Before the 1850’s, the United States had a number of small colleges, most of them datin from colonial days. They were small, church connected institutions whose primary concern was to shape the moral character of their students. Throughout Europe, institutions of higher learning had developed, bearing the ancient name of university. In Germany a different kind of university had developed. The German university was concerned primarily with creating and spreading knowledge, not morals. Between mid-century and the end of the 1800’s, more than nine thousand young Americans, dissatisfied with their training at home, went to Germany for advanced study. Some of them returned to become presidents of venerable colleges—Harvard, Yale, Columbia---and transform them into modern universities.
The new university greatly expanded in size and course offerings, breaking completely out the old, constricted curriculum of mathematics, classics, rhetoric, and music. The president of Harvard pioneered the elective system, by which studetns were able to choose their own courses of study. The notion of major fields of study emerged. The new goal was to make the university relevant to the real pursuits of the world. Paying close heed to the practical needs of society, the new universities trained men and women to work at its tasks, with engineering students being the
most characteristic of the new regime. Students were also trained as economists, architects, agriculturalists, social welfare workers, and teachers.
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