The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality — See MAIN PAGE on Reuben for more materials, and downloadable summary. Below is fifteen page summary of the book. For short posts which describe some key points of the book, see: The Marginalization of Morality, and Our Traditional Educational Systems.

SUMMARY OF:

 

Reuben, Julie: The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual transformation and the marginalization of morality. 1996 University of Chicago Press.

 

In 1884, Harvard University adopted a seal which represented the unity of knowledge: Truth was “encyclopeadic”. It was all of one piece, embracing spiritual, moral, and cognitive. By 1930’s this unity was shattered, with positivism driving a wedge between factual cognitive knowledge and moral/spiritual knowledge. Science was value-free (Weber), and distinct from morality. Late nineteenth century colleges had the explicit goal to build character and promote morality (understanding of duties to family, community, country and God) while at the same time contributing to the advancement of knowledge. These two goals proved to be incompatible. Changing circumstances and conception of the nature of science and knowledge ultimately forced universities to (reluctantly) abandon the moral goal and embrace only the second goal: the promotion of knowledge. The book documents this historical transition in  life of US Universities over the period 1880-1930 which has led to the creation of the modern university.

 

Chapter 1: The Unity of Knowledge.

 

1870’s concept: All knowledge illuminates the Divine. In the grand circle of knowledge, all things relate to each other. Knowing the Truth allows one to Do what is right. These prevalent concepts founded in Scottish commonsense philosophy (Reid, Steward, Brown, Hamilton). Summarized as (1) Knowledge is practical – truth has normative implications for action. (2) Morality is founded in empirical laws about human behavior (and hence can be studied/justified by observations about human nature). (3) All human knowledge is based on experience of the objective world. The creation of the world by God ensured that our experience/knowledge of it would be coherent, congruous and rational.  These concepts impacted on the university curriculum in the following ways: In teaching Physics, Astronomy etc., lecturers were expected to: “attend only … to the beautiful truths which are to be read in the works of God.” Colleges combined marks for conduct with scholastic marks to determine students overall standing. The mind had many “faculties,” including tastes, perceptions, moral sensibilities, etc., all of which harmonized perfectly – the Good was also the True and the Beautiful. The goal of college was to develop all the faculties of the students. All students were expected to learn all the sciences, and then all this knowledge was pulled together in the final year to show it all hung together in understanding proper moral conduct of human beings in the different spheres of life (such as family, community, nation, etc.).  The training was frankly and explicitly normative.

 

As knowledge expanded in the nineteenth century, with advances in Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, etc. there was pressure on the traditional encyclopedic curriculum of the college. Commentators observed that the time for training remained fixed at four years but the amount colleges were required to teach doubled and trebled.  There was concern that the USA would be left behind if it stuck to an outmoded curriculum. Yale published in 1828 an influential report defending the traditional curriculum, and preserving the ideal of the unity of knowledge. Admitting the everything worth learning could not be learnt in four years, the report argued that the college was to lay the foundation for the education (and not to finish the education), by training all relevant faculties of the student. Defense of apparently irrelevant curricular material was made in terms of the circle of knowledge: “Everything throws light upon everything.” Separate institutions were to prepare students in specialized professional subjects.

 

The Yale report set the course for the next 40 to 50 years, although complaints about standard curriculum continued to grow.  The perception that the needs of science required curricular change, and that USA was lagging behind Europe in research gained weight. Among other issues, the religious orientation of Colleges was called into question as impeding progress in sciences. The ideal of the unity of knowledge necessitated all new scientific knowledge to be harmonized with theology, a task which became increasingly more difficult. In particular, Darwin’s theory of evolution in 1870’s led to heated debate between theologians and scientists. The continuous need of reconciling scientific findings (in astronomy, biology, geology, linguistics, etc.) to religion led to weakened credibility of natural theology. Draper’s  History of the Conflict between Science and Religion (1874) suggested there was a permanent battle between science and religion. Growing tired of point by point reconciliations of theological issues and scientific discoveries, intellectuals started searching for new ways to conceive of the relationship between science and religion. The hope was to find methods to allow each its own proper domain without overlap, obviating conflict.

 

Chapter 2:Science and Religion Reconstructed

 

The fierce battle that raged over Darwinian evolution, its status as a scientific theory, and the extent to which it was compatible with theology, forced reformulation and clarification of both philosophy of science and theology. The prevailing philosophy of science around 1880’s was a simple-minded Baconianism. Science proceed by collecting data, classifying it into patterns and then discovering natural laws which give rise to the observed patterns.  The Baconian view of a limited number of immutable natural laws (given by the lawgiver) suited the religious temperament of the times. Darwinian theory was attacked on the grounds that it did not fit the Baconian mold. Key elements of the theory were potential explanations for observed patterns, rather than laws developed on basis of observed instances.  Scientists responded by abandoning the Baconian understanding of science. Science no longer consisted of “absolute truths” for none were known to man – hypotheses were human inventions (not natural laws) which provided best explanations but could be modified and improved later. [It is worth noting in the passing that the “certainty” of scientific knowledge had been an essential element in war between science and religion that had taken place earlier in Europe. At this time, in the post-Newtonian world, respect for science was so deeply embedded that admitting to uncertainty did not cause a loss in prestige.] A functional and instrumental view of science emerged, in which scientific theories were to be judged by their utility rather than correspondence with some absolute truth (such as natural law).  An important aspect of this view was that science was progressive (evolutionary) and not perfect at any one stage of its development. This progress of science was made possible by questioning earlier truths and having an open mind to alternative interpretations of existing data.

 

In the course of the battle, Protestant theologians successfully accommodated evolution into natural theology by viewing evolution as a goal directed process, with direction supplied by God. However, natural theology (which viewed nature as the book of God) lost favor for two reasons. The shift to progressivist and instrumental views of science undermined the concept of natural laws. Also, the need to continuously adapt and accommodate new scientific discoveries to theological frameworks created conflicts discussed at the end of Chapter 1, and undermined the credibility of natural theology.

 

Natural theology viewed nature as an aspect of the Divine, and hence subordinated the study of nature (science) to theology. To avoid the conflicts that resulted, some intellectuals proposed to separate the domains of science and religion into different spheres – for example, science dealt with material domain while religion dealt with the spiritual domain. This and other proposals for partitioning the domains of religion and science met with resistance from both theologians and scientists. Theologians correctly feared that restricting religion to the purely spiritual domain would tend to marginalize religion by denying it any role in the temporal affairs. Scientists were perturbed by boundaries placed on their investigations by many such proposals. Another difficulty with the separate spheres solution was that it conflicted with the deeply entrenched view of the unity of knowledge.

 

An alternative approach to reconciling science and religion distinguished religion from dogmatic theology. Dogmatic theology was (supposedly) based on Biblical texts and ancient modes of thought; it was rigid, intolerant and protected unproven dogmas by suppressing dissent. Dogmatic theology was thus the antithesis of Science which was open, tolerant and encouraged research in all directions, even those contrary to reigning theories. On the other hand, Religion was seen as a Power in the universe which makes for righteousness, and increases our love for God and neighbors. It was dogmatic theology which conflicted with science and therefore needed to be abandoned, but this project did not require abandonment of religion. An essential aspect of this compromise was that it guaranteed the independence of scientific research from religious interference – this was one of the goals of those intellectuals who created the distinction between theology and religion.

 

Chapter 3: The Open University

 

Changing ideas about the nature of science led to changing ideas about educational reforms required in universities. Science was conceived of as a tool for producing new knowledge, instead of a particular fixed body of knowledge. Correspondingly, educational reform focused on making education “scientific,” instead of adding new courses to the curriculum. Historical circumstances favored the push for curricular change as social, political and economic turmoil following the Civil War led Americans to believe that they were living in a rapidly changing world. It was argued that educational institutions must adapt to the new conditions or face extinction.

 

Comprehensive instruction in all subjects via a set curriculum for all students had been the dominant pattern in colleges. The easiest route to curricular reform was via the introduction of electives. With the vast increase in the number of areas of study, it was impossible to achieve adequate depth in any area within a fixed curriculum committed largely to classics. Many educational reformers felt that electives provided a quick way to diversify the curriculum and encourage advanced study. They also allowed students a choice between studying classics versus science instead of requiring the educational institution to take a stand on this issue.

 

Support for electives came from the view that science was primarily mental training, rather than a fixed body of knowledge. In addition reformers insisted on changing the methods of teaching to encourage students to develop scientific ways of thinking. These included openness to new ideas, reluctance to accept opinions on authority, and interest in empirical verification. One way forward in this direction was to teach science via experimentation in laboratories rather than the earlier recitation methodology with its emphasis on rote learning.

 

Emphasis on the scientific method led to creation of the “Social Sciences,” which sought to apply these new methods to traditional subjects such as History, Theology, Philosophy etc. The seminar was viewed as a counterpart to the laboratory of the physical sciences. Students in small seminars would learn about the process of intellectual discovery by being guided through research projects. They would learn to challenge entrenched views and to follow the drift of current discussions and controversies. Seminars, together with a whole wave of university reforms, was justified on the grounds that the scientific method was essential to progress. Social sciences were essential since “innumerable problems of essential importance to the human race remain unsolved because they have never been studied in this … way.”

 

Emphasis on the scientific method also led to an emphasis on research and researchers. It was thought that teachers who did research would impart their enthusiasm to students. In addition, they would also impart the scientific values of unbiased observation, openness, tolerance, sincerety and commitment to students. Modern universities came to be viewed as research oriented institutions endowed with these supposed virtues of science. Universities resisting these changes came to be viewed as old-fashioned and conservative and lost favor.

 

Despite these and other substantial changes, there was a large element of continuity with traditional views as well. Knowledge was perceived as an integrated whole, an instrument for use towards the common good. Universities maintained the commitment to the moral training of students. Science and scientific method were considered to provide moral training as well (in terms of honesty, tolerance, etc.), but religion was  universally considered the essential basis for all morality. Nonetheless, the proper role of religion in a university education became the subject of an important debate around this time. The views of Eliot, the president of Harvard, were influential in shaping this debate. Eliot favored the non-denominational college, where multiple creeds co-existed side by side. Denominational colleges (that is, those belonging a particular sect of Christianity) were dogmatic, insisting that all students follow one creed. In addition, they did not promote academic excellence, since hiring/firing was often based on religion rather than academic considerations. Despite strong opposition from many sources (including those who feared that nonsectarian meant irreligious), view of Eliot prevailed. By the end of the 19th century, educators considered non-sectarianism to be an essential feature of higher education.

 

Chapter 4: The Reconstruction of Religion.

 

In 1870’s, nearly all colleges offered courses entitled something like “Ethics, Natural Theology and Evidences for Christianity.” By the end of the nineteenth century, these courses were dropped from the curricula. Natural theology, showing the evidence for the existence of God in the perfection of Nature, became an intellectual embarrassment as conflicts between scientific and biblical views increased. For morality and ethics, there was increasingly a search for sound intellectual bases to achieve respectability vis-à-vis an increasingly intellectually rigorous philosophy. The purely devotional aspects of Christianity started to stand out in contrast to the prevailing atmosphere. Universities found it difficult to find suitable instructors for such courses. Several cases are discussed of universities attempting to find philosophers who would harmonize religion and science, and provide ethical and moral leadership.

 

As traditional theological questions became increasingly marginalized within the philosophic discourse, philosophers with theistic interests became rarer. The younger generation of professional philosophers avoided theism and turned to more technical problems in epistemology, logic, and the history of philosophy. This was reflected in a changing mix of courses in the philosophy departments. Course offerings in Ethics declined substantially, and new course offering reflected broader, non-theistic interests of the younger philosophers. While the association between philosophy and religion waned, people outside the field of philosophy started studying religion. Courses in Semitic Languages and Literature, historical aspects of Christianity, Anthropology, Comparative Religion and Psychology of Religion made their way into the university curriculum. These new courses represented growing interest in the origin, development, and psychological and social significance of religion. They were part of the development of the scientific study of religion which educators hoped would provide the basis for a spiritual education perfectly suited for the modern university.

 

Reformers at universities felt that dogmatic aspects of theology made it unattractive to students and incompatible with the scientific method. They were optimistic that it was possible to reconstruct religion along modern lines. Educators wanted to “teach religion in the scientific and historical way, (using)… the empirical method … ready to see the facts as they emerge.” Some doubts were expressed as to the spiritual value of such studies, but educators were optimistic that scientific study of religion would stimulate students to be religious. Between 1890 and 1920, there was a substantial expansion in the scientific study of religion.   Among other influential works, The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James played an important role. James showed how religion function to help human beings cope with difficulties and to promote socially valuable behavior. However, contrary to expectations, the expansion of scientific studies of religion led to an increase in the gap between intellectual and the spiritual. Demonstrating the functional value of religion did not lead people to believe, as it turned out.  Linked with this development was the expansion of Bible study and criticism. After a protracted struggle, scholars holding that the Bible was literally true and contained no errors were forced to concede defeat. Reluctantly, it was conceded that scientific truth had little spiritual value. In addition, the Bible was great and inspiring Literature, containing deep wisdom, but it was a mistake to consider it as a work of history or philosophy and to expect it to be factually correct.

 

It became apparent that the scientific study of religion would not promote spirituality. Some universities turned to the chapel and compulsory church attendance (a common feature of nearly all universities near the beginning of the 20th century) as the source for religious inspiration. Some went so far as to offer credits for such attendance. At the same time, the drive for tolerance and openness in the spirit of scientific inquiry also led to a demand that church attendance be made optional. Declining attendance in both chapel service and in courses in religion led to efforts to make religion more palatable and relevant by diluting the religious content of sermons and classes. But this led to increasingly secular versions of religion, unsatisfactory to those students who had genuine religious beliefs and unappealing to the moderns.  These attempts to transform religion failed to attract students, and to create the spiritual life on campuses sought by the educators. As deeply devotional and committed religious activities became difficult for universities to undertake, due to their commitment to openness, tolerance and certain other practices, the gap was fulfilled by outside religious evangelical groups such as the YMCA and YWCA. These groups provided the spiritual life for students which the universities were increasingly unable to provide.

 

Chapter 5 Scientific Substitutes for Religion

 

A deeply held belief that all knowledge was of one piece led to the assumption that scientific truths would ultimately confirm (Christian) religious beliefs. However, by the early twentieth century, it appeared clear that Christianity could not be harmonized with science. Furthermore, religion was marginalized and science was the dominant force in universities. University reformers continued to maintain that moral development was one of the primary missions of higher education. However, they gradually backed away from the position that there was no morality without religion and sought to find secular bases for morality.

 

There were a number of approaches to the problem of finding a scientific and secular basis for morality. One of the most prominent was August Comte’s positivism. Comte designed a religion of humanity based on science to replace Christianity and other religions which (according to Comte) had arisen in earlier stages of the development of humanity. Unlike Europe, where science had been born in conflict with religion, USA did not have a strong tradition of antireligious advocacy of science. Approaches to scientific morality in harmony with Christianity were generally preferred in the USA, partly to avoid controversy.

 

Many scholars who believed in the moral relevance of science entered university faculties and administration in the late nineteenth century. Some of these believed that the mental discipline required for scientific pursuits would produce clarity on moral questions.  In addition, learning to think scientifically was held to promote moral discipline. This idea of scientific training as a form of moral education rests on an image of science as a virtuous occupation. As historian David Hollinger has shown, scientists in late nineteenth and early twentieth century appropriated religious virutes for their own legitimation. They created an ethic of science which emphasized moral values such as truthfulness, universality, self-abnegation, and presented scientists as the true representatives of these values. Scientists were endowed with characteristics such as “a passion for knowledge, love of truth, honesty, patience, simplicity of character, humility, reverence and imagination.”

 

Universities helped popularize the image of the moral scientist, while associating it with Christianity. Scientific training would now serve the role of character building, bringing with it scientific values of tolerance, openness, leadership, love of democracy etc. In addition to morality produced through scientific training, university leaders expected that scientific research would produce morally relevant knowledge. In particular, it was expected that biology and social sciences would produce directly relevant moral education. The proponents of science believed that USA was at the vanguard of a steadily progressing civilization, and that material, technological, and moral progress would all go together. Science was the engine of this progress, and was automatically considered a human good. Utopian literature suggested that technology would eventually solve all serious social and moral problems.  Scientific research would increase wealth, health, prosperity of the nation, promote civil and social intercourse, and even bring about world peace.

 

While all scientific knowledge promoted human well-being, biological and social sciences had direct and immediate implications for human behavior and social structure. Many of the social sciences claimed for themselves a special role in integrating all emerging knowledge from all sciences into a complete view of the human condition. This synthesis which was expected to emerge would supersede the earlier Christian synthesis which had failed to accommodate scientific knowledge into its world view. According to Clyde Votow of the University of Chicago, scientific knowledge would help answer “the supreme human problem: how to live.” “The sciences of biology, psychology, anthropology, history and sociology are furnishing to us the new knowledge, interpretation and correlation of the facts of human experience, which enable ethics to become the best promoter of the common good.”

 

In providing a scientific basis for Christian morality, biology took the early lead. Health benefits results from temperance and sexual regulations, demonstrated via biology, formed a prime example of the application of scientific knowledge to the cause of scientific progress. Genetics and Eugenics would lead to an improvement in the human race. Ethics was an expression of genetically fixed instincts such motherhood, altruism, etc.  It is easy trace back the development of social sciences to moral philosophy. It was therefore natural for social sciences to have strong ties to movements for political and social reform. The American Social Science Association (ASSA)  founded to promote social sciences, linked such research with efforts to eradicate evils associated with modern industrial life. Social scientists generally combined intellectual pursuits with political and social activism. They looked upon social woes as moral problems and their activism as a moral service guided by science.

 

Differing conceptions of science and scientific method, and how it should be applied to social sciences, led to many conflicts and controversies in the newly emerging social sciences. Now that the moral neutrality of science has been firmly establishing, there is a tendency to reinterpret these conflicts. These conflicts are seen as being between one side advocating an objective value-free science while the other favors the older combination of scholarship, ethics and activism. It is shown in detail that in many fields of social science, despite discord over questions of substance and methodology, all parties agreed that the goal of their disciplines was to improve human life. Furthermore, this was viewed as a moral mission. The book studies several conflicts among economists, political scientists, sociologists and psychologists to document this fact. Among numerous quotes, we cite Lawrence Lowell “The ultimate object of political science is moral, that is the improvement of government among men.” Conflicts arose over how best to implement these moral goals of social science. Activists were upbraided because taking a fixed stand on political issues was seen as compromising the “openness and tolerance” of scientists.   It was only in the 1920’s that the concept of science as being objective and value free emerged. Before that time, social scientists eagerly portrayed their work as an instrument of moral progress.

 

University reformers viewed public service as a modern reincarnation of higher education’s traditional moral mission. University presidents preferred faculty who were sympathetic to religion and also sought faculty who defined their work in moral terms. They approved of courses that educated students about ethics and encouraged student involvement in social reform. Involvement in progressive social reform was also helpful in fundraising, so that idealistic and materialistic needs converged to reinforce the ethical orientation of universities.

 

Biological research showing health benefits of sexual morality became the basis of required courses in hygiene. Eugenics and genetics were the basis of popular courses, as they had the potential to lead to progress of mankind. Social Science courses were also heavily oriented towards issues of current social concern. Many universities hired faculty involved in social reform and some courses even involved students in practical social services. Like others, the faculty involved viewed their reform activities as a religious mission.

 

Many educators felt that ethics should be developed as a separate subject within the social sciences. They felt that such a discipline would provide the unity missing since the split between religion and science. The basis for this discipline would be biological study of “human behavior as the manifestation of the reactions of the most highly organized living things to the whole world of nature, both animate and inanimate.”  This scientific instruction for citizenship would therefore involve the cooperation of faculty in botany, zoology, bacteriology, physiology, genetics, ecology and geography.

 

These efforts to find scientific substitutes for religion led to the development of courses such as “The Nature of World and Man” (at University of Chicago)  which started with matter and chemical processes and progressed to the origins of plant and animal life and evolution of humans. A followup course surveyed historical achievements of humans and the current problems they faced. This provided and integrated and holistic view of science and morality. Similar courses, which were intended to “arouse in (the student) a consciousness of his relationships and a realization of his responsibilities,” were introduced in many other universities. The promotion of social sciences became, on this view, a moral mission. In the early twentieth century, social scientists portrayed themselves as agents of moral progress. World War I reinforced these views as many thought that these awful calamities were a result of ignorance about social and political sciences. The phenomenal growth of social sciences (which came to be regarded as an essential element of a liberal education) is evidence of the university reformers’ strong desire to continue the traditional association between higher education and moral leadership.

 

University reformers built up programs in biology and social sciences in part to foster community welfare and to provide moral education. Initially, using science to advance moral concerns complemented universities’ efforts to reconstruct religion on a scientific basis. Eventually, however, scientifically based education shifted from supplementing religious morality to serving as a substitute for religious morality. This critical transition was helped along by strains in modern Protestant Christianity which saw morality as the essence of religion and also saw science as being cognitively superior.

 

This point is emphasized by the author: The “religion of science” entered not as an agnostic attack on religion, but as an outgrowth of modern Christianitiy’s attempt to find scientific support for moral positions. The scientific support ended up superceding and supplanting religion altogether, rather than supporting it. Scholars of an earlier era had hoped that a scientific, empirical and historical study of religion would provide new support for religion. Their efforts had ended up creating a sharp divide between religion and science. Similarly, scholars with an implicit faith in the unity of knowledge proposed a purely scientific approach to morals in the hope that this would lead to scientific support for traditional Christian morality. However, their efforts ended up supplanting Christian morality by “scientific morality.” Among numerous citations, the book entitled  Ethics by Dewey & Tufts was enormously influential, and used by over 30 colleges as the basis for their courses in ethics. This book separated religion from morality and argued that morality concerned itself with human purposes and social relations, while religion dealt with the relation between man and ‘unseen powers.’

 

Chapter 6: Value-Free Science

 

University administrators plans to use biology and social sciences as secular substitutes for religion came into conflict with the younger faculty’s conception of their disciplines. Academic scientists coming of age in early twentieth century rejected the ‘unity of knowledge’ in favor of increasing specialization, and associated objectivity with the rejection of moral values. The younger faculty saw their role as producers of research and specialized training. This more limited role gave them greater autonomy and freedom from administrative supervision.

 

Those faculty who subscribed to the ideal of unity of knowledge found that increasing specialization thwarted efforts to synthesize the branches of knowledge. Those (like Munsterberg) who attempted a classification which put all branches of knowledge into a syncretic whole faced hostility and opposition from specialists. Others (like Dewey) who felt that a pattern of unity would naturally emerge as research proceeded (and could not be artificially forced). The scholars were disappointed as specialization led to further fragmentation with no signs of an eventual unification in sight.  The gradual abandonment of the ideal of unity of knowledge is exemplified by two conferences. The first, organized in 1907 by Dewey, had as an express purpose “… to counteract the strongly particularistic tendency of modern scholarship.” However, this was unsuccessful as the speakers on different topics were unable or unwilling to provide the relationships across the boundaries of different disciplines. By 1929, on the 175th anniversary of Columbia, the goal of a similar series of lectures was merely to illustrate the progress of learning. There was no effort to offset specialization, unify knowledge, or even to cover the whole field of knowledge. Fox, who organized the lectures for publication, said that “inclusiveness would have been ideal” but was not feasible.

 

Specialization came to be viewed as a positive and essential feature of science and the sign of maturity of a discipline. For example, biologists limited the scope of their work to experimental and observable. After decades of debating different theories of evolution, biologists wanted to replace “empty speculation” with “ascertained knowledge,” obtained through focused studies. Experiments were designed to answer particular questions, which could be repeated and refined. Experimental biologist Wilson even denied that biology itself was a coherent science. Within the umbrella term there were separate specialized disciplines such as embryology, cytology, zoology, physiology and so forth. Cross disciplinary fields such as biochemistry and biophysics were developed not to unify, but to increase the possibilities of specialization. Wilson acknowledged that this approach examined “only one side of the great problem of life,” but felt that the difficulties encountered there are quite enough to tax all the resources of his science.

 

Within each field of the social sciences, tendencies for unified synthetic views were successfully opposed by specialists who felt that narrow and specialized knowledge of a particular area was more scientific. For example, Charles Merriam encouraged his political science colleagues to avoid the broad “aeroplane view” in favor of the “high-power microscopic examination of problems that is so essential to penetrating understanding.”  As a whole, the social science moved towards greater quantification, efforts at experimentation, and a distrust of philosophy. Statistics was promoted as the key to quantifying the less precise laws (relative to Physics) which applied in the social domains. Inability to experiment was compensated for by case studies, field research and large-scale social surveys. The social scientists returned to the Baconian model for science – they wanted to build up an empirical data base from which one could find patterns or suitable generalizations. As biologists had discarded broad philosophical views based on evolution, social scientists also came to avoid broad generalizations. There was a greater effort to resolve major conflicts in the various disciplines, as conflicts began to be viewed as a sign of lack of maturity and unscientific nature of the discipline. It was felt that moral concerns colored interpretations of facts and led to conflicts. Thus it became a positive virtue to avoid moral judgments and confine research to the description of the facts.

 

Even researchers who were active in social causes felt it necessary to differentiate clearly between the ‘positive’ or what is and the ‘normative’ or what ought to be. This led to a demarcation between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ sciences.  The younger social scientists argued that science could not determine policy goals, but only determine suitable techniques to achieve them once one was chosen. They believed that they could offer expert advice on material problems of policy without having to address ethical implications. Furthermore, intellectuals lost faith in the idea that all types of progress occurred together – that progress in material, intellectual and moral progress were interlinked. This was helped by World War I, which showed that scientific advances could lead to evil results. In this context, rhetoric about how science and a scientific education would itself engender morality (very common in an earlier era) became impossible.

 

Evolution, which did not fit the pattern of the Baconian scientific model, had led to a rejection of the Baconian philosophy of science. The progressive philosophy of science which resulted was suited to a synthesis of morality and science as it was eclectic about the source for new theories. With the rejection of grand synthetic and unifying views of science, there was a return to Baconian philosophy, which emphasized careful observation and limited laws to those which emerge from study of empirical phenomena. Since moral values have no observable counterparts, these were excluded from science.  The new meaning of objectivity required that scientists excise their ethical concerns from the presentation of their research.

 

Although scientists moved towards excising values from science in an effort to improve reliability of results and reduce conflicts, they found that it offered other advantages as well. Since administrators felt obliged to regulate morality on campuses, research with moral implications was subject to greater interference. Faculty who taught morally relevant subjects could expect more surveillance and less independence than their peers. In addition, university presidents maintained that good moral character was an unquestioned requirement for a teaching job. Faculty were accorded intellectual freedom but not moral freedom. University presidents felt obliged to dismiss teachers who crossed the boundaries of acceptable moral conduct. No one questioned their right to do this. Academic freedom, on the other hand, was hotly contested. Intellectual freedom to propound unpopular, irreligious or immoral views created difficult problems. A fine line was created by distinguishing between the “content” and mode” of expression. If an inappropriate mode of expression was chosen, it would arouse controversy and this could be cause for dismissal. The content of expression was supposedly free from any regulation. This made professors responsible for reactions to their views and allowed administrators to dismiss professors who expounded unpopular or controversial views while continuing to claim the academic freedom existed.   For example, professors speaking against the draft during World War I  were considered “disloyal” and “bad citizens.” They were fired for moral transgression. Moral concerns overrode faculty’s right to free speech. President Judson of Chicago maintained that universities had a right to know what doctrines faculty teach in social and ethical subjects. This scrutiny increased the appeal of  value-free science. With increasing specialization, value-free science also limited the scope of the university president to determine new appointments, and gave greater freedom to faculty to hire new members.

 

Science courses and laboratory work, once considered a key element in promoting scientific mental training, discipline, independent thinking, tolerance and open mindedness, etc. became unpopular among students as a result of the increasing tendency towards specialization. Both the administration and students lobbied for less specialized courses which would teach about the relevance of science to culture.  They advocated more focus on history and philosophy of science rather than on concepts and methods of individual disciplines. Research scientists responded by reiterating the value of scientific discipline. Others did not even try to justify the value of scientific instruction. They frankly admitted that the goal of science courses was to provide professional training for future scientists. Unifying courses with explicit or implicit moral value (such as “Nature of World & Man,” “Man in Society,” and “Problems in Citizenship”) languished or were dropped because of lack of faculty interest in teaching such courses. Social Scientists became critical of moral aims in their teaching as they felt that this would conflict with standards of objectivity and scientific method. They became uncomfortable with courses focusing on social problems and reforms. They also rejected the notion that their courses should provide unity and moral purpose to the college curriculum.

 

The attempt by faculties to wrest greater autonomy from university administration led to a greater emphasis on research (together with the withdrawal from moral purpose). It was argued that the best researchers would automatically make the best teachers. Critics argued that researchers were out of touch with students and neglected their teaching. In response, scientists encouraged universities to think of scientific research (in addition to teaching) as one of their primary functions. The universities mission of service to society would now be fulfilled by the production of valuable scientific research. The universities were in a unique position to foster research – industry would subordinate research to immediate pecuniary goals. Academic scientists tried to increase the prestige of their research by maintaining that it was the only source of factual truth and a precondition for technical progress. By the 1920’s most natural and social scientists defined their academic role in terms of specialized instruction and the advancement of scientific knowledge, effectively undermining plans to make their disciplines the basis of a new secular moral education.

 

Chapter 7: From Truth to Beauty

 

 

Once it became accepted that science was morally neutral, and faculty in social sciences increasingly rejected moral aims, humanists stepped in the breach  They argued that the humanities provided the best basis for inculcating moral values. They associated morality with the beauty of art, rather than with the truth of science. The disciplines that make up modern humanities were the last to establish a sense of corporate identity within the framework of the university. There were a number of conflicts within these disciplines, with some factions favoring scientific, historical, and empirical approaches, while others favored  intellectual, cultural and stylistic approaches to their subject. These conflicts were eventually resolved in favor of the “humanists,” who argued that scientific and specialized research were killing the humanities. They maintained that the mission of the humanities was to preserve, understand, and help others develop an appreciation for the “best” expressions of human ideals. They wanted art, poetry, and prose to be taught for their beauty and expression of spiritual ideals, rather than as examples of grammatical form, artistic technique and methods of logic. The humanities, reoriented to this mission, could offer a secular equivalent of religion.

 

Building on earlier tradition, the New Humanists argued that rapid advance of value-free (hence immoral) science was a source of moral decline. They argued that all significant human experience was subjective and value-laden, and that objective value-free science was not suited to understand it. Scientific claims to encompassing and authoritative truth were false and dangerous, since science denied the existence of the most significant elements of human experience. The New Humanists wanted to link literature to the “great” Western literary tradition. The believed that humanities could offer the moral guidance once provided by religion. Greenlaw wrote that “the service of literature … is akin to the service of religion … Our materials are human lives, instruments to be played upon by spirits of the dead, by living spirits incarnate in poetry and music and art, by the deeper music of humanity.”  Humanities could provide moral guidance where Science had failed, and should be at the center of collegiate education. Taking up this mission resolved numerous internal disputes and created a common identity among the disciplines constituting the humanities.

 

Literary scholars most actively promoted modern humanities as the source of unity and moral guidance in higher education. They promoted their holistic approach to understand all of civilization as an antidote to the increasing specialization. Literature was redefined as “the record of the human spirit in its search for the interpretation of life.” Another scholar say that “In literature we meet the noblest values of the race. Permeated as is all literature with inspiring deeds, finest emotions, and worthy aspirations, it becomes the source of our highest ideals.” Thus, while the social sciences were moving away from moralism, literary scholars were taking it up as their defining characteristic. These moves reshaped alliances, departments and course offerings. Courses in Philology and linguistics, dealing with the study of language, declined as offerings in literature and reading appreciation came to dominate. Scholars in visual arts and music echoed the moralism of their literary colleagues. Dickinson of Oberlin College suggested that “colleges should employ literature and fine arts (for) the spiritual development of humanity.” Similarly, historians and philosophers moved to redefine their discipline by emphasizing their unifying potential and moralism.

 

Through their common focus on the limits of science instruction, the value of synthesis, and the importance of morality, professors in the languages, literature, the arts, history and philosophy came to see themselves as part of a common enterprise. As scientists increasingly emphasized specialization and value-neutrality, the humanists claimed the mantle of moral training.  Since moral training was highly valued by university administrators, this resulted in increased institutional support and funding for the humanities. The enlarged humanities programs were part of the growing importance of the humanities in the undergraduate curriculum.  The humanities slowly displaced science as the backbone of the liberal arts college. In early twentieth century, core courses aimed to teach the “scientific method” and to introduce students to civic values and problems of contemporary society via general social science courses. In the 1930’s this situation began to change as “great books” courses in humanities replaced “citizenship” courses in social sciences. Om 1930’s and 1940’s  university educators looked to literature, art, philosophy and history, rather than biology and the social sciences, to provide unity and values in the college curriculum.

 

The shift from sciences to the humanities as the source of moral guidance repeated changes that had occurred in the study of religion. As scientific studies of religion had failed to validate its cognitive aspects, scholars had emphasized the emotional and aesthetic value of religion. They had maintained that religion expressed “spiritual truths” even if those truths could not be expressed as “factual truths” acknowledged by science. Efforts to find secular sources of moral authority had resulted in similar conclusions. Scientists had disavowed any moral purpose, maintaining that values could not be validated as a form of objective knowledge.  Humanists, on the other hand, maintained that arte powerfully communicated moral values. This associated morality with the emotional appeal of beauty, rather than with the cognitive authority of knowledge.

 

 

Chapter 8: Administrative Order

 

Loss of unity, moral purpose and high ideals of college of an earlier era was felt by many commentators. Some critics rejected modern education completely, and wanted to return to education grounded on the Bible. More moderate critics, often within faculty and administration, wanted to find some suitable middle ground.  An important target for reform was “electives.”  These allowed a comprehensive curriculum at the expense of the standardization which fostered unity and moral purpose. Critics complained that college education was a multitude of disconnected parts with no overarching philosophy of life. Arguments that electives offered intellectual and moral benefits were challenged. It was noted that students selected courses for the wrong reasons (for easy grades, for friends, popular instructors, etc.) unrelated to students welfare or scholarship.  Far from providing good intellectual and ethical training, self-selection encouraged laziness and dissipation.

 

Overspecialization was another target of critics. Tendencies towards specialization had multiplied fields, departments and course offerings. Some felt that highly specialized courses were inappropriate for undergraduates. Boucher, Dean of Arts & Sciences at Chicago said “… half of the courses in any department could not be justified on any grounds save one — they offered the instructors opportunity to pursue pet hobbies in a very limited part of the field. … course offerings of departments were not properly related and balanced.” In fact, it was the encouragement of faculty research and the hope that this would lead to better teaching by imparting enthusiasm and “mental discipline” that had fuelled the process of specialization. The assumption that good researchers would automatically make good teachers, convenient for departments striving for independence, was challenged by administrators who found it was not so.

 

Criticism of electives and specialization cut at underlying assumptions of university reformers: free inquiry would automatically lead to what was true and good. The changing attitudes of Butler, president of Columbia University from 1901 to 1920, reflects the changing attitudes of university reformers. In 1901, when he took over the presidency, he was known as enthusiastic champion of recent reforms. Midway, in 1910, he still identified “freedom of spirit” as the essence of a university’s life but he proposed that the needs for a “common morality, common sense, common loyalty, and a decent respect for the opinions of mankind” imposed limits on this freedom.  But by 1920, he had become an outspoken opponent of the views that had sustained university reform. Butler, who had made his career fighting the narrowness of the college of his youth, ended up a nostalgic admirer of its descipline and devotion to Christian ideals.

 

Much of the specific criticism of university education was motivated by the general sense that it had lost its moral purpose. Critics challenged universities to demonstrate that they graduated students with “force of character sufficient to encourage honesty and righeteousness and … the courage to frown upon dishonesty and unmanliness.” University leaders had to face this challenge at the same time as they had to acknowledge their own failing efforts to find substitutes for religion.

 

Educators sought to address problems created lack of unity in curriculum and overspecialization generated by research focus by a series of administrative changes. They modified the elective system to limit the range of choices in education. They  created a core curriculum, minors and majors so that there would more uniformity and also some themes in undergraduate education. Additionally, they sought to separate objectives of undergraduate (college) and graduate (university) education, with the latter being reserved for specialization.  The college was meant to provide broad education, aimed to develop the whole student. The development of students values and character was to be an essential component of college education.

 

Critics demands for extensive reforms intended to provide unity and moral guidance were successfully resisted by research oriented and specialized faculty. At many major research universities compromises were reached which involved greater structuring of the undergraduate curriculum and the addition of some unifying and thematic core courses. The failure to establish more significant changes was often blamed on faculty’s desire to protect their own subjects. Reducing the number of electives to allow for a more extensive core curriculum led to turf battles as faculty felt these might lead to reduced enrollment in their favored courses.  In addition, there was substantial disagreement over what should be in the core curriculum as well as a lack on interest among the faculty in teaching such courses. Most importantly, faculty resisted plans for a required, coordinated curriculum because they had begun to lose faith in the ideal of the unity of truth. Reforms made at Harvard were widely praised and emulated. These involved concentration and distribution requirement so that student would get both breadth and depth. In an effort to offset disdain for intellectual achievements among students, the reforms introduced academic honors, general examinations, tutorials and reading periods. Honors rewarded high achievers. General examinations encouraged learning outside the classroom, being too broadly based to be encompassed by any single course. Tutors were meant to help students pull together a broad range of material from different classes.  The reading period was to encourage independent scholarship on part of the students.

 

Universities responded to criticism that they had destroyed the unity of college education by reducing the chaos of college study and encouraging better scholarship among students. They did not, however, succeed in reinstituting a synthetic view of knowledge and a unified philosophy of life. Seeing that the desired goal could not be achieved by curricular change, reforms shifted focus to extracurricular forms of moral guidance. One of the indicators of this change was increased discussion of the character of the faculty. Although this had always been important, it was now the sole source of faculty’s moral influence. Educators stopped talking about what the faculty taught – the content of their classes – and focused instead on the potency of their personalities. Around the turn of the century, American universities were proud of the rapid development of scholarship in the USA. Even small universities preferred to hire faculty with Ph.D.’s from distinguished institutions.  This led to a situation where little attention was paid to the general character of teachers and more attention to his specialized knowledge. Thus men with all round ability, who were able to see, and fit solve, larger questions with the moderation of wisdom, became rarer on university faculties. This led to increasing complaints both about the declining quality of education and about the declining character and moral influence of the professors. Daniel Abercrombie echoes the sentiments of many when he said that “ the greatest need of the average boy is the friendship and guidance of a fine personality rather than instruction by a professional expert simply.”

 

Scientific knowledge was morally neutral. Orthodox religion being authoritative, dogmatic and intolerant was incompatible with universities commitment to free examination and skeptical inquiry. Many concluded that the only route to building students morality and character was via personal transmission of values. According to this logic, the teaching staff rather than the curriculum became the linchpin of a student’s moral education. It was widely recognized that in order to play this role, the faculty would need more than sound scholarship and upright character. They needed to have personality traits admired by students such as a cheerful disposition, friendly manner, sense of humor and a broad type of mind. They should also have a good understanding of human nature and the psychology of college students so as to be able to instruct, persuade, inspire and control them. Additionally, they had to be engaged in the vital issues of the day and be able to relate their subjects to these issues. Summarizing the sentiments of much of this literature, Harvard students called for professors who dispensed wisdom rather than mere knowledge.

 

Examination of faculty along the dimensions discussed in the previous paragraph led to disappointment. Few had the desired characteristics; indeed, it was felt that specialization had led to decline in the number of teachers possessing the desired qualities. Most faculty were so preoccupied with their own research that they neglected their teaching and had little impact on the students. It had been expected that researchers would be able to impart their enthusiasm to the students. However, far from exciting students’ interests, specialized researchers deadened their subject matter by concentrating on minutiae. They did not have broad knowledge, the ability to make connections between the various areas of knowledge and a sense of the whole and its applicability to life. Modern scholars were too remote from other people and important daily issues to understand their students. A particularly harsh critic commented that the modern teacher “cannot inspire (students) by his personality, because he has none.”

 

The inability of faculty to inspire students meant that the project of  personal transmission of values was doomed to failure. Looking for solutions, educators felt that it was necessary to separate teaching and research. Existing incentive structures rewarded good researchers but penalized good teachers. One suggested reform was explicit training in teaching methods. There was general agreement that quality of teaching needed improvement. Also, undergraduates did not have enough personal contact with teachers, and what they did have was not inspirations. Graduate curricula also needed revision to prevent narrow overspecialization and allow the development of a broader outlook.

 

Just as in the case of curricular reform, demands for extensive and broad reforms in faculty hiring practice resulted in moderate changes. Although they now acknowledged that teaching and research could sometimes be in conflict, universities did not wish to elevate teaching to be a primary criterion for hiring and promotion decisions. Some provided material about teaching techniques while others promoted self-assessment guides for faculty and yet others started to loosely monitor quality of teaching in freshman classes. Similarly graduate schools were reluctant to move away from a narrow research focus and suggested that broadening could be achieved by housing students from different disciplines in a common dormitory.

 

Mild reforms made by faculties failed to achieve the desired goals. University administrators looked for other ways to provide the necessary inspirational contact time with faculty. A key innovation was the faculty advisor. He was supposed to play a dual  role. One was both to help students with their choice of electives in devising a sound and coordinated program of study. The second was to socialize with the students and provide moral guidance to them. This innovation was widely adopted and enthusiastically written about. However the outcome of this reform fell far short of expectations. The same qualities that made the faculty poor teachers also made them poor advisers. The average professor took little interest in students and was too rigidly dignified to allow students to confide in him. Additionally, students did not realize the advantages to be gained by association with older faculty and therefore did not use the services of their faculty advisor. Because of the poor performance of faculty as student advisors, some universities hired specialized staff for this purpose. In 1919, Yale created the position of the dean of students to deal with collective problems of public morals and to help student morale in every way. Other staff was hired to look after the health and economic needs, as well as the religious and moral life of the students. Freshman orientation programs were started to introduce students to the academic, social and moral environment of the university. The development of these student services illustrates the evolution away from the conviction that teaching the truth always had both moral and intellectual value and toward the notion that moral guidance was one function of a university education – one that, like other functions, could be best fulfilled through specialized programs.

 

Universities increasing commitment to student services reflected the growing belief that the moral value of a university education resided in the community life of the students, not in their formal education. By the 1920’s, they were attempting to shape students’ community life by building dormitories and by instituting selective admission policies. Student life replaced the classroom and the chapel as the locus of the moral mission of the university. This institutional arrangement reflected the intellectual division between fact and value, and reduced morality to campus morale.

 

Those who believed that campus life would provide the desired shaping of character also believed that a community, a group ethos, and a collective sense of identity needed to be created. President Lowell of Harvard pointed out that large numbers of students could not have sufficient direct contact with inspirational individuals in the free environment fostered at universities.  Instead,  the college must form a community with common sentiments, aspirations and interests.

 

Seeking to mold the student community, university leaders turned towards extracurricular activities, since this was the area of greatest interest to students. Up until this time, extracurricular activities had grown mainly at the initiative of students and alumni, with administration playing little role except to block activities considered immoral or otherwise harmful. By the early twentieth century collegiate reformers recognized that to exploit the moral potential of extracurricular activities, they would have to take a more active interest in student activities. University officials rejected student control and adopted the principle of institutional regulation of intercollegiate athletics. Reformers came to view intercollegiate sports and other student activities as a central feature of the college experience, and one that could be reformed to serve higher purposes. Educators believed that students who participated in athletics developed desirable attributes: cooperation with a team, service and self-sacrifice, respect for others, discipline, hard work, loyalty, confidence, self-control, stamina and courage. Examination of students and coaches proved disappointing. It was found that they resorted to unethical practices to win game, neglected studies, smoked, drank and mixed too freely with the opposite sex. University leaders insisted that they could reap the positive moral fruits of athletics if they could reform how sports was played on their campuses. A number of reforms were enacted at many universities to achieve this goal.

 

In regulating student life on campus, university leaders recognized that fraternities were a powerful source of moral misbehavior. A number of reforms were instituted to regulate fraternities and to improve their moral impact.  It was also recognized that it was almost impossible to mold the social life of students when they lived outside the college. Reformers realized that students did not live in a cohesive community. They lived in a variety of communities, stratified by wealth, often hostile to one another, and largely independent of university authority. When community life became the sole vehicle for transmission of values,  the financing and building of new dormitories rose to the top of the agenda  in the set of concerns of the university.  Educators portrayed dormitories as moral necessities rather than simply a practical arrangement. “The problem of college,” explained President Lowell “is a moral one, deepening the desire to develop one’s own mind, body and character; and this is much promoted by living in surroundings and an atmosphere congenial to the object.”  Universities expected these dormitories would foster the community spirit. It was also assumed that some adults — ideally faculty –would live in these dormitories. By living in with a group of students, these adults would win their friendship and respect and would be able to furnish moral counsel.

 

As university educators lost faith in the possibility of a formal moral education, they tried to harness the power of student peer relations for moral purposes. The desire to mold student social life drew the university officials attention to the kind of students that attended their university. Rising enrolments after World War I led to the possibility of selective admissions at the better universities. According to the Harvard Student Council on Education, “If the purpose of the college is to prepare students for leadership by developing all the qualities of the mind and character and personality, then the admission standards must test character and personality as well as mental power.” New admissions procedures to assess personal characteristics of students and obtain character references were devised. This screening of personal qualities reflected a lost faith in ability of schooling to inculcate morality. The new view was that education could develop moral traits in students who had the capacity for them, but not in those who did not. This betrayed increasing acceptance of the view that personal traits, including morals, were inherited rather than acquired. University officials used selective admissions and character requirements to keep “undesirables” off their campuses. In theory, these restrictions prevented young people with character flaws or bad personality traits from enrolling. In practice, the new admissions practices permitted discrimination against ethnic minorities. Nonetheless  these practices were not simply a cover for racism; they were part of a broader agenda aimed at shaping the community life of students.

 

Community cohesiveness and school spirit easily slipped from means to moral influence to being ends in themselves. University officials were limited in the extent to which they could interfere in students’ social lives. Imposing their own standards of behavior risked alienating students from campus-sponsored social life. Regulating extracurricular activities meant reaching a compromise between the demands of morale and those of morality. Subsequent history of fraternities and athletics indicates that morale often won. Student service professionals never had the power to define moral norms that the president and the faculty of the classical college had exercises. Over the twentieth century leaders of research universities strengthened their institutions’ commitment to the advancement of knowledge, but they were never able to recapture the university reformers’ faith in the power of knowledge to elevate individuals and the world.

 

CONCLUSION (verbatim from original book)

 

 

In the sixty years surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, American higher education was transformed through two reform movements. The first and most important, university reform, tried to recreate higher education by institutionalizing the ideal of open inquiry. Drawing on ideas about science, university reformers in the late nineteenth century believed that freedom could provide a superior form of mental training. Under the banner of freedom, reformers instituted a variety of changes: electives, laboratory training, seminars and lectures, and support for original research. These changes produced unanticipated developments, such as the proliferation of independent departments and specialization of courses. The second movement, collegiate reform, tried to offset some of the effects of the earlier university reforms and to strengthen the unity and moral purpose of undergraduate education. It also spawned its own specialization: new administrative structures responsible for student services.

In this transition from the classical college to the modern university, the older ideal of the unity of truth was largely gutted. The ideal lingered on in educational rhetoric: universities boasted that they offered instruction in all areas of knowledge and educated the “whole” student. The old triad-the good, true, and beautiful-was updated as service and character, research and objective knowledge, and culture and art. Universities still encompassed all elements of the old ideal, but each element was now pursued as an independent goal. Unity had given way to fragmentation; diverse and specialized programs were loosely held together under a single administrative structure.

While the second and third elements of the triad, the true and the beautiful, formally expanded through the development of academic disciplines in natural and social sciences and arts and literature, the first, the good, diminished appreciably. In the natural and social sciences, the service ideal encompassed only technical expertise and vocational training. Character development, to the extent that it remained in the curriculum, was affiliated with the humanities and the arts. Attention to morality shifted away from the course of study to extracurricular influences. In this change, morality became identified with behavior rather than belief. As university officials equated morality with student morale, the ideal of character eventually lost much of its association with Protestant morality. The cult of personality, which historians have attributed to business culture and consumerism, also found its way into higher education in the early twentieth century.l

The division between knowledge and morality was formally elaborated in two philosophical movements that gained wide acceptance in the United States in the 1930s. The first of these, logical positivism, asserted that value statements were meaningless in science. Morality, therefore, lay outside the realm of scientific knowledge. The second, emotivist ethics, maintained that ethical judgments were distinguished by their emotional rather than their cognitive meaning. The intellectual and institutional changes of the preceding half-century-the spread of objectivism among natural and social scientists, the development of the modem humanities, and the relegation of morality to extracurricular activities-helped prepare Americans for logical positivism and emotivist ethics. By the 1920s academics had already accepted the central premises of these philosophies: that science excluded values and that morality was determined by feeling rather than intellect. Hence, logical positivism and emotivist ethics made “sense” to American intellectuals. They readily accepted the major tenets of these philosophies, even if they did not fully understand their in tricacies. 2

The separation of fact and value became both a powerful and a problematic concept in twentieth-century intellectual life. It has often been invoked as a normative guide for scholars. Its normative status is reinforced by the structure of modern higher education, which makes the separation of morality and knowledge seem a “natural” part of intellectual life. Nonetheless, the notion of value-free scholarship has been challenged from its inception. In recent decades, it has been attacked by scholars in disciplines ranging from the philosophy and history of science to post-modern literary criticism. There is a deep ambivalence about the separation of knowledge and morality.

This ambivalence has clear roots in the developments discussed in this book. Universities never renounced their traditional moral aims. Educators continued to believe that universities should prepare their students to live “properly” and contribute to the betterment of society. Contemporary interest in multicultural education indicates that this is still an important imperative in universities today. But universities no longer have a basis from which to judge moral claims. The Protestant synthesis that provided moral guidance up until the late nineteenth century did not survive the adoption of modern standards of scholarship or increased cultural diversity. Despite the hopes of its early advocates, scientific inquiry never produced authoritative intellectual standards for determining what it means to live “properly” or how to identify what constitutes social “betterment:’ Without a means of adjudicating moral claims, contemporary debates about what college students should learn seem to be reduced to “politics.”

The irony is that the eventual separation of knowledge and morality began with efforts to define more reliable ways of knowing, in part so that scholars could provide more authoritative guidance on moral questions. In the late nineteenth century university educators embraced a model of science that presented successful inquiry as beginning with open questioning and leading to consensus among researchers. Based on this notion of science, educators adopted the ideal of free inquiry and viewed agreement as a distinguishing feature of true knowledge. Although the ideals of freedom and agreement seemed compatible in technical and specialized scholarship, free inquiry when applied to moral issues produced conflict. For a variety of institutional and professional reasons, the desire of faculty and university leaders to avoid conflict eventually prevailed over their desire to maintain a close tie between knowledge and morality. Eventually scholars decided that moral concerns fell outside the realm of scientific scholarship.

Scholars hoped that the distinction between fact and value would lead to more reliable knowledge as measured by greater agreement. The subsequent history of academic disciplines in the twentieth century indicates that this hope was illusory. We should then reevaluate whether agreement is the proper standard by which to identify “truth” If universities can learn to tolerate more conflict, we may be able to define cognitive standards by which we can address moral questions. Since it has proved impossible to completely separate fact and value, we should begin to explore ways to reintegrate them.