Gentlemen and Scholars: College and Community in the "Age of the University," 1865-1917 (review)

Book Reviews57 misunderstood if the simplistic terminology of "progress" and "decline" drives the historical argument. Heritage is a bag of mixed blessings. Readers will find intelligent discussions of recent historiography in this carefully researched book. Phyllis Mack's eloquent study makes a complex history more accessible to us all. Baker Library, Harvard UniversityBarbara Ritter Dailey Graduate School of Business Administration Gentlemen and Scholars: College and Community in the "Age ofthe University, " 1865-1917. By W. Bruce Leslie. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993. xx + 284 pp. Illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, and index. $45.00 In this interesting book, Professor Leslie criticizes the widely accepted theory that the periodbetween the Civil War and U.S. entry into the first Word War was the "age of the university." That is, it was a period during which the transformation of the stronger institutions into universities and the rise of state universities was the most significant development in American higher education. This theory assumes that the remaining colleges were left in a kind of backwater, losing much of the significance and influence that they had once possessed. Professor Leslie rightly contends that this view is far too simplistic. It fails to do justice to the close relationship between colleges and their communities, and it provides no insight into other important changes which took place during the period. The writer supports his conclusions by studying three institutions in eastern Pennsylvania: Bucknell, Franklin and Marshall, and Swarthmore, and one in New Jersey, Princeton. Since most readers ofQuakerHistory may be primarily interested in Swarthmore, I shall give closer attention to its history, but all four are interesting examples for the author's thesis. At the beginning ofthe period all four had strong denominational ties, and all except Swarthmore were controlled by clergymen both on their faculties and boards oftrustees. The latter part ofthe nineteenth century saw a weakening of the denominational ties and a turning to their alumni, their local communities, and to business and professional circles for support. However, these changes proceeded in quite different ways and at varying rates in the four institutions . Bucknell called itselfa university, but it was (and is) a college, particularly after it lost its theological seminary, which moved to Chester under the influence of Crozer money. It is a Baptist institution, but its location on the Susquehanna River placed it far distant from most ofits Baptist supporters who lived in the Philadelphia area. Franklin and Marshall was closely tied to a small, rural church, the German Reformed Church. The church indeed had other institutions depending on it for support, and money was hard to come by. Franklin and Marshall turned, therefore, albeit slowly and hesitantly, to the local community in Lancaster, Pa. for support. Princeton in those days was closely tied to the Presbyterian Church, and the predominance of ministers on its faculty and board gave Princeton Theological Seminary—a separate and much smaller institution—a disproportionate influence in its affairs. Princeton became a university and gradually emancipated itself from clerical control in the first decade ofthe present century when Woodrow Wilson was its president. Its wealthy alumni in New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh contributed generously to its endowment and adorned its campus with handsome gothic buildings. Swarthmore College received its charter in 1864 while the Civil War was still 58Quaker History raging, but raising the necessary funds was so difficultthat it did not open until 1869. Even then the enrolment in the preparatory department greatly exceeded that in the college. Hicksite Quakers were largely a rural people, and many ofthem were more interested in having a boarding school than a college. The establishment ofGeorge School removed most ofthatpressure, and the preparatory departmentwas gradually phased out in the 1 890s. It took longer to ease the pressure for training teachers for Friends schools. Swarthmore did not enter the mainstream of collegiate life until Joseph Swain became its president in 1 902. Dr. Swain was the most eminent Quaker educator of his time, at any rate among the Hicksites. He left the presidency of Indiana University to become president ofa small and inadequately financed Quaker college. He had sufficient prestige to demand that the board of managers raise a considerable...