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Modern American University

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Before the 1850s, the United States had a number of small colleges,

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most of them dating from colonial days.

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They were small, church connected institutions

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whose primary concern was to shape the moral character of their students.

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Meanwhile, throughout Europe, institutions of higher learning had developed.

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In German university was concerned primarily with creating

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and spreading knowledge, not morals.

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Between mid-century and the end of the 1800s,

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more than nine thousand young Americans,

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dissatisfied with their training at home,

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went to Germany for advanced study.

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Some of them return to become presidents of venerable colleges —

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Harvard, Yale, Columbia — and transform them into modern universities.

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The new presidents broke all ties with the churches

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and brought in a new kind of faculty.

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Professors were hired for their knowledge of a subject,

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not because they were of the proper faith

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and had a strong arm for disciplining students.

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Drilling and memorizing were replaced by the German method of lecturing,

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in which the professors own research was presented in class.

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With the establishment of the seminar system,

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graduate student learned to question, analyze, and conduct their own research.

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At the same time,

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the new university greatly expanded in size and course offerings,

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breaking completely out of the old,

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constricted curriculum of mathematics, classics, rhetoric, and music.

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The president of Harvard pioneered the selective system,

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by which students were able to choose their own course of study.

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The notion of major fields of study emerged.

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The new goal was to make the university relevant to the real pursuits of the world.

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Paying close attention to the practical needs of society,

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the new universities trained men and women to work at its tasks,

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with engineering students being the most characteristic of the new system.

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Students were also trained as economists, architects,

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agriculturalists, social welfare workers, and teachers.