ABSTRACT
The long-held notion that American colleges were in the course of the nineteenth century modeled after German universities is only partially true. The key figure in early attempts at reforming Harvard College George Ticknor did not only find inspiration for improving American college education at German universities such as the University of Göttingen that attracted so many American students, but also at secondary schools such as the famous boarding school at Schulpforta. The lectures he experienced in Göttingen as a student in the years from 1815 to 1817 and in Schulpforta as a visitor in October 1816 offered to Ticknor alternatives to teaching centered around crude memorization as he had experienced it as a student at Dartmouth College. The transfer of innovative ideas for reforming American college education did not only occur on a horizontal college/university level, but also on a vertical secondary school/college level. Ideas, thus, flew from German boarding schools such as Schulpforta to Harvard College. Ticknor’s goal was not to turn Harvard into a German-style university of free scholars, but rather into a boarding school like Schulpforta that offered professors effective ways of disciplining students.
