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When Regulation Was Religious: College Philanthropy, Antislavery Politics, and Accreditation in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century West

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2017

John Frederick Bell
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Abstract

The college accreditation movement that arose at the turn of the twentieth century had an important antecedent in the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West. Founded in 1843, this nondenominational philanthropy aspired to direct the development of higher education by dispersing eastern funds to Protestant colleges that met its standards for instruction, administration, and piety. For all its ambitions, the Society did not always offer dependable or disinterested supervision. Its relationships with Knox College and Iowa College (now Grinnell) exposed its shortcomings. Coinciding with the rising sectional conflict over slavery, the activities of these institutions forced the regulatory association to engage in the very brand of ecclesiastical politics it had vowed to transcend. This article shows how institutional resistance and church rivalry helped delay the growth of accreditation until the turn of the twentieth century, when secular organizations took up the reins of regulation.

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Articles
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History of Education Quarterly , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 68 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © History of Education Society 2017 

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References

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14 Burke, American Collegiate Populations, 22, 27, Appendices A & B.

15 Quoted in Tewksbury, Founding of American Colleges, 69.

16 The Second Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (New York: J. F. Trow, 1845), 13 Google Scholar, emphasis in original.

17 Proceedings of a Public Meeting in Behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (New York: John F. Trow, 1845), 8–9 Google Scholar; The Fifth Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (New York: Leavitt, Trow, 1848), 8 Google Scholar.

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19 Findlay, “The SPCTEW and Western Colleges,” 45; Limbert, Denominational Policies, 209–10; Naylor, “The Ante-Bellum College Movement,” 268–69; and Thelin, John, A History of American Higher Education (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 61 Google Scholar.

20 Sears, Philanthropy in the History of American Higher Education, 48–49. Since these denominational associations provided scholarships to students rather than direct aid to colleges, they were thus not involved in the early work of accreditation. Another organization in this category was the American Education Society (1815), a Plan of Union association described below.

21 Naylor, “The Ante-Bellum College Movement,” 269.

22 Lyman Beecher to Theron Baldwin, Sept. 15, 1843, box 19, “Extracts from Dr. Beecher's Correspondence with Rev. T. Baldwin,” Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education Records, Congregational Library and Archive, Boston, MA (hereafter SPCTE).

23 Taylor, “Towne-Eddy Report,” 47–48.

24 Muelder, Hermann, Fighters for Freedom: The History of Anti-Slavery Activities of Men and Women Associated with Knox College (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 62–83 Google Scholar; and Wall, Joseph Frazier, Grinnell College in the Nineteenth Century: From Salvation to Service (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1997), 3–39 Google Scholar.

25 H. H. Kellogg to the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West, Sept. 2, 1844, Knox College History: Local History Series, Western College Society File, Knox College Archives, Galesburg, IL (hereafter KCA).

26 Adams, Ephraim, The Iowa Band (Boston: Congregational Publishing Society, 1870), 43 Google Scholar.

27 Quoted in Wall, Grinnell College, 110.

28 Theron Baldwin to E. Mason, Nov. 20, 1847, box 20, letterbook: 1846–1849, SPCTE.

29 Theron Baldwin to Leonard Bacon, Oct. 21, 1845, box 20, letterbook: 1845–1846, SPCTE.

30 Adams, Ephraim, The Iowa Band, 2nd ed. (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1902), 233 Google Scholar.

31 Theron Baldwin to H. H. Kellogg, Aug. 16, 1844, box 20, letterbook: 1845–1846, SPCTE.

32 Nehemiah Losey to J. P. Williston, Dec. 13, 1844, in Report on Knox College Presented to the General Association of Illinois (Quincy, IL: Whig and Republican Power Press, 1861), 35 Google Scholar; Muelder, Fighters for Freedom, 248; and Smith, “Uncommon Schools,” 33. Over its thirty-year history, the SPCTEW never accredited an academy, choosing to focus on higher education rather than secondary schooling.

33 Adams, The Iowa Band 2nd ed., 231–33; Wall, Grinnell College, 41.

34 Theron Baldwin to Julius Reed, May 16, 1846, folder 1, box 2, Early College History Files, Grinnell College Archives, Grinnell, IA (hereafter GCA).

35 Wall, Grinnell College, 42–53.

36 Knox College Trustees' Record, Volume I: 1835–1863, 87, KCA; and George Washington Gale to Jonathan Blanchard, Oct. 17, 1845 in Report on Knox College, 39–40.

37 Theron Baldwin to Leonard Bacon, Oct. 21, 1845, box 20, letterbook: 1845–1846, SPCTE; and Taylor, “Towne-Eddy Report,” 45–46.

38 The Third Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (New York: Leavitt, Trow, 1846), 10 Google Scholar.

39 Minutes of the Western Congregational Convention: Held in Michigan City, Indiana, July 30–August 3, 1846 (New York: J. P. Prall, 1878), 38.

40 Muelder, Fighters for Freedom, 293–95; and Taylor, “Towne-Eddy Report,” 46–50.

41 Joseph Towne and Ansel Eddy, “Report of the Committee to Visit Western Institutions,” Oct. 29, 1846, box 11, “Inspection Tour of Colleges,” SPCTE.

42 Report on Knox College, 44.

43 Quoted in Taylor, “Towne-Eddy Report,” 51. See also Report on Knox College, 40–45.

44 Sixteenth Annual Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (New York: John F. Trow, 1859), 55 Google Scholar.

45 Fifth Report of the Society, 4, 11. A German Reformed school, Heidelberg College, plus another Lutheran one, the College of the German Evangelical Conference of the West in Missouri, were added in 1852. See Ninth Annual Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (New York: John F. Trow, 1852)Google Scholar.

46 Harvey Adams to Julius Reed, July 3, 1851, folder 2, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA.

47 Theron Baldwin to Julius Reed, Dec. 17, 1851, folder 2, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA.

48 James Mershon to Julius Reed, June 30, 1854, folder 2, box 2,  Early College History Files, GCA.

49 Timothy Smith notes that “contributions for current expenses were barely sufficient, as one put it, to carry the colleges past ‘the dead point,’” but not that they were sometimes insufficient to meet the appropriation itself. See Smith, “Uncommon Schools,” 23.

50 Jonathan Blanchard to Samuel Williston, Dec. 2, 1847, President Series: Jonathan Blanchard, KCA.

51 Executive Committee of Iowa College to Theron Baldwin, Sept. 22, 1853, folder 2, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA.

52 Pearson, “From Church to Denomination: American Congregationalism in the Nineteenth Century,” 83–86.

53 Findlay, “The SPCTEW and Western Colleges,” 44.

54 Muelder, Fighters for Freedom, 258.

55 Jonathan Blanchard to Samuel Williston, May 7, 1849, Presidents Series: Jonathan Blanchard, KCA.

56 Tenth Annual Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (New York: John F. Trow, 1853), 46 Google Scholar; Eleventh Annual Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (New York: John F. Trow, 1854), 51 Google Scholar; Sixteenth Annual Report, 55; and R. M. Dunn, “List of Donors to Knox College, Volume I: 1836–1895,” KCA.

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58 Dunn, “List of Donors to Knox College;” KCA; and Report on Knox College, 45.

59 Jonathan Blanchard to Theron Baldwin, Sept. 14, 1853 (addendum), box 11, “Applications for Aid: Knox College, 1852–1854,” SPCTE.

60 Tenth Annual Report, 25.

61 Wall, Grinnell College, 110.

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64 Theron Baldwin to Ephraim Adams, Aug. 13, 1853, folder 2, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA.

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69 Muelder, Fighters for Freedom, 373–94.

70 George Magoun to Theron Baldwin, Jan. 10, 1857, folder 3, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA. Magoun had earlier been a Knox trustee. See Muelder, Fighters for Freedom, 375.

71 Ezra Ripley to Theron Baldwin, Oct. 20, 1856, folder 3, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA.

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74 Fourteenth Annual Report, 24, emphasis in original.

75 Ezra Ripley to Theron Baldwin, Oct. 20, 1856, and Theron Baldwin to Ezra Ripley, Jan. 6, 1857, folder 3, box 2, and Executive Committee to Theron Baldwin, Oct. 4, 1858, folder 4, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA.

76 Thirteenth Annual Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (New York: John F. Trow, 1856), 35–37 Google Scholar.

77 Findlay, “The SPCTEW and Western Colleges,” 45.

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79 Ibid, 64.

80 Ibid, 20.

81 Ibid, 4.

82 Theron Baldwin to Julius Reed, Aug. 2, 1858, folder 4, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA.

83 Iowa College Application, 1858 (Oct. 4, 1858), box 12, SPCTE.

84 Theron Baldwin to Julius Reed, April 15, 1858, folder 4, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA.

85 Iowa College Application, 1858.

86 Sixteenth Annual Report, 16; Executive Committee to Theron Baldwin, Oct. 4, 1858, folder 4, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA.

87 Wall, Grinnell College, 116–19.

88 On The Independent, see Mott, Frank Luther, A History of American Magazines, Volume 2: 1850–1865 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1938), 367–68Google Scholar.

89 J. G. Grinnell to (New York) Independent, ca. 1859, folder 4, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA.

90 Sixteenth Annual Report, 55–56; Wall, Grinnell College, 87–108.

91 Wall, Grinnell College, 107, 284n27.

92 He recalled the view in a letter to Julius Reed in 1854, when there was some discussion of removal amid the college's first dispute with the town council. See Theron Baldwin to Julius Reed, March 21, 1854, folder 2, box 2, Early College History Files, GCA.

93 Seventeenth Annual Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (New York: John F. Trow, 1860), 7–8 Google Scholar. Yellow Spring floundered without SPCTEW assistance and its enrollment fell with the advent of the war. The college closed in 1869. See Portrait and Biographical Album of Des Moines County, Iowa (Chicago: Acme Publishing, 1888), 722 Google Scholar.

94 On the American Education Society, see Allmendinger, David Jr., “The Strangeness of the American Education Society: Indigent Students and the New Charity, 1815–1840,” History of Education Quarterly 11, no. 1 (Spring, 1971), 3–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Part of the “strangeness” Allmendinger describes is the fact that AES beneficiaries were “confined to no single community or denomination.”

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97 Selden, Accreditation, 35.

98 Curti and Nash, Philanthropy and the Shaping of American Higher Education, 220–22.

99 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Third Annual Report of the President and Treasurer (Boston: D. B. Updike, The Merrymount Press, 1908), 167 Google Scholar. On the work of the Carnegie Foundation, see Lagemann, Ellen Condliffe, Private Power for the Public Good: A History of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

100 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Third Annual Report, 167.