{{citations, date=February 2014 The Yale Report of 1828 is a document written by the faculty of

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

in staunch defense of the classical curriculum. The report maintained that because of Yale's primary object of graduating well-educated and well-rounded men, it should continue to require all of its students to follow a single thorough

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; plural, : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to ...

, with

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

and

Greek literature Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today. Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving writte ...

at its core. Before the release of the report, there was a gradual movement toward a more open, elective course of study at colleges around the United States. The report was in part a response to the criticism of

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

as "dead languages". According to the ''

Yale Daily News The ''Yale Daily News'' is an independent student newspaper published by Yale University students in New Haven, Connecticut since January 28, 1878. It is the oldest college daily newspaper in the United States. The ''Yale Daily News'' has consis ...

'', the report was released "as the University's reputation was at its zenith", when "the eyes of the nation's academic community focused on New Haven".Past guides review committee: After 1828's conservatism and 1953's failed coup, 2003 finds moderation
, ''Yale Daily News'', 2003-11-17 The highly-influential report, which reformers have complained set back curricular reforms by decades, tipped the balance at universities across the United States, including at

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...

and

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, toward a conservative approach to higher education. The report was issued in two parts. ''Part I'' presents the plan for education at Yale and defends the classical curriculum and ''Part II'' specifically considers the importance of the classical languages to the curriculum.

History

The report was issued after a September 11, 1827, resolution of Yale's President and Fellows ordered a faculty committee "to inquire into the expediency of so altering the regular course of instruction in this college, as to leave out of said course the study of the ''dead languages'', substituting other studies therefor; and either requiring a competent knowledge of said languages, as a condition of admittance into the college, or providing instruction in the same, for such as shall choose to study them after admittance." The faculty signed its report with September 9, 1828, as its date.

A prescribed curriculum

The report acknowledges that changes to the curriculum "may, from time to time be made with advantage, to meet the varying demands of the community, to accommodate the course of instruction to the rapid advance of the country, in population, refinement, and opulence", but argued for a prescribed set of courses that all students should meet: :The two great points to be gained in intellectual culture, are the ''discipline'' and the ''furniture'' of the mind; expanding its powers, and storing it with knowledge. The former of these is, perhaps, the more important of the two. A commanding object, therefore, in a collegiate course, should be, to call into daily and vigorous exercise the faculties of the student. Those branches of study should be prescribed, and those modes of instruction adopted, which are best calculated to teach the art of fixing the attention, directing the

train of thought The train of thought or track of thought refers to the interconnection in the sequence of ideas expressed during a connected discourse or thought, as well as the sequence itself, especially in discussion how this sequence leads from one idea to ...

, analyzing a subject proposed for investigation; following, with accurate discrimination, the course of argument; balancing nicely the evidence presented to the judgment; awakening, elevating, and controlling the imagination; arranging, with skill, the treasures which memory gathers; rousing and guiding the powers of genius. All this is not to be effected by a light and hasty course of study; by reading a few books, hearing a few lectures, and spending some months at a literary institution. By endorsing a prescribed course of study, the Yale faculty denounced the concept of preparing its undergraduates for specific professional work. "Our object is not to teach that which is peculiar to any one of the professions; but to lay the foundation which is common to them all."

Latin and Greek

''Part II'' of the report argued that beyond the requisites of the

liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as La ...

and

sciences Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

, knowledge of

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

and

was the foundation for a

liberal education A liberal education is a system or course of education suitable for the cultivation of a free (Latin: ''liber'') human being. It is based on the medieval concept of the liberal arts or, more commonly now, the liberalism of the Age of Enlightenment ...

. It states that :the study of the classics is useful, not only as it lays the foundations of a correct taste, and furnishes the student with those elementary ideas which are found in the literature of modern times, and which he no where so well acquires as in their original sources,—but also as the study itself forms the most effectual discipline of the mental faculties. However, the report conceded that not all students were satisfied with the curriculum, and suggested the possibility of a plan "to confer degrees on those only who have finished the present established course,—but to allow other students, who do not aim at the honors of the college, to attend on the instruction of the classes as far as they shall choose." Despite this concession, the faculty committee's report strongly praised "the course which has hitherto been pursued", and, in fact, aimed to strive to make the curriculum even more focused on classical studies. It proposed that "the terms of admission may very properly, be gradually raised so as ultimately to render necessary, as a condition of admission, much greater acquirements, especially in the classics, than the laws of the college at present prescribe."

References

External links

Scan of the Yale Report of 1828
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

) * Full text of the Yale Report (online)
Part IPart II

Full text of the Yale Report in HTML, PDF, DocX, and Markdown formats

Yale University 1828 documents History of education in the United States