Between college and university: Noah Porter, Yale, and the transformation of American academic culture, 1800--1890 (Connecticut)

This dissertation discusses the life and thought of Noah Porter (1811--1892), Congregationalist minister, moral philosopher, and president of Yale College from 1871 to 1886. A prolific scholar and prominent public figure, Porter entered the Yale presidency as one of the most distinguished academic leaders of his generation, yet he ended his career largely marginalized and misunderstood. Unlike most of his peers, Porter resisted the sudden rise of the modern research university, fearing that an uncritical embrace of its ideals would both corrupt undergraduate education and jeopardize civil society. Such conservatism in an age of progress was unpopular, and Porter increasingly lost the power to lead. Most of his contemporaries criticized his convictions, and historians since have dismissed his administration, except to illustrate a passing age.; This study offers a new interpretation of Porter by presenting his ideas and leadership within a broader historical context and personal narrative. It argues that we cannot understand Porter properly apart from the cultural traditions he inherited or the distinctive institutions, relationships, and conflicts that shaped his thinking and personality. From this combination of intellectual biography and cultural history emerges a deeper and more complex view of Porter and his leadership than is presently available.; This dissertation demonstrates that Porter, though conservative, was not a mere reactionary, inflexibly and unimaginatively wedded to old ways. Rather, he actively engaged the culture around him. As a pastor, he walked a middle ground between the sectarian dogmatism of the Puritan scholastics and the post-Unitarian liberalism of the New England Transcendentalists. As a philosopher, he sought a new synthesis of eighteenth-century Scottish Common Sense Realism and nineteenth-century German Idealism. And as an educator, he defended the traditional foundations of learning for undergraduates while supporting research opportunities for advanced students.; Throughout his life, Porter applied enduring principles to a rapidly changing culture to face the challenges of his times. He lost many battles in his day, but he anticipated many of the tensions that accompanied the rise of the university, and his arguments have had an enduring legacy. This dissertation reexamines these arguments and the man who made them.