Gentlemen and Scholars: College and Community in the Age of the University

Historians have dubbed the period from the Civil War to World War I as "the age of the university," suggesting that colleges, in contrast to universities, were static institutions out of touch with American society. In Gentlemen and Scholars Leslie challenges this view by offering compelling evidence for the continued vitality of colleges, using case studies of four representative colleges from the Middle Atlantic region - Bucknell, Franklin and Marshall, Princeton, and Swarthmore. A new introduction to this classic reflects on his work in light of recent scholarship, especially that on southern universities, the American college in the international context, the experience of women, and liberal Protestantism's impact on the research university.

W. Bruce Leslie is professor of history at the State University of New York at Brockport.