Review Reviewed Work(s): The Vision of the Public Junior College, 1900-1940: Professional Goals and Popular Aspirations by John H. Frye Review by: David F. Labaree Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), p. 588 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2167009 Accessed: 19-06-2018 16:37 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
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588 Reviews of Books heady expansion of higher education following
leadership. After 1920, the leaders of the American
World War II. Finally, the author briefly underlines what he regards as the principal strengths and problems that confront Catholic higher education on the
Association of Junior Colleges persistently presented a vision of the role of such colleges that was inconsistent with the aims that local boosters and students had
eve of a new century. Among these problems remains the need to "effectively combine academic professionalism and religious commitment" (p. 157).
colleges to act as an upward extension of the high
A major strength in this short treatment of a
vocational education. By positioning themselves in
potentially unwieldy succession of persons, organizations, issues, and events is Leahy's candor. For exam-
postsecondary students and avoid direct competition
for the institution. These leaders pushed for junior
school that would provide students with a terminal this manner, they hoped to draw a large number of
ple, before World War I most Catholic educators
with established four-year colleges. Ideologically,
"kept aloof from developments in American aca-
their vision was profoundly conservative, promoting
demia or dismissed them as insignificant" (p. 21).
the junior college as a mechanism for channeling
Between the wars, Catholic seminaries were "pro-
students into lower-level white-collar jobs.
foundly inadequate" for the task of preparing leaders
As Frye notes, however, people at the local level
with vision, flexibility, and an awareness of contem-
had different ideas. Founders and supporters of
porary secular thought (p. 46). More recently, the
individual junior colleges around the country wanted
growth of Catholic higher education, especially at the graduate level, has witnessed "wasteful expansion and duplication" (p. 138), a malady the author traces to the "pervasive localism in Catholic society, espe-
cially among Catholic educators"; even Jesuit leaders failed to adopt "consistent positions concerning the development of Jesuit schools" (p. 146). This multiplicity reflects the history of the "old time" Protestant colleges. Its persistence suggests that
American Catholic religious orders and their schools, when viewed sociologically, might appear also to be vying sects, or competing divisions of a multinational corporation. Others might prefer a more theological discussion of the Catholic identity problem. Does it have more to do with what might be termed "Vatican" Catholicism rather than Roman Catholicism? Leahy, however, set out neither to analyze nor prescribe for these and other dilemmas. He wants first to identify and summarize them in their context. He has largely succeeded, and his book deserves a place in graduate and undergraduate libraries, especially those in Catholic institutions. JOHN WHITNEY EVANS
College of St. Scholastica
JOHN H. FRYE. The Vision of the Public Junior College, 1900-1940: Professional Goals and Popular Aspirations. (Contributions to the Study of Education, number 51.) Westport, Conn.: Greenwood. 1992. Pp. x, 163.
$39.95. John H. Frye examines the early history of the fastest
them to provide access to higher education rather than terminal vocational training. Faculty members
eagerly sought to establish the new institutions in the image of the four-year college rather than of the high
school. And students voted with their feet by rejecting terminal programs in favor of transfer programs. A number of other authors have discussed this historic tension within the junior college system over whether its primary goal should be social efficiency or social mobility, and several have done it better than Frye. The first part of The Diverted Dream (1989) by Steven Brint and Jerome Karabel provides a more authoritative general history of the public junior college, and recent journal articles by Kevin Dough-
erty provide more insight into the complex forces shaping the creation and preservation of junior colleges in individual communities. Yet Frye makes a potentially important contribution to the still sparse historical literature about the public junior college by examining a significant geographical anomaly in its
institutional development. Before 1940, three-quarters of these schools emerged in only nine statesCalifornia, Texas, and seven others in the Mississippi Valley. Developing a version of the frontier thesis, he argues that the decline of open land in these areas led to a growing demand for access to the upper ranks in the work force via higher education. Although Frye's explanation of the geographical roots of the public junior college is not very convincing, he has identified an important issue for further study. Meanwhile, an authoritative and comprehensive history of this critical institution still remains to be written. DAVID F. LABAREE
growing educational institution in twentieth-century
Michigan State University
America, the public junior college. This distinctively American innovation first appeared around 1900, and by 1940, when Frye's account leaves off, there
JOHN ENSOR HARR and PETER J. JOHNSON. The Rock-
were 250 in existence. Since then the pace has con-
efeller Conscience: An American Family in Public and Private. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1991. Pp. xvi, 624. $35.00.
tinued to accelerate to the point where these colleges currently account for more than one-third of all higher education enrollments. The phenomenal success of this novel institution, Frye argues, cannot be
Scholars have generally overlooked the importance of
attributed to the energetic efforts of its national
philanthropy in the development of American policy
AMERICAN
HISTORICAL
REVIEW
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