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American Higher Education And The “Collegiate Way Of Living” (美国高等教育和 “学院制生活”), Robert J. O’Hara

Robert J. O’Hara

Institutions of higher education in the United States are remarkably diverse in their educational purposes, their organizational structure, and their architectural styles. But underlying all this diversity are two distinct historical models: the decentralized British “collegiate” model of university education, and the centralized Germanic university model. Early American higher education grew out of the British collegiate tradition and emphasized the comprehensive development of students’ intellect and character, while the Germanic university tradition, introduced in the late 1800s, shifted the focus to technical scholarship and research. The Germanic university model held sway for much of the twentieth century, but there is …