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8 Jewels in the Crown Civic Pride and Educational Institutions in the Bluegrass, 1792–1852 John R. Thelin Building the Booster College: An American Tradition At the start of the twenty-first century, American colleges and universities are hailed as a success story in large part because of their real and imagined role as economic engines that make a city or even an entire state prosperous.1 Two centuries ago, however, the story had a slightly different inflection: the campus was embraced, indulged, and subsidized because various constituencies—ranging from mayors, state legislators, governors , merchants, and real estate promoters to clergy and citizens—saw the founding of a college as a source of civic pride. Yes, the college stimulated the local economy. More important, however, was the distinctively American belief that for a town to be home and host to a real college meant that it was bona fide—no less than a real city. The best counterpart to the American fondness for building colleges in 1800 now is found in the quest that mayors and city councils have to attract professional sports such as an NBA franchise or an NFL team to town. It is illustrated by the case of Atlanta, which in the 1970s lured the National League Milwaukee Braves baseball team to the South.2 Whatever the expense in civic subsidies, it was a crucial event because, according to its advocates, it transformed Atlanta into a true “major league city.” Although a college or a professional sports team might eventually bring income to a city, at the start it usually meant that taxpayers were going to pay dearly for the privilege of hosting the coveted institution. And so it was with towns and cities in Kentucky from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth as every hamlet and crossroads vied  181 182 John R. Thelin with larger cities to attract or create its own homegrown college. The historian Daniel Boorstin called this the booster college phenomenon in the social history that characterized American westward expansion.3 How important was a college to a town? It took priority over clean drinking water, paved roads, irrigation systems, and even the establishment of elementary schools. This latter oversight later would cause a few problems, as the local college officials soon discovered that they had little, if any, reliable source of students who could pass the college admissions examination. The usual solutions were tributes to American pragmatism in the face of adversity: first, be lenient in grading the admissions exam, and, second, have the college faculty also offer (for a tuition charge, of course) some preparatory classes.4 The market forces of civic competition for colleges led to bidding wars among communities and, then, a proliferation of new institutions. One reason this was able to take place was that, in the young United States, the ground rules of institution charters departed dramatically from the customs and statutes in England. Whereas in the mid-nineteenth century England had a large, dense population, it had only three chartered , degree-granting universities: Oxford, Cambridge, and the young University of London.5 This was so because royal charters conferred by the crown were preceded by caution and thorough scrutiny. In England, one group applying for a college charter in the New World argued to the royal court that it was a wise venture because a college might ultimately help save souls. The beleaguered royal attorney general replied curtly: “Souls! Damn your souls! Raise tobacco.”6 Most kings and queens preferred to have colonial revenues coming in to Mother England rather than going out to the distant colonies. As a result, those few persistent and persuasive groups that were effective in persuading the crown’s agents to grant a collegiate charter literally were well rewarded. This was because it meant that the monarchy accepted the obligation and commitment to provide annual and long-term funding for the fortunate universities that did receive a charter. It was a custom that held in the American colonies, where, for example, the College of William and Mary in Virginia had the double blessings of a royal charter granted in 1693 and generous income from such sources as taxes on tobacco, fees for licensing surveyors, and tolls from bridges along with subsidies from the royal exchequer. With the end of colonial status, the comforts of royal protection and financing halted abruptly. American colleges faced a new deal.7 In contrast to the provisions of the British Empire, with...

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