EARLY AMERICAN COLLEGES

Colleges began to be established for two reasons. First, most were founded by religious denominations. Second, colleges were the pride of the community evoked by the revolution, the strange american pursuit of progress, and migration to the west. The East had colleges, and so should the West. Almost anybody could "found" a college. College charters were easy to obtain and one could "found" a college whether or not they had the resources. Because of these loose rules, many new institutions financially crashed from lack of funds.

Colleges in the early national period were small. Here are some statistics of some college's graduates in 1827: Harvard-47, Bowdoin-32, Dartmouth-38, and Yale-79. The ratio of college students to the general population in 1810 was 1 to 1500. The ratio in 1988 was 1 to 30. New England's population in the nineteenth century was one and one-half million. Less than ten thousand students were attending college.

Math, Moral Philosophy, Latin, and Greek were labeled as the classical studies. College curriculums contained all of the above. After the revolution, chemistry, physics, and mineralology began to be introduced. French and German began to replace Latin and Greek. The "Parallel Program" was perfected in 1828. This permitted more modern language, science, political economy, and math.

Yale college in 1828 had an enrollment of 313, six tutors, five academic professors, and three professors in medicine. Academics included: theology, law, math, natural philosophy, chemistry, minerology, language and history.

Throughout this time period, religion was heavily emphasized. During the colonial and early national eras colleges seemed to be more like theological schools, rather than liberal arts colleges. The President of a college was always a clergyman. Also, professors and students were required to attend chapel daily.

A majority of U.S. colleges were much smaller than Harvard and Yale. Funding for colleges came from many sources. Among them were tuition, church donations of money and land, and legislative appropriations. Schools before and after the nineteenth century received money from state governments. The Morill Land Grant Act of 1862, stimulated the founding of public colleges.

Prepared by Aaron Sandock