I’ve read some books that are a couple hundred years old (i.e., <i>Frankenstein</i>), and the depictions of college in those books seem different. For instance, in that book, Victor Frankenstein goes to college for about six years and just learns stuff, but a lot of what he learned just seemed to be independant learning. Did colleges then have curriculums? Did they have requirements? Majors? Classes, even, or just lectures? Was there homework? Papers? Exams? Or was it just for rich kids to hang out and learn if they felt like it (and continued to pay)?
They were something like the don system that Oxford and Cambridge still have today. You studied under the direct supervision of a ‘master’ or professor who had almost total authority over what you learned. There weren’t classes and lectures like we’re familiar with until the early 19th century. But there was still time to party - As a student, Thomas Jefferson kept a journal in which he often is stern with himself for staying out late and partying with the wrong crowd. But I think he was way to hard on himself - he was a very conscientious student.
Learning Latin and Greek well enough to speak them was considered a normal part of a college education in the 18th and early 19th century.
All strudents recieved military officer’s training, regardless of their field of study.
Drill was compulsory.
As was Chapel.
Got a cite for that Bosda?
I work at a school that was founded more than 100 years ago and military training was never part of the mandatory equation. However, if they had finished college and entered the civil was they entered as officers. Damn…I don’t have a cite to back that up…But I’m near 100% sure.
Many schools of 150+ years ago were for men, and were a kind of general study…or natural progression if they were in the upper classes. Some were medical some were law all had general study.
I know both Harvard & Yale had mandatory military drill, & several small colleges here in Tennessee had military drill pre-Civil War.
No links, though.
IIRC, most colleges were started by churches (because at the Pope was pretty much richer than God :rolleyes: ), so Theology was a required course. Of course, this was being phased out by the 18th and 19th century as men found a new religion to subscribe to - secular humanism. But as mentioned above, Chapel was still around for a couple decades before that, too, went the way of the dodo.
College costs in, say, 1804, were relatively high. So the only people going to college were generally sons of the well-to-do; the intellectual and political elite. This was just about to change, as more denominations were founding small colleges in the hinterlands.
Back then there were no electives (though this was about to change, too). The college curriculum was prescribed. Everyone in an entering “class” would take the same subjects at the same time of day. You’d start with chapel at sunup and continue the day with various periods of class lectures and recitation with some study time. The day would end with chapel again. Although religion was still the foundation for education, a lot of students were scoffing at this and were forming “rationalist” societies. Latin was falling out of favor as the sole language of instruction. Moral philosophy, Greek, Latin, classics, mathematics–this is what you would have have studied. Science was just starting to be explored (and laboratory instruction was a ways off).
The claim about military instruction being the norm–that is new to me.
Military lectures certainly weren’t standard in English universities in the early 19th century. Then again, neither were regular lectures to some extent. From what I can understand from reading the old Oxford records, most undergraduate instruction simply consisted of studying at the Bodleian (library), attending guest lectures, and learning from the dons in weekly meetings. When you were ready to take your BA exam, you took it. Otherwise, you could just kind of show up and study at your leisure.
Of course, this relatively lax system, combined with the great wealth of some of the participants (many students had their own “porter” or butler) led to many Brideshead Revisited-style hijinks. By the middle of the 19th century most undergraduate degrees became a bit more rigorous. There are still traces of the old system at Oxford (weekly meetings with your supervisor, irregular lecture schedules without required attendance, etc.), but the system wouldn’t be too unfamiliar to American students, IMHO.
From urbandictionary.com:
Someone was telling me that it’s a bad to say “vato” in the vicinity of or while addressing someone who looks like he’s from a Hispanic street gang, it’s not as bad as the N-word but close. Is this true, or is this guy full of day-old tamales?
What the…? Coulda sworn I’d hit the “New Thread” button…sorry.
This, http://web.wm.edu/about/jefferson/jefferson_college.php, describes Thomas Jeffeson’s course of study at William and Mary. I don’t believe that military training was part of the curriculum.