Ohio's Ante-Bellum Colleges.

Abstract

The variety and number of colleges founded in Ohio during the years before the Civil War is remarkable. More than fifty-six charters were issued to corporations formed to establish institutions of higher learning between 1803 and 1860. Some of the resulting colleges operated only briefly, then closed their doors. Others never opened at all. Some existed for several decades as viable institutions before merging with other colleges. Some were chartered as colleges but existed only as preparatory schools. Twenty of the antebellum colleges still survive. This study attempts to explain why so many colleges were founded, whom they attracted and served, and what roles the churches and local communities played in their founding and support. The colleges were usually controlled by evangelical clergymen who joined forces with local merchants, political figures, and influential community "boosters" to "save the new West from barbarism" and to help small communities gain stature and respect. The colleges denied that they were narrowly sectarian and sought to attract students and to maintain local interest and support from various religious denominations. For some of the founders, there was also a desire to make the colleges instruments of social reform. As the eastern most state of the western frontier, Ohio experienced rapid population growth. There was a critical need for teachers, preachers, lawyers, and leaders. A system of common schools and public education was slow to evolve in the state. The colleges assumed the major responsibility for education at both the preparatory and collegiate levels. In many respects Ohio's antebellum colleges resembled the institutions of the East from which they drew their first faculties, but in other ways they adapted themselves quickly to the dem and s of a new western culture. While maintaining a classical curriculum for the bachelor of arts degree, the colleges experimented freely with partial courses to attract students and to meet local educational needs. The organization of material is both chronological and topical. The study covers first the early period of college founding (prior to 1820), then the middle decades of the antebellum period (1821 to 1840), and finally the two decades before the Civil War. A concluding chapter addresses the antebellum colleges' responses to the emergence of the modern university.