Meeting the Challenge: - The Council of Independent Colleges

Small by Design:
Resilience in an Era of Mass Higher Education
by John R. Thelin
The independent liberal arts college has an enduring appeal best
dramatized by Daniel Webster’s impassioned brief for his alma
mater in the famous Dartmouth College case. As he explained
to Chief Justice John Marshall and the Supreme Court in 1819: “It is, sir,
as I have said, a small college . . . and yet there are those of us who love it.”
Webster’s oratory and logic won the case, which established the independence
of American corporations of all kinds from the state.
The independent liberal arts college was the dominant institution
in American higher education for most of the 19 th century. Between 1870
and 1910 it continued to survive and flourish during the first heroic
age of university building. Looking back on this legacy in 1936, the
editor of the Saturday Review recalled, “There has never been anything
quite like the American college of the turn of the 20 th century.” It was
a complex, vital, and beloved institution. In the three decades between
World War I and World War II, colleges enjoyed a resurgence of prestige
and popularity, as both educators and American families reacted against
the limits and uncertainties of undergraduate education at large state
university campuses.
For over four centuries the small college has balanced widespread
and generous support and genuine appreciation alongside equally strong
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