Chapter Review 293country is yet too young for old professors,” a
Bostonian informed a foreign visitor in the 1830s,
“and, besides, they are too poorly paid to induce
first rate men to devote themselves to the business
of lecturing.... We consider professors as sec-
ondary men.”
Fortunately for the future of higher education,
some college officials recognized the need for a dras-
tic overhaul of their institutions. President Francis
Wayland of Brown University used his 1842 address,
“On the Present Collegiate System,” to call for a
thorough revamping of the curriculum to make it
responsive to the economic realities of American soci-
ety. This meant more courses in science, economics
(where Wayland’s own Elements of Political Economy
might be used), modern history, and applied mathe-
matics; and fewer in Hebrew, biblical studies, Greek,
and ancient history.
Yale established a separate school of science in
1847, which it hoped would attract serious-minded
students and research-minded professors. At Harvard,
which also opened a scientific school, students were
allowed to choose some of their courses and were
compelled to earn grades as a stimulus to study.
Colleges in the West and the South began to offer
mechanical and agricultural subjects relevant to their
regional economies. Oberlin enrolled four female stu-
dents in 1837, and the first women’s college, the
Georgia Female College, opened its doors in 1839.
These reforms slowed the downward spiral of
colleges; they did not restore them to the honored
place they had enjoyed in the Revolutionary era. Of
the first six presidents of the United States, only
Washington did not graduate from college.
Beginning in 1829, seven of the next eleven did not.
In this Presidents Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison,
Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, and Johnson were like 98
of every 100 white males, all blacks and Indians, and
all but a handful of white women in mid-nineteenth-
century America. Going to college had yet, in
Wayland’s words, to “commend itself to the good
sense and patriotism of the American people.”1774 Mother Ann Lee founds first Shaker community
1784 Dr. Benjamin Rush’sInquiry into the Effects of
Ardent Spiritsquestions alcohol’s benefits
1826 American Temperance Union begins campaign
against drunkenness
1829 Black abolitionist David Walker publishesAppeal
to the Coloured Citizens of the World
1830s Second Great Awakening stresses promise
of salvation
Prison reformers debate Auburn versus
Philadelphia system
1830– Utopian communities flourish
1850
1830 Joseph Smith shares his “vision” in Book of Mormon
1831 Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison foundsThe
Liberatorand New England Anti-Slavery Society
1831– Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont
1832 tour America
1832 Perkins Institution for the Blind opens in Boston
1837 Illinois abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy is murdered
Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers “The American
Scholar” at Harvard
Horace Mann and Henry Barnard call for
common schools1843 Dorothea Dix exposes treatment of the insane in
Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts
1844 Margaret Fuller condemns sexual discrimination in
Women in the Nineteenth Century
Nauvoo mob murders Joseph Smith
1845 Frederick Douglass describes slave life in
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
1847 Brigham Young leads Mormon migration to Great
Salt Lake
1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott
organize Seneca Falls Convention and draft
Declaration of Sentiments
1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne publishesThe Scarlet Letter
1851 Maine bans alcoholic beverages
Herman Melville publishesMoby-Dick
1854– Susan B. Anthony leads petition campaign against
1855 New York property and divorce laws
1854 Henry David Thoreau attacks conformity in
Walden
1855– Walt Whitman publishesLeaves of Grass(various
1892 editions)Milestones
Chapter Review