Description
please respond to Karina witih 350 words, apa syle citations, references
With drastic changes to the new world from Harvard’s inception in the 1630s to the American Revolution, the French Revolution’s impact on education by introducing Voltaire and Deism, through the pre-civil war Antebellum era and beyond the Civil War into the late 1800s, to women’s rights and black Americans’ entry into academia, it isn’t easy opine on the most impactful time (Lucas, 2016).
Acknowledging that a foundation is always relevant because the rest does not exist without it. Therefore, the intelligent New Englanders who started Harvard just 10 years after arriving (Pesta, 2017) deserve some recognition. Harvard’s roots are firmly stamped in Christianity and designed to develop intelligent clergy and train gentlemen to take over societal leadership positions (Lucas, 2016). The initial Harvard insignia is designed with this in mind, though it is now changed (Pesta, 2017). Each of the earliest colleges in the United States has the English model as the crux, which makes sense as that is the model and from whence it comes. This model eventually evolves as needs, people, human rights laws, and populations change. While recognizing the importance of a beginning, there are more impactful times and events for higher learning in the United States today.
Government control over learning institutions dates to Dartmouth College, when the State of New Hampshire attempted to get its hooks into the establishment, to which attorney Daniel Webster fought and won to keep the institution private and the intent of the college intact, though later giving way to the State for representation, paving the way for the government to interfere with education as it does so prevalently today (Lucas, 2016).
To segue beyond the land of colleges where massive college expansion occurs across the nation, Columbia, Dartmouth, and U-Penn are taken over temporarily by the respective state due to the American Revolution, the French Revolution that introduced Deism in the classroom (Pesta, 2017), the start of evil secret societies to finally land at the time of the Yale Report.
In 1824, Thomas Jefferson experiments with and expands the curriculum, now allowing choice in the course of study and various classes to choose from (Lucas, 2016). This is a critical time in history with a heavy impact on today’s higher education as without an experimental curricular expansion, higher education still mimics the old world, restricting the blessing of learning to the elite and the wealthy, continuing an informal caste system. The curricular change aims to educate the entire country and allow for some specialization in areas of interest rather than maintaining only the tried-and-true classics. While Harvard, Nott at Union, Transylvania, the University of Vermont, and others embrace change and expand the curriculum to allow alternative direction and focus, Yale fights back (Lucas, 2016). In fact, in 1828, the Yale Report was written to defend the traditional and classic Trivium and Quadrivium, as discussed by Pesta (2017). If Jefferson’s initiation for change did not reach other founding scholars wanting to be a gateway and not the gatekeeper of information, higher learning today still looks like that of 17th Century England. Why is this important? As society changes, needs change and populations with it. While the great Classics in academia are still relevant in aligned professions, growing towns requiring infrastructure do not care about Shakespeare or Voltaire if buildings and bridges designed by engineers can’t be built.
References:
Liberty University. (2017, March 14). Universities – history, purpose, and politics: Part I
[Video]. YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5-ECw6lkKMLinks to an external site.
Liberty University. (2017, March 14). Universities – history, purpose, and politics: Part II
[Video].Universities – History, Purpose, and Politics: Part II | Dr. Duke PestaLinks to an external site.
Lucas, C. J. (2016). American higher education, second edition: A history. Palgrave Macmillan
