Abstract
Collegiate life in antebellum America was designed, at least rhetorically, to conform to a familial pattern of living, defined by secluded residential proximity, common meals, shared religious experiences, and a collective submission to the paternal discipline of college administrators and faculty. This model of the “collegiate way,” though rarely observed fully in practice, was an indication of the degree to which colleges sought to model themselves after the in loco parentis patterns of English institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge. Prescribing intimate oversight, not only of student academic life, but also of recreational, dietary, moral, and religious practices, leaders aspired to a kind of domestic caretaking role that would ensure both behavioral compliance and a propriety appropriate to their social status. The institutions existing in these years—typically small-scale enterprises enrolling fewer than a hundred students and employing fewer than ten instructors—were crafted to develop not only scholars but also “gentlemen” in the fullest sense of that term.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Ibid., 86–109; Roger Geiger and Julie Ann Bobulz, “College as It Was in the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” in Geiger, ed. The American College in the Nineteenth Century (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000), 80–90.
See especially David Allmendinger, Paupers and Scholars: The Transformation of Student Life in Nineteenth Century New England (New York: St. Mortin’s Press, 1975), 8–19; 91–94;
Allmendinger, “The Dangers of Ante-Bellum Student Life,” Journal of Social History 7 (Fall 1973): 75–83.
Horowitz, Campus Life, 27. See also Phillip Greven, The Protestant Temperament: Patterns of Childrearing, Religious Experience, and the Self in Early America (New York: Knopf, 1977).
Donald G. Tewksbury, The Founding of American Colleges and Universities Before the Civil War: With Particular Reference to the Religious Influences Bearing upon the College Movement (New York: Arno Press, 1932), 16–28;
Natalie A. Naylor, “The Ante-Bellum College Movement: A Reappraisal of Tewksbury’s Founding of American Colleges and Universities,” History of Education Quarterly 13 (Fall 1973): 261–274.
As historian David Potts has documented, denominationalism might have actually grown later in the century when improved transportation allowed for a more religiously homogenous clientele to seek out affiliated institutions “across the miles.” David Potts, “American Colleges in the Nineteenth Century: From Localism to Denominationalism,” History of Education Quarterly 11 (1971): 363–380.
Walter P. Rogers, Andrew D. White and the Modern University (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1942), 82.
On this theme of a broadly Protestant constituency, see W. Bruce Leslie, Gentlemen and Scholars: College and Community in the Age of the University, 1865–1917 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 96.
Reuben, The Making of the Modern University, 19–21, 88–90; Roberts and Turner, The Sacred and the Secular University, 20–21, 43–49, 107–122; Rudolph, Curriculum: A History of the American Undergraduate Course of Study Since 1636 (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1981), 39–42, 90–93.
Frederick Marsden, The Soul of the American University, 90–93, 103–106. See also Mark A. Noll, “The Revolution, The Enlightenment, and Christian Higher Education in the Early Republic,” in Joel A. Carpenter and Kenneth W. Shipps, eds. Making Higher Education Christian: The History and Mission of Evangelical Colleges in America (Grad Rapids: Christian University Press, 1987), 56–76.
Ibid., 18–43; Cornelius H. Patton and Walter T. Field, Eight O’Clock Chapel (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927), 209.
Kathryn T. Long, The Revival of 1857–1858: Interpreting an American Religious Awakening (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 7.
See also Timothy Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War (Gloucester, MA: P. Smith, 1957).
Philip Alexander Bruce, History of the University of Virginia, 1819–1919: The Lengthened Shadow of One Man, vol. 3 (New York, Macmillan, 1922), 138.
Hugh McIlhany, “The Founding of the First Young Men’s Christian Association Among Students,” Alumni Bulletin of the University of Virginia 2, no. 1 (January 1909): 50;
Matthew Leggett, “The Evolution of the Young Men’s Christian Association of the University of Virginia: 1858 to 1968,” Magazine of Albemarle County History 58 (2000): 33.
Shedd, Two Centuries, 95–98; Victor Wilbee, “The Religious Dimensions of Three Presidencies in a State University” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1967), 114–119. Robert Weidensall is very clear that Michigan should be given credit as the first college YMCA chapter because of its stable evangelical basis. Clarence Shedd has posited that the University of Virginia should be given credit because of its quick allegiance to the movement and more developed program. See Weidensall, “The Early History of the College Young Men’s Christian Association Work, and the Part the Virginia University Association Had in It,” 7–8. Folder “Early History,” Student Work, Kautz Archives; Shedd, Two Centuries, 94–102.
Ibid., 103–110. See also Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Convention of the Young Men’s Christian Associations of the United States and British Provinces (New York: Executive Committee, 1868), 101. Robert E. Lee was later made an honorary member of the association. See Wishard, “Virginia College Conference,” CB 8, no. 3 (December 1885): 1.
Joseph R. DeMartini, “Student culture as a change Agent in American Higher Education: An Illustration from the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Social History 9 (June 1976): 526–541; Horowitz, Campus Life, 36–39.
Ibid., 30, 40–49, 94; C.K. Ober, Exploring a Continent (New York: Association Press, 1929), 113.
John R. Mott, The Intercollegiate Young Men’s Christian Association Movement (New York: YMCA, 1895), 2; Weidensall, “College Work, 1877,” 38.
Luther Wishard, The Beginning of the Student’s Era in Christian History: A Reminiscence of a Life (New York: Association Press, 1890), 11–12, 18–25;
David B. Lowry, “Luther D. Wishard (1854–1925): Pioneer of the Student Christian Movement” (Department of History, Princeton University, 1951, photocopy), 5. Folder “Luther Wishard,” Kautz Archives.
Marsden, The Soul of the American University, 197. For more on McCosh’s ideals, see J. David Hoeveler, James McCosh and the Scottish Intellectual Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).
Wishard, “Day of Prayer for Colleges,” CB 1, no. 3 (January 1879): 1. See also, “The Day of Prayer for Students,” Int 10, no. 3 (January 1888): 21; Lowry, “Luther Wishard,” 2–3; Kemeny, Princeton in the Nations Service, 108.
Wishard developed a life-long friendship with Woodrow Wilson at this time. See C.K. Ober, Luther Wishard: Projector of World Movements (New York: Association Press, 1927), 25. While affiliation of the Princeton chapter took place at this time, full membership was delayed until 1883 because of these issues.
James B. Reynolds, Samuel Fisher, and Henry B. Wright, Two Centuries of Christian Activity at Yale (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1901), 106–107.
Earl H. Brill, “Religion and the Rise of the University: A Study of the Secularization of American Higher Education, 1870–1910” (Ph.D. diss., The American University, 1969), 557;
Wishard, “College Visitation,” CB 2, no. 5 (January 1880): 2.
Ober, Luther Wishard, 52; Wishard, “The Association in Harvard,” Int 9, no. 1 (January 1887): 2; Reynolds, Fisher, and Wright, Two Centuries of Christian Activity at Yale, 107–108, 212–213, 222–223.
David B. Potts, Wesleyan University: Collegiate Enterprise in New England(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 108.
Ibid., 19; “Membership of the College Association,” CB 8, no. 5 (February 1886): 18–19. See also Wirt Wiley, History of Y.M.CA.—Church Relations in the United States (New York: Association Press, 1944), 17–18;
Richard C. Morse, Relation to the Churches of the North American Young Men’s Christian Associations (New York: The International Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations, 1906).
James Thomas Honnold, “The History of the Y.M.CA. of the University of Wisconsin, 1870–1924” (master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1954), 35.
Ibid., 38–44. On Bascom, see also J. David Hoeveler, “The University and the Social Gospel: The Intellectual Origins of the ‘Wisconsin Idea,’” in Lester F. Goodchild and Harold S. Wechsler, eds. The History of Higher Education, 2nd ed. (Boston: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 234–246.
On the reasons for this growth, see Lynn D. Gordon, Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 16–26.
See also Barbara Miller Solomon, In the Company of Educated Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 64.
Cited in Harold W. Hannah, One Hundred Years of Action: The University of Illinois YMCA, 1873–1973 (n.p., 1973), 18.
Floyd Loveland, “Secretary’s Report,” The Bulletin of the Cornell University Christian Association (October 1895): 33–34. AYSD, Box 53, Folder 766; Clarence P. Shedd, The Church Follows Its Students (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938), 183.
C. Grey Austin, A Century of Religion at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1957), 4–5; William Walker, “The Students’ Christian Association from 1883 To 1889,” 3. Office of Ethics and Religion Records, 1860–1991, University of Michigan, Box 1, Folder “Historical Materials”; “Shall We Separate?” The Monthly Bulletin of the University of Michigan 7, no. 17 (April 1896): 108.
Wishard, “The Intercollegiate Work,” CB 2, no. 2 (October 1879): 2.
See Wishard, “First Five Years’ Work of the College Secretary,” CB 5, no. 1 (October 1882): 4; “First Decade of the Intercollegiate Work,” Int 10, no. 1 (September 1887): 5.
C.M. Davies “California,” CB 1, no. 5 (March 1879): 4;
Wishard, “Pacific Coast Tour,” Int 9, no. 3 (May 1887): 18.
Wishard, “The Outlook,” CB 7, no. 4 (February 1885): 1.
YMCA Yearbook, 1882–1883, 32. See also Nina Mjagkij, Light in the Darkness: African-Americans and the YMCA, 1852–1946 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1994), 33–34.
Cited in Mott, “The College Man’s Religion at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century,” The Sunday School Times 43, no. 3 (January 19, 1901): 1–2. Located in JRMP, Box 137, Folder 2213.
Copyright information
© 2007 David P. Setran
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Setran, D.P. (2007). Organizing a College Revival. In: The College “Y”. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230603387_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230603387_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-4039-6125-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-60338-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)