Charles William Eliot was born into a family “with ancient, extensive, and important connections” both to the elite families of…
From Lectern to Laboratory: The Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862
Ever since he was elected to represent Vermont in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1854, Justin Morrill, the son…
From Lectern to Laboratory: Joseph Lovering, Bridge to the Future
In Science and the Ante-Bellum American College, Stanley Guralnick reminds us that it is impossible to discuss physics in…
From Lectern to Laboratory: Harvard’s Lawrence Hall
Located on the north side of Kirkland Street, named, like many Cambridge streets, after a prominent citizen (in this case,…
From Lectern to Laboratory: Reforms, Revolts, and a New President at Harvard
Josiah Quincy thrived in the public eye. For most of his adult life, the square-jawed, stocky Quincy was an uncompromising…
From Lectern to Laboratory: The Great Harvard Hall Fire of 1674
In 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Colony founded a small town eight miles north of Boston and named it Newtowne. It…
From Lectern to Laboratory: The Sillimans at Yale
As the middle of the nineteenth century approached, college presidents and faculty were struggling to provide a meaningful curriculum to…
From Lectern to Laboratory: Discipline and Furniture of the Mind
The traditional undergraduate curriculum at most early nineteenth-century colleges rested on the English classical liberal arts model, which had as…
From Lectern to Laboratory: Paul Revere Saves “Another” Day
In the fall of 1862, one year after the outbreak of the American Civil War, Edward Pickering began his studies…
From Lectern to Laboratory: Schools and Schoolmasters
In the same year that the Massachusetts State Legislature passed the nation’s first compulsory school attendance law, Edward Charles Pickering…
