Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-02T04:21:36.725Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

College Founding in the New Republic, 1776–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

David W. Robson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the twenty-five years, 1776–1800, sixteen colleges opened in the United States that still operate today. They almost tripled the total number of the nation's colleges. The increase demonstrated the augmenting American interest in higher education and also the restless, expansive urge of the American people, for with the exceptions of the College of Charleston and St. John's College in the Chesapeake port of Annapolis, these institutions arose on the edge of settlement: in upstate New York, the district of Maine, northeastern Georgia, western Massachusetts, and even in the Territory South of the Ohio, two years before it became the state of Tennessee. Indeed, their location on the frontier was one of the primary determinants of these colleges' character, for it led these colleges to develop functions, commitments, and curricular and atmospheric traits that differed somewhat from those of the established, seaboard colleges.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , Fall 1983 , pp. 323 - 341
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by History of Education Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Debate over what constitutes college founding is perpetual among those concerned with the history of higher education. In this discussion, the inclusion of a college rests on the date it received a charter granting it the power to award college degrees. The sixteen colleges included are: Washington College in Maryland (1782); Liberty Hall Academy in Virginia (1782—now Washington and Lee University); Hampden-Sydney Google Scholar College in Virginia (1783); Transylvania Seminary in Virginia (1783—the area became Kentucky in 1792); Dickinson College in Pennsylvania (1784); St. John's College in Maryland (1784); the University of Georgia (1785); the College of Charleston in South Carolina (1785); Franklin College in Pennsylvania (1787—now Franklin and Marshall College); the University of North Carolina (1789); the University of Vermont (1791); Williams College in Massachusetts (1793); Bowdoin College in Massachusetts (1794—the area became Maine in 1820); Greenville College in Tennessee (1794—now Tusculum College); Blount College in Tennessee (1794—now the University of Tennessee, Knoxville); Union College in New York (1795). Two of these colleges, St. John's in Annapolis and the College of Charleston, are not included in the discussion that follows, for several reasons. They were urban institutions; they did not partake of the frontier influence; they were run by Anglicans or American Episcopalians and did not conform to the usual curricular practices of post-Revolutionary American higher education. For a convenient listing of the colleges established in America before 1820, see Herbst, Jurgen, From Crisis to Crisis: American College Government, 1636–1819 (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), pp. 244–53.Google Scholar

2. These two colleges are not included in the discussion that follows, for several reasons. They were urban institutions; they did not partake of the frontier influence; they were run by Anglicans or American Episcopalians; they also did not conform to the usual curricular practices of post-Revolutionary American higher education; there is some doubt that the College of Charleston offered a college-level curriculum at any time before 1800.Google Scholar

3. See Bailyn, Bernard, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), Ch. 1–4, and Wood, Gordon, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill, 1969), Part I, for thorough expositions of the Commonwealth Whig ideology and its adoption by the Revolutionaries. For a discussion of the ways in which the colonial colleges adopted this ideology, see Robson, David W., “Higher Education in the Emerging American Republic, 1750–1800” (Ph. D. diss., Yale University, 1974), pp. 436–37.Google Scholar

4. Guild, Reuben A., A History of Brown University, with Illustrative Documents (Providence, 1867), p. 122; Stiles, Ezra, The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor (New Haven, 1783), reprinted in Thornton, John W. (ed.), Pulpit of the American Revolution (Boston, 1860), pp. 436–37.Google Scholar

5. Volz, Robert L., Governor Bowdoin and His Family: A Guide to an Exhibition (Brunswick, Me., 1969), pp. 31–32; Franklin College Trustees' Circular of January 19, 1787, quoted in Klein, Frederick S., The Spiritual and Educational Background of Franklin and Marshall College (Lancaster, Pa., 1939), p. 34; North Carolina Journal (July 10, 1793), quoted in Connor, R.D.W. (comp.), A Documentary History of the University of North Carolina, 1776–1799 ([2 vols.] Chapel Hill, 1953), I, p. 226; “Minutes of the Albany-Schenectady Town Meeting, 1794” (Union College Archives, Schaeffer Library); Allen, Ira, “Memorial to the Assembly of New York, January 27, 1792” (University of Vermont Archives, Bailey Library); Smith, William, An Account of Washington College (Philadelphia, 1784), p. 4.Google Scholar

6. Kilty, William, ed., The Laws of Maryland, ([2 vols.] Annapolis, , 1799–1800), Ch. 8, 1782; Dallas, Alexander, ed., The Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ([4 vols.] Philadelphia, 1797–1803), I, p. 815; Roulstone, George, ed., The Laws of the State of Tennessee (Knoxville, 1803), pp. 43–44; Hening, William W., ed., The Statutes at Large, Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia v. 11 (13 vols., Richmond, 1809–1823), pp. 271–74; “Charter of the University of Georgia” (University of Georgia Archives, University Library).Google Scholar

7. Miller, Perry, “From the Covenant to the Revival,” in Smith, James W. and Leland Jamieson, A. (eds.), Religion in American Life: The Shaping of American Religion (Princeton, 1961), 352–53; Miller, Howard G., The Revolutionary College: American Presbyterian Higher Education, 1707–1837 (New York, 1976), pp. 103–89.Google Scholar

8. Benjamin Rush to John Dickinson, May 5, 1787, in Butterfield, Lyman, (ed.), The Letters of Benjamin Rush ([2 vols.], Princeton, 1951), I, 416; Schlatter's, Michael “Appeal,” quoted in Klein, , Franklin and Marshall, 13; Kentucky Academy Papers, Shane Collection (Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia), #8; Roulstone, , Laws of Tennessee, I, pp. 44–45; Merton Coulter, E., College Life in the Old South (2nd ed., Athens, 1951), pp. 4–5; “Extracts from the Journal of the House of Representatives,” in Acts of the General Court of Massachusetts Concerning Bowdoin College (Bowdoin College Archives, College Library), February 7, 1788, June 3, 1791; Durfee, Calvin, A History of Williams College (Boston, 1860), p. 62; “Albany-Schenectady Town Meeting, 1794.” Google Scholar

9. Connor, , Doc. Hist. U.N.C., I, pp. 22–23, 109; Dewart, F. H. et al. (eds.), State Papers of Vermont v. 4 (8 vols., Montpelier, 1908–1939), p. 127.Google Scholar

10. Bell Whitfield, J. “Bulwark of Liberty,” in Bulwark of Liberty, Volume I of the Boyd Lee Spahr Lectures in Americana ([4 vols. thus far] Carlisle, 1950-); Hawke, David F., Benjamin Rush: Revolutionary Gadfly (Indianapolis, 1971), pp. 338–57; Rush to John Armstrong, March 9, 1783, in Butterfield, , Letters of Rush, I, pp. 294–96; Rush, to Muhlenburg, Henry, ?, 1788, quoted in Klein, , Franklin and Marshall, pp. 48–49.Google Scholar

11. Easterby, J. H., A History of the College of Charleston (Charleston, 1935), p. 17.Google Scholar

12. I can find no evidence of Greeneville College's pre-1800 curriculum. The University of Vermont, although planning, had developed no course of study by 1800.Google Scholar

13. Dubbs, Joseph H., A History of Franklin and Marshall College (Lancaster, Pa., 1903), p. 46, 71–75; Klein, , Franklin and Marshall, p. 61, 53–54.Google Scholar

14. Morgan, James H., Dickinson College (Carlisle, 1933), pp. 131–32; Sellers, Charles Coleman, Dickinson College: A History (Middletown, Conn., 1973), pp. 82–85, 91–95, 123–24; The Carlisle Gazette, Dec. 20, 1786; “Dickinson College, Trustees' Minutes” (Dickinson College Archives, Boyd Lee Spahr Library), Apr. 26, 1796, June 20, 1798; Mahon, Samuel, “Notes of Dr. Nisbet's Lectures, December 1788-May 1789, Volume I, Moral Philosophy” (Dickinson College Archives); Young, John, “Nisbet's Metaphysics and Public Law Lectures” (Dickinson College Archives); Charles Nisbet to Board of Trustees, July 29, Sept. 25, 1799 (Dickinson College Archives); Smith, Joseph B., “A Frontier Experiment in Higher Education,” in Bulwark of Liberty, pp. 90–91.Google Scholar

15. Spring, Leverett, A History of Williams College (Boston and New York, 1917), pp. 32–33, 39–40; “Williams College, Free School and College Records” (Williams College Archives, College Library), Aug. 6, 1793, Aug. 20, 1794, Sept. 2, 1795; “Laws of Yale College, 1787” (Yale University Archives, Yale University Library); “The Laws of Williams College, 1795” (Williams College Archives), pp. 19–20; Durfee, , History of Williams, pp. 69–72, 65, 84; Tarbox, Increase N., ed., The Diary of Thomas Robbins, 1796–1854 v. 1 ([12 vols.] Boston, 1886), p. 1, 6, 15, 16. The full title of Hopkins work is The System of Doctrines Contained in Divine Revelation, Explained and Defended Showing their Consistence and Connection with Each Other (Boston, 1793).Google Scholar

16. Enfield, William, Institutes of Natural Philosophy, Theoretical, and Experimental (London, 1775); fluxions described what modern mathematicians refer to as differentials in calculus, hence fluxions was also used to mean the Newtonian calculus.Google Scholar

17. “Laws and Regulations for the Government of Union College, 1795” (Union College Archives, Schaeffer Library); “Union College Trustees' Minutes” (Union College Archives), Jan. 20, Apr. 30, Sept. 3, 1799; Fortenbaugh, Samuel B. Jr., In Order to Form a More Perfect Union: An Inquiry into the Origins of a College (Schenectady, 1978), pp. 104–05; the trustees had to ask Jonathan Edwards, Jr., to upgrade the English offering, apparently to no avail: cf. “The Laws of Union College, 1802” (Union College Archives). Texts referred to are: Blair, Hugh, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres ([2 vols.] London, 1783; Philadelphia, 1784); Rollin, Charles, The Method of Teaching and Studying the Belles-Lettres (3rd ed., London, 1742); The Poetical Works of John Milton (London, 1695; Philadelphia, 1791); The Works of Joseph Addison ([4 vols.] London, 1721); Hume, David, The History of England from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in MDCLXXXVIII ([6 vols.] London, 1754–1762; [2 vols.] Philadelphia, 1795); Stewart, Dugald, Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind ([3 vols.] Edinburgh, 1792–1827; [Vol. I] Philadelphia, 1793); Priestley, Joseph, Lectures on History and General Policy (Birmingham, 1788); Paley, William, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (London, 1785; 7th ed., corrected, Philadelphia, 1788); Ramsay, David, The History of the American Revolution (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1788); Robertson, William, The History of Scotland during the Reigns of Queen Mary and King James VI till His Accession to the Crown of England ([2 vols.] London, 1759); Gibbon, Edward, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ([1st Eng. trans., 6 vols.] London, 1776–1788); Ferguson, Adam, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Edinburgh, 1767; Philadelphia, 1773); Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on the State of Virginia (Philadelphia, 1788); The Works of Edmund Burke ([8 vols.] London, 1792–1827); de Vattel, Emerich, The Law of Nations ([2 vols.] London, 1759–1760; New York, 1796); Burlamaqui, Jean Jacques, The Principles of Natural and Political Law ([2 vols.] London, 1748–1752; 4th ed., Boston, 1792); Blackstone, William Sir, Commentaries on the Laws of England ([4 vols.] Oxford, 1765–1769; Philadelphia, 1771); Doddridge, Philip, A Course of Lectures on … Pneumatology, Ethics, and Divinity (London, 1762); Hutcheson, Francis, A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (Glasgow, 1747; 5th ed., Philadelphia, 1788); American Philosophical Society, Transactions (Philadelphia, 1771-).Google Scholar

18. Bradshaw, Herbert C., A History of Prince Edward County, Virginia, 1754–1954 (Richmond, 1955), p. 141; Come, Donald R., “The Influence of Princeton on Higher Education in the South before 1825,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, v. 2 (1945): 371–74 [hereafter cited as WMQ; 3rd series unless otherwise indicated]; Foote, William H., Sketches of Virginia, Historical and Biographical, v. 1 ([2 vols.] Philadelphia, 1850–1856), p. 397, 404; Alexander, James W., The Life of Archibald Alexander (New York, 1854), p. 200; The Virginia Gazette (Dixon & Hunter), Oct. 7, 1775; “Hampden-Sydney Records” (Hampden- Sydney College Archives, Eggleston Library), June 23, 1784, Sept. 2, 1785; Blair, Samuel, An Account of the College of New Jersey (Woodbridge, N.J., 1764), pp. 24–25; Broderick, Francis L., “Pulpit, Physics, and Politics: The Curriculum of the College of New Jersey, 1746–1794,” WMQ, v. 6 (1949): 61–63; “College Laws, 1794” (Princeton University Archives, Firestone Library), p. 37.Google Scholar

19. Come, , “The Influence of Princeton:” 383; “Trustees' Minutes, Feb. 6, 1795,” “Charles W. Harris to Dr. Charles Harris, Apr. 18, 1795,” in Connor, , Doc. Hist. U.N.C., I, pp. 360–61, 387–89; Battle, Kemp, A History of the University of North Carolina v. 1 ([2 vols.] Raleigh, 1907–1912), pp. 94–97, quotation from p. 97; “College Laws, 1794” (Princeton Univ. Archives), 37n. Works not previously identified are: Charles Secondat, de Montesquieu, Baron, The Spirit of Laws (1st Eng. trans., London, 1752) and Millot, Claude F. X., Elements of General History ([5 vols.] London, 1778–1779; 5 vols., Worcester, 1789).Google Scholar

20. Reed, Thomas W., “History of the University of Georgia” ([19 vols.] unpublished Ms., Univ. of Georgia Archives), I, p. 6; Merton Coulter, E., Georgia: A Short History (Chapel Hill, 1947), pp. 188–89, 96, 107; White, Henry C., Abraham Baldwin (Athens, 1926), pp. 154–71; Stiles, Ezra, “Literary Diary” (Yale Univ. Archives), XII, p. 5, 137; XIII, p. 102–03; Meigs, William M., The Life of Josiah Meigs (Philadelphia, 1887), pp. 40–43.Google Scholar

21. Burton Adams, O., “Yale Influence on the Formation of the University of Georgia,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 51 (1967): 180–81; Coulter, , College Life in the Old South, pp. 15–16; “University of Georgia Trustees' Minutes” (Univ. of Georgia Archives), June 1801; “Minutes of the Senatus Academicus” (Univ. of Georgia Archives), Nov. 27, 1800; Stiles, Ezra, “Yale College Memoranda, 1793–1794” (Yale Univ. Archives). Works not previously identified are: Pike, Nicholas, A New and Complete System of Arithmetic (Newburyport, Mass., 1788); Gordon, Thomas, trans., The Works of Tacitus ([2 vols.] London, 1728); The Works of Alexander Pope ([2 vols.] London, 1717–1735); The Works of Jonathan Swift (4 vols., Dublin, 1735); Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (London, 1690); Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Wealth Among Nations ([2 vols.] London, 1776; 3 vols., Philadelphia, 1789).Google Scholar

22. Robson, , “Higher Education:” 117–50; Miller, , The Revolutionary College, pp. 112–22.Google Scholar

23. Robson, , “Higher Education:” 170–205.Google Scholar

24. Nisbet, Charles, An Address to the Students of Dickinson College (Carlisle, 1786), p. 6; Nisbet, , The Usefulness and Importance of Human Learning (Carlisle, 1786), pp. 17–18; Smith, , Account of Washington College, p. 18; Smith, John Blair, “On the Education of Youth, May 1, 1796,” trans. Johnson, Norman B. (Union College Archives).Google Scholar

25. Alexander, , Life of Alexander, pp. 17–18; Grigsby, Hugh B., “The Founders of Washington College,” Washington and Lee Historical Papers, 2 (1890), pp 23–29; Foote, , Sketches of Virginia, I, pp. 431–32; Smith, , “A Frontier Experiment:” 93–94.Google Scholar

26. Farrand, Max (ed.), The Records of the Federal Convention (revised ed. [4 vols.] New Haven, 1937), I, pp. 461–62; II, pp. 346–47, 376, 428; Crowe, Charles R., “James Madison and the Republic of Virtue.” Journal of Southern History, 30 (1964): 60–62; Stiles, Ezra, “Literary Diary,” v. 13 (Ms. Yale Univ. Library) pp. 102–03, 165, 312, 366; XIV, p. 52; ALS, James Manning to Hezekiah Smith, June 10, 1788 (Ms. Brown Univ. Library).Google Scholar

27. “Belles-Lettres Society Minutes, 1786–1806” (Dickinson College Archives), July 20, Dec. 8, 1787, Sept. 20, 1789; The Carlisle Gazette, June 10, 1789.Google Scholar

28. “Belles Lettres Society Minutes,” June 20, 1789: cf. Aug.?, 1790, Aug. 4, 1792, July 26, 1794, Dec. 16, 1795, Dec. 9, 1797, Nov. 10, 1798.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., Dec. 12, 1789, Jan. 2, Mar. 19, July 10, ?, 1790.Google Scholar

30. Battle, , History of U.N.C., I, pp. 136–49; McKeen, Joseph, Two Discourses Delivered at Beverley, May 9, 1798 (Salem, Mass., 1798); Durfee, , History of Williams, pp. 111–12; Bancker, George to Bancker, Abraham, Dec. 10, 1798 (Union College Archives).Google Scholar

31. The Carlisle Gazette , May 9, 1792.Google Scholar

32. “Belles-Lettres Society Minutes,” Aug. 31, Dec. 14, 24, 1793, Feb. 27, Mar. 22, July 12, 1794.Google Scholar

33. Quoted in Smith, , “Frontier Experiment:” 94; Kline's Carlisle Weekly Gazette, Oct. 7, 1795, Oct. 4, 1797, Oct. 3, 1798; “Belles-Lettres Society Minutes,” Mar. 19, 1796, Apr. 28, Dec. 8, 1798; “The Address of the Students of Dickinson College to the President of the United States,” The Universal Gazette (Philadelphia), July 12, 1798.Google Scholar

34. Quoted in Reagan, Allen E., A History of Tusculum College, 1744–1944 (Bristol, Tenn., 1944), pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

35. Connor, , Doc. Hist. U.N.C., I, p. 504, 491; II, p. 140, 270, 127, 250; “Belles-Lettres Society Minutes,” Mar. 2, 1793, June 20, Aug. 1, 1795, Jan. 13, 1796; “Union Society Minutes” (Hampden-Sydney College Archives), July 19, 1793, Nov. 27, 1795, Jan. 22, 1796; for an analysis of the problems of the west and their implication for western self-definition, see Morgan, Edmund S., “Conflict and Consensus in the American Revolution,” in Kurtz, Stephen G. and Hutson, James H. (eds.), Essays on the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1973), pp. 297–306.Google Scholar

36. The question of civilization arose repeatedly: cf. “Belles-Lettres Society Minutes,” Mar. 30, 1798, Jan. 19, Nov. 23, 1799; Connor, , Doc. Hist. U.N.C., I, p. 488, 489, 495; II, p. 150, for example; “Belles-Lettres Society Minutes,” Jan. 6, Mar. 9, 1797; “Union Society Minutes,” Mar. 3, 1792, Jan. 26, 1793; Connor, , Doc. Hist. U.N.C., I, p. 498; II, p. 125.Google Scholar

37. “Records of the Calliopian Society” (Union College Archives), Aug. 20, 1795, Apr. 3, 1797; “Union Society Minutes,” Feb. 24, 1792, Dec. 4, 1795; Connor, , Doc. Hist. U.N.C., I, p. 487; II, p. 274; “Belles-Lettres Society Minutes,” Aug. 1, Oct. ?, 1788.Google Scholar

38. Hofstadter, Richard and Metzger, Walter P., The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States (New York, 1955), pp. 209–22; Miller, , The Revolutionary College, pp. 191–285; Novak, Steven J., The Rights of Youth: American Colleges and Student Revolt, 1798–1815 (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), passim. Google Scholar