¹ Lawrence Cremin discusses the range of consensus on educational goals amongst the leaders of the revolutionary generation in his American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876 (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 103–128.Google Scholar

² Smith, “Remarks on Education,” Essays on Education in the Early Republic, ed. Rudolph, Frederick (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1965), 167–223; quoted 220, 221–2.Google Scholar

³ Rush, “A Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools,“ in Essays on Education, ed. Rudolph, 1–24; quoted, 18.Google Scholar

⁴ On the attempts to establish a federal university, see Robson, David W., Educating Republicans: The College in the Era of the American Revolution, 1750–1800 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), 227–236.Google Scholar

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⁶ The most influential statement of the great retrogression, is Hofstadter, Richard, The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), part 1; also important is Rudolph, Frederick The American College and University: A History (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1962). Various later scholars have challenged the great retrogression thesis; for a synthetic overview of much of their work, see McLachlan, James “The American College in the Nineteenth Century: Toward a Reappraisal,” Teachers College Record 80 (December 1978): 287–306; the fullest statement of this position is Colin Burke, B. American Collegiate Populations: A Test of the Traditional View (New York: New York University Press, 1982). While earlier histories suggesting a great retrogression may have given too much credence to college authorities, accepting their expressions of desperation as sober descriptions of reality, later work challenging the retrogression thesis has suffered from giving too little attention to what college leaders felt and believed—important determinants of college leaders’ behavior. In a crucial respect, the two points of view are not mutually exclusive. An important distinction must be drawn: the perceptions and expectations of historical actors must be differentiated from the statistical and particularizing portraits reconstituted by historians. Entering their endeavors in higher education with high expectations informed by republican ideals and European examples, many college leaders saw their hopes frustrated. Of particular interest here are the issues of student population and curricula. While the total number of students increased at a greater rate than the population itself, enrollments at individual colleges remained at low levels because of the high rate of college founding; thus, college leaders across the country were continually disappointed by low enrollments. Again with curricula, there may have been diversification at some colleges, but in relation to Enlightenment era expectations, American colleges seemed to stagnate. While Revolutionary era expectations did recede in memory, the European, particularly the German, example produced a persistent impression that American colleges were in a beleaguered state.Google Scholar

⁷ A wide range of literature exists describing student riots and disorder in the early republic; among the most important are Kett, Joseph, Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America, 1790 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 51–61; Allmendinger, David Jr., Paupers and Scholars: The Transformation of Student Life in Nineteenth-Century New England (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975); Novak, Steven The Rights of Youth: American Colleges and Student Revolt, 1798–1815 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977); Bledstein, Burton J. The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (New York: W.W. Norton, 1976), 223–247; see also, citations below.Google Scholar

⁸ On Locke's ideas regarding the management of youth and their popularization through American culture in the revolutionary and early republic periods, see Fliegelman, Jay Prodigals and Pilgrims: The American Revolution Against Patriarchal Authority, 1750–1800 and Hemphill, C. Dallett, “Youth Rising,“ ch. 5 in Bowing to Necessities: The History of Manners in America, 1620–1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar

⁹ Quotes from Jefferson to Ticknor, 16 July 1823, in American Higher Education: A Documentary History, eds. Hofstadter, Richard and Smith, Wilson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 267; and Wagoner, Jennings L. Jr. “Honor and Dishonor at Mr. Jefferson's University: The Antebellum Years,” History of Education Quarterly 26 (Summer 1986), 165–6. For a complete picture of student disorder at the University of Virginia, see Bruce, Philip Alexander History of the University of Virginia, 1819–1919, vol. 2 (New York: MacMillan Co., 1920), 246–317.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Quoted, from Novak, , The Rights of Youth, 168. For discussions of corporal punishment in the colonial college and its decline in the mid-eighteenth century, see Axtell, James The School Upon a Hill: Education and Society in Colonial New England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), 204–5, 235–6; Kett, Rites of Passage, 52.Google Scholar

¹¹ Novak, , The Rights of Youth, 127–8.Google Scholar

¹² The careers of two other prominent college educators would stand equally well for the failure of the republican educational vision, Charles Nisbet and Samuel Stanhope Smith; for portraits of their crushed hopes, see Robson, David W. “Enlightening the Wilderness: Charles Nisbet's Failure at Higher Education in Post-Revolutionary Pennsylvania,“ History of Education Quarterly 37 (Fall 1997): 271–289; Noll, Mark A. Princeton and the Republic, 1768–1822: The Search for a Christian Enlightenment in the Era of Samuel Stanhope Smith (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³ Tensions surrounding colleges’ paternalistic control of students first appeared in the mid-18th century. Resistance to paternalism would become much more widespread and severe during the years of the early republic. Some important student politicization occurred in the years immediately preceding the Revolution and during the Revolution itself, but student activity in these instances was most often demonstrations for the American colonial resistance cause and gained the approbation of college leaders; see Axtell, James, The School Upon a Hill: Education and Society in Colonial New England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), ch. 6; Robson, Educating Republicans, chs. 3, 4.Google Scholar

¹⁴ For a full portrait of the University of Pennsylvania during this era, see Cheyney, Edward Potts, History of the University of Pennsylvania, 1740–1940 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1940), ch. 5.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Report on the Existing State of Abuses in the University, 2 June 1824, file 1824 College Duties and Discipline, Archives General Collection (hereafter AG), University of Pennsylvania Archives (hereafter UPA).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Minutes, Board of Trustees (hereafter BTM), 6 Nov. 1827, 3 June 1828, UPA.Google Scholar

¹⁷ For Beasley and his contemporaries the reference point was European schools, where students were older; ages (n = 32) were computed from the University of Pennsylvania Biographical Catalogue of the Matriculates of the College (Philadelphia, 1893). One important exception to the general tendency of immaturity for college populations in this period is the presence of a significant proportion of advanced age students in some New England schools (where land inheritance prospects were poor), yielding a very wide spectrum of student ages at those schools. On the age structure of college populations in this period, see Burke, American Collegiate Populations, ch. 3.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Beasley, Frederic (hereafter FB) to Board of Trustees (hereafter BoT), 11 Oct. 1813, file 107, AG, UPA.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Between 1780 and 1810 the number of colleges in America more than tripled, going from 9 to at least 32. In the next 30 years, that number would more than triple again, reaching at least 106 by 1840. This rapid rate of college founding kept enrollments low at individual colleges, despite an expansion in collective attendance; see Burke, , American Collegiate Populations, ch. 1. The strain on colleges during this period in many ways resembled the pressures felt by established religious denominations in the face of proliferating sects; see, Hatch, Nathan O. The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

²⁰ For more in-depth discussions of student motivations relevant here, see Wagoner, “Honor and Dishonor,“ 155–179; and Moore, Kathryn McDaniel, “Freedom and Constraint in Eighteenth Century Harvard,“ Journal of Higher Education 47, no. 6 (1976): 649–659.Google Scholar

²¹ On shortened programs see, Novak, , Rights of Youth, 10; Hofstadter, Academic Freedom, 212. Another strategy was to offer partial course programs that awarded certificates of proficiency, rather than degrees; see Rudolph, The American College, 113–6. On cost reductions, see Allmendinger, Paupers and Scholars, 80–96; Rudolph, The American College, 193–200.Google Scholar

²² Robson, , “Enlightening the Wilderness,“ 281–5.Google Scholar

²³ Todd, John, The Student's Manual (New York, 1893, 1st ed., 1835), 126.Google Scholar

²⁴ Beasley's defense of Locke was his A Search of Truth in the Science of the Human Mind (Philadelphia: S. Potter, 1822). For brief characterizations of Beasley's moral philosophy, see Noll, Princeton and the Republic, 63–4; and Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 2, ed. Johnson, Allen (New York: Charles Scriber's Sons, 1929), 98.Google Scholar

²⁵ On the Lockean distinction between childhood and youth, see Hemphill, Dallett, “Youth Rising,“; Fliegelman, Prodigals and Pilgrims, 14–23. This distinction was breaking down over the course of the early nineteenth century as techniques Locke had deemed most appropriate for youth were now also being applied to children. For a consideration of some of these emergent attitudes, see Glenn, Myra C. Campaigns Against Corporal Punishment: Prisoners, Sailors, Women, and Children in Antebellum America (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984); Hogan, David “The Market Revolution and Disciplinary Power: Joseph Lancaster and the Psychology of the Early Classroom System,” History of Education Quarterly 29 (Fall 1989): 381–417.Google Scholar

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²⁷ For useful discussions of Lockean sensational psychology and its popularization, see Fliegelman, Prodigals and Pilgrims, 12–29; Rousseau, G. S., “Nerves, Spirits, and Fibres: Toward Defining the Origins of Sensibility,“ in Studies in the Eighteenth Century, III, eds. Brissenden, R. F. and Eade, J. C. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976): 137–157.Google Scholar

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²⁹ Britain's Combination Acts (1799–1800) were designed to repress labor and political groupings; see Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1966), esp. 497–521. The term probably was more generally popularized by a series of trials against labor combinations in early nineteenth century America. The first such trial was against the Cordwainers, Philadelphia Commonwealth v. Pullis (Pa. 1806); see Tomlins, Christopher Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 128–179. On Princeton's laws of 1802, see Noll, Princeton and the Republic, 223–4. For examples of the application of this term to student groupings, see Novak Rights of Youth, 27, 31, 32, 80, and discussion below.Google Scholar

³⁰ New England Palladium (Boston), 3 October 1823.Google Scholar

³¹ New England Palladium (Boston), 7 October 1823.Google Scholar

³² Kett, , Rites of Passage, 51–61; Novak, Rights of Youth, 16–26.Google Scholar

³³ The prior quote is from Harvard student William Austin's 1807 book Strictures on Harvard University, the latter from the Troy Gazette, May 19, 1807; see Novak, Rights of Youth, 49,87.Google Scholar

³⁴ On Locke's concepts of parental esteem and disgrace, see Reiner, Jacqueline S. “Rearing the Republican Child: Attitudes and Practices in Post-Revolutionary Philadelphia,“ William and Mary Quarterly, 3:39, No. 1 (January 1982): 150–63. For Beasley on the parental model, see FB to BoT, 1 Feb. 1814, file 108, 2 July 1816, file 115, 7 Dec. 1824, file 1824 Trustees, AG, UPA.Google Scholar

³⁵ For broad descriptions of the changing thought about parenting and pedagogy in the early nineteenth century, see Ryan, Mary P., Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790–1865 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Kaestle, Carl F. Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780–1860 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983); for an excellent exploration of the meritocratic schemes of Joseph Lancaster which reveals his use of market values for disciplinary ends, see Hogan, David “The Market Revolution and Disciplinary Power,” 381–417.Google Scholar

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³⁷ FB to BoT, 3 Jan. 1815, file 109, AC, UPA.Google Scholar

³⁸ Axtell, , School Upon a Hill, 201–244, quoted on 219.Google Scholar

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⁴¹ Smallwood, , An Historical Study, 27.Google Scholar

⁴² Allmendinger's argument on this point rests on the use of report cards in conjunction with grading. As he admits, however, not all schools initially sent grades home. What Allmendinger fails to address is how school authorities thought grades might influence students themselves, that is, how school authorities were trying to create internal motivations to scholarly exertions and proper behavior. See Allmendinger, , Paupers and Scholars, ch. 8.Google Scholar

⁴³ Smallwood, , An Historical Study, 70–74; Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism, 235–6.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ FB to BoT, 4 March 1822, file 1822 Trustees, AG, UPA.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ While the Board did suggest some Latin requirements in 1813, they did not enact an age requirement until 1820 and then only the age of 14 which was two years below Beasley's initial request; despite Beasley's persistent lobbying a fourth class was not added to Penn until 1824; see BTM, 23 Nov. 1813, 3 Oct. 1820, 2 June 1824, UPA.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ For evidence of resistance to the medal plan, see FB to BoT, 3 Jan. 1815, file 109, 2 July 1816, file 115, AG, UPA; The Board formally ended Beasley's plan in 1819; see BTM, 4 May 1819, UPA.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ On the social composition of the Board of Trustees, see Cheyney, History of the University of Pennsylvania, 188–9; Thompson, C. Seymour, “The Provostship of Dr. Beasley: 1813–1828,“ The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle (1930): 79–93, esp., 79–80; On the position of provost and the dominance of the Trustees, see Cheyney, 177–8, 187–8, 285–6; on the similar frustrations of Charles Nisbet at Dickinson, see Robson, “Enlightening the Wilderness,” 271–89.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Elite Philadelphia families represented in the student population during Beasley's term included Coxe, Rush, Wharton, Chew, Cadwalader, Morris, Norris, Ingersoll, and Biddle; for biographical and genealogical information on the student population, see University of Pennsylvania Biographical Catalogue, 51–79; For a useful categorization of traditional elite Philadelphia families, see Burt, Nathaniel The Perennial Philadelphians: The Anatomy of an American Aristocracy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ FB to BoT, 6 May 1817, file 117, AG, UPA.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ FB to BoT, 14 July 1823, file 1823 Trustees, AG, UPAGoogle Scholar

⁵¹ BTM, 2 July 1822, UPA; On the development of this black-listing arrangement, see Novak, Rights of Youth, 24–5.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ FB to BoT, 2 Nov. 1824, file 1824 Trustees, AG, UPA.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ FB to BoT, 7 Dec. 1824, file 1824 Trustees, AG, UPA.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Implicit in this description of rowdy students disrupting the activities of the Philomathean Society are divisions within the student body itself, with some students more riotous, and others more willing to please their professors. For a direct discussion of divisions within college populations with particular reference to student societies, see Jackson, Leon “The Rights of Man and the Rites of Youth: Fraternity and Riot at Eighteenth Century Harvard,“ History of Higher Education Annual 15 (1995): 5–49.Google Scholar

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⁵⁸ BTM, 7 Dec. 1824, UPA; When he was readmitted is uncertain, but it must not have been long because he graduated in 1825.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ For examples of required faculty reports, see, Patterson, Robert (hereafter RP) to BoT, 1 March 1825, 30 July 1825, 5 August 1825, file 1825 Trustees, AG, UPA; A large investigation of the school was carried out by a “Committee on the Collegiate Department” in 1825, which requested, created, and compiled a large number of documents and printed a final report on Nov. 15, 1825, see file 1825–6 Trustees and State of College, AG, UPA; the “Committee on the State of the University,” which called for Beasley's dismissal, offered its findings in closed minutes, see Trustee Minutes, 4 Dec. 1827, file 1826–7 Trustees, AG, UPA.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Minutes, Trustee 4 Dec. 1827. The University did seem on the verge of collapse: attendance had dropped from 60 to 33 in little over a year's time; see RP to BoT, 27 July 1826, file 1826–7 Trustees; RP to BoT, 2 Oct. 1827, file 1827 Students, AG, UPA.Google Scholar

⁶¹ DeLancey had joined the Board two years before being appointed provost. Earlier he had been trained at Yale and served as a minister in New York. DeLancey had been working in Philadelphia since 1822 as an assistant to White, Bishop William a trustee of the school; For a brief biographical sketch of DeLancey, see Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 5, eds. Johnson, Allen and Malone, Dumas (New York, 1930), 215–6.Google Scholar

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⁶⁴ Within the first three academic years under DeLancey there were at least 8 student dismissals and 14 student suspensions. For accounts of these proceedings, see Minutes, Faculty 1828–31, UPA.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ An Address Delivered Before the Trustees, Faculty, and Students, Sept. 1830, file 1830–3 Addresses by Provost, UPA, 11.Google Scholar

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⁶⁸ cf. Bledstein, , The Culture of Professionalism, 236 272–3; Rudolph, American College and University, 217; Smallwood, An Historical Study, 35, 38; Jackson, “The Rights of Man and the Rights of Youth, 20–1.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ On Harvard's 1825 statutes, see Bailyn, Bernard “Why Kirkland Failed,“ in Glimpses of the Harvard Past (Cambridge, 1986), 19–44.Google Scholar

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⁷² Beck, Paul Jr. to BoT, 4 July 1820, file 129, AG, UPA.Google Scholar

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