Thelin, John R. (2004). A History of American Higher Education. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Pp. xxii + 421
$55.00 ISBN 0-8018-7855-1 (Cloth)
$19.95 ISBN 0-8018-8004-1 (Paper)
Reviewed by Michael W. Simpson
University of Wisconsin–Madison
September 12, 2004
The advertisement for this book caused me to place an immediate order. Great anticipation awaits any book that “will supplant Rudolph’s” 1962 book The American College and University: A History. Thelin’s A History of American Higher Education (2004) is likely to become the “dominant overview” of higher education in the United States. It is a wonderfully easy read, offers some graphics for a visual age, and encompasses a great deal of recent research on higher education. Thelin also provides us some insight into the process of researching and writing history. The claim of comprehensiveness may be disputed while recognizing the book as a general work.
Though titled “American”, the book does not cover higher education of North and South America. The book’s focus is on the United States. While a little over a page is used to discuss Spanish colonization and educational efforts, an innovation in general histories of higher education, the conclusion is that English colonization dwarfed the Spanish in the area of what became the United States. Interestingly, when I explored definitions of American, the first definition was that of the American Indians of North and South America. The second definition included natives and inhabitants of North and South America. Finally, the term means citizens of the United States (as opposed to non-citizens, I presume). I will explore the first definition when I discuss higher education and the American Indian. I suggest that we call histories of education for the area between Mexico and Canada histories of United States education. This is not a small point during the nativist resurgence in the United States at present.
Randolph’s focus on colleges and universities in his title also seems more accurate than using higher education. Broadly, higher education includes education beyond the secondary level. Often, adult education is used to refer to education beyond secondary but not of higher education status. This is elitist suggesting that the great efforts of adults in various educational pursuits are inferior since it is not higher education. Perhaps the lyceums, Chautaquas, and non-collegiate literary societies are superior to much of what is and has been offered by so-called higher education. Thelin does not cover the history of that traditionally considered adult education. The book does extend coverage to community colleges, women’s colleges, and historically black colleges.
Community colleges enroll about half of all college students in public higher education institutions and enroll more first-time freshmen in public institutions than the four-year (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002, Tables 170, 181). Thelin covers them in approximately 10 pages out of 372 pages of text. My own unpublished paper on the development of Oklahoma’s municipal junior colleges is consistent with Thelin (Simpson, 2003). The local communities created their own colleges to both save money and for convenience. These colleges effectively provided the first two years of a liberal arts degree. Thelin points out that the local colleges were problematic for some established colleges and foundations; they were simply outside the system of control. In fact, in Oklahoma they were created without legal authority and beyond legal authority. These uniquely American inventions provided many with the opportunity to obtain a college degree. Many of the early community colleges were truly “people’s colleges”. Thelin points out some important aspects of the elite’s ability to change the community colleges from providing excellent liberal arts transfer preparation to becoming dominantly terminal vocational institutions. The people need to be trained to accept their roles as workers for the elite class. The “cooling out” function allows a student to try, fail, blame themselves, and then be directed to terminal vocational programs. Thelin documents the phenomenal growth of the community colleges, the difficulty in measuring and studying them, and also the continuing elitist attitudes toward such colleges and their students. At least he does not say that they meet the needs of the non-academic minded high school student as Randolph said in 1962 (463).
In 1962, Randolph dedicated chapter 15 to “The Education of Women.” At that time, such a chapter may have been a bold advance. In 1961, women were just over 37% of total enrollment in degree granting institutions; in 2000 women represented over 56% of total enrollment (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002, Table 172). Thelin does not separate women from the story of higher education in the main. Randolph’s chapter should be read. He provides many quotes concerning women and higher education. You also see a sexism persisting in the view of women as pure, delicate creatures. Thelin helps us see that women misbehaved at college, that many women colleges were racist and elitist, and that women were treated unequally even with coeducational opportunities. Thelin also provides us a more complete and complex understanding of the south. He concludes after discussing coeducation that “a campus in the South could be conservative and denominational without being stagnant or indifferent to social and pedagogical changes (93).” Thelin covers some of the big issues: representation on faculty, the “chilly climate”, curriculum tracking, Title IX, the price of being unconventional, coeducation, coordinate colleges, and women colleges.
There is no chapter for historically black colleges and universities (hereafter HBCUs) in Randolph’s book. In fact, the “Negro” is hardly mentioned at all. Surely, the desegregation cases from the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s had become part of the historical record as well as the achievements of HBCUs by 1962. Thelin provides substantially more on HBCUs. He at least mentions Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which did not directly involve higher education, but does also ignore the great legal challenges by the NAACP to open the doors of higher education and the wonderful stories of courage and equal pettiness of this era. Lucas at least tells some of the story in his 1994 book American Higher Education: A History (240-245). Brubacher and Rudy included key legal cases as well as an excellent discussion of law and history in theirHigher Education in Transition: A History of American Colleges and Universities 4th edition (76-82). Thelin appropriately recognizes the continuing importance of HBCUs. My work with young people in Upward Bound confirms what research says about having a “critical mass” of people that look somewhat like you. These young people are considering HBCUs for college. Thelin provides evidence to support his claim that racial exclusion in higher education was a national rather than regional issue. He also challenges the claim that college sports are a great egalitarian enterprise.
I promised above to return to the term “American”. The first definition in my exploration was that the term is applied to American Indians. When the colonists wanted to make the point to England that they now were Americans and not English, they dressed as Indians. I am of European and American Indian blood; born and raised in Oklahoma (Choctaw for Land of the Red Man); and educated in the state and national history that at best ignored the American Indian and at worst distorted the history of the American Indian. In my earlier studies, my class in higher education history used the Lucas book as the general text (1994). My question was simply where are the Indians? The index was blank on Indians, Native Americans, and tribal colleges. Rudolph’s 1962 book index is blank on Indians, American Indian, Native American, and tribal colleges. Indians are mentioned in reference to the strict discipline in early colleges and the need of Wheelock “to purge all of the Indian” out of a student (104). American Indians make up approximately 1% of enrollment in degree granting institutions (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002, Table 206). I propose that at least three or four pages can be dedicated to American Indian higher education in Thelin’s book of 372 text pages. Instead, three-quarters of a page has been used for the American Indian. Thelin should be praised for what he includes in this limited space. Indians were used by early colleges to raise funds. The Christian conversion of Indians was of great importance in college charters, mission, and fund raising. Thelin does not mention the labor services the Indian provided the colleges and the very little instruction they often received. Nor are the extreme disciplinary methods mentioned. He seems to blame the Indian students for succumbing to “measles, consumption, or alcoholism (30).” Thelin notes that the colleges often shifted “away from educating heathens” without using marks around the word heathen. Is he saying that the Indians were heathens? Heathens are those that do not acknowledge the God of the Bible or are uncivilized or irreligious people. I am reminded of the Indians that observed how the Europeans treated their own children, each other, and the “other” and the Indians stated that they believed the Indians were more Christian. Thelin is correct in pointing out that the Indian students that were educated ending up being trapped between worlds. They lost their Indian ways and were no good to their own people and despite being educated as whites and acting white, were not accepted by the white culture. This is an important story as many of today’s students, including myself, are caught between many worlds involving race/ethnicity, class, and many other factors. The Indian has served that role of challenging the invader. United States history takes a much different view when seen from the Indian. For the elite, the Indian must be made invisible. Fortunately, there are signs of renaissance for the Indian. A great story is the rise of tribal colleges and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium since the 1960’s. The Renaissance of American Indian Higher Education: Capturing the Dream is an excellent book celebrating Indian education and what the Indians can teach the rest of higher education (Ah Nee-Benham & Stein, 2003). Thelin mentions tribal colleges only as an example of fresh government funding initiatives (349). Some discussion of the tribal seminaries in Indian Territory before the civil war would also be of interest.
The general histories of higher education reflect the dominant dichotomization of western thought. Race is black and white; sex is male and female. General histories may not be encyclopedic, but must they be Eurocentric and reflect only the dominant elitism? Where are the Chicano/a, Latino/a, and Asian-Americans? GLBT? They are mentioned in one sentence in the concluding chapter as evidence of growing diversity. I teach that we don’t have growing diversity in the U.S. We have always been diverse; it is simply that the dominant culture has been and probably still is blind. It is those of us that are not in step with the dominant culture that are seen as the problem rather than the need for the dominants to become less exclusive and discriminatory. The death and destruction of terrorism started long before September of 2001 for many people in what is now the United States.
Thelin’s general approach is that of organizational saga. Institutions are heirs to various historical strands. These strands can include formal and official but also informal including the powerful memories of students. The focus is on key historical episodes with an emphasis on social, political, and economic factors. Randolph’s first chapter in 1962 was “The Colonial College” and Thelin’s first chapter in 2004 is “Colleges in the Colonial Era.” For a good general treatment of antecedents of U.S. higher education, one should turn to Lucas’ first three chapters (1994). Thelin primarily deals with English and Scottish influences on U.S. higher education. Perhaps the most lasting influence is the external board for university governance and borrowed from Scotland as opposed to the faculty associations of Oxford and Cambridge. The development of a strong president was a corollary to an external board. The presidency was externally focused from the start in the U.S. Thelin deals with the Anglophilia that has dominated U.S. colleges and higher education history by showing the differences between the colleges of the U.S. and those of England. Today we hear much about traditional family values and leaders invoke images of the wonderful family of yesteryear. Thelin shows that even in the colonial period families were not quite providing what leaders considered was needed to train future moral leaders. The colleges moved early on as the primary transmitters of social lessons. He also challenges the notion that colonial colleges were primarily concerned with educating clergy. Historians have made a mistake by reliance on some documents that served fund raising purposes but did not disclose the reality of daily functioning.
This willingness of Thelin to reevaluate and challenge long-standing historical interpretations makes the book worthy of purchase and use.
In chapter 2, “Creating the American Way in Higher Education: College-Building 1785 to 1860”, Thelin challenges the notion that the small church-related liberal arts college was inefficient, ineffective, conservative, and an obstacle to developing modern universities. Evidence of their failure rates has been overstated. Historians of the past criticized the “old-time college” of the era. What they failed to recognize was that at the time of their creation they were new and innovative. The legacy of these colleges is the tradition of fund raising and giving to colleges. Another conventional belief is that colleges in this era were small cohesive communities. The truth is that few colleges could provide on-campus housing and not everyone ate at the commons. This point is continued in chapter 5, “Alma Mater: America Goes to College 1890 to 1920”, with the rise of student unions as a service for the “outsiders” which included commuter students and his analysis of enrollment records which show that there was a lot of dropping out and the use of transfers to keep numbers high. Thelin’s analysis of the legacy of the Dartmouth case is much more sophisticated than I have seen and points out the error we all make; attributing the same words with the same meanings throughout time. In the case of the Dartmouth case, the private /public dichotomy is at issue.
In chapter 3, “Diversity and Adversity: Resilience in American Higher Education 1860 to 1890”, Thelin notes that historians have overlooked the growth of teacher education in this period. Teacher education often overlaps with a discussion of women but for William and Mary, teacher education of white males with state money may have saved the school. Thelin also demonstrates how interpreting historical statistics must be done with care as he discusses statistics showing an apparent decline in college attendance.
In chapter 4, “Captains of Industry and Erudition: University-Builders 1880 to1910”, Thelin states that earlier histories focused too much on the elite institutions, ignored innovations elsewhere, and especially ignored the South. He claims that Transylvania University, by 1890 called Kentucky University, represented an early structural prototype of the comprehensive, multipurpose campus. Clark Kerr referred to such in 1963 as the “multiversity” while relying only on schools north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Thelin hopefully is part of a process that will tackle the problem of northern elitism in U.S. history. Thelin also provides evidence that questions the idea that the U.S. university had hardened into set forms by 1910.
Chapter 6, “Success and Excess: Expansion and Reform in Higher Education 1920 to 1945”, details the legacy of professors as experts willing and able to cooperate in large scaled applied research with the federal government. Two world wars had allowed colleges to show their ability to participate fully in what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex. Thelin even credits the great conservative Republican President and former Commander of Allied forces in World War II in chapter 7, “Gilt by Association: Higher Education’s Golden Age 1945 to 1970”, with providing the term for student protest slogans. Ike’s Farewell address is often overlooked. I recently have quoted from it to my Oklahoma neighbors, all of whom work in the defense (offense) industry, and they become rather upset and begin calling me unpleasant names questioning my manhood and my loyalty to my country. We live in violent times that have nothing to do with 9/11. I ask if they respected Eisenhower. I then invite them to read his farewell address. This address should be studied in every history class at any level. It speaks for itself. Oliver Stone didn’t create it. At a time when the No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to release information so the military can recruit our young people and when the Soloman amendment mandates military access to college campuses and students, we must inquire about liberty. These recruiting efforts are normalizing military service as one of many careers and offering exciting video game type training in the art of killing dehumanized others. This normalization of war is unique to the U.S. experience and devastating to a democracy.
The book concludes with chapter 8, “Coming of Age in America: Higher Education as a Troubled Giant 1970 to 2000”, calling for colleges to find out who or what they are and to communicate that to the public. Too often, higher education leaders are nothing but chronic whiners. Claims of poverty, while at the same time celebrating successful fund raising, stretches their credibility. It also diverts attention from other education institutions with genuine concerns of adequate support.
Thelin incorporates postcards, games, movies, novels, popular magazines, and yearbooks into this book. It is appropriate and helps get a much broader picture of colleges. It also suggests that teachers of college history can collect and incorporate these things into the classroom. Let us touch, feel, and see history. Make it real. I agree fully with Thelin’s statement: History does matter. I recommend the “Essay on Sources” which follows the note section and is before the index. Great information is provided about books and resources and suggestions made about needed research. I encourage teachers and students at colleges to work on class projects that examine their institutions historical record and to determine whether it supports, refutes, or modifies the general historical interpretations. Share these projects with the community of scholars. The best way to learn history is to do history. Even though Thelin writes for the non-historian, he gives us a taste of the difficulties of locating, examining, and interpreting a historical record. He urges a constant reevaluation. To me, that sounds like education.
I do believe that the book is worthy of being the major new overview of U.S. higher education.
References
Ah Nee-Benham, M. & Stein, W. (2003). The renaissance of American Indian higher education: Capturing the dream. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
Brubacher, J.S. & Rudy, W. (1997). Higher education in transition: A history of colleges and universities (3rd ed.). New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
Lucas. C.J. (1994). American higher education: A history. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2002, May). Table 172. Retrieived August 4, 2004, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d02/tables/PDF/table172.pdf
National Center for Education Statistics. (2002, August). Table 181. Retrieved August 4, 2004, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d02/tables/PDF/table181.pdf
National Center for Education Statistics. (2002, November). Table 206. Retrieved August 4, 2004, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d02/tables/PDF/table206.pdf
National Center for Education Statistics. (2002, December). Table 170. Retrieved August 4, 2004, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d02/tables/PDF/table170.pdf
Rudolph, F. (1962). The American college and university: A history. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Simpson, M.W. (2003). The development of Oklahoma’s municipal junior colleges. Manuscript submitted for publication.
About the Reviewer
Michael W. Simpson
Mwsjd85@aol.com
Michael Simpson is in the doctoral program in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He also teaches legal research and writing in the law school. Michael has practiced law, served as a mediator, and taught in the community college, a prison college program, an alternative charter high school, and in Upward Bound programs. His research interests are varied and include the history of education, financial equity in education, the law of education and how it creates inequity, and teacher education.
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