Charles William Eliot - Crisis in The College

Crisis in The College

In the 1800s, American higher education was in trouble. The colleges, controlled by clergymen, continued to embrace classical curricula that had little relevance to an industrializing nation. Few offered courses in the sciences, modern languages, history, or political economy - and only a handful had graduate or professional schools.

As businessmen became increasingly reluctant to send their sons to schools whose curricula offered nothing useful - or to donate money for their support, some educational leaders began exploring ways of making higher education more attractive. Some backed the establishment of specialized schools of science and technology, like Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School, Yale's Sheffield Scientific School, and the newly chartered Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about to offer its first classes in 1865. Others proposed abandoning the classical curriculum, in favor of more vocational offerings.

Harvard was in the middle of this crisis. After three undistinguished short-term clerical presidencies in a ten year period, the college was slowly fading out. Boston's business leaders, many of them Harvard alumni, were pressing for change - though with no clear idea of the kinds of changes they wanted.

On his return to the United States in 1865, Eliot accepted an appointment as Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the newly founded Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In that year an important revolution occurred in the government of Harvard University. The board of overseers had hitherto consisted of the governor, lieutenant-governor, president of the state senate, speaker of the house, secretary of the board of education, and president and treasurer of the university, together with thirty other persons, and these other persons were elected by joint ballot of the two houses of the state legislature. An opinion had long been gaining ground that it would be better for the community and the interests of learning, as well as for the university, if the power to elect the overseers were transferred from the legislature to the graduates of the college. This change was made in 1865, and at the same time the governor and other state officers ceased to form part of the board. The effect of this change was greatly to strengthen the interest of the alumni in the management of the university, and thus to prepare the way for extensive and thorough reforms. Shortly afterward Dr. Thomas Hill resigned the presidency, and after a considerable interregnum Mr. Eliot succeeded to that office in 1869.