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COLLEGES IN AMERICA.
BY
JOHN MARSHALL BARKER, PH. D.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
REV. SYLVESTER F. SCOVEL, LL. D.,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WOOSTER.
[Illustration]
THE CLEVELAND PRINTING & PUBLISHING CO.,
CLEVELAND, OHIO.
1894.
COPYRIGHT, 1894,
THE CLEVELAND PRINTING & PUBLISHING CO.
TO ONE OF THE
GREATEST LIVING SCHOLARS AND EDUCATORS,
REV. WILLIAM F. WARREN, LL. D.,
PRESIDENT OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY.
NOTE.
The author of this volume aims to give the reader a brief survey of
the growth, functions, and work of the American Colleges. It has been
a pleasure to visit many of the colleges and gather facts, receive
impressions and carry away many pleasant recollections regarding them.
The following authorities have been helpful in the preparation of the
work: "A History of Education," by F. V. N. Painter; "The Rise and
Early Constitution of Universities," by S. S. Laurie; "Education in
the United States," by Richard G. Boone; "Essays on Educational
Reformers," by Robert H. Quick; "Education," by Herbert Spencer;
"Universities in Germany," by J. M. Hart; Huxley's "Technical
Education;" Froude's "Essay on Education,"; "The American College and
the American Public," by President Noah Porter; "Prayer for Colleges,"
by Professor W. S. Tyler; "American Colleges: their Life and Work,"
and "Within College Walls," by President Chas. F. Thwing;
"Universities on the Continent," and "Culture and Anarchy," by Matthew
Arnold; "Educational Essays," by Bishop Edward Thomson; "Christianity
in the United States," by Daniel Dorchester; "College Life," by
Stephen Olin; "The Intellectual Life," by P. G. Hamerton; "Essays on a
Liberal Education," by F. W. Farrar; "History of Higher Education" in
the several States, prepared by the Bureau of Education; "Reports of
the Commissioner of Education for 1890-'91;" and the periodical
literature bearing on the subject.
CONTENTS.
I. The Rise of Universities in the Old World, 13
II. The Planting of Colleges in the New World, 36
III. Characteristics of the American College, 69
IV. The Functions of the American College, 104
_a._ A Symmetrical Development.
_b._ The Advancement of Knowledge.
_c._ Preparation for Service.
V. Student Life in College, 156
VI. The Personal Factors in a College Education, 178
VII. The Practical Value of an Education, 196
VIII. Our Indebtedness to Colleges, 229
INTRODUCTION.
I cannot be unwilling to avail myself of any opportunity to turn the
attention of the Christian public to the Christian College. It is a
noble public and an equally noble object. I can conceive of no
worthier or more Christian thing than the caretaking of one generation
that the next one which must necessarily lie so long under its
influence and for which it is therefore so thoroughly responsible,
should receive a Christian education.
To put Christ at the center and make Him felt to the circumference (as
Bungener said in speaking of Calvin's school policy), is exceedingly
difficult. But it is exceedingly important. It is, indeed, vital and
pivotal.
The dangers about it are great and ever greater. They come from the
general worldliness of all things and everybody in this age of
unprecedentedly rapid and splendid material development. They are
increased by the growth of speculative infidelity whether of the
philosophical or scientific phase. They spring out of everything which
lowers the Bible from that supreme and sovereign consideration by
which alone it can hold the place in education which the Old Testament
economy gave it, and which all the books of all the other
book-religions of the world most unquestioningly possess. They are
born of all that false theorizing about the limits of government and
the liberty of conscience which issues in the demands for utter
secularization of every institution of the State, while at the same
time the necessities of popular government are demonstrating that
education must be by the State. They are intensified by the divided
opinion of the church universal, of which the Catholic and Greek
sections hold that education must be religious and under the care of
the Church; while the State-Church Protestant section holds that it
may be religious under certain conditions, and the extreme
secularistic protestant wing holds that it cannot be religious because
conducted by the State, and a rather diminishing protestant section in
free-church nations holds that the higher education should be
Christian, while the secondary and primary may safely be left to the
secular State.
These dangers are not only imminent but actual. The whole effort to
support a Christian education in the public schools is sometimes
called a "bootless wrangle." One section is thrown over towards
secularism, pure and simple, in recoiling from Church-education
exclusive and reactionary. The leading of the little child, the
favorite indication of the millennium's arrival, is frustrated amid
the clamor of the free thinkers and the uncertainty of the Church and
the necessities of the State. We are slowly but surely, if we go on
in this way, taking our children out of Christ's arms and our youth
from beside His footsteps. And that is at once the most fearful sin
against Him, and the most terrible injustice to them, we could
possibly commit. Who can do anything to stay this destructive
tendency? "God bless him," I would say in Livingstone's spirit,
"whoever he may be," that will help to heal this open wound of the
world.
I think Mr. Barker's little book will help. It supplies much
information carefully collected from scattered sources, given in brief
and explicit statements. Its range of themes is wide and upon them all
some standard thoughts are given. It is addressed to all readers and
should find them among parents (whom it should make patrons), among
those who have hearts to pray and those who have hands to help. It
will prove to be of rare interest to all whose duty it is to teach,
and it has much wise counsel for those who are to study.
The treatment of the function of the College for the cultivation of
the moral and spiritual nature (Chapter IV) deserves special
attention. Its declarations are firm, its ideals high and its selected
opinions apt and forcible. It ought to end the reign of any
institution in which religion is not put at the center and kept as
efficient as human instrumentalities can make it. The demand for
professors of pronounced Christian character and convictions is timely
and is fearlessly made.
The discussion of the currents and counter-currents of influences in
college life cannot but be useful, with a possibly increased emphasis
against the secret societies and a caution against organizations of
undergraduates for active partisan work in politics. The time for
these fruits is "not yet."
Admirably the author shows that we have the best College material in
the world and that it behaves itself best. And there can be no lack of
agreement as to the arousing arguments and the closing chapters
concerning the usefulness of colleges to the individual and the
community. May it serve to kindle and to extend when kindled the
wholesome enthusiasm its respected author manifests both by word and
work.
SYLVESTER F. SCOVEL.
The University of Wooster,
July 9, 1894.
COLLEGES IN AMERICA.
I.
THE RISE OF UNIVERSITIES IN THE OLD WORLD.
The American college system is deeply rooted in the past. It will be
better understood if we trace briefly its historic connection with the
ancient and European seats of learning. Higher education has been
promoted among all great nations. Flourishing colleges were founded
among ancient people. In the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, schools of
the Prophets were located at Bethel, Gibeah, Gilgal, Jericho and
Naioth. The Academy of Athens, the Museum of Alexandria, the Athenaeum
of Rome were once centers of intellectual activity and spread their
influence over the civilized world.
The Greek race especially commands our attention for its activity in
matters relating to higher education. The Academy of Plato flourished
for nine hundred years. The schools of Athens are noted for their
great and permanent influence in awakening thought and shedding the
light of their teaching among the nations of the world. "So charged,"
says Cardinal Newman, "is the moral atmosphere of the East with Greek
civilization, that down to this day those tribes are said to show to
most advantage which can claim relation of place and kin with Greek
colonies established two thousand years ago." The influences of the
scholastic halls of Plato and Aristotle span the centuries with their
light and power.
Here truths were taught that have found universal acceptance. Down to
the second century, Athens was a favorite resort for students. The
college at Alexandria, where so many of the Fathers of the Church
were educated, was founded and carefully organized by Ptolemy two
centuries before the Christian era. For six hundred years it exerted a
great influence on the youth who gathered from all parts of the
civilized world to receive instruction from its eminent professors.
Roman colleges likewise exerted a wholesome influence in their day.
They began during the life-time of Quintilian, in the second century,
and it continued to be the deliberate policy of Augustus, Vespasian
and Hadrian to multiply and extend the influence of endowed schools in
Rome and provincial towns. Their object, says Merivale, was to
"restore the tone of society and infuse into the national mind
healthier sentiments." These Romano-Hellenic schools were so tenacious
of life that they continued to flourish down to the fifth century.
Owing to the decline of personal morality and the low conceptions of
the ends of human life, and other general influences which led to the
downfall of the empire, these schools finally degenerated and could no
longer survive.
"Some great new spiritual force," says Professor Laurie, "was needed
to reform society and the education of the young. That force was at
hand in Christianity; and if it very early assumed a negative, if not
a prohibitory, attitude to the old learning, it may be conceded that
this was an inevitable step in the development of a new ethical idea."
The Christian system of education gradually superseded the pagan
system. Christianity fortified the sense of personality and introduced
the idea of a broader and deeper sentiment of human brotherhood, which
helped to diffuse the spirit of education among the people and awaken
in the human mind a sense of its native dignity and power.
There were in the first century such men as Clemens, Ignatius and
Polycarp, who employed their talent to build up Christianity and
encourage the education of the people. In the second century, "the
number of the learned men increased considerably, the majority of whom
were philosophers attached to the elective system." It was at the
close of this century (181 A. D.) that the first Christian
catechetical school was established at Alexandria, in accord with
Christian requirements. Such schools soon became numerous and
efficient, and were under the superintendence of the Bishops. The
priests, as well as the laity, were educated in them. At the end of
the fourth century they had entirely superseded the schools of the
_grammaticus_, when ancient culture became practically extinct.
The monastic schools arose in the fifth century to supplant the
Romano-Hellenic schools. Chief among the founders in the West was
Benedict, who in 428 A. D. founded a monastery on Monte Cassino, near
Naples. "He had educational as well as religious aims from the first,
and it is to the monks of this rapidly extending order, or to the
influence which their 'rule' exercised on other conventual orders,
such as the Columban, that we owe the diffusion of schools in the
early part of the Middle Ages and the preservation of ancient
learning. The Benedictine monks not only taught in their own
monasteries, but were everywhere in demand as heads of Episcopal or
Cathedral schools."[A]
[A] Laurie.
The monastic schools multiplied rapidly throughout Europe and took the
lead in education and gained more influence than the episcopal
schools. These schools, sheltered by the church, existed from the
fourth to the twelfth century for the benefit of the ecclesiastical
body. The majority of them did not admit lay instruction until the
middle of the ninth century. Education during this period, with few
exceptional centers, was crude and unenlightened. The power of the
mediaeval machinery was such that these schools gave to the clergy only
the mere rudiments of learning. The conception of education at first
did not embrace the culture of the whole man. It was commonly thought
that the religious life opposed the life of the world, and that the
temporal life should be one of abnegation and asceticism. It was the
belief that human reason could not be trusted to have independent
activity, and so dogma was substituted for its free movement. The mind
was cribbed and confined by rules, for fear that speculations in
philosophy and free investigations would disturb and rationalize
theology. Thought was so fettered that philosophy, literature and
science were almost forgotten. Everything was done to subserve the
faith and suppress heresy. The Latin and Greek classics were denounced
as the offspring of the pagan world. It required several centuries for
the Christian world to conceive that there was no antagonism between
reason and authority, and between Greek and Roman culture and the
Christian religion. These schools, however, did a valuable service to
the cause of education by transcribing manuscripts and becoming
repositories of ancient learning.
The intellectual chaos began to end about the tenth century. The
re-establishment of civilization and the revival of learning was still
more manifest during the eleventh century, and soon university life
became possible. The time was evidently ripe for Europe to awake from
its intellectual sleep and begin a new educational development. The
general causes which contributed to give fresh impulse to higher
education at this time were the growing tendency to organization, the
Saracen influence and the desire for higher learning in the more
important centers. "The universities were founded," says Professor
Laurie, "by a concurrence of able men who had something they wished to
teach, and of youth who desired to learn. * * * It was the eternal
need of the human spirit in its relation to the unseen that originated
the University of Paris. We may say then that it was the improvement
of the professions of medicine, law and theology which led to the
inception and organization of the first great schools."
The people felt the need of providing and obtaining instruction beyond
the monastic and episcopal schools. By the natural development of
these, a number of high-grade schools were established which
afterwards gave rise to the universities. They came into existence
without charter from either ecclesiastical or civil power, and were
not controlled or directed by either. The importance of these
institutions was soon discovered by both Pope and Emperor, who
cultivated friendly relations with these free, voluntary and
self-supporting centers of learning and gave them special privileges
and encouragement.
Among the first European schools was that of Salerno, in Italy, which
was known as a school of medicine as early as the ninth century. The
University of Bologna arose at the close of the twelfth century. In
1211 the University of Paris became a legal corporation. Oxford began
as a secondary school, and passed to the rank of a university in 1140,
and Cambridge was established in the year 1200. Professor Laurie says
that "in the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there grew
up in Europe ten universities; while in the fourteenth century we find
eighteen added; and in the fifteenth century twenty-nine arose,
including St. Andrew's (1411), Glasgow (1454), Aberdeen (1477). The
great intellectual activity of the fourteenth century, which led to
the rise of so many universities, coincides with the first revival of
letters, or rather was one manifestation of the revival." The main
center of this great intellectual movement was the University of
Paris, the mother of universities, which gained pre-eminence in the
great studies of theology and philosophy. It was chartered by Philip
Augustus in the thirteenth century, and was fostered by France,
Picardy, Normandy and England. These united and organized the Faculty
of Arts, which became its chief glory. It taught the three arts, Latin
grammar, rhetoric and dialectics, known as the _trivium_. The
_quadrivium_, embracing arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, was
likewise taught. The Faculty of Theology was created in 1257, that of
Law in 1271, and that of Medicine in 1274.
Matthew Arnold says that "the University of Paris was the main center
of mediaeval science, and the authoritative school of mediaeval
teaching. It received names expressing the most enthusiastic devotion,
the _Fountain of Knowledge_, the _Tree of Life_, the _Candlestick of
the House of the Lord_. * * * Here came Roger Bacon, Saint Thomas
Aquinas and Dante; here studied the founder of the first university of
the empire, Charles the Fourth, Emperor of Germany and King of
Bohemia, founder of the University of Prague."
The intellectual lead which belonged to France in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries passed to Italy in the fourteenth century. Some
of the universities in Italy ranked among the best in Europe. They
were chiefly distinguished for their studies in law and medicine. In
the early part of the thirteenth century, the University of Bologna
was famous throughout the world, having at one time 12,000 students
from all parts of Europe. These universities continued to exert a
powerful influence until Catholicism triumphed over the abortive
attempts at religious reform, and there settled down over the
brilliant Italy of the Renaissance an unprogressive and
anti-intellectual influence from which she has never fully recovered.
"The importance of the university in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries," says Matthew Arnold, "was extraordinary. Men's minds were
possessed with a wonderful zeal for knowledge, or what was then
thought knowledge, and the University of Paris was the great fount
from which this knowledge issued. The University and those depending
on it, made at this time, it is said, actually a third of the
population of Paris. * * * One asks oneself with interest, what was
the mental food to which this vast, turbulent multitude pressed with
such inconceivable hunger. Theology was the great matter; and there is
no doubt that this study was by no means always that barren and verbal
trifling which an ill-informed modern contempt is fond of representing
it. It is evident that around the study of theology in the mediaeval
University of Paris there worked a real ferment of thought, and very
free thought. But the University of Paris culminated as the exclusive
devotion to theological study declined, and culminated by virtue of
that declension."
The great business of the universities from the twelfth to the
seventeenth century was that of scholastic philosophy, which largely
governed their teaching.
The scholastic philosophy was "the legitimate development of the
philosophy of Aristotle and his successors, and was the only
philosophy possible in its day. Nay, it was an integral essential
element in human progress. It taught men to distinguish and define,
and has left its impress upon the language and thought of all
civilized peoples, 'in lines manifold, deep-graven and ineffaceable.'
Out of it has grown our modern civilization."
The schoolmen would freely canvass the deep problems of the mind and
soul, but would blindly exclude the new influences at work in society.
They had to meet the opposition of the humanists, who made the study
of Latin and Greek the basis of culture. The humanists were great
writers and artists, who worked for more modern ideas and a newer
civilization. They introduced the Renaissance, which was a literary
movement that began in Italy in the fourteenth century. It was
believed that vital knowledge was gained by knowing oneself, and that
the best way to attain this was to study poetry, philosophy, history
and all knowledge that was created by the spirit of man.
Unfortunately, the knowledge of letters in Italy tended to paganize
its adherents. Infidelity spread and immorality abounded in all ranks
of society.
The great movement of the Renaissance secured a stronghold in Germany,
where its power was extended to the established systems of instruction
and utilized in the interests of a purer Christianity. Melancthon and
Erasmus and all the chief reformers except Luther, were eminent
humanists and friends of classical learning. They were outside the
established schools, and were the leading spirits in intellectual
culture, so that the Renaissance triumphed with the Reformation. These
two forces united and gave spirit and power to the humanists. The
influence of the new learning in Germany was marked by comparative
freedom from frivolities, skepticism and immoralities. There was a
critical and enlightened study of classical literature and a reverent
and rational study of the Bible. The literary treasures of antiquity
were made to minister to religion. The Reformation also gave fresh
impulses to all the schools and institutions of learning. The school
teacher and preacher of the gospel joined hands in the common work of
education.
The universities, however, under the control of the schoolmen,
retrograded and decayed because they chose to remain mediaeval. They
refused to become the educational agencies of the times, and so failed
to be at the head of a great intellectual movement. They could not be
induced to assimilate the new studies and make themselves the organ of
the Renaissance and the Reformation. The rapid growth of positive and
experimental science, however, was fatal to scholasticism. The narrow
scholastic spirit was exemplified by Cremonini, who is called the last
of the schoolmen, and who was professor at Padua in 1631.
This countryman of Galileo, after the discovery of Jupiter's
satellites, judging that this discovery contradicted Aristotle, would
never consent to look through a telescope again. One could not have a
better incident to end the career of the scholastic philosophy.
The Jesuits adopted a more liberal spirit and method. They established
and controlled a large number of universities and schools, and made
them the great channels of the movement of the counter-Reformation.
Their educational activity gained for them a great reputation for
teaching and a large patronage. In 1710, they had 612 colleges, 157
normal schools, 24 universities and 200 missions. They were inspired
not so much by the value they placed on culture for its own sake, as
to promote the authority of the old religion and prevent heresy.
The powerful initial impulse given to the cause of education by means
of the humanists and the reformers in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries began to flag in the seventeenth century, when the
Protestant Church, like the Catholic, became cold and petrified. The
universities were regarded as appendages of the church, and classical
training largely lost its hold in Europe.
The condition of contemporary institutions for superior instruction in
the old world is full of promise. The importance of building up great
universities is conceded by nearly all nations. In the judgment of Mr.
L. D. Wishard, the Foreign Secretary of the College Y. M. C. A., there
are 500,000 young men in Asia in the high-class institutions.
The government of Japan, that has lately joined the Western nations in
the onward march of civilization, gives enlightened direction to
higher education. There are, besides the Imperial College of Tokio,
five great secondary schools located in different centers throughout
the empire, which serve as feeders to the university. There are 5,000
youth in Christian colleges and schools in the kingdom. In the
Christian university at Kioto there are 600 youth pursuing a college
education under Christian teaching.
China has always encouraged colleges for the education of her
magistrates. "The literary class consisting of the graduates, and
those who attend the examinations for degrees, numbering some two and
a half millions, are the rulers of China."
There is a growing tendency to universal education in India. "It is
computed," says Bishop Hurst, "that in the small area of Calcutta and
suburbs there are 28,000 alumni who have completed the curriculum in
the five Christian colleges. There are about 2,000 who are alumni or
students of the Calcutta University, and there are 1,000 youths
besides who are studying up to the matriculation examinations of the
university." The English language is the medium of instruction in all
these institutions. It may not be wide of the mark to suppose that in
all India there are not less than 40,000 natives who have graduated at
some school of high grade, and that ten per cent. of the number have
passed the university degrees. The number is now more probably 50,000.
These men enjoy the highest respect and are the recognized leaders of
native thought. Already many are, and many more are to be judges,
lawyers, magistrates, professors, teachers, orators, physicians,
engineers, merchants, authors and journalists of the country.
The University of Fez, in Morocco, established in the eighth century,
is one of the oldest universities outside of Asia. The Mohammedan
University at Cairo, in Egypt, has more than 200 instructors and
10,000 students assembled from Europe, Asia and Africa to be
instructed in the Moslem faith.
If we turn to Europe, we find that the planting and enlarging of the
institutions for superior instruction has the most hopeful outlook. In
Great Britain and Ireland there are 11 universities with 834
professors and 18,400 students. Besides, there are the old established
and excellent schools at Eaton, Harrow, Winchester and Rugby.
A new era for the classical schools of Germany began in 1783, when
Baron Sedlitz, encouraged by Frederic the Great, was able to revive
"the dormant sparks planted in them by the Renaissance and they awoke
to a new life, which since the beginning of this century has drawn the
eyes of all students of intellectual progress upon them." Germany had
in 1890, 250 gymnasia and 22 universities. The latter are manned by
2,431 instructors and have 31,803 students, or one student to every
151 of the population.
France has 19,152 students in her professional and technical schools.
There are fifteen institutions of higher learning in the University of
France, with 180 professors and 12,695 students. These are under the
control and patronage of the State. The government appropriated in
1889-90, 12,000,000 francs for university purposes. Besides, there
were expended in the same year 99,000,000 francs for new buildings for
the advancement of higher education. In 1890, there were 598
professional chairs in the several universities, in which were taught
17,630 students, or one student to every 217 of the population.
The Austria-Hungary Empire had in 1891 eleven universities, eight of
which were in Austria, with 1,112 professors and 14,272 students. The
remaining three were in Hungary and had 322 professors and 4,098
students. There were for the same year in Switzerland nine
universities, with 434 professors and 2,619 students.
The Catholic Church in Italy continued for years to exert an
unprogressive and anti-intellectual influence. The present government
of Italy, however, is fully awake to the importance of a university
education for the people, and now maintains several universities at a
large annual outlay.
This brief outline reveals the facts that all civilized nations are
encouraging and maintaining schools for the higher education of the
people, and suggests that a comparative study of them is both helpful
and fruitful.
Many of the universities in the Old World lack the stimulus of the
strong Protestant denominational influence and the marked religious
character of the American colleges. They consequently fail to attain
the highest results for the general good, but they are inaugurating an
intellectual movement which will eventuate in a more glorious future.
II.
THE PLANTING OF COLLEGES IN THE NEW WORLD.
Our national existence came into full bloom under the light of a
Christian civilization. The political, social and religious
institutions were sufficiently well organized in the Old World to be
advantageously introduced, with some modifications, into a young
nation in the New World.
The early colonists first founded a church, then a school, and then a
college. They felt that the colonial organization was incomplete
without a college to inculcate such piety, virtue and intelligence as
would preserve and perfect the highest social order and secure the
blessings of liberty. These colleges, modelled at first after the
universities of Europe, soon mapped out a pathway for themselves, and
have now come to occupy a unique place in our national life.
The Pilgrim Fathers sought to establish in the New World three great
principles: civil and religious liberty, and to make education their
corner-stone. The scholarly impulses were so dominant at this early
day that when the entire population of New England did not exceed four
thousand, the people determined to establish a college, which Cotton
Mather says "was the best thing they ever thought of." It is estimated
that this meager population contained as many as one hundred men who
had received the training of Oxford and Cambridge. Sixty of them were
from the University of Cambridge; twenty were from Oxford, and others,
apparently, from the Scotch universities. The colleges they founded
show traces of all these institutions. These intelligent and refined
men, with breadth of culture and political foresight and public
spirit, constituted the chief source of greatness in the early days
of New England.
The three leading colonial colleges, Harvard, Yale, and William and
Mary, were planted and permeated with the spirit of republican liberty
and primitive Christianity. They began in a very modest way.
Harvard, the oldest of American colleges, was founded in the beginning
of the colonial days, only eighteen years after the Pilgrim Fathers
landed on Plymouth Rock, and when Boston was a village of twenty-five
or thirty houses, and when only twenty-five towns had begun to be
settled in the colony. In 1636, six years after the settlement of
Boston, the colonial legislature voted the sum of four hundred pounds
(equivalent to a tax of fifty cents to every person in the colony)
towards the founding of Harvard College, with the avowed purpose of
training young men for the ministry. This sum was increased in 1637 by
the munificence of John Harvard, who was a graduate of Cambridge, and
a finished scholar and clergyman from England. He gave eight hundred
pounds and his library, consisting of three hundred volumes, towards
the endowment, whereupon the college took his name. "The colony caught
his spirit," says Boone. "Among the magistrates themselves, two
hundred pounds was subscribed, a part in books. All did something,
even the indigent; one subscribed a number of sheep; another, nine
shillings' worth of cloth; one, a ten-shilling pewter flagon; others,
a fruit dish, a sugar spoon, a silver-tipped jug, one great salt, one
small trencher salt, etc. From such small beginnings did the
institution take its start. No rank, no class of men, is
unrepresented. The school was of the people." There is nothing in
history to parallel the heroic spirit and boldness of these early
settlers in attempting to found a college, surrounded as the people
were with poverty, scanty subsistence, and savage enemies. They did
not realize the wisdom of their liberality and sacrifice and its
influence upon the future civilization of the Western World. Harvard
College was located at Cambridge, with a single building, on less than
three acres of land. It was supported by government appropriations and
private philanthropy. For years the college was financially
embarrassed. The salaries were small, and for nearly one hundred years
were paid out of the colonial treasury. The President received a
salary of $600. The total grants made to the college by the colony
during the first century amounted to about $8,000. The total annual
income from all sources at the close of the first century of its
history was but L750. Down to 1780 the total amount contributed out of
the public treasury was $68,675 and 3,793 acres of land. Individuals
in England and America had likewise given $90,412.
No one at this period would have dared to predict that Harvard College
would have in 1892 an endowment of $12,000,000 and an annual revenue
of more than $1,000,000, with seventeen departments of instruction,
three hundred teachers, and three thousand students. But such has been
the phenomenal growth of some of our American institutions.
Among the colonial colleges, that of William and Mary is one of the
most important. As early as 1617, an attempt was made in England to
raise money to found a college among the Virginia settlers. In 1619,
fifteen hundred pounds were in the hands of the treasurer, and ten
thousand acres of land were granted by the Virginia Company. A
preparatory school was founded two years later, but owing to the
Indian massacre of 340 settlers which followed, the enterprise was
suspended. The effort to found a college was subsequently revived in
1660. The Virginia Assembly enacted that "for the advancement of
learning, education of youth, supply of the ministry, and promotion of
piety, there be land taken for a college and free school." Nothing
came of this until 1688, when a subscription was taken from wealthy
planters for twenty-five hundred pounds for the college. Five years
later (1692) the first royal educational charter in America was
granted. The college was established at Williamsburg, Virginia, and
was given L2,000 and 20,000 acres of land, a tax of a penny a pound on
all tobacco exported from Virginia and Maryland, and the duty on furs,
skins, and liquors imported, besides other fees and privileges of the
Surveyor General's office. "In its royal foundation, its generous
endowment, and liberal patronage," says R. C. Boone, "it stands in
sharp contrast to the early years of Harvard. This was established by
the Puritans, and stood for the severest of ultra-orthodox though
dissenting Protestantism; that was founded to be and was an exponent
of the most formal ceremonialism of the Church of England. The one was
nursed by democracy; the other befriended by cavalier and courtier.
Endowment for the one came from the purses of an infant and needy
settlement; the other was drawn from the royal treasury. The one was
environed and shaken for a hundred years by the schisms of a
controversial people; the roots of the other were deep in the great
English ecclesiastical system." This college has been called a school
of statesmen. It was here that Jefferson, Randolph, Tyler, Monroe,
Blair, Marshall, and other prominent statesmen received their
training.
The history of Yale College is full of interest. The original design
of the founders of the New Haven Colony was to establish a college. A
lot was set apart for this purpose as early as 1647. A plan was
proposed in 1698 to found a college, and to be placed under the
general care of the churches. In 1700, sixty-three years after the
founding of Harvard College, a society consisting of eleven ministers
met to take the initial step. At a second meeting, in the same year,
each of the trustees, numbering ten of the principal clergymen of the
colony, were without money, but they brought forty volumes of books,
and, placing them on a table, presented them to the body, saying in
substance: "I give these books for the founding of a college in this
colony." This was the humble beginning of Yale College. The colony had
a population at this time of fifteen thousand people, fifty of whom
were college-trained men. The outlook for this college was not very
encouraging, in view of their limited means and scattered population.
The work, at first, lacked system and unity. In 1718, the college was
permanently located at New Haven, Connecticut, and named in honor of
Elihu Yale, who was born in Boston in 1648. He received his education
in England, and was afterward made Governor of Madras, and, later,
Governor of the East India Company. His donation to Yale College was
largely in books, and amounted to five hundred pounds. This gift was
followed by that of Rev. George Berkely, who gave ninety-six acres of
land in Rhode Island and one thousand volumes to the library. The
college received for its support, in a century and a half, $100,000
from the commonwealth of Connecticut. It has been supported chiefly by
private means. In 1890, there were 143 instructors and 1,500 students.
There is no college in America that has a more enviable reputation for
giving a thorough Christian education to the thousands of youth who
have gone forth from her halls of learning.
It is a matter of record that our ancestors showed much self-denial,
courage, and genius, to turn aside from the work of organizing a new
social order, and the readjustment of themselves to their surroundings
in a new country to provide for the higher education of the people.
The founders and supporters of these colleges, as a rule, were men of
high intellectual and religious character, and worked intensely and
earnestly for the highest good of society. It would prove an
inestimable blessing to our nation if every American citizen were
inspired with the zeal of the early colonists in behalf of the cause
of higher education. They, out of their poverty, poured their gifts
into the treasury of the colleges in order to leave future generations
a great and glorious heritage. Gratitude should prompt us to excel
them in our love for the education of the present and future
generations by cheerfully giving of our abundance for the same high
and holy ends.
Other colleges were founded within the century. Aside from the three
colonial colleges, six more were founded prior to the Revolution, and
four during the war of independence. Following the Revolution was a
period of expansion, and by the close of the century there were
twenty-four colleges established. These colleges, scattered throughout
the Union, appeared as a galaxy of stars in the literary firmament of
the nation. They were founded and located as follows:
_Institution._ _State._ _Date._
1. Harvard, Massachusetts, 1637
2. William and Mary, Virginia, 1693
3. Yale, Connecticut, 1701
4. Princeton, New Jersey, 1746
5. University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, 1749
6. Columbia, New York, 1754
7. Brown, Rhode Island, 1764
8. Dartmouth, New Hampshire, 1769
9. Queen's Rutgers, New Jersey, 1766
10. Hamden-Sidney, Virginia, 1776
11. Washington and Lee, Virginia, 1782
12. Washington University, Maryland, 1782
13. Dickinson, Pennsylvania, 1783
14. St. Johns, Maryland, 1784
15. Nashville, Tennessee, 1785
16. Georgetown, Dist. of Columbia, 1789
17. University of N. Carolina, North Carolina, 1789
18. University of Vermont, Vermont, 1791
19. University of E. Tennessee, Tennessee, 1792
20. Williams, Massachusetts, 1793
21. Bowdoin, Maine, 1794
22. Union, New York, 1795
23. Middlebury, Vermont, 1795
24. Frederick College, Maryland, 1796
It remained for the nineteenth century to exhibit in the New World an
unprecedented multiplication and expansion of institutions of higher
learning.
At the opening of the century there were only twenty-four colleges in
the United States. Thirty years later the number had reached
forty-nine. In 1850, there were 120 colleges, manned by 1,300
teachers, with 17,000 students. There were besides 42 theological
seminaries, 35 medical schools, and 12 law schools.
By 1890, the number of colleges and universities had grown to 415,
having 7,918 instructors and 118,581 students. There were in the same
year 117 medical schools, with 7,013 students, and 54 law schools,
with 4,518 students. These facts bear witness to the determination of
the American people to satisfy the needs of their higher nature, and
not to rest content with material growth and the bare necessities of
life.
The spirit of our early ancestors was never more manifest than in
their earnest advocacy of religious liberty, and their protest against
all ecclesiastical authority. The numerous settlements in different
sections of the country, with their different nationalities and
diverse religious opinions, tended to multiply the religious
denominations and to establish churches with divergent aims and plans.
These independent sects gave rise to a great number of schools
claiming to be colleges. These schools they regarded as essential and
supplementary to their churches. Harvard owes its origin to
non-conforming clergymen. The Episcopal Church claimed William and
Mary College. The Congregationalists of Connecticut founded Yale.
Princeton was founded under the auspices of a Presbyterian synod, and
Brown was established by an association of Baptist Churches. One
hundred and four of the first one hundred and nineteen colleges
established in the United States had a distinctively Christian origin.
Their founders intended that they should be, in some sense,
ecclesiastical as well as religious. Notwithstanding their diversity,
there was unity in their general character and design. While they
maintained a denominational character, they were in nowise illiberal,
and set up no religious test for entrance.
The Christian Churches have been not only pioneers of education, but
their followers recognize as never before the power and efficiency of
the Christian College to further the Kingdom of God on earth. Out of
415 colleges in 1890, 316 of them were under the control of some
religious denomination. These were distributed in 1890 among the
several denominations as follows: Methodist, 74; Presbyterian, 49;
Baptist, 44; Roman Catholic, 51; Congregational, 22; Christians, 20;
Lutheran, 19; United Brethren, 10; Protestant Episcopal, 6; Reformed,
6; Friends, 6; Universalist, 4; Evangelical Association, 2; German
Evangelical, 1; Seventh Day Adventist, 1; New Church (Swedenborgian),
1.
The leading denominations are especially active in promoting the cause
of higher education. We summarize the educational work of a few of
them:
The Congregational Churches, with a membership of 525,097, had, in
1890, thirty-eight schools of distinctly college rank, with 1,034
instructors and 13,601 students. This denomination has generously
endowed many of her colleges. She has been pre-eminent in her efforts
to extend a liberal education to the people.
The Roman Catholic Church in the United States claimed to have, in
1894, 116 colleges, 637 academies, and 768,498 pupils in parochial
schools. This church, that numbers among its adherents one-tenth of
the population of this country, has one-fourth of all the colleges.
The Regular Baptists of the United States have one hundred and
fifty-two chartered institutions of learning, with an endowment and
property valuation of $32,162,904. Of these, seven are theological
seminaries, with 54 professors, 776 students, and $3,701,620 of
endowments and property. Thirty-five are universities and colleges
open to both sexes, with 701 professors and instructors, 9,088
students, and endowment and property to the amount of $19,171,045.
Thirty-two are colleges exclusively for women, with 388 professors and
instructors, 3,675 students, and endowment and property, $4,121,906.
Forty-seven are seminaries and academies, male and co-education, with
369 professors and instructors, 5,250 students, and endowment and
property worth $3,787,793. And thirty-one are institutions of learning
for colored people and Indians, several of which are chartered
colleges, with 279 instructors, 5,177 students, endowment and property
worth $1,380,540.
Among the church families in the United States the Presbyterians stand
third, having about 1,500,000 members, 13,476 organizations, and
church property valued at $94,869,000. They have always been favorable
to the higher education of ministers and people, and therefore liberal
in support of the better class of schools and colleges. They now have
under their immediate care 56 colleges, with an enrollment of 10,143
students. The estimated value of property owned by these institutions
is $6,780,600, and their permanent endowment funds amount to
$6,891,800. There are, besides, four colleges which are jointly owned
and patronized by Presbyterians and Congregationalists. In addition
there are some forty classical academies, under the care of different
Synods and Presbyteries, which have over 3,000 students, and property
whose net value is over $1,000,000. Fourteen theological seminaries
are scattered over the country, with more than 1,200 students. These
have property and endowments amounting to $8,164,762. This makes the
total investment of the churches in classical institutions and
seminaries to reach the large sum of $22,837,162. Immediately
connected with these halls of learning are some 700 of the church's
finest scholars and most devoted Christians acting as teachers, while
14,343 of the best and brightest young men and women sit at their feet
as learners.
Methodism has been a great educational force in this country. It took
its rise in a university, and its leaders were trained in the oldest
of English universities. The Methodist zeal for higher education has
put her in the front ranks of the moral and educational forces of the
age. Though among the youngest of Christian bodies of this country,
the magnitude and extent of her educational work is second to none.
The Methodist Episcopal Church comprises less than one-half of the
Methodists in the United States, yet she has 49 institutions of
collegiate grade, with property and endowment of over $17,000,000, and
from the 6,000 students there are sent out annually 1,500 graduates
with the Bachelor's degree. In 1892, she had 195 institutions of
learning of every grade, with property and endowment valued at
$26,000,000, with 2,343 professors and teachers and 40,026 students.
"The increase in population in the United States from 1880 to 1890 was
26.7 per cent.; for the same period the increase of students in
college classes in all schools in the United States was 53.1 per
cent.; in all Methodist schools in the United States, 52.3 per cent."
It is certainly a hopeful indication of the ambition and lofty purpose
of Methodist youth that one-eighth of the whole number of students of
the Johns Hopkins University are Methodists, seeking the broadest
educational facilities. A church with such a record will not lose her
hold upon the intellect and scholarship of the age.