: H-Net Review Publication: Oromaner on Gelber, 'The University and the People: Envisioning American Higher Education in an Era of Populist Protest'
Scott M. Gelber.
The University and the People: Envisioning American Higher Education in
an Era of Populist Protest. Madison University of Wisconsin Press, 2011. 264 pp.
$29.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-299-28464-0.
Reviewed by Mark Oromaner
Published on H-Education (September, 2012) Commissioned
by Jonathan Anuik
Academic Populists and the American State University
In _The University and the People_, Scott M. Gelber
explores the relationship of the nineteenth-century American Populist movement
to state universities. This book is an important study, for while Populist
support for informal and common schools has been well documented, its
"enthusiasm for _higher_ education remains underappreciated" (p. 4,
emphasis in original). Gelber is an assistant professor of education and (by
courtesy) of history at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. He has done a
very good job of turning a Harvard University dissertation ("Academic
Populism: The People's Revolt and Public Higher Education, 1880-1905,"_
_2008) into a jargon free and well-written book that is likely to appeal to a
broad audience of specialists and nonspecialists interested in American higher
education and/or American political movements.
Scholars who wish to pursue Gelber's argument are likely
to benefit from the 70 pages of notes that support the 181 pages of text.
In place of a straightforward and general definition of
Populism, Gelber posits that two fundamental aspects of the movement's ideology
contributed to its vision of higher education: firstly, the celebration of the
capabilities and virtues of ordinary citizens (egalitarianism); and secondly,
the view that elites tended to monopolize resources at the expense of farmers
and laborers (producerism). The book focuses on the Populists who were the most
vocal supporters of the movement's vision for higher education. These academic
Populists tended to be university presidents or trustees endorsed by Populists;
faculty members and students directly related to the movement; and Populist
politicians, leaders, or editors who had a particular interest in education. As
is true in many underdog movements, "most academic Populists were
relatively privileged individuals" (p. 13). For example, most had
completed some form of higher education.
In terms of race and gender, the Populists often promoted
opportunities for women (i.e., expansion of college access [coeducation in the
West and single-sex colleges in the South]).
However, "Populism's potential to promote
interracial solidarity fell tragically short" (p. 11). Indeed, Populists
often endorsed racial discrimination and "tended to ignore lynching,
unequal educational facilities, violations of voting rights, and exploitation
of black tenant farmers" (p. 12). The issues of race, and to a lesser
degree gender, support Gelber's introductory observation that academic
Populists had their "limits, contradictions, and failures" (p. 17).
Gelber concentrates on the southern and the western
states where the effect of academic Populism was greatest. In comparison to
eastern states, states in these regions also had the largest percentage of
student enrollments in public universities. More specifically, he focuses on
the role of academic Populists in Kansas, Nebraska, and North Carolina. This
sample is not representative of states or universities; however, the stories from
these states "provide dramatic examples of Populist pressures that faced
virtually all state universities, especially institutions that received
proceeds from federal land grants" (p. 14). Those grants came from the two
Morrill acts of 1862 and 1890.
The first Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 provided each
state with a portion of federal land that could be sold to generate funds for
universities to teach agriculture, mechanical arts, and military arts. The
assumptions behind this act were that previously underserved populations, such
as laborers and farmers, would more likely be attracted by this more applied
curriculum than by the classical liberal arts and that these fields would gain
in status through their association with higher education. In addition to the
courses cited, the act also stated that the "primary object" of land
grant colleges was "'to promote the liberal and practical education of the
industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life'" (p.
24).
This broad and ambiguous language meant that university
administrators could interpret the act to mean that they could use funds to
strengthen their liberal arts programs and to add some science courses while
agrarian leaders expected enhanced and new agricultural programs. As a result
of this lack of support for agricultural programs, the scarcity of qualified
agricultural educators, and low enrollments in such programs, the period
following the passage of the first Morrill Act could be defined as a failure
from a Populist perspective. In quantitative terms, no student graduated from
the agriculture program at the University of Wisconsin until 1880 or from the
program at the University of Minnesota until 1899. And, at the forerunner of
the University of Illinois, the Illinois Industrial University, an average of
only ten students selected the agriculture program each year until the turn of
the twentieth century.
Given the Populists' racism, it should come as no
surprise that in general they opposed, ignored, or evaded provisions of the
second Morrill Act of 1890. The act called for some form of agricultural and
mechanical education for African Americans. For example, in North Carolina,
rather than integrate existing universities, Populists supported the establishment
of the North Carolina Colored Agricultural and Mechanical College (now North
Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University).
During the 1870s and early 1880s, leaders of chapters of
the Grange, an organization led by landholders and founded in 1867, became
prominent spokespeople who demanded access to public higher education. They
believed that rural youth would benefit from agricultural instruction more than
from basic science or the traditional curriculum and that colleges should become
more accessible to these students. Such views paralleled the opinions of
Populists. Grangers in state legislatures were successful in supporting funding
for state agricultural universities and agriculture programs and in diverting
funds from private institutions and from state universities that did not
support such programs. The Grange was not opposed to support for public higher
education in principle. Rather, "Grange leaders hoped that an accessible
and vocational course of study could enrich the lives of workers without
necessarily promoting class divisions" (p. 34). This argument was central
to the position of the Populists who became the leading voices of rural
activism.
The three states chosen for study represent cases where
academic Populists were able to bring state universities into greater
conformity with the movement's ideology. In North Carolina, political activists
were able to divert land grant funds from the University of North Carolina. The
funds went to the new North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanical
Arts, founded in 1887, which later became North Carolina State University.
In the early 1890s, a fusion of the People's (Populist)
Party and the Democratic Party was able to gain partial control of the Kansas
legislature and to elect a governor. However, the Republicans were able to
maintain control of both the university and the state normal school in Emporia.
In the late 1890s, the Populists were more successful in reorganizing Kansas
State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University). Between 1900 and
1904, Populists and their allies formed a ruling group on the board of the
University of Nebraska.
Throughout the book, Gelber makes it clear that
"most claims about the movement's impact must remain tentative because the
few instances of administrative control were too short-lived and too incomplete
to provide sufficient data" (p. 13). The three state takeovers, however
short-lived, are important because they "often belied assumptions about
the movement's attitude toward public higher education" (p.
49). Populists were enthusiastic supporters of the
potential of public higher education to provide ordinary farmers and their
children, especially sons, with access to a relevant education that would
empower them. At a practical level they had to confront issues at the center of
debates about higher education today. These questions include: admission
standards, basic skills and remedial courses, financial aid, tuition,
coeducation, and curriculum content.
However, if they supported affirmative action for rural
and farm students, they neglected to support such action for racial and ethnic
minorities.
In spite of some data indicating that enrollments
increased during periods of control by the Populists, they "failed to
reconcile the ideals of individual advancement and social equality" (p.
102).
Rather than enroll in agricultural courses and return to
the farm, students were more likely to enroll in commercial programs, teacher
education, or engineering courses, and to migrate away from farming.
For example, less than 2 percent of land grant college
graduates pursued agricultural programs by 1900 and approximately half of such
graduates worked in other fields. The conflict for the Populists can be
expressed in a paraphrase of two 1919 song titles, "How Ya Gonna Keep Em
Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)?" and "How Ya Gonna Keep
Em Down on the Farm (After They've Been to University)?"
Regardless of their failures in terms of goals for
students, an indication of the enthusiasm that Populists had for higher
education can be seen in their often critical attitudes concerning the role of
intercollegiate sports at public universities. Did the tax funds spent on such
activities detract from the academic missions of such institutions? In 1897,
the Populist publication _Jeffersonian_ "called for the university
(University of Kansas) to fire its football coach, arguing that his salary
could not be justified when farmers struggled to make ends meet" (p. 48).
At a more general level, Gelber titles chapter 7 "Watchdogs of the
Treasury," by which he means that once Populists gained control of state
legislatures they were frugal with state funds and opposed increases for
faculty salaries and research; however, they supported funds for purposes consistent
with their ideology, such as tuition subsidies and new buildings.
Dominance of the academic Populists was short-lived and
often failed to achieve anticipated goals. Their actions did not result in
significant increases in enrollments of farmers in agricultural courses nor in
the return of college-educated students to the farm.
However, in his cogent narrative, Gelber demonstrates
that they were not opposed to public higher education in principle but that
they were enthusiastic supporters of such education that was more egalitarian
and relevant to the lives of farmers and laborers. With the publication of _The
University and the People_,_ _there is no reason for anyone to fail to
appreciate the Populists' role in the evolution of American state universities.
Although, at times, the specifics of their responses may differ from those of
their current counterparts, academic Populists raised ongoing fundamental
issues of accessibility, accountability, and affordability in a public mass
higher education system.
Citation: Mark Oromaner. Review of Gelber, Scott M., _The
University and the People: Envisioning American Higher Education in an Era of
Populist Protest_. H-Education, H-Net Reviews. September, 2012.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.