ABSTRACT
One of the deepest disagreements among the founders of the new university on both sides of the Atlantic concerned the role of the state. In both countries, centralizers-advocates of a strong government role vis-à-vis the university-faced off against localizers-for whom autonomy meant independence from government. In both countries, the localizers were in the minority, including, as we saw, Humboldt in Germany and, as we will see, Eliot in the US. In Germany, the centralizers were favored by the prevailing philosophical winds coming from the idealists, who saw the state as the highest expression of human reason and rationality. Their reign may have reached its apex in the rule of Friedrich Althoff, something of a superminister of higher education whose iron-fist rule caught the ire of leading academics like Max Weber. In the United States the localizers also were in the minority, but here they were favored by beliefs in limited government enshrined in the Constitution.
