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3. Admissions: Race, Class, Gender
- University of Virginia Press
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92 In October 1876 South Carolina’s governor received a letter from Grandison Harris, a justice of the peace in Augusta, Georgia. Harris wished to send his son to study law at the University of South Carolina. He wrote to the governor, who chaired the board of trustees, to inquire about admissions procedures and tuition fees. There was nothing especially unusual about his letter. The legislature recently had established the law school as part of its building a comprehensive university. Given Harris’s own profession, it is not surprising that he wanted his son to study there. What was remarkable here was not the letter but the writer: Grandison Harris was black.1 A lot had changed in the American South. Now a former slave could become a justice of the peace.2 A lot had changed at the University of South Carolina too. After enduring military takeover and near destruction during the war, then structural and curricular reinvention right after it, the university underwent still more change in the following years. The state’s Reconstruction and Redemption governments reshaped the state university, most starkly with regard to who attended it. By 1876 Judge Harris could consider enrolling his son. Missing pages from that year’s extant catalogue conceal whether the younger Harris actually attended, but in any event other blacks did. And although South Carolina was unique, it was not alone. No other college changed so completely as it did, but others did begin to enroll new types of students. Some of the changes to admissions were permanent, others temporary. Even as colleges remade curricula, the Civil War and the events that followed it also changed who went to college. The term admissions can be somewhat misleading. Colleges in the THREE Admissions Race,Class, Gender 93 ADMISSIONS: RACE, CLASS, GENDER nineteenth century did not practice selective admissions as we know them today. They lacked both the need and the ability. So few Americans pursued a college education that colleges usually could admit all qualified applicants. And for the most part they had to: they needed the tuition money. The notion of selecting from among a large number of academically qualified applicants did not take root until the twentieth century and remained uncommon until after World War II, when economic prosperity and rising high-school graduation rates helped to drive a massive increase in applications. Even on the rare occasion that a nineteenthcentury institution tried to admit only the best scorers on an entrance test—as the State Normal School in South Carolina did when it opened in 1874—it found the policy impracticable. The small number of applicants and the poor condition of South Carolina’s public schools forced the Normal School to admit ill-prepared students.3 Yet, nineteenth-century colleges did not welcome everyone. They practiced forms of selective admissions, just very di≠erent forms from today ’s. These fell into three general categories. First were academic criteria for admission. While colleges could not choose only the best applicants, they did want to ensure that matriculates had the necessary preparation to begin college studies. So they administered a test to all prospective freshmen on the material that freshmen already should have mastered. Passing the test—not scoring the best—gained one admission. Despite South Carolina College’s temporarily waiving this test to accommodate students’ time away from school during the war, the entrance test (and a new equivalent credential, the high-school diploma) remained an important part of college admissions in the late nineteenth century.4 Second, and most important, colleges established social criteria for admission. With few exceptions, colleges admitted only those belonging to certain social groups. Most restricted admission to one gender, usually men. Especially before the Civil War, very few admitted African Americans . The cost of tuition, room and board, transportation, and lost work often produced a class and geographic admissions screen: neither the poor nor the distant could a≠ord to attend. These admissions policies and financial requirements restricted both who received a college education and which college a particular student attended. Finally, colleges established moral admissions criteria. Nineteenthcentury colleges, even to some extent the state universities, were Christian institutions with a moral and religious agenda. They aimed to train not only good scholars but also good people and good Christians. To that end, they tried to ensure that only well-behaved youths with good prospects [34.228.7.237] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 09:24 GMT) 94 RECONSTRUCTING THE...