A few, including Georgetown, initially had only a three-year college curriculum. Several of the colleges

13 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS represented on this map did not survive beyond the nineteenth century. To enhance recognition, the dot for Case Western Reserve University was moved northward to Cleveland; Western Reserve College relocated there in The 1860 map is truncated, for space reasons, in a manner that omits fourteen colleges (half of them in California and Oregon) that lie beyond my newly imposed western boundary. Both maps are included primarily to give the reader a general sense of how rapidly antebellum America expanded and dispersed its roster of institutions for higher education. For permission to reproduce with adaptations the maps of colleges in 1830 and 1860, I thank the Carnegie Institution, Washington, DC. For copies made from items in their collections (fully described and cited in my list of illustrations) and for permission, where necessary, to use them in my book, I am grateful to Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library for Reports on the Course of Study, engravings of the Yale campus in 1828 and of James L. Kingsley, and pages copied from the 1828/29 catalogue; Yale Art Gallery for the portrait of Jeremiah Day, Gift of the Class of 1823; Huntington Library, San Marino, California, for Substance of Two Reports, Remarks on Changes, and engraved views of the Harvard and Amherst campuses in 1828; Museum of Connecticut History for the image of Gideon Tomlinson; Amherst College Archives and Special Collections for pages copied from the catalogue of 1828/29; Harvard University Archives for pages copied from the president s report for 1827/28. xiii

14 This page intentionally left blank

15 Preface Reports on the Course of Instruction in Yale College; by a Committee of the Corporation, and the Academical Faculty (1828) is an indispensable reference point for understanding the development of American higher education. Yale s Reports played a central role in clearly delineating various teaching objectives, modes of learning, and levels of instruction for the nation s colleges. The three authors of this pamphlet sharpened the emerging distinctions between undergraduate and graduate studies and between liberal as compared to vocational or professional education. They forged a crucial link between process and content in liberal learning. Yale produced a truly foundational document during formative years in the cultural, social, and economic life of the young republic. Strangely, this document is little known beyond a small group of scholars in the history of education and the students who have studied with them. Except for the few years immediately following its appearance, the Reports shaped without being seen. Ideas in the text merged seamlessly with the success story of the college in New Haven, where they were exemplified. Yale s most important concepts and practices quickly became conventional wisdom, retaining in this vague form their utility through the years since publication. A renewed, broader, well-informed awareness of the 1828 statement provides an essential historical perspective for understanding today s colleges and universities. 1 There are moments in history when persuasive articulation of an emerging set of ideas at just the right moment can have far-reaching results. Yale s pamphlet was well timed for maximum effect. By 1820, as Frederick Jackson Turner notes, the rising tide of westward migration became manifest. The rapid growth and movement

16 xvi PREFACE of population sustained through subsequent decades profoundly influenced the development of educational institutions. Although America in the 1820s had started to become a land of colleges, clear concepts to guide the nascent nineteenth-century collegiate building boom were not yet in place. Growth had barely begun. The roster of approximately fifty small colleges in 1828 would swell to more than two hundred institutions of higher education by 1860 (see maps on pp ). A century of expansion following the Civil War would take the number of institutions providing higher education to more than three thousand. While generally unaware of Yale s Reports, those who constructed and used the nation s vast system of colleges and universities built on and modified the ideas found in this seminal document. Historians of higher education acknowledge the importance of Yale s Reports by routinely including it in their anthologies and narratives. Yet we do not always give this statement the close, careful attention it merits. Even first-rate historians variously date the pamphlet from 1827 to They report that the publication has two authors when it actually has three. They erroneously assert that the text was shortened for republication in the American Journal of Science. A few create or repeat, without supporting evidence, a claim that the Connecticut legislature pressured Yale to alter its curriculum. Newspaper essays by experts sometimes misread Yale s approach and even unwittingly represent as Yale s opinion words that the pamphlet quotes in order to refute them. Scholars who place Yale s pronouncement in a political context seem to do so without the knowledge that recently elected Governor Gideon Tomlinson, author of the second report, was allied with Andrew Jackson s emerging Democratic Party. For those who study higher education, this document ranks among the most widely known but least scrutinized with in-depth research and analysis. 2 Yale s pamphlet even labors under an imposed label. For more than a half-century it has been identified as the Yale Report of Those who continue this current practice reject the name given to the publication by its authors and open a door to diminished depth of understanding. Use of a singular verb with the plural noun that begins the pamphlet s published title may seem a bit awkward at

17 PREFACE first, especially when spoken. But use of a singular-noun in the current label, while gaining a smoother pathway for any singular verb that follows, sacrifices the important function of italics to show that it was published. My title, preface, and introductory essay for reprinting the pamphlet advocate through example a use of the first word on the authors title page. When making shortened references to the pamphlet, such usage as Yale s Reports of 1828, Yale s Reports, or the Reports honors the authors choice of an enduring name for their work. The form of denotation that I propose for future use also quickly leads readers toward a clear sense that the work is a publication and is the result of a collaborative effort employing independently authored reports, one speaking for the faculty and the other for a committee of the Yale Corporation. Historical narratives frequently employ the Reports as a foil. It is a reactionary force thwarting egalitarian educational reform. Or it is an annoying impediment delaying the emergence of research universities. There are even hints that this document condoned poor teaching. Very few university-trained scholars have warmed to a document so often portrayed as a hidebound relic of the old-time college. Historians using the Reports have been hampered by the text not being readily available. In 1871 the author of Yale s first full-scale history said: It might be well if a new edition of this report could be reprinted for general circulation. 3 It has been a long wait. The full text of the Reports last came off a press when Yale issued a second printing in An equally important obstacle for historians has been the lack of a narrative that renders the Reports more accessible by placing it more specifically and fully in the context of its times and far beyond. We had no probing analysis of why it was written and published in We had no textual explication that identified its many unattributed quotations and set it in a broad cultural landscape. We lacked full biographical understanding of the key players in the production of this statement. We had only rudimentary tracings of its influence and a limited sense of its potential uses for historical analysis. This book moves toward meeting such needs. It supplies the document in a form easily pulled from library and study shelves. It also provides the texts of pamphlets from Amherst and Harvard to xvii

18 PREFACE which Yale s authors are responding. The introductory essay traces links among these publications, grounds the Reports in its immediate environment, and develops a few of the many possible broader historical contexts within which Yale s statement plays a role. More than half of the essay s endnotes contain additional information useful for developing a fuller understanding of the pamphlet. Annotations for the Reports illuminate the sources used by Jeremiah Day and his colleague James Kingsley, particularly in the debates they pursue with opponents they do not name. My primary goal is to provide a fully accurate and useful foundation for scholars who want to reference the pamphlet, analyze its message, or build in substantial new directions related to its life and times. This book enables academics, as well as other readers, to experience reading the entire pamphlet in its original font and size. They are also prepared to engage the facsimile with knowledge of its authors and the proximate stimuli for their thinking and writing. Roger Geiger s previously unpublished brief essay enhances such engagement and also offers insightful observations that serve as an example of opportunities to explore additional explanations and perspectives. 4 I hope that the range of resources in this volume will encourage those who teach and pursue research in American history to explore more readily and to assess in greater depth the role of Yale s pamphlet in shaping our understanding of liberal education. Benefits from such understanding, of course, extend beyond the academic community. The pursuit of liberal learning is a precious resource of American culture. For anyone interested in the purposes and future of American higher education, Yale s Reports of 1828 is an excellent starting point for exploring the core ends and means of liberal education in a democratic society. NOTES 1. Julie Ruben describes Yale s Reports as the most influential educational statement of the antebellum period. Extending the time span of importance for Yale s pamphlet, Jurgen Herbst states: Of all the pronouncements documenting the curricular history of American higher education xviii

19 PREFACE none occupies a more central and enduring place. See Julie A. Ruben, The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 26; Jurgen Herbst, The Yale Report of 1828, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 11 (Fall 2004): For a recent attempt at and call for more scrutiny of the Reports, see Michael S. Pak, The Yale Report of 1828: A New Reading and New Interpretation, History of Education Quarterly 48 (February 2008): In his section on historiography, Pak cites much of the literature on Yale s Reports. 3. William L. Kingsley, ed., Yale College: A Sketch of Its History, vol. 1 (New York: Holt, 1879), For two more examples of the potential for exploring new historical contexts, see Jack C. Lane, The Yale Report of 1828 and Liberal Education: A Neorepublican Manifesto, History of Education Quarterly 27 (Fall 1987): ; Herbst, Yale Report, For an interesting use of the Reports in a twenty-first-century context and critique, see David L. Kirp, Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), xix