W. Bruce Leslie

The Curious Tale of Liberal Education, Professional Training and the American College, 1880-1910.

Given American higher education’s origins in British practice, it is surprising that training in the traditional ‘learned’ professions follows such different patterns. Most strikingly, such training is post‐graduate in the United States while it is often a first degree programme in Britain. Intriguingly, in the middle nineteenth century, the pattern was closer to the opposite. This paper examines why that reversal occurred and how the current American practice came into being. At the centre of the analysis is the revival and success of the fin de siécle America liberal arts college. Seemingly headed for oblivion in the face of the German model of specialized higher education and dissatisfaction with its Classical curriculum, the colleges re‐invented themselves, becoming a rite of passage for the emerging upper middle class. Their desire to become gateways to the professions intersected symbiotically with those of the professional elites seeking to regain control of their professions.