Bruce A. Kimball

Warn Students That I Entertain Heretical Opinions, Which They Are Not to Take as Law: The Inception of Case Method Teaching in the Classrooms of the Early C. C. Langdell, 1870-1883

Christopher Columbus Langdell (1826–1906) was perhaps the most influential figure in the history of legal education in the United States. He shaped the modern law school by introducing a number of significant reforms during his tenure as dean of Harvard Law School (HLS) from 1870 to 1895. Indeed, Langdell may well be the most influential figure in the history of American professional education because he established at HLS, with the help of President Charles W. Eliot, the model for twentieth-century professional schools. His innovations—such as minimum academic standards for admission to degree candidacy, a graded and sequential curriculum, minimum academic standards for continuation in a degree program, a professorial career track for faculty members, and the transformation of the library from a textbook repository into a scholarly resource—became the norm to which leading law schools, medical schools, and, finally, schools of other professions in the twentieth century aspired. Among these changes, none is more closely associated with Langdell than the introduction of case method teaching.

The Historical and Cultural Dimensions of the Recent Reports on Undergraduate Education

The major points made in the recent reports on undergraduate education are analogous to the tenets of one of the two major traditions in the history of liberal education and to the central dilemmas concerning knowledge and culture now being discussed in the humanistic and social disciplines. The recent reports do not recognize these analogies, which point to the deeper implications of and important contradictions in their recommendations for undergraduate education.

The Langdell Problem: Historicizing the Century of Historiography, 1906–2000s

Christopher Columbus Langdell (1826–1906) is arguably the most influential figure in the history of legal education in the United States, having shaped the modern law school by introducing a number of significant reforms during his tenure as dean of Harvard Law School (HLS) from 1870 to 1895. Langdells innovations—including the admission requirement of a bachelors degree, the graded and sequential curriculum, the hurdle of annual examinations for continuation and graduation, the independent career track for professional faculty, the transformation of the professional library from a textbook repository into a scholarly resource, and the inductive pedagogy of teaching from cases—became the characteristics gradually adopted by university law schools after 1890 and, eventually, schools of other professions. Langdell thus transformed legal education from an undemanding, gentlemanly acculturation into an academic meritocracy.

The Rising Cost of Higher Education: Charles Eliot's "Free Money" Strategy and the Beginning of Howard Bowen's "Revenue Theory of Cost," 1869−1979

In order to explain the rising cost of higher education, economist Howard Bowen in 1980 proposed his “famous law” of institutional finance. Bowen based his “revenue theory of cost” on a study of aggregate quantitative data extending from 1929 to 1979. Neither he nor subsequent economists asked whether or how that “law” applied prior to 1929. Nor did they examine specific cases or testimony to understand the historical operation and nuances of the theory. These three issues are addressed by examining the “free money” strategy that Harvard President Charles Eliot formulated during his administration from 1869 to 1909. Recently identified by scholars, Eliot’s strategy fits closely the theory posited by Bowen a century later, notwithstanding the many differences between their historical periods. During the 1910s and 1920s many wealthy universities began to adopt Eliot’s “free money” strategy, and this adoption explains how that financial ideology proliferated subsequently. Eliot’s singular case thus explains the origins, demonstrates the historical operation, and illuminates the nuances of the revenue theory of cost that Bowen codified in 1980.

Measuring cost escalation in the formative era of U.S. higher education, 1875–1930

ABSTRACT Cost escalation in higher education in the United States prior to 1930 has scarcely been studied, even though the period from the 1870s to the 1920s was formative for U.S. higher education. This article develops and explains a method to measure the cost during this period. The authors then compile more accurate cost data than have been available, calculate new cost indexes for higher education from 1875 to 1930, and compare these indexes to economy-wide indexes. The striking findings inform the two leading economic theories of cost escalation, advanced by economists Howard R. Bowen and William G. Bowen. Cost escalation in total expenses of higher education occurred consistently between 1875 and 1930, and exceeded the worrisome rate that economist Howard Bowen found for the period from 1930 to 1977. Cost escalation did not occur in the more salient per capita terms. This latter finding, combined with recent historical research, supports the “revenue theory of cost” of Howard Bowen and challenges the “cost disease theory” of William Bowen.

Law School: Legal Education in America from the 1850s to the 1980s

(1988). Law School: Legal Education in America from the 1850s to the 1980s. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 59, No. 4, pp. 456-468.

Book Review: Philanthropy and American higher education by J. R. Thelin and R. W. Trollinger

becomes reactive, while new initiatives come from other players that can push their own agenda before that of the city. Adams may have taken a radical approach in her criticism of the non-municipal players, but she sheds a crucial light on a process that is seldom documented and almost never discussed. Most nonprofit scholars who are interested in public–private relationships focus on contracting out. Hundreds of studies have been conducted on nonprofit organizations that rely on public contracts and substitute for the government in supplying services. This scholarly field is important and constantly in flux. Adams looked at the public–private relationships from the opposite angle. She studied rich and influential nonprofit organizations (mostly foundations and universities) as well as many quasi-governmental authorities that controlled needed resources and shaped local development. She looked at the city’s government as the disadvantaged partner. This is an original viewpoint and one that should be taken very seriously. Adams opened a new line of research that portrays city government both as a leader and follower. There are very few books that kept me thinking even days after I finished them; this is one such book.

Book Review: Philanthropy and American higher education by Thelin, J. R., & Trollinger, R. W.

becomes reactive, while new initiatives come from other players that can push their own agenda before that of the city. Adams may have taken a radical approach in her criticism of the non-municipal players, but she sheds a crucial light on a process that is seldom documented and almost never discussed. Most nonprofit scholars who are interested in public–private relationships focus on contracting out. Hundreds of studies have been conducted on nonprofit organizations that rely on public contracts and substitute for the government in supplying services. This scholarly field is important and constantly in flux. Adams looked at the public–private relationships from the opposite angle. She studied rich and influential nonprofit organizations (mostly foundations and universities) as well as many quasi-governmental authorities that controlled needed resources and shaped local development. She looked at the city’s government as the disadvantaged partner. This is an original viewpoint and one that should be taken very seriously. Adams opened a new line of research that portrays city government both as a leader and follower. There are very few books that kept me thinking even days after I finished them; this is one such book.

The Paradox of Prejudicially Applying Valid Academic Standards: A Historical Case Study in the Ethics of Academic Administration

Among the 60 or so Catholic colleges and universities operating in the United States in the late nineteenth-century, the 24 founded by the Jesuits had the highest academic standards. But the educational merit of the Jesuit B.A. was challenged in the 1890s when Harvard Law School (HLS) declared that only “respectable” bachelor’s degrees of certain colleges would qualify an applicant for admission. None of these were Catholic institutions, whose graduates where therefore excluded from the leading law school in the country. The Harvard president and deans maintained that the identification of “respectable” degrees was based solely upon neutral standards of academic quality. But Catholic educators protested vigorously, and a decade-long debate ensued between Harvard administrators and the Catholics as to whether and how Jesuit education was academically deficient. The decisions of Harvard’s academic administrators had an invidious discriminatory effect and did originate in cultural prejudice against Catholicism. However, the Harvard administrators believed – sincerely and justifiably – that they were making neutral academic judgments. This historical case study examines how the complexity of academic administration fostered and disguised this paradox.

The Life of Langdell Has Not Been Logic; It Has Been Experience

William LaPiana has led the way in searching for, identifying, and examining new evidence about Langdell, so it is gratifying to learn that he is informed by my revisions of Langdells bibliography, teaching schedule, and career chronology. LaPiana also affirms the significance of Langdells early lectures on partnership and commercial paper, adding informative points both about Langdells views and their possible influence on others. However, the reconstructions of discussions from Langdells classes are speculative, in LaPianas judgment, and to some extent superfluous, because “one can certainly concede the point [that the Dean was not ‘dogmatic, rigid, and closeminded‘] even without resorting to the reconstructed discussions.”