Recurrent themes in selected literature on American higher education written during 1962-1972 are analyzed and related to themes on the same subject addressed by selected Victorian essayists in 19th century England. Parallels in educational thought are used to illuminate some aspects of the nature of the debate over the role of higher education in American during the 1960s and 1970s. Dominant themes in the literature, which were representative of some of the major problems associated with the university, were fragmentation, politicization, and the idea of the university. The Victorian literature is limited to several authors: Matthew Arnold, Thomas Henry Huxley, John Stuart Mill, John Henry Newman, Walter Pater, Thomas Carlyle, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The Victorian themes selected for discussion were the precursors of 20th century issues: the unity of knowledge; the rise of secularism; the religion of culture, especially Matthew Arnolds' cultural canon; the nineteenth-century science-humanism debate; and the "idea" of the university. Additional considerations include the mission of the university: teaching, research, public service, and criticism. Specifically, the importance of a liberal education and questioning during the 1960s about the relevance of such studies are addressed. (SW)