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The true greatness of a people does not consist in borrowing nothing from others, but in borrowing from all whatever is good, and in perfecting whatever is appropriate
Report on the State of Public Instruction in Prussia, Victor Cousin, 1835
German-American Academic Migration and the Emergence of the American Research University, 1865-1910
T. Zemliakova
Received in Tetiana Zemliakova
May 2018 Department Member, Department of Political Sciences, European University at St. Petersburg; PhD Candidate in History, European University Institute, Florence. Address: 6/1 Gagarinskaya St, 191187 St. Petersburg, Russian Federation. Email: tetiana.zemliakova@eui.eu
Abstract. The study investigates into the background, process and effects of the German-American academic transfer of the second half of the 19th century and its role in the development of the modern American research university. The crisis of the traditional American college that reached its climax after the Civil War prompted a few waves of academic migrations to Germany. Most graduates chose to return to the US, where they formed a group of reformers to promote the German university model during the Academic Revolution. The student body is analyzed as the main mediator which determined the way this model was adapted and implemented. In analyzing the transfer of the concept
of "academic freedom", the study looks at how exactly the process was affected by the mediator. The reformist agenda pursued by the German graduates in the US was directed against the hegemony of pietist administrators and the ideology of the "all-rounded-man" education. Achievement of those goals suggested the establishment of graduate research programs to be regulated by the academic community at its own discretion. The article consists of three parts, which describe the background, motives and process of student migration, the position of American students in German universities, and their perception of the German research university model. The final part of the article examines the political agenda of the "reformist-returnees" and its implementation. Keywords: history of education, American research university, German research university model, American-German academic transfer, academic freedom.
DOI: 10.17323/1814-9545-2018-3-290-317
In a great battle for the American higher education in the second half of the 19th century, graduate programs were seen by all the opponents as a critical resource which might have enabled them to shape the future of American academia. Numerous groups of educational reformers and visionaries competed for the right to define the institu-Translated from Russian tional design, structure, and content of graduate programs. Although by Author. hundreds of elements composed the institutional and ideological
landscape of American education, the foremost student of the history of American higher education, Laurence Veysey, defined three ideal-type reformist models, that crystallized during the Academic revolution, and three ideologies related to them. Those were 'utilitarianism' and the idea of applied research in the service of society, 'cultural liberalism' and the idea of the preservation of classic culture under the supervision of the liberal arts, and the German model of research university with the corresponding idea of the 'quest-for-truth research' [Veysey 1965: 57-59]. Claims about the 'Germanization' of American education in the 19th century and related studies are usually based on the close examination of the last one of Veysey's types, and this article is not an exception. Therefore everything stated further is relevant for the processes in only one part of the spectrum (although it finally took over the whole American academia). In hindsight, we can see that advocates of the research model won the battle for graduate programs and as their prize, they got the opportunity to determine the modern university model not only in the US but all over the world.
The understanding of the course and resolution of the American academic revolution, and, therefore, the emergence of the modern research university is impossible without the examination of a parallel process, namely the German-American academic migration in the second half of the 19th century. The academic experience of American migrant students in German universities shaped the substantial part of both the institutional reforms and the intellectual revision that were initiated by the proponents of the research university during the Academic revolution.
Quite a lot have been said about the influence of the 'Humbold-tian' model of higher education on the development of the American university (see [Herbst 1965; Geitz 1995; Werner 2013]). Some historians went so far as to declare—though with a certain irony—that allegedly 'Humboldt found his home in America,' [Ash 2006: 249] and that the complete realization of his model was achieved only on the other side of Atlantic.
At this point, historians of knowledge face the major problem of their intellectual enterprise, namely a 'contactless transfer' of ideas. Historians, who pointed to the 'Germanization' of American education, were primarily concerned with the circulation of ideas understood in a rather abstract way. Historiography of Academic revolution considers ideas of disinterested research, objectivity and neutrality, and of professional scholarship. However, noetic 'ideas' are not enough to understand the transfer of ideas, since ideas are the object of transfer and, in this case, can not perform the functions of the mediator [Wendland 2012: 45-67]. Recent research in transfer studies has three main analytical goals to be achieved in an analysis of similar cases: first, explore how particular elements become demanded and selected by the recipient culture; second, how the recipient culture incorporates those elements; third, how the recipient culture fur-
ther gets along with incorporated elements either concealing or recognizing their origin [Espagne 1999: 20-24]. An algorithm of transfer analysis thus implies considering three key elements: sending culture, receiving culture, and mediator. Certainly, transfer analysis is not limited to tracking down the key elements on their way from one culture to another. It is foremost interested in innovations and disruptions that appear as a result of both selection and incorporation.
Not only the theoretical apparatus of transfer studies but common sense suggests that ideas do not transfer themselves; they need bodies to mediate their transfer. In the case of German-American academic transfer, those bodies were provided by migrant students. American college graduates, who were seeking a professional education in Germany, formed a distinct group of reformers upon their return. Their pro-German agenda was not replicating an initial Humboldt plans but was determined by the initial setting of the American educational system and significantly altered by their migration experience. A reduced scheme of German-American transfer might be presented as follows: from American College, through German University, to American University. So what happened to the ideas and practices of university life on their road from Germany to the US in the second half of the 19th century and in which way after mooring on the East Coast those ideas and practices were incorporated into the model of the modern American research university?
In this article, I set two main issues which, being adequately elaborated, might contribute to the understanding of the process, background and the effects of the German-American academic transfer and its role in the development of the modern American research university. First, it is the analysis of the student body as the principal mediator of the transfer. American students, who went for their studies to Germany during the crisis of the American college system, upon returning not only formed a group of reformers for the promotion of the research university but also, due to their specific position inside academia, were able to determine the character of the adaptation of this model and its implementation. Second, examining the notion of 'academic freedom', I will demonstrate how exactly student mediation determined the outcome of this transfer, directing the German innovations included in the reformist program to the solution of the problems which caused the traditional college crisis in the middle of the 19th century and pushed future reformers out of the American academic system. The reformist agenda formed by the German graduates in the US was directed against the hegemony of pietist administrators and the ideology of the 'all-rounded-man' education. As mentioned above, those two goals were seen to be achieved through graduate programs dedicated to research and managed by the research community.
The article consists of four parts, in which I examine preconditions, motives, and a process of student migration; the position of American students in German universities as well as their studying and re-
search experience; their specific viewpoint on German model of a research university and the notion of academic freedom essential to it, and also the political agenda of the 'reformist-returnees' and its implementation.
1. The American experience with the institutions of liberal education has a history compatible, probably, only with the American churches. Old-fashioned colonial colleges were created imitating the only examples available at the time from Britain, namely Oxford and Cambridge. British colleges inspired everything: prescribed curricula, the model of relations between teachers and students, and the pedagogical theory, on which such practices rested. The founders of American colleges were not inclined to institutional creativity, although the exact imitation of the British experience was hampered by the socio-economic conditions in which they found themselves (on the colonial education see: [Cremin 1970; Hoeveler 2002]). However, unlike Northern European or British educational institutions, American colonial colleges enrolled few students and teachers, developed in an unfavorable environment (for instance, on campuses surrounded by wild animals [Morison 1998: 229]) and had limited goals. There were no professorships or graduate education, no scientific societies or publishing houses. The typical college was composed of a few dozen students, several young tutors, and a president. Despite differences in the religious views of trustees—ranging from radical non-sectarianism to congregationalism—colleges had a shared pedagogical basis, as well as similar educational and organizational patterns, which did not experience any considerable changes till the very beginning of the nineteenth century [Rudolph 1962: 44-68].
A college was considered successful if it was able to nurture piety, humility, and other Christian virtues in its disciples which might have been optionally accompanied by scattered knowledge included in a prescribed curriculum. Frederick Rudolph ironically described the 'College Way' of study as 'little more than a body of established doctrine, an ancient course of study and a respectable combination of piety and discipline' [Ibid.:136]. Poor and small, American colleges led their quiet, conservative lives, not questioning traditions and facing no need to revisit them. However, irony aside, to understand this 'College Way,' one should first grasp the pedagogical doctrine which regulated and legitimated it, namely the doctrine of mental discipline.
The notion of 'mental discipline' was used to identify the interlocking set of psychological, theological and moral convictions [Veysey 1965: 25-32]. According to the claims of its advocates, soul (or mind in later writings) constituted the 'vital force' that animated the human being. The soul itself was a composite of internal subdivisions—faculties, each responsible for specific abilities or talents. However, those faculties were seen as merely potential and needed adequate condi-
tioning and specific training to achieve expression [Porter 1870: 206238]. Together, advanced faculties formed the divine harmony of a successful human being and therefore the primary purpose of college education and discipline was to perfect the faculties in order to prepare the student for a worthy adult life [Peabody 1901: 39-67]. The notion of college discipline thus referred to two different phenomena that secured a fixed four-year course of study in the college: mental and moral discipline, each getting its adequate training. Subjects taught in the university were subordinated to this pedagogical view and were expected to accomplish the purposes of mental discipline (on the development of the educational model see: [Newman 1886: 124-151]).
The role of a college tutor was something of a mixture between a sports trainer and a preacher who helped students to improve their divine mental faculties. The non-professionalized, low paid and non-prestigious position of a college tutor made it of little career interest, so usually, those college graduates who were still looking for a proper path in a life spent a couple of gap-years teaching at the same places from which they recently graduated. While staying, a tutor prescribed and controlled the fulfillment of daily training exercises—drillings, recitations or declarations—and supervised the general discipline on campus [Porter 1870: 134-148]. This specific pedagogical view formed the system of faculty selection in which advanced knowledge of the subject and professionalism in the field were the last features which tutors were expected to demonstrate. Seeking for a new tutor, trustees and the wider public looked for a reliable, strict and diligent person, modest and in every way able to strengthen Christian virtues.
Since the advancement of mental faculties and not the education of students in arts and sciences was a tutor's primary responsibility, he was usually responsible for an extensive set of disciplines, the combination of which might seem odd today. For instance, the same tutor was responsible for chemistry, music and belles lettres, Ancient history and civics [Leslie 1979: 245-266]. Courses were organized not according to the subject of studies or the tutor's qualification (which was typically hard to define) but presented the hierarchy of mental faculties. Courses in the first year were designed to train necessary mental faculties and those in the last year to develop more sophisticated ones. Long established tradition proved its efficiency, and there was no reason 'to doubt that the scheme of studies, the order and the arrangement of them, was the very best possible, that everything included in the course was there by right and that nothing had been omitted' [Snow 1907: 54]. The course in moral philosophy crowned the whole hierarchy. The president usually taught it and, in case of a positive outcome, excellence in moral philosophy completed the transformation of students from disorganized substance into reliable citizens, it was moral guidance to the life of an individual, community, and the nation [Schmidt 1930: 108-146].
American boards of trustees, if compared with their European counterparts, had broader opportunities to regulate college life and
used them in a somewhat authoritative manner. The fluidity of teaching staff, the inability of tutors to form a robust corporate body, and their lack of experience served as a rationale for the hierarchical administrative model in which almost everyone except trustees and a president were excluded from the decision-making process [Gerber 2014: 12-27]. The rise of colleges and the popularity of external boards hindered the immediate intervention of trustees in the campus life. Forced to solve the fundamental principal-agent dilemma, trustees created the position of a college president, nominated by trustees and accountable only to them. The president appointed candidates to new posts and took the final decision on matters of dismissal. Furthermore, he was also the only authority to choose the direction of the general education policy. With minor variations among colleges, the president was the foremost authority to define courses and prescribe textbooks, regulate ceremonies and examinations, sign diplomas and review finances, revise catalogs and plan the purchase of library books. Despite his numerous duties, the most significant feature of the college president was probably that he somehow also found time to teach. The strong position of the college president was maintained not only by his formal institutional position and external guarantees provided by the trustees but also by his pedagogical role as the highest supervising authority able to check the moral perfection of college students. Due to the age of students and staff, it led inevitably to the establishment of 'a regime that resembled nothing so much as a benevolent parental despotism' [Schmidt 1930: 78]. The legacy of old-time college that was inherited by the future American universities were extra-mural boards of trustees and a strong president.
The other side of college discipline was paternalism, the overriding spirit of which 'infused the American college' [Veysey 1965: 32]. Paternalism marked relations on each stage of hierarchy: between students and tutors, faculty body and president, president and trustees [Cattell 1913: 19-53]. Trustees, who were formally on top of the pyramid, were usually represented by the lay board and thus were not located on campus. Therefore, the president of a college, appointed by and accountable exclusively to the lay board of trustees, was their main representative and the highest intramural supervisor, who possessed almost patriarchal authority [Schmidt 1930: 77-108]. The Statutes of Columbia College of the year 1811 prescribed that 'it shall be the duty of the President to take charge of the College generally,' and thus trustees indicated to their chief executive the 'well-high boundless responsibilities in office' [Ibid. P. 93].
George Schmidt defined two primary purposes of paternalistic supervision—moral and religious,—and three areas in which the president exercised this supervision, namely the problems of administration, discipline and instruction. Moreover, tutors were usually young, recent graduates of the same college, and occupied the post only for a few years before finding a better place. No one thought of tutorship
as a legit occupation. It resulted in continuous staff turnover, which, on its turn, led to lower legitimacy of tutors as well as their indifference toward educational politics. Larry Gerber provides data which might be helpful to illustrate the level faculty's professionalism: at the beginning of the 19th century, approximately 100 teachers had professional education, and only a dozen of them were known outside of their state [Gerber 2014: 23].
It would be hard to imagine a place more remote from the idea of a research institution than a traditional American college at the beginning of the 19th century with its traditional course of study on par with tutorship, the subordinate position of teachers and students, the authoritative president dependent on the external board of trustees, superstitious fear of criticism and references to the classic curricula from the 17th century, educational pietism, moralism and pursuit to control every movement of bodies and thoughts on campus whether concerned with the rewriting of prayers or washing bedsheets.
Colleges 'backwardness' was obvious for certain groups of American intellectuals already in the 1820s. Critics were pointing to lack or absence of professional training among graduates, an unnecessary predominance of 'dead languages' in curriculum and its ignorance toward new subjects, which could satisfy the needs of industrialization and urbanization. Colleges, however, were called 'disciplinary citadels' not without reason. Early critics faced a resolute resistance that was mirrored in a famous Yale Report of 1828. The report had two principal parts: the first one argued for the necessity to preserve a classic curriculum unchanged; the second one was dedicated to the 'dead languages' and their keystone role in educational process [Yale College 1828]. Colleges not only refused to engage in professional training; they furthermore questioned the admissibility of research work in colleges as such [Lane 1987; Geiger 2014: 187-193].
Yale professors were supported by their colleagues from the other old prestigious colleges. For the time, professorial conservatism succeeded in postponing far-reaching reforms and provoked further isolation of campus life. Closer to the Civil War, reformist views spread behind a close scholarly community and became prevalent among civil servants and extra-mural intellectuals [Storr 1953: 29-46]. However, it was already too late. When the American public was discussing pedagogical models, students and graduates who were seeking professional training or were willing to pursue their research career already started looking for opportunities outside the US. Due to several reasons, which will be overviewed further, they chose Germany.
2. In 1810 students of the first cohort under the supervision of the most significant German masterminds began their studies at the newly opened University of Berlin, which would later become a prototype
for the research universities all across Germany. The direct role of Wilhelm von Humboldt in designing the structure of a modern research university was significantly revised in the latest research. The 'modernization' of higher education in different states of Germany gain momentum already in 1780-1790. Educational and research innovations which were promoted as a unique feature in Berlin, such as a changed attitude towards research and introduction of seminary work, have already been practiced in Halle and Goettingen at the end of the 18th century [Josephson 2014: 23-44]. However, at the same time as the first cohort in Berlin started their classes, in Château Coppet, Madame de Staël was finishing her work on the book De l'Allemagne. Even though Madame did not write a word about the University of Berlin, the book succeeded in introducing Americans to the specific type of university, which would be later called 'Humboldtian.'
Three years later, John Murray of London published the first English translation of Madame de Staël's On Germany. In 1814, when the numbers of students in Berlin already counted in the thousands, American newspapers reported that the reprint of the book was available to the American public [Jaeck 1915: 251-343]. A few decades later, Americans constituted the absolute majority of foreigners enrolled in German universities [Werner 2013: 52-61]. De Staël's book, written amid the European political polemics, unexpectedly affected the American public detached from continental politics and gave rise to the first massive wave of academic tourism.
A historian of the American culture, John Waltz, acknowledged that 'with this American reprint the influence of German thought on American life and education may be said to have begun' [Walz 1936: 8]. Aaron Burke Hinsdale, an educational reformer from Michigan, followed him in noting that 'it would not be easy to measure the immediate influence of this book upon the American mind; suffice it to say, the disclosure that it made of the schools, and particularly of the universities, of Germany, was the principal cause that sent George Ticknor to the University of Gottingen to study' [Hinsdale 1898: 63].
Apart from a comprehensive description of German mores and manners, the social etiquette, literary movements, principal books and authors, the status of women, descriptions of the army structure and language particularities, and chapters on Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller and Winkelmann, the book also contained a section entitled 'Of the German Universities' which opened with the strong claim that 'All the North of Germany is filled with the most learned universities in Europe <...> In Germany, a man who is not occupied with the universe has really nothing to do' [Staël-Holstein 1864: 117]. Migrants of the first wave, those who crossed Atlantics in 1810-1820, reported how reading 'On Germany' had impressed them. Edward Everett, future prominent politician, reformer of higher education and diplomat, kept his copy on the desk while planning his journey to Gottingen; the above-mentioned George Ticknor 'mentions in his dia-
ry that reading 'On Germany' put the idea of studying at Germany in his head'; George Bancroft, one of the leading American historians of the 19th century, took his copy as a travel guide [Herbst 1965: 1-23] (see other biographical materials in [Long 1935]). Those young Americans, who could not find their place in domestic universities, read that 'the strangers, who came from all parts of the world, submitted themselves with pleasure to an equality' and even that 'the education of the German universities <...> begins where that of most nations in Europe ends' [Staël-Holstein 1864: 118, 121]. It would not be an exaggeration to say, that many of those seeking higher wisdom and the scientific spirit found Madame de Staël speaking to them directly. Although however influential this advertisement from the Romantic era was, it was not enough to transform one academic system into another. One might suggest that poor circumstances of the domestic environment dictated the susceptibility of American students to the images of German academia.
Of course, American students traveled abroad well before the 19th century. The most advanced students and children of the colonial elite got their education in Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh. During this period, Americans showed almost no interest in other systems of education, and no particular interest in Germany. Although some children from migrant families spent time in Halle, this migration occurred due to their family connections and was not of an educational character [Werner 2013: 23-25]. Of similar low impact on the academic or even cultural transfer were the large German-speaking settlements flourishing in Pennsylvania, since 'the Pennsylvanian Germans were not in touch with the new intellectual currents of their homeland,' so they made little effort in becoming true 'mediators between the intellectual life of Germany and that of the US' [Walz 1936: 8]. The only kind of academic migration that existed during this period was rather scant, elite-centered and aimed at the reproduction of social status more than educational advancement. The favorite reason to travel was the recreation of a romantic grand-tour experience which one could not fully enjoy in the US. Pioneers like Ticknor visited Goethe in Weimar and reported about these events as the apotheosis of their German experience [Herbst 1965].
Estrangement from Britain after the generation change in the independent Republic lead to an increasing distance from the British educational system. Before the Revolution, the best students went to Edinburgh, while after the Declaration of Independence, they started showing interest in Paris. In spite of the short-term impact of Paris on a higher level of education, German models affected the level of secondary instruction. Slowly, interest in the study of the German language in secondary schools arose since 'German <educational> ideals did not influence the American colleges at first, but rather the common schools and the education of the masses <...> yet American public-school men of the nineteenth century was well aware of the
great debt they owed to the German schools' [Walz 1936: 12]. While reformist ideas were penetrating schools and kinder-gardens, imitation of vigorous discussion, which started after the Yale Report, calmed down without leaving any significant change.
Reports written by Ticknor, Bancroft, Everett and the nascent crisis of the liberal college system, induced the first wave of migration in 1820-1840's. The great army of American students followed academic pilgrims to the German universities, mostly to Gottingen. American educators, aware of the increasing numbers of migrants, made several unsuccessful attempts to reform the colonial system of education during this period. Thomas Jefferson was modeling the University of Virginia to meet public needs [Smith 1753], George Ticknor tried to reform Harvard but succeeded only in changing one or two rules at his department [Veysey 1965: 168-172; Long 1935: 41-63]. Theodore Dwight Woolsey also tried to preserve the genuine American system of education but through the transformation of the standards under which it was functioning. The University of Michigan under Henry Tappan was the first one to experiment with the replication of the German system in the US. The University Catalogue for the years 1852-53 claims that 'The State of Michigan has copied from Prussia what is acknowledged to be the most perfect educational system in the world' (cit. ex: [Walz 1936: 50]). Numbers of students enrolled in German universities were gradually increasing, and already in 1850's the Heidelberg University became a place of major attraction. Reforms were aimed to overturn the tendency of massive student migration. Nevertheless, dissatisfaction with colleges was further re-enforced by the writings of Americans who went to Germany to study the subject of public education and American student numbers in Germany kept increasing. Between 'American copy' and 'German original,' students chose the second option.
Two simultaneous movements gathered strength during on the eve of Civil War: the voices of spokesmen for the reform of the college system were becoming louder, and at the same time, Germany established itself as a role model for American higher education. During the next half-century, thousands of American students enrolled in German graduate programs (estimates vary from 6 thousand to almost 20 thousand, for the overview of different estimation strategies see [Werner 2013: 46-76]). The generation born in the 1820's was familiar with German education methods and the statement that 'Germany possessed the sole secret of scholarship was no more doubted by us young fellows in the eighteen-eighties than it had been doubted by George Ticknor and Edward Everett when they sailed from Boston, bound for Gottingen, in 1814' [Perry 1935: 88-89].
3. American migrant students, who were seeking a new academic home, and their parents, who were worrying as they usually do, praised Germany as innovative and rigorous and thus contrasted to 'stagnating
Britain' and 'libertine France' [Wigmore 1917: 354]. Nationalistic prejudices aside, several more reasons were holding American students back from these countries. France was still highly centralized and all academic potential was pulled to Paris, the city considered as a place 'dangerous for a young man' [Leslie 1979: 247]. The education was not a pleasure either: Paris University prescribed nine years of stay and annual examinations, after passing which student got a diploma that guaranteed him the employment perspectives in France only. This order did not change until 1896 [Clark 1973; Ruegg 2011: 207-283].
In England, American students knew British scholars to stay away from college campuses and lead isolated lives. An aristocratic tradition of scholarship presumed that scholars 'did not take anything from the state and did not owe anything to the state' [Veysey 1965: 89]. Omitting political and educational challenges, professors were seen to only prepare students for examinations, completely ignoring pedagogy and research issues. A British professor could gift a sophisticated student a conversation, but it was not enough to coincide with an American's image of professionalism [Hart 1874: 321338]. Aside from that, to be enrolled in three of the most prestigious places, namely Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, each student had to sign the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion of the Anglican Church. This requirement was in power till June 1871 and dissuaded many Americans from coming.
Nevertheless, institutional causes and cultural stereotypes cannot fully grasp (and describe) the inner motivation that pushed thousands of students away from home. At least three motives can be identified, and only one of them can likely be called academic. The first reason to go to Germany was the issue of material conditions. Compared to the US, student life in Germany was incredibly cheap: one year of study in Berlin with all transport expenses was almost three times less expensive than a year at Johns Hopkins University. Also, graduating from German universities was relatively easy for international students. Enrollment was a mere formality, and the only requirement to enter a German graduate program was to have a college diploma; after that, the student was obliged to attend seminars for two years, write a thesis with accordance to vague requirements, and pass an oral examination [Hart 1874: 35-65]. That was everything needed to get a doctoral degree. The ease with which Americans passed German examinations later became mere ridicule; no later than in 1901 The Association of American Universities claimed that almost all examinations held in American universities were much more rigorous than exams in Berlin [Veysey 1965: 319].
The second benefit that American students gained from the German degree was the ease of career promotion in the domestic academic labor market. In the German educational system, the doctorate was the first step in someone's academic career track that was followed by the Habilitation as a Privat-Dozent. Indeed, nothing com-
parable existed in America, so German graduates found a position of assistant professor or even full professor without any hindrances. New administrators who were already promoting some changes in university education needed well-trained professionals who were a rarity among American graduates. Therefore, returnees were in demand after the Civil War and faced almost no competition. They could bargain for a higher salary or new offices, request specific course requirements or even the reorganization of programs (see e. g. correspondence of a recent German graduate Herbert Adams with the president of Johns Hopkins University in [Holt 1938: 28-32]). This benefit of the German doctorate was widely known and was one of the primary reasons for the migration at least till the mid-1880's.
The third reason was the possibility to feel free and mature. This motive, usually underestimated, is, however, one of the most repeated in reminiscences and reports of the time. As was discussed above, in American colleges students were considered more as schoolboys, who should have been controlled and disciplined. The campus life was clocked and completely controlled; the hallmark of a college disciplinarian was an elaborate codification of rules and regulations. College disciplinarians designed a system for the production of religiosity and moral uprightness which comprised everything from the prescribed curricula to the timing of extramural walks. In Germany, university life was limited to a library and a seminar room. There were no dormitories, no tutors, no 'authoritative supervision' of students' morals and the life of a student outside campus was completely on their conscience. Richard Ely, future president of the American Economic Association and one of the core-faculty professors at Johns Hopkins, briefly summarized his experience in Germany as follows:
The development of science also depends very largely on an atmosphere of freedom of thought and expression, upon what the Germans call Lehrfreiheit and Lernfreiheit—freedom to think and freedom to express one's thoughts to one's fellows. When I first went to Germany, I seemed to breathe a new and exhilarating atmosphere of freedom. There was a free and large spirit to which I had not been accustomed. I felt that in the German universities there was room for growth and the development of individuality. I asked myself a question, 'Was the atmosphere of Columbia College as I knew it favorable to freedom of thought and expression? Did it stimulate and encourage the research which results in significant thought?' Although I was happy to have had three years at Columbia as an undergraduate, the only honest answer I could give myself was 'no' [Ely 1935: 124].
For Americans Lernfreiheit, or the freedom of learning, among other things denoted the emancipation of the student from Schulzwang, compulsory drill by recitation. While inside the German academic tra-
jectory, Schulzwang was an integral part of the gymnasium education, for Americans this term signified everything they left behind at colleges. From the point of view of the American student experience, they were perceived as mature and reliable persons, free to hire a separate room, eat in a canteen and even carry out their research. As G. Stanley Hall, future president of Clark University put it, they felt that they were in the freest place on Earth [Hall 1923: 202].
Although not all motivations for migration were academic, the particular experiences German graduates gained during the term of their study was shaping academic claims they were later advancing at home. Some reminiscences clearly show that Americans had rather limited knowledge of the scientific advantages that Germany could offer. Richard T. Ely, before he left for Germany, had to go from Columbia College to Yale to find a man who could have told him what type of theories and research practices he might find on the continent. However, the information he got was already overdue, as he immediately found out after coming to Halle [Ely 1935: 218; Rader 1966]. No catalogs of German universities were available in the US, and more generally Germans did not dedicate significant effort to promoting themselves among confused American students. Furthermore, college teachers usually could not answer numerous questions that college graduates had, and any information on the state of the arts in Leipzig or Berlin was only available by word of mouth from those students who had already come back. The only distinct feature of the German university which everyone was aware of was the possibility to get advanced professional preparation, although usually, those who were crossing the Atlantic could not answer in which field and under whose supervision.
The institutional position and background of American students at the German university allowed them to observe only part of theories and practices which defined the life on doctoral programs, in research laboratories, and during seminars. As Walter Metzger put it, 'Germany seen through American eyes was in part a figment of American preconception' [Metzger 1955b: 214]. Foreigners were subjected to the 'softened' set of requirements and enjoyed the gifts of mature life. Due to described circumstances of student migration, the main thing they were bringing back home was not pure theories or concepts, but the more general outlook on the order of graduate educations and graduate studies. In his narrative of his stay in Germany, Hart compared what he had observed with the American system and tried to explain the success of the new scientific schools in terms of German 'freedom':
'I have no personal knowledge of the Sheffield Scientific but [...] I infer that a certain degree of freedom exists there between the instructors and pupils. Herein probably lies the secret of success, of the rapid growth of scientific schools as distinguished from colleges. The teachers, at least very many of them, have been trained un-
der the German system, and have caught its tone. They work more
with students and seek to guide and stimulate them, rather than to
play the pedagogue' [Hart 1874: 189].
Those two phenomena were brought to the US inseparably: graduate studies presumed sophisticated methods of research and practices of critical reading, while advanced knowledge required specific techniques of university organization. Therefore, the discrepancy between old-fashioned colonial colleges and demand for advanced studies found its resolution in both Wissenschaft as an intransigent quest for truth, which later in American imagination was transformed into investigation prominently connected with the effort toward careful minuteness in method completely free of an underlying concept of spiritual unity, and the combination of Lehrfreiheit and Lernfreiheit that also radically changed their meaning. Observing Germany from a relatively privileged position, students constituted their image of the master-model of a research university, which they later utilized in support of domestic educational reforms.
Two principal concepts that grounded all pro-German project were scientific search and academic freedom—required condition for the scientific pursuit. The first concept was used to argue for the status of research as a professional enterprise contrasted to the utilitarian idea of applied studies. The second concept pushed the professional aspect further: since researchers are a professional community, they shall possess the same rights as any other professionals and be therefore liberated from the requirements of external pressure groups. Returnees envisioned university as a scientific institution dedicated to the enlargement of knowledge through both graduate education and research itself. Fairly quickly this vision lost its national labeling. Already in 1880's reformers claimed that there was nothing specifically German about German universities since they simply perfected what was essential to the University as such [Burgess 1884: 2].
Initially, reformers refused the idea to ameliorate colleges somehow since they relied on further separation of different educational levels among corresponding institutions. Johns Hopkins University founders were vocal about their refusal to establish bachelor programs [Gilman 1906: 47-59]. At Hopkins, students were severely examined before enrollment; they also received scholarships and attended seminars. In the first years, Hopkins creators even attempted to establish Privat-Dozent positions. Same pedagogical methods were applied in Clark and Chicago universities, also founded by German graduates.
However, neither of three universities remained exclusively graduate. After the turn of the century, new research universities launched undergraduate programs while state universities and old colleges launched their own graduate schools [Geiger 2014: 338-348]. Thus 'German' practices praised in new universities were slowly infusing an
educational system forming a distinctly 'American' patterns. Incorporation of each novel element presupposed the preceding process of selection and negotiation of theories and practices on both intellectual and institutional levels. The next part is dedicated to the detailed account of one case of incorporation that is the case of academic freedom.
4. Roughly speaking, the German academic freedom was constituted by two components: Lehrfreiheit—freedom of teaching and the right of professors to decide what to teach and in which form; and Lernfreiheit—freedom of studying and the right of students to choose subjects and supervisors according to their interests [Paulsen 1906: 227-265]. However, a historically adequate interpretation of those components is more strict and possesses lesser ideological power. Lehrfreiheit regulated not an individual professor but the rights of the professorial corporation as such. Unlike southern Catholic universities, the academic politics of Northern Germany implied protection of the university corporation from external interest groups (church and local authorities, political and economic elites). The state guaranteed such freedom in the form of the personal patronage of the minister and direct subordination of the professorial body to the ministry [Metzger 1955a: 93-139].
Personal subordination to the state authority allowed professors to alternate both the order and the content of curricula, as well as the pursuit of their 'quest-for-truth' by any ways and means they found appropriate without taking into consideration claims and criticisms of 'third powers' while staying inside the limits set by the ministry. The vertical was further strengthened by the professorial self-government and almost complete absence of administrative personnel inside the university corporation. However, German professors were not only searching for protection from economic or pedagogical claims. They had other reasons to avoid the extramural world. The German professor of the second half of the 19th century was akin to a missionary, bringing the light of reason to the decaying world of utilitarianism and corrupted morals. The system of state patronage, which embraced professors as enlightened bureaucrats, was therefore characterized by a hostile attitude to the outside world with its self-interest requests and requirements. Still, an alliance with the state did not mean gratuitous emancipation of scholars. The prohibition of any political discussions followed freedom of research. For a long time, however, professors did not find any political problems deserving of their respectable attention.
American colleagues of liberated German professors who had introduced the idea of Lehrfreiheit found themselves in entirely different setting. Firstly, there was neither ministry of education, nor national academic politics in decentralized America. Secondly, universities
were directly dependent on external interest groups either financially (as in the case of private-funded institutions) or both economically and ideologically (as in state-funded institutions) and could not afford to neglect them. Typically, there was a direct dependence on churches and local elites, maintained by funding and boards of trustees, and backed by the impossibility of the intervention of federal authorities. Thirdly, as was already mentioned, the external board of trustees stimulated the development of an administrative sector, which in the very beginning was represented only by a president but soon expanded to the modern bureau. Already in the 1890s, the national academic market was almost established in the US and the competition between universities for professors and students started, American administrators shared the fears of the German government as far as the academic freedom is considered.
For the reasons described above, the raised flag of Lehrfreiheit in the US became a symbol of professorial liberation from the administrative apparatus and old-school pietism. Because professors could not seek protection from federal authorities (there just were no such mechanisms), trustees (seen as administration's allies), or students (who still had no voice), they were compelled to appeal to the people. That was the same 'people' for the benefit of whom the American educational system was designed and whom German professors were trying to avoid [Chapman 1913: 453-461]. On November 12, 1900, Professor Edward Ross from Stanford was informed about the decision of his dismissal due to his unacceptable political views. On November 13, 1900, he organized a press-conference and pleaded for public support against administrative violations of academic freedom (for the detailed account or Ross Affair see [Elliott 1937: 326-379]).
As for freedom of studying, in Germany, the notion of Lernfreiheit designated merely the right of students to travel freely inside the country, change universities and take courses. Students enrolled in different universities, participated in various seminars, attended lectures and received certificates until decided to terminate their nomadic life and defend their doctoral dissertations. An absence of prescribed curricular and necessity to be living on campus for years was accompanied by the complete freedom of students outside lecture halls, laboratories, and libraries. Students enjoyed their independence from both educational and pedagogical supervision—their mores and manners were supervised only by their conscience and general law.
The foreword to the American edition of Friedrich Paulsen's book 'German Universities' contains a curious comment on the translation of basic categories which perfectly illustrate the fate of Lernfreiheit on the other side of Atlantic. It is proposed to translate the term as 'elective courses' [Paulsen, 1906. vi]. The claim for the abolishment of prescribed curricula was a major stumbling-block since the time of the Yale Report. Back then, in 1828, neo-republicans and early utili-
tarians were deeply disturbed with the mandatory courses in Ancient languages and argued for the revision of the classic program. Therefore, in the history of American academia, the issue of the freedom of learning was linked to the struggle for elective courses. Charles Eliot, president of Harvard and an ardent defender of elective courses, said once, that if he had to choose the course mandatory for every student, he would choose dance training and nothing more. Therefore one should not be surprised that in 1906, trying to please the demand for applied education, Harvard introduced a course in agriculture during which students were taught to cut rose bushes [Veysey 1965: 9091]. In 1907, when the battle for elective courses seemed to have been won, Eliot put on par the right of students to refuse attending prayers and the right to choose between general biology and botany. However, even Eliot with his progressive views could not imagine that a student from a remote college somewhere in Idaho might have been able to take several courses at Harvard. As already noted, there was no federal regulating service which would guarantee equivalent shifts inside the academic system, and there were no federal standards to measure students advancement during their studies. Due to this heterogeneity in requirements and an extraordinary variety of educational tracks, a nomadic student life of the German type was almost impossible and American students remained settled, although enjoying the modest privilege to choose some of their courses [Eliot 1907: 15-20]. Since there was no state regulation in higher education, there was no common measure which could enable student transitions among colleges. Lack of evaluating instruments and institutional variety did not leave a room for 'nomadic' studentship to emerge. They remained sedentary and only enjoyed the benefits of elective courses.
Speaking of student mores, it would not be an exaggeration to say that what was good for a German boy, could (as seen by professors) kill or severely cripple a poor American. Young men during their stay in Germany took pleasure in adult life but could not even dream of 'transferring' this part of student culture back home. Returnees were also inclined to see college students as 'unready and immature' to fully accept the freedom of learning. John Burgess, one of the founders of American political science and a Heidelberg graduate, lamented in his reminiscences that he could not 'find a single man in a class who seemed to me to have any aptitude <...> I did not consider a single one of them worthy of the degree of A.B.'. Burgess accused college, an 'outdated and second-rate institution,' and blamed the lack of entrance examination [Burgess 1934: 180]. The ultimate separation of universities and colleges never happened. Even those newly-created universities that initially insisted only on the graduate education were later forced to open undergraduate programs as well. In the German system, gymnasiums—institutionally and ideologically separated from universities—served as a bulwark for strict discipline. In the US, on the contrary, 'paternal care' of the college type penetrated further
levels. 'Paternal care' covered norms of behavior but was still separated from the content of studies [Butler 1921].
The fact that college was never equivalent to gymnasium set the limits for the compatibility of German theory and American practice of student freedom. The system of Volksschule is also worth mentioning here, namely the state-regulated system of public schools, which were followed by the gymnasium and later by the university. Successful gymnasium graduate passed through matriculation examination (Abitur) which was used as a universal measure of educational level. The connection between those three levels was maintained by the only ultimate regulator—the German state and its ramified institutional supervising structure. However, in America, as Hart notes pessimistically, 'colleges started with nothing and ended in nothing' [Hart 1874: 312], meaning that there was no obligatory unified education which preceded enrollment and no clear understanding of the graduate's perspectives. The ability of a professor to keep being 'neutral' in questions of public validity was seen as evidence of his competence. Moreover, if before professors had been afraid before that students, owing to their immaturity, were vulnerable to heresy, now they were also seen as easy prey for political propagandists [Seligman 1912: 153-162].
In the US, the focus of the discussion on academic freedom shifted from scholarly and research issues to institutional and organizational ones. This interpretation of academic freedom became a powerful weapon against pietism since it claimed both the liberation of students from disciplinary control and professors from the obligation to follow the rules external to their research interests. Furthermore, it reinforced resistance to the authoritative administration by appealing to the professional community and the public. In other words, in the US, 'academic freedom' denoted first of all the freedom of the modern university from the old college.
* * *
The decline of foreign student enrollments in German universities is usually explained with the obvious political reasons and the beginning of World War I. Although it might be the case for academic migrants from European states and the Russian Empire, statistical tables compiled by Anja Werner clearly show that the decline in numbers of enrolled Americans started already in the second half of the 1890's [Werner 2013: 46-76]. This dynamic is not surprising if we consider the crisis of American academia as the primary motive (or stimulus) that forced mass student migration. By the mid-1890's the great reformist debate was almost over and gave way to the consolidation of the new academic system, which both incorporated and generated scientific schools, shared governance and indifferent university administration. It might be argued that the establishment of graduate programs in America stopped the exodus of students to Germany which
their absence caused half-century earlier. They also constituted the institutional ground for the further development of the American system of higher education.
Graduate programs occupied a specific place in the reformist debate since they were related simultaneously to two principal questions of the Academic revolution: the institutional reform and the intellectual revision. On the one hand, graduate programs made possible the institutionalization of research in the university and, therefore, the expansion of the university's functions. On the other hand, graduate programs, built around the idea of research and advancement of knowledge, were expected to promote the complete revision of the classic canon and the establishment of the new scientific order based on modern knowledge and principles of academic freedom. Although deeply rooted in the development of the American educational system after the Independence, the problem of graduate programs found its solution in a non-American context, namely in German academia and the 'Humboldtian' model seen with American eyes. Certainly, to achieve the ultimate victory and completely reorganize the American educational model, American-German doctors, who graduated between 1860-1890, would need 20 more years. To maintain and strengthen their take on a reorganized university structure German graduates of 1860-1880's required much more time. However, the line was crossed: American universities started competing for their own students who more often refused the idea of an unpleasant transatlantic journey 'in the extreme stern of the vessel' [Burgess 1934: 8691] chose the railroad trip from their home-college to one of the reformed universities.
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