First True American University?

[Swampy]

I've been looking for the source of this quote.This course description in Cornell's History Department attributes it to Frederick Rudolf. In fact,the course title is "The First American University."

But I searched Rudolf's opus, American College and University: A History, not only for the phrase, but also for just "first," and came up with nothing.Rudolph is very complementary to Cornell and credits it with pioneering things like coeducation and dormitories. But I could not find the specific phrase. Perhaps he used it elswhere.

Do any of you know the exact source?

[David Harding]

I've been looking for the source of this quote.This course description in Cornell's History Department attributes it to Frederick Rudolf. In fact,the course title is "The First American University."

But I searched Rudolf's opus, American College and University: A History, not only for the phrase, but also for just "first," and came up with nothing.Rudolph is very complementary to Cornell and credits it with pioneering things like coeducation and dormitories. But I could not find the specific phrase. Perhaps he used it elswhere.

Do any of you know the exact source?

Curious, I Googled the phrase "First True American University".  One reference attributes the designation to Morris Bishop.  Other institutions claiming to be the first true American university include Johns Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania, William and Mary, and Yale.

[Swampy]

I've been looking for the source of this quote.This course description in Cornell's History Department attributes it to Frederick Rudolf. In fact,the course title is "The First American University."

But I searched Rudolf's opus, American College and University: A History, not only for the phrase, but also for just "first," and came up with nothing.Rudolph is very complementary to Cornell and credits it with pioneering things like coeducation and dormitories. But I could not find the specific phrase. Perhaps he used it elswhere.

Do any of you know the exact source?

Curious, I Googled the phrase "First True American University".  One reference attributes the designation to Morris Bishop.  Other institutions claiming to be the first true American university include Johns Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania, William and Mary, and Yale.

Yeah, I thought it was Bishop too until I read the course description for HIST 2005. (But I can't find the quote in Bishop's History of Cornell either.)

[Al DeFlorio]

Best quote from Rudolph, referring to a time shortly after Cornell's founding:

"Before long alarums and fright would overtake many of the old institutions, for which Cornell became a reincarnation of the devil itself."  Still is, to some.

Rudolph's book is a really good read.

[ugarte]

the first true american university is an unaccredited internet school that has no job placement office but a staff of two dozen to help applicants apply for student loans

[Trotsky]

the first true american university is an unaccredited internet school that has no job placement office but a staff of two dozen to help applicants apply for student loans

Courses of study include open carry and applied smallpox.

[Al DeFlorio]

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/05/cornell-history-course-marks-10-years-community

[Swampy]

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/05/cornell-history-course-marks-10-years-community

Thanks, Al. The story is great. Funny, the last reunion I attended, I was going to suggest such a thing as a mandatory part of Orientation. (But the session ended before I could voice my suggestion.)

It sort of solves my original question about where the quote comes from. The article says it's from a 1977 book by Frederick Rudolf. AFAICT, this must be "Curriculum: A history of the American Undergraduate Course."

But two things earn it a "soft of" decision: (1) I haven't had a chance yet to search the book for the quote, and (2) I heard Cornell called "the first American university" when I was an undergraduate during the 1960s. Perhaps I was prescient or, more likely, stoned, but if memory still serves me these days -- always a dangerous assumption -- then Rudolf's 1977 book can't possibly where this claim about Cornell originated.

[Trotsky]

This author needs to be stabbed repeatedly in the face, but this piece, against all expectations, traces the death of the American university.

[billhoward]

The quick cheat is to reach out to Corey Earle '07, a historian of Cornelliana that appeals to alumni, especially those of us wanting to know how many Cornell bears there have been.

My understanding is Cornell's First Great American University means
* not just an elite handful, or handful of elite students (today Cornell is 1/8 of the Ivy League and educates 1/4 of the students)
* College is about more than studying ancient Greeks. It also means the physical stuff, even sticking your arm up a cow's ass. Thus,  "The analysis of soils is as important as the analysis of literature." - Jacob Gould Schurman, Cornell President 1892–1920

[billhoward]

Hey, the New Yorker ran some 13 pages (13,000 words?) on knives, like thousand-dollar chef's knives. It was kind of interesting. It's just that not every story can be the length the author desires it.

[Beeeej]

This author needs to be stabbed repeatedly in the face, but this piece, against all expectations, traces the death of the American university.

Yeah, it's highly informative, but the completely incasual and clumsily nonoffhand way in which the author insisted on dropping the fact that he attended Harvard was just about as obnoxiously anti-innocent as any I've ever seen.

[scoop85]

This author needs to be stabbed repeatedly in the face, but this piece, against all expectations, traces the death of the American university.

Yeah, it's highly informative, but the completely incasual and clumsily nonoffhand way in which the author insisted on dropping the fact that he attended Harvard was just about as obnoxiously anti-innocent as any I've ever seen.

Exactly my reaction reading that piece

[Trotsky]

This author needs to be stabbed repeatedly in the face, but this piece, against all expectations, traces the death of the American university.

Yeah, it's highly informative, but the completely incasual and clumsily nonoffhand way in which the author insisted on dropping the fact that he attended Harvard was just about as obnoxiously anti-innocent as any I've ever seen.

The author is an insufferable piece of crap, like 97% of New Yorker's contributers and readership.  But I think it's presumptious to call the two trends acausal.  Let's say they are both driven by the same Creeping Meatballism that has caused the public space to become denominated solely in terms of protecting wealthy interests rather than the common good for the last 50 years.

Which will change.  It's all hemlines.

[billhoward]

"acausal"? And you say the Harvard man is full of himself? But okay, I can admire cunning linguists.