ABSTRACT
The history of higher education is a chronicle of the tensions between economy-driven educational systems and pleasure-driven scholars who use those systems to pursue knowledge for its own sake. Clark Kerr reviews the birth of the university in the Middle Ages and its decline in the Early Modern era. He then discusses its rebirth in nineteenth century Germany, with the infusion of research, and the transplantation of this model to the United States, where it fused with existing English-style colleges that focused on teaching. Kerr also discusses the new American land grant universities that stressed service to society. This resulted in a unique institution in which all the strands of history came together with great benefit. While advocates of land grant universities "estimated that agriculture and applied sciences would be the locus of expansion in higher education, the professional field that enjoyed the most growth, first in student enrollments and then in employment, was education".
