The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief

Rating:
Summary: Long on history, short on future university soul.
Review: A favoring review in the New York Times suggested future university guidelines. Actual prognostic suggestions delayed until the last ten pages. The prehistory was anecdotally attractive, but was all old stuff.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating story
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It is very detailed, and I would occasionally get lost in all those details. But I enjoyed Marsden's story of the gradual shift from colleges and universities dominiated by Protestant church influence to college and universities that had become neutral or even hostile to expressions of religious faith. Since I have worked in and around college campuses all my life, I found myself several times saying "So that's why that is true today!" I really enjoyed Marsden's tracing of the rise of the scientific worldview as dominate in university life. I wish Marsden had treated the shift from modernism to postmodernism more, since I believe that shift began occuring in the latter part of the 1900's, well within the scope of his book. I will say that only motivated readers will finish this book--it is very detailed and long. But for those who are interested, it is worth the time spent.

Rating:
Summary: Creating a platform for secular wisdom
Review: No historical interpretation lacks an agenda. The author struggles to determine why American higher education has such strong prejudices against traditional religious viewpoints. Religion was relegated to the periphery on Enlightenment grounds. Religious viewpoints were unscientific.

The liberal Protestant establishment endorsed the scientific ideal. It was believed, inter alia, that positive cultural development advanced the Kingdom of God. There was a broad idealism, especially in the humanities. Nonsectarian moral ideals received emphasis. Campus ministries were added when it was perceived that academic life favored purely naturalistic and materialistic worldviews. Then academics ceased to believe in purely objective science.

Recently the postmodernist views presuppose naturalistic worldviews exclusively. The alternative to liberal pragmatism is postmodern relativism. Procedural rationality is still necessary. Prejudice against academic expression of religion has flown under the banner of academic freedom. Academic freedom was limited to the common good as defined by the predominantly male Anglo establishment. Control of the universities has now diversified. The book concerns pace-setting American universities with a Protestant heritage.

The American university system was built on a foundation of evangelical Protestant colleges. By the 1920's evangelical Protestantism had been effectively excluded from classrooms. Many of the same educational theories were conceived as a means of assimilating other traditions into the American heritage. The attitudes were imperialistic and exclusive.

The American Protestant leadership wanted a standardized educational system. Protestant universities, the nonsectarian ideals of the Protestant establishment, dictated that even liberal Protestantism itself should move to the periphery, virtually excluding all religious perspectives to resolve the problem of pluralism. The book tells a story of disestablishment and secularization.

Higher education was influenced by English, Scottish, and German models. William Buckley wrote GOD AND MAN AT YALE in 1951. Buckley conflated economic and religious issues. Buckley pointed to the gap between Yale's rhetoric and reality.

The Reformation brought brought changes in the social function of education. The scholar's gown was the garment of the Protestant clergy. Oxford and Cambridge colleges had been particularly important to the Puritan movement. Higher education was a keystone of the edifice of social authority. The sacred and secular were not sharply differentiated. It was assumed that pagan learning should be surrounded by biblical and theological subjects. Protestantism was congenial to the study of the natural order.

The founding of Yale College grew out of a concern for maintaining orthodoxy. The College of William and Mary was part of the Anglican establishment. America's primary university models in the eighteenth century were Scottish. The Scottish universities were dominated by Presbyterian Moderates.

Most American college builders were heirs to the Great Awakening. Later there was a vision of making America a land of great scholars based upon the idea of the German university. Germany had symbolic importance. The rise of the German universities coincided with the rise of German idealism. By the mid nineteenth century German trends had an impact on American Protestant theology.

At the University of Michigan Henry Tappan sought to fuse Scottish and German influences to create a great university. He required of the faculty scientific or literary qualifications. The University of California emerged from the College of California. Typically the transition from old style colleges to universities was peaceful. While essentially Protestant, the University of California was committed to a nonsectarian course. At Johns Hopkins, established in 1876, there was voluntary chapel. It was America's leading graduate university. Gilman, president of the university, saw his work as a Christian ministry.

Harvard's transition to liberal Chrisitianity had been going on since the revolutionary era. Charles Eliot of Harvard mobilized forces of professionalism and modern technique. He founded the elective system. He initiated practical reforms to implement religious ideals. He struck one observer as having Unitarianism to the nth degree. The moral purpose was to build character. Philosophers like James and Royce played a mediating role in the era of transition in cultural authority from the minister to the scientist.

At Princeton there was insistence that it be a Christian university in the traditional sense. When Woodrow Wilson was president of Princeton religious emphasis was toned down. Wilson unsuccessfully sought to reform the social life at Princeton. His plans for reform were the outgrowth of his Christian vision. Wilson was thwarted in his efforts to build a model Chrisitan and nation-serving educational community. The issues were social as much as they were religious.

Whereas Cornell had stood for democracy and Johns Hopkins research, the University of Chicago stood for pragmatism and innovation. William Rainey Harper was a quintessential organizer. Harper's enthusiasm for popular education was fortified through his connection to the Chautauqua movement. The Chautauqua network was an extension of Methodist technique. Harper had a tendancy to conflate Christianity and democracy. The religious stance of Stanford was expressed most vividly in its architecture.

In 1906 Andrew Carnegie set up the Carnegie Foundation. It provided incentives for colleges and universities to drop their denominational ties in order to participate in a faculty pension program. An assimilationist vision of universal science and universal morality was promoted by the Religious Education Association.

By the 1920's explicitly Christian rationales for the ideals of the university would seem to be vestigial. The fatal weakness in Chrisitian terms was the university's commitment to scientific and professional ideals. Academic expressions of Christianity seemed superfluous.

By the 1950's academic freedom had attained sacred status. The inspiration for academic freedom comes from Germany. The peculiarity of the German scene is that academic freedom was guaranteed by an autocratic state. Freedom for public speech was a guarantee rolled into the American version. In the 1890's most of the controversies over academic freedom were political.

By 1921 the YMCAs reached their numerical peak. By the end of that decade the influence of the Y's had declined markedly. American Protestant higher education trends militated against keeping theological principles part of the educational enterprise. Unfortunately, tolerance and diversity do not in and of themselves present a coherent ethical stance.