Ever wonder what College is really supposed to be about? The idea of College has been under heavy scrutiny for some time in the past 5-7 years. The level of focus probably isn’t going down any time soon. In the process though of our nation’s recent challenges, it appears to me that many no longer have any real concept of the point. Is it to keep our 18-22 year olds busy? Is it to get them a job? Or, is there something deeper?
So, what is college? Well, the term didn’t emerge till the 1300s (or that is our earliest known usage preserved in historical documentation). Then, it’s most common understanding was a word to describe any corporate group associated for a common function. So, a group of sports referees would be known as a college; a group of blacksmiths would be also known as a college. Thus, as learning and education became something done by a collected group of scholars (rather than the typical Medieval form of a tutor working for the local noble family), those scholars were also seen as a college.
By the late Middle Ages, say the 1400-1500s, as students came to live in the town, on the “campus” where the college (those collected scholars) were, then those resident halls also came to be known as a college. In our parlance, we could start to see the term gaining a capital “C” as part of a more proper noun. In those Colleges, the school would often establish a library, technical instruments such as ones for science, and even on-site tutors to help the students.
In this way, the term “college” shifted from any collected group to a more formal understanding of an “academic institution.” Cambridge and Oxford really led the way here with their various Colleges scattered throughout the larger community, which was being known as a University. By the 1800s, and certainly into the 1900s, the term College then meant this place of higher learning, academic training.
But what did they do? From the start, they almost exclusively taught what was known as the Liberal Arts. Again in the Middle Ages, when our understanding of “higher education” with a location of gathered students (like the University of Paris or Oxford) really begins, the Liberal Arts meant a study of (usually) seven topics. Usually arranged into two groups of 3 and 4, they were grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic—so the study of communication and logic—and arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music—so the study of more physical skills such as math.
In terms of disciplines, if we can call it that (probably not wise to push that terminology), students were being trained as lawyers, scientists, mathematicians or church leaders. Harvard, Yale and to a lesser degree, William and Mary, were seen first and foremost as a training ground for pastors. More broadly, though, one should easily see that higher education was about training the mind, broadening the spirit, creating the intelligent citizen.
The idea of College as a launching pad for a job was simply not understood. Yes, those students who came out of college would go get a job, but just like every other one of their peers. Most finished College or University around age 18, maybe age 20, and all of their peers were already hard at work. The only difference was the type of job.
No one went to College to “get a job,” with some wrong-minded belief that if they didn’t go to College they would not get a job. Instead, they went to college to become learned. But what would happen if society started to expect something else from College, something that College was never created to produce? We’ll start to answer that question next week in part two.