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American College Professors: 1750–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

William D. Carrell
William D. Carrell*
Affiliation:
Hiram College
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Extract

The nature of the American college during the Colonial and early national periods has concerned many educational historians. Questions of curricula, organization and finance have been frequently posed and often answered. Yet these approaches have ignored perhaps the most central element in the collegiate scene: the professors.

Type
American Colonial Education II
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , Fall 1968 , pp. 289 - 305
Copyright
Copyright © 1968 by New York University 

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References

Notes

1. This study is exclusively concerned with the college professors. Tutors, who made up the majority of the faculties, are not included in these data.Google Scholar

2. Eells, Walter Crosby, Baccalaureate Degrees Conferred by American Colleges in the 17th and 18th Centuries (Washington: United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1958), pp. 1–10.Google Scholar

3. Alexander, J. E., A Historical Sketch of Washington College, Tennessee, revised by Mather, C. H. (Washington College, Tennessee: Washington College Press, 1902); Battle, Kemp P., Sketches of the History of the University of North Carolina, together with a Catalogue of Officers and Students, 1789–1889 (Chapel Hill: The University, 1889); Bisbee, Marvin D., General Catalogue of Dartmouth College and the Associated Schools, 1769–1900, Including a Historical Sketch of the College (Hanover, N.H.: The College, 1900); Brown University, The Historical Catalogue of Brown University, 1764–1934 (Providence: The University, 1936); College of William and Mary, A Catalogue of the College of William and Mary in Virginia, from Its Foundation to the Present Time (Williamsburg?: n.n., 1859); Columbia University, Catalogue of Officers and Graduates of Columbia University, from the Foundation of King's College in 1754 (New York: The University, 1916); College, Hampden-Sidney, General Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Hampden-Sidney College, Virginia, 1776–1906 (Richmond: Whittet and Shepperson, Printers, 1908); Harvard University Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates, 1636–1930 (Cambridge: The University, 1930; Kemp, Verbon E. (ed.), The Alumni Directory and Service Record of Washington and Lee University (Lexington, Virginia: The Alumni Incorporated, 1926); Lippincott, J. B. and Super, O. B., Alumni Record of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Press of Central Pennsylvania A.M.E. Book Room, 1886); Princeton University, General Catalogue of Princeton University 1746–1906 (Princeton: The University, 1908); Raven, John Howard, Catalogue of the Officers and Alumni of Rutgers College (Originally Queen's College) in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1766–1916 (Trenton: State Gazette Publishing Company, Printers, 1916); St. John's College, Register of St. John's College (n.p.: n.n., 1853); Smith, William, An Account of Washington College, in the State of Maryland (Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank, 1784); University of Pennsylvania, General Catalogue of the Medical Graduates of the University of Pennsylvania, (3d ed.; Philadelphia: Lydia R. Bailey, 1845); University of Pennsylvania, General Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates in the Department of Arts of the University of Pennsylvania: From 1749 until 1849 (Philadelphia: Crissy and Markley, Printers, 1849); Union University, Centennial Catalogue, 1795–1895, of the Officers and Alumni of Union College in the City of Schnectady, New York (Troy, N.Y.: Troy Times Printing House, 1895); Williams College, General Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Williams College, 1795–1920 (Williamstown, Massachusetts: The College, 1920); and Yale University, Historical Register of Yale University, 1701–1937 (New Haven: Yale University, 1939).Google Scholar

4. Complete documentation of every conclusion drawn from biographical data would be so complex it would be almost useless. The conclusions drawn are simply counts of categories established after the data were collected.Google Scholar

Biographical collections were useful in the preparation of this study. The Dictionary of American Biography was most valuable. The Cyclopaedia of American Biography and the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography were other general collections which were useful. William B. Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit provided biographical information on many clergymen professors who were not included in any of the general biographical collections. Finally, Franklin B. Dexter's Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College and Clifford K. Shipton's Sibley's Harvard Graduates were quite helpful in providing information on alumni of these two institutions. These various collections provided most of the information used in this study. There were also fine individual biographies of book length for several of the professors. When they existed, these too were beneficial. [Editor's note: for a bibliography of professors' biographies, see Research Studies in the History of Education in this issue.]

5. In those cases where a school was known by more than one name during the eighteenth century, the name under which the school was chartered is used exclusively.Google Scholar

6. For a discussion of the “liberal” Protestant mind in eighteenth-century America, see Heimert, Alan, Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966).Google Scholar

7. In this study, status is defined as a function of occupation. The high-status occupations were those held in high esteem by eighteenth-century Americans and usually, but not necessarily, enjoyed substantial economic rewards.Google Scholar

8. Hexter, J. H., “The Education of the Aristocracy in the Renaissance,” Journal of Modern History, XXII (1950), 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Aronson, Sidney H., Status and Kinship in the Higher Civil Service: Standards of Selection in the Administrations of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 46, 61.Google Scholar

10. Colonial professors' perceptions of their occupation have not been examined. Standard histories of higher education, such as Brubacher, John S. and Rudy, Willis, Higher Education in Transition, An American History: 1636–1956 (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1958); Rudolph, Frederick, The American College and University: A History (New York: Knopf, Alfred A., Inc., 1962); and Schmidt, George P., The Liberal Arts College: A Chapter in American Cultural History (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1957) do not deal with the question at all. Google Scholar

Richard Hofstadter and Wilson Smith are two recent scholars who have concerned themselves with permanency and professionalism in college teaching. In Hofstadter Richard and Metzger Walter P., The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), p. 111, Hofstadter concludes that “College teaching was not a recognized career, and tutors lacked even the faintest trace of a professional consciousness, for the very good reason that college teaching was as yet far from being a profession.” In Smith Wilson, “The Teacher in Puritan Culture,” Harvard Educational Review, XXXVI, No. 4 (Fall 1966), 401, Smith agrees that “College teaching was clearly not a profession.”

It seems that the difference between my position and that of Hofstadter and Smith is due to my using professors while their studies centered on the experiences of tutors. I do not want to argue that professionalism was present among the professors, but I do argue that there was more esteem for the position than has previously been suggested.