The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality

by Julie A. Reuben

What is the purpose of higher education, and how should we pursue it? Debates over these issues raged in the late nineteenth century as reformers introduced a new kind of university—one dedicated to free inquiry and the advancement of knowledge. In the first major study of moral education in American universities, Julie Reuben examines the consequences of these debates for modern intellectual life.

Based on extensive research at eight universities—Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, Stanford, Michigan, and California at Berkeley—Reuben examines the aims of university reformers in the context of nineteenth-century ideas about truth. She argues that these educators tried to apply new scientific standards to moral education, but that their modernization efforts ultimately failed. By exploring the complex interaction between institutional and intellectual change, Reuben enhances our understanding of the modern university, the secularization of intellectual life, and the association of scientific objectivity with value-neutrality.

Genres: Education, History, Teaching, Academic, Historical

374 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 1996

Reviews

[Steve Wegman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A study of leading American universities as they transitioned from classical education format to modern during the roughly 50 years from 1880 to 1930. I suspect this was a PhD thesis because it's thorough, well noted, and pretty dry. It explains well how universities changed from the goal of developing the well rounded, functional citizen to producing people focused on their specific fields, and in the process gave up on the idea of trying to get students to develop good moral values. As they moved away from religious instruction, administrators at first thought science would teach morals, but as that didn't work out they just gave up on trying.

[Rod Zinkel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Julie Reubens looks at paradigm shifts in eight major American universities, between 1870 and 1930, regarding moral education. She writes of the changes from the religious moral standard to the standard defined by science, then social science, then the humanities, then school administration. Reubens provides evidence in the speeches and writings of prominent educators in America, as well as the changes noted in courses and departments at universities during this time period. For instance, emphasis on science arose in the late eighteenth century, which coincided with a de-emphasis of and waning student interest in theology, so the definition of morality changed. Reubens concludes these efforts to replace religious morality largely failed.

[Mauberley]

A thoughtful and exciting contribution to the history of ideas that carefully outlines the consequences to American higher learning as colleges gave way to the modern research universities and their increasing inability to provide ethical teaching. Much of Reuben's argument is based on a close reading of academic journals from the period under examination and that alone is worthy of the reader's interest.

[Bob Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book isn't a easy reader, but it tells the story of how over the last 200 years morality has gradually crept from the center of our culture to the edge. And higher education has changed from the guardian and teacher of morality to the greatest disparager of morality. It is a sad story.