As colleges and universities respond to the COVID-19 outbreak, many in the media call it "unprecedented." This is not the first time that institutions of higher education have had to respond to an epidemic, however. A historical review of college and university reactions to illnesses such as yellow fever and the 1918 influenza pandemic…

In 1979, fourteen years after publishing his landmark work, "The Emergence of the American University," Laurence R. Veysey wrote a forward-looking article for the "American Quarterly" titled "The Autonomy of American History Reconsidered." In his article, Veysey suggested that the time had come to rewrite American…

In this paper, the author examines the content of Laurence Veysey's subsequent scholarship--centered upon his career-long fascination with the "price structure" of American society and institutions. Veysey's first scholarly volume after The Emergence of the American University was Law and Resistance: American Attitudes toward Authority (1970).…

Nicholas Murray Butler, G. Stanley Hall, Charles W. Eliot, the respective subjects of three biographies reviewed here, were university presidents whose personal dominance has too often impeded the biographer in his task of objective historical inquiry. (JH)

A brief history of college and university development in the United States. (RA)

Reconstructs the establishment of the Cambridge Grammar school in Massachusetts in the mid-1640s and documents its frequent difficulties in recruiting and maintaining appropriate schoolmasters. Using qualitative and quantitative evidence, analyzes the close relationship between the grammar school and Harvard College. Cambridge provided students to…

Traces the changes in educational philosophy and practices that occurred within England's civic universities. The original intent of the state supported public universities was to provide professional and technical training for the growing middle class. Discusses the reasons that the civics eventually adopted the curriculum of the elite private…

Considers the student behavioral problems that afflicted colleges in the Early Republic and the solutions college authorities ultimately enforced. Highlights the struggles to combat student disorder at the University of Pennsylvania, in particular the role of Provost Frederic Beasley, and focuses on the growth of meritocracy. (CMK)

Extends F. Michael Perko's literature review "Religious Higher Education in America: An Historiographic Survey" by discussing recent developments in the history of religion and U.S. higher education. Explores issues in secularization, the influence of Richard Hofstadter, the work of Julie Reuben, Douglas Sloan, George Marsden, and…

Focusing on the medieval university during its formative years (late 1100s and early 1200s), the author addresses questions such as "How did the ambitions of students and masters influence the organization and curriculum of these new institutions?" Concludes that society was served by these universities despite the indication that the…

Reviews the social impact of Burton J. Bledstein's 1976 book, "The Culture of Professionalism," on public attitudes about the social role of universities. Asserts that Bledstein's major contribution was to raise critical questions about the functions of the modern university and the relationship between knowledge and power. (CFR)

Efforts to make over German universities in the image of Nazism failed, not because of the strength of the moral convictions of the professors or their faith in the professional values of the universities, but rather because of the weaknesses inherent in the ideology and organization of Nazism.(RM)

Colleges were founded in many cities of Victorian England. Some failed; others became the civic universities of twentieth-century Britain. How these civic universities were governed is described. Specifically discussed are courts, councils, trustees, faculty, powers, curriculum, appointments, finance, principals, and constitutions. (RM)

The history of US research universities during the first four decades of the twentieth century is examined. By the end of the 1920s the standard American university of 1910 had been transformed into a new pattern of professional uniformity and institutional diversity. (RM)

Discusses the use of higher education for social defense, moral improvement, and working-class acculturation in 19th-century France. (RM)