In this carefully documented essay, Russell K. Nieli outlines the major transformation in American higher education that began at the end of the nineteenth century. Today's research- and vocation-driven private universities began as Christian institutions founded by zealous evangelizers, while public colleges embraced a watered-down version of the…

This historical analysis of American Protestant university-related divinity schools from the 1880s to the present focuses on powerful social and cultural ideas that decisively influenced American education in general and Protestant theological education in particular. The study argues that, in the service of ideas of specialization,…