American Higher Education in Historical Perspective

Throughout their history, colleges, universities, and research libraries and academies drew their inspiration, ideas, and practices from higher educational institutions in England, France, Germany, and, to a lesser extent, from other countries. While the most obvious and measurable character istic of American higher education is its numerical size in terms of students, faculty, and institutions, it is all too often too easy to overlook its other features, such as the democratic diversification of the student bodies, the open door to racial, ethnic, religious, and economic minorities, the widespread op portunities for women, the broadened concept of curriculum, and so forth. History reveals upward and downward develop ments among these characteristics. If American higher edu cation has increased consistently in quantity, its quality has varied with time and place, very much as in other countries.