The Course Of Yale University’s Secularization And Its Enlightenment

In Europe and America, there is a innate relationship between university andreligion. The oldest universities in America, including Yale University, werefounded by religious institution for some kind of religious purposes. As a Puritaninstitution, the early Yale kept the faith of Puritanism with Puritan ideal, andpreserved the tradition of European liberal education. Its main educational goalwas training the young for the ministry who served god. In the later period ofcolonial era, the Enlightenment and the American Revolution promoted thesecularization of the American society and prosperity of the science.After theUnited States founded, it was taken more seriously that the States should controleducation. Due to these exterior factors and the features of Puritanism, thereligious character of Yale began to change, but denominations influence andeffect was still of the leading role. The influence of the nation and the societyto Yale was growing along with the American societys developing and the endingof the old college age. The reverends gradually exited the management layer ofYale. Under the leadership of enlightened presidents, Yale began developing inthe direction of being a modern university. It attacked religion seriously thatDarwins theory of evolution came out. Yale has been no longer a denominationuniversity in which church was compulsory, but a most outstanding modern universitywhich is open to the world. Today, the spirit of Christianism which used to bethe soul of the American university, only play its limited part in Yale.In the mass, the course of Yale Universitys secularization reflects agradual reform and embodies the pursuit of the balancing of advancement andconservation. Keeping the school motto, Yale fulfills her mission of eliteeducation and creates civilization, and finally became the world famous university.The course of Yale Universitys secularization is an epitome of Americanuniversitys development. And the historic experience of school ideal of Yales secularization is useful for Chinese modern university’s construction.This paper reviewed the whole course of Yale University’s secularizationin terms of the relationship between Yale university and religion, and discussedthe manifestations and cause in every stage of Yale’s secularization. In thispaper, the course of Yale university’s secularization is divided into4stages.Chapter2to5expounds each stage in turn, and mainly discussed themotivation and manifestations of secularization. As an introduction, the firstchapter investigated the state of related study and analyzed the literature. Thelast chapter discussed the important enlightenment obtained from the course ofYale university’s secularization, in order to provide us with reference for thedevelopment of our universities.