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Before the 1850s, the United States had a number of smallcolleges, most of them dating from colonial days. They were small,church connected institutions whose primary concern was to shape the moralcharacter of their students. ThroughoutEurope, institutions of higher learning had developed, bearing the ancient nameof university. In Germany a different kind of university had developed.The German university was concerned primarily with creating and spreading knowledge, not morals. Between midcentury and the endof the 1800s, more than nine thousand young Americans, dissatisfied withtheir training at home, went to Germany for advanced study. Some ofthem returned to become presidents of venerable colleges -- Harvard, Yale,Columbia -- and transform them into modern universities. The newpresidents broke all ties with the churches and brought in a new kind offaculty. Professors were hired for their knowledge of a subject, not becausethey were of the proper faith and had a strong arm fordisciplining students. The new principle was that auniversity was to create knowledge as well as pass it on, and this called for a faculty composed of teacher-scholars. Drilling and learning by rote were replaced by the German method of lecturing, in which the professors ownresearch was presented in class. Graduate training leading to the Ph.D., an ancient German degree signifying the highest level of advanced scholarly attainment, wasintroduced. With the establishment of the seminar system, graduatestudents learned to question, analyze, and conduct their own research. | 
