The modern research university is a global institution with a rich history that stretches into an ivy-laden past, but for as much as we think we know about that past, most of the writings that have recorded it are scattered across many archives and, in many cases, have yet to be translated into English. With this book, Paul Reitter, Chad Wellmon, and Louis Menand bring a wealth of these important texts together, assembling a fascinating collection of primary sources--many translated into English for the first time--that outline what would become the university as we know it. The editors focus on the development of American universities such as Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and the Universities of Chicago, California, and Michigan. Looking to Germany, they translate a number of seminal sources that formulate the shape and purpose of the university and place them next to hard-to-find English-language texts that took the German university as their inspiration, one that they creatively adapted, often against stiff resistance. Enriching these texts with short but insightful essays that contextualize their importance, the editors offer an accessible portrait of the early research university, one that provides invaluable insights not only into the historical development of higher learning but also its role in modern society. After the general introduction, this books contains six parts and 30 chapters. Part 1, German Research Universities, contains: (1) Report to King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Germany (Friedrich Gedike); (2) On the Importance of Protestant Universities in Germany (Johann David Michaelis); (3) What Is Universal History and Why Study It? An Inaugural Academic Lecture (Friedrich Schiller); (4) Occasional Thoughts on German Universities in the German Sense (Friedrich Schleiermacher); (5) A Plan, Deduced from First Principles, for an Institution of Higher Learning to Be Established in Berlin, Connected to and Subordinate to an Academy of Sciences (J. G. Fichte); (6) Lectures on the Method of Academic Study (F. W. J. Schelling); and (7) On Germany's Educational System (Wilhelm von Humboldt). Part 2, Americans Abroad and Returning, contains: (8) Letters to Thomas Jefferson and Edward Everett (George Ticknor and George Bancroft); (9) American Colleges and German Universities (Richard Theodore Ely); (10) On German Universities (Henry Tappan); and (11) German Universities: A Narrative of Personal Experience (James M. Hart). Part 3, American Adaptations, contains: (12) The Morrill Act; (13) The Utility of Universities (Daniel Coit Gilman); (14) Opening Exercises (G. Stanley Hall); (15) The Relations of the National and State Governments to Advanced Education (Andrew D. White); and (16) The University and Democracy (William Rainey Harper). Part 4 Undergraduate Education in the University (17) The New Education (Charles William Eliot); (18) Inaugural Address (Noah Porter); (19) Liberty in Education (Charles William Eliot); (20) The New Departure in College Education, Being a Reply to President Eliot's Defence of It (James McCosh); and (21) On the Future of Our Educational Institutions (Friedrich Nietzsche). Part 5, Diversity and Inclusion: Female University Students, contains: (22) Diversity and Inclusion: Introduction (23) Higher Schools for Girls and Their Mission: Companion Essay (Helene Lange); (24) Women at the German Universities: Letters to the Editor of the "Nation" (J.B.S. and M.F.K.); and (25) Decree on the Admission of Women to Universities. Part 6, General Education, contains: (26) General Education: Introduction (27) Editorial: A Focus for Freshmen (Charles Sears Baldwin); (28) The New Freshman Course in Columbia College (John J. Coss); (29) General Education (Robert Maynard Hutchins); and (30) The Higher Learning in a Democracy (Harry D. Gideonse). A bibliography is included.