Volume 1, Issue 3

From its 17th century inception in the form of a small band of Colonial Colleges, American higher education has long honored a relationship between the domains of the intellect and those of the spirit. In the beginning, theology held a foundational position, alongside the classics (i.e.,studies in Greek and Latin) and the rudiments of science, and the mark of most educated persons was the call to ministry, a position of esteem in this world and what was anticipated to be the next. Education of the whole person - knowledge, talents, soul, and character - guided the enterprise, and questions of ultimate meaning formed the discourse of the day. This blended experience comprised the heart of learning for most students well into the 19th century, with faculty developing powerful ties to them as mentors, guides, and resident models. However, as the Enlightenment period unfolded and Scientific Positivism rooted itself deep in the soil of the first Land Grant institutions, faculty returning from the German research experience brought a new picture of what it meant to be educated as well as the kind of curriculum best suited for the achievement of such ends. Concurrently, in the shadows of empiricism, what was once thought to be essential to learning was relegated to the peripheral, and the intellect held new privilege over the soul.