ABSTRACT
A veritable explosion of knowledge challenged the concept that all students could share the same curriculum; depth and breadth were in tension. Rapid expansion of the scientific knowledge, development of the social sciences, and the growing popularity of modern languages stretched the prescribed curriculum to the breaking point. Bucknell and Princeton reformed their curricula slightly to incorporate the expansion of knowledge more fully. Bucknell’s curriculum in the 1870s resembled Franklin and Marshall’s, except students only took five or six courses, supplemented by weekly lectures on other branches of knowledge. The rapid growth of knowledge potentially threatened the theological and moral bases of Protestant colleges. President Parrish advertised that the institution “proposed to give greater prominence to the physical, natural, and chemical sciences than is common in the ordinary colleges". The moral philosophy course reiterated the compatibility of science and religion.
