Prologue : universities, culture, careers, and knowledge -- ch. 1. The first century of the American college, 1636-1740 -- Harvard College -- Yale College -- The College of William and Mary -- Conflict and new learning in the early colleges -- The embryonic American college -- ch. 2. Colonial colleges, 1740-1780 -- New colleges for the middle colonies -- Enlightened colleges -- College enthusiasm, 1760-1775 -- Colonial college students -- ch. 3. Republican universities -- Making colleges republican -- Educational aspirations in the early republic -- New colleges in the new republic -- ch. 4. The low state of the colleges, 1800-1820 -- The problem with students -- The Second Great Awakening and the colleges -- The rise of professional schools -- Who owns colleges? -- ch. 5. Renaissance of the colleges, 1820-1840 -- New models for colleges -- The Yale 'Reports' of 1828 -- Denominational colleges I -- Higher education for women -- ch. 6. Regional divergence and scientific advancement, 1840-1860 -- The early collegiate era in the northeast -- Sectionalism and higher education in the south -- Denominational colleges II : proliferation in the upper midwest -- Science and the Antebellum college -- ch. 7. Land grant colleges and the practical arts -- Premodern institutions -- The colleges and the Civil War -- The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 -- Land grant universities -- Agricultural colleges and A & Ms -- Engineering and the land grant colleges -- ch. 8. The creation of American universities -- The first phase -- The academic revolution -- Research, graduate education, and the new universities -- The great American universities -- Columbia College and the University of Pennsylvania -- State universities -- ch. 9. The collegiate revolution -- The high collegiate era -- High schools, colleges, and professional schools -- Higher education for women, 1880-1915 -- Liberal culture -- ch. 10. Mass higher education, 1915-1940 -- Word War I -- Mass higher education -- Shaping elite higher education -- Liberal culture and the curriculum -- Advanced education of African Americans -- ch. 11. The standard American university -- Philanthropic foundations and the standardization of higher education -- Research universities in the Golden Age and beyond -- Students and the Great Depression -- American higher education in 1940 -- The American system of higher education -- ch. 12. Culture, careers and knowledge.