The Institutional Diversification of Higher Education in the New Nation: 1780–1820

Abstract

15 THE INSTITUTIONAL DIVERSIFICATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE NEW NATION: 1780— 1820 Jurgen Herbst University of Wisconsin— Madison Between 1780 and 1820 a pattern of higher education emerged in the United States which differed from what it had been during the colonial period and in Europe. Before that time the degree-granting universities in England and on the continent as well as the colleges in the American colonies had been chartered as civil corporations. But now legislatures in the new states began to incorporate colleges which they neither had founded nor acknowledged as provincial or state institutions. These colleges owed their creation to the initiatives of private individuals or groups and came to exist side by side with the older public institutions. Their appearance marked a new de­ parture in the history of higher education. In the decades under discussion we may distinguish four different types of collegiate institutions in the new United States. There were first of all the eight provincial or established colleges of the colonial period from the oldest— Harvard College in Massachusetts— to the youngest, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. To these we should add the newly founded colleges in Maryland --Washington and St. John's; the College of Charleston as chartered in 1785 and South Carolina College; the state universities of North Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia; Ohio University and Miami University; Allegheny Col­ lege in Pennsylvania, and the university systems in Georgia, New York, Ken­ tucky, and Tennessee. All of these institutions were public foundations. The two Maryland colleges were viewed as constituting together the first Uni­ versity of Maryland. In South Carolina public officials served ex officio on the governing boards. At Ohio University the Governor sat on the board, and at Miami the legislature confirmed the election of trustees. At Allegheny College the 1817 charter provided for the ex officio membership of governor, chief justice, and attorney-general on the board of trustees. Next in order we should consider the non-public institutions created to supply the particular wants of a religious group, denomination, or church. Queen's College in New Jersey had been opened during the colonial period as a competitor to the provincial College of New Jersey. It had been designed to educate children of, and train ministers for, the Dutch Reformed churches in the middle colonies. A number of other new colleges of this type owed their existence to the pioneering efforts of Presbyterian clergymen. Many of these had grown out of grammar schools or academies originally sponsored and sup­ ported by a church, synod, or presbytery. To these belong Hampden-Sydney and Liberty Hall colleges in Virginia; Dickinson, Washington, Jefferson colleges and the Western University in Pennsylvania; Transylvania University and Centre College in Kentucky; Mt. Zion, Cambridge, and Alexandria colleges in South Carolina; Greeneville, Washington, and Blount colleges in Tennessee; Middlebury College in Vermont, and Hamilton College in New York. In Maryland the Methodists added Cokesbury and Asbury colleges, and the Catholics, Georgetown and St. Mary's. Finally, the German Lutherans and Reformed cre­ ated Franklin College in Pennsylvania, the Episcopaleans Worthington College in Ohio, and the Baptists Waterville College (later Colby) in Maine. A third group consisted of the colleges founded by promoters and deve­ lopers. These institutions— once called "booster colleges" by Daniel Boorstinl — depended on organized community effort which might, or might not, in­ volve one or several Christian denominations in addition to civic or profes­ sional groups. Good examples of this kind are Baltimore College in Maryland, Cincinnati College in Ohio, Union College in New York, and Williams and Bowdoin in New England. It is not always easy to distinguish colleges of this sort clearly from the denominational foundations. But as a general rule, the absence of a church or a religious body as single or chief promoter and sup­ porter is fairly typical for this kind of civic institution. Fourth and last, there were the degree-granting professional proprietary schools. Of this type only one was founded during our period, and that was the second University of Maryland which grew out of the College of Medicine of Maryland. 16 For the educational historian this flowering of new institutional types within the first four...