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Charles Rosenberg, “Woods or Trees? Ideas and Actors in the History of Science,” Isis 79 (1988): 569.
The development of graduate education in science in America during the last decades of the nineteenth century is noted in Robert E. Kohler, “The Ph.D. Machine, Building on the Collegiate Base,” Isis 81 (1990): 638–662. In this essay Kohler notes that it was the desire of all major science teachers, colleges, and universities to develop graduate programs that could compete not only with one another, but internationally as well. The primary reason Kohler identifies for the trend lay in the need for qualified scientists to teach at these very institutions. Kohler goes onto note three specific reasons for this developing need. First, the growing number of colleges and universities in the United States created a market for MA and Ph.D. holding professors. Second, the development of the elective system for undergraduates and higher academic standards resulted in more students migrating toward careers, or at least education in the physical sciences. Finally, these specialized undergraduate majors led to a need for Ph.D. instructors. Why Morley failed to develop a program at Western Reserve College to meet this demand is not completely clear. However, I contend that while many of those professors who were building and running graduate programs were products of similar systems both in the United States and in Europe, Morley was not. As such these other professors had the experience necessary to build the programs that were being replicated across the nation having been products of similar systems themselves.
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(2006). Introduction. In: An American Scientist on the Research Frontier. Archimedes, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4089-X_1
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