Proto-outline
- America’s ambigous relation to higher learning
- Their resilience and longevity despite what seems to be a state of precariousness
- The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake versus the university as a training school.
- the need to recognize and accept that different institutions have different raisons d’être:
- businesses: to make money, or to produce goods and services
- universities: to create and transmit knowledge
- a totalitarian system is one in which the totality of human affairs is governed by a single purpose.
Quotes
Robert Westbrook
Our universities are the training ground for the barbarians of the future, those who, in the guise of learning shall come forth loaded with pitchforks of ignorance and cynicism, and stab and destroy the remnants of human civili- zation (13) in ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN AMERICAN LIFE REVISITED (Westbrook) Robert Westbrook) ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN AMERICAN LIFE REVISITED (Westbrook)
(Westbrook) Paper presented at a conference on “The University in the Public Eye,” Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University, 29 September 1995. Do not cite, quote, or copy without permission of the author. © 1995
America
The position of universities in American life is quite odd. Harvard University was founded in 1636 On the one hand, universities were founded very early in our history
Europe
Notes From Claude
Harvard University was founded in 1636, making it the oldest institution of higher learning in what would become the United States. The Massachusetts Bay Colony’s Great and General Court voted to establish a college in Newtowne (later renamed Cambridge), allocating £400 for its creation. The college was named after John Harvard, a young Puritan minister from Charlestown who died in 1638 and left his library of about 400 books and half his estate (roughly £780) to the new institution. This was the college’s first major benefaction.
The early curriculum was modeled on English universities, particularly Cambridge, and focused on training Puritan ministers. Students studied classical languages (Latin, Greek, Hebrew), logic, rhetoric, and philosophy. The college’s original motto was “Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae” (Truth for Christ and the Church), later shortened to simply “Veritas.” Henry Dunster became the first president in 1640 and served until 1654, establishing many of the institution’s foundational practices. The first graduating class (1642) consisted of nine students.
The Indian College was established in the 1650s as an early (though largely unsuccessful) effort to educate Native Americans. Harvard Hall, one of the early buildings, housed the library until it burned in 1764, destroying most of John Harvard’s original book collection.
Throughout the 17th century, Harvard remained small and closely tied to Congregationalist religious life, though it gradually began admitting students with broader career intentions beyond the ministry.