TO ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE
The Growth of American Research Universities, 1900-1940.
Roger L. Geiger.
Oxford University Press, New York, 1986. 335 pp.
$27.50.
Among the systems of higher education in Western nations, the American system is something of an anomaly in its size, diversity and capacity to accommodate new lines of research. The American university unites research and teaching, linking higher learning to the broad based system of colleges, in which middle class people ac quire the values, skills and social connections for middle class careers. The locus of entrepreneur ship has remained in the departments, relatively free of control from the top. Research is seen as a career for the many, not a calling for a few.
How this system took shape and how it works is the subject of Roger Geiger's book. The book is in tended to be a survey for the general reader. It is based almost ...
