The Yale Report of 1828: A New Reading and New Implications

Pak, Michael S.
History of Education Quarterly, v48 n1 p30-57 Feb 2008

(Full text of the article provided on the publishers website:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-5959.2008.00125.x/full)

ABSTRACT (from eric.ed.gov)

Of the classic documents addressing issues in higher education, few have provoked as much
commentary as the Yale Report of 1828--and perhaps fewer still have been subject to such
undeserved infamy. Today, the document requires a thorough new reading. Since the late 1960s
historians of higher education have been trying to overturn the traditional view of the antebellum
college. They have challenged practically all major cliches regarding antebellum colleges and, in
many instances, successfully discredited them. On the curricular policies of antebellum colleges
in particular, scholars like Stanley Guralnick have suggested that if colleges did anything wrong,
it was not in experimenting too little but in trying too much. Yet few know about the new claims
and findings, outside the narrow circle of specialists. This becomes all too evident in some of the
recent readings of the Yale Report attempted by scholars who are not specialists in the history of
the antebellum college. As for the more up-to-date readings of the Report offered by the
specialists, they have been desultory and fragmentary, usually included as an afterthought or
footnote to some other related theme. There has yet to be a comprehensive new reading of the
Report. This article attempts such a new reading. An exegesis of the Report here serves as an
occasion to reflect on not only the historical reality surrounding the antebellum college, but also
the historiographical debates it has inspired over the years. For as the recent wave of revisionism
nears the end of its cycle, it has become increasingly necessary to assess its achievements and
shortcomings. (Contains 65 footnotes.)

Descriptors: Higher Education, Intellectual History, Educational History, Educational Practices, Research
Reports, Review (Reexamination),Scholarship, Competition, Curriculum Development, Educational
Development, Organizational Culture, Foundations of Education