Veysey, Lawrence. Emergence of the American University. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

Summary
Laurence Veysey’s landmark 1965 examines the emergence of the modern research university in the United States at the turn of the 20th century. The book is divided into two parts. The first looks at the principal academic philosophies – utility, research, and culture – and how each vied for dominance in higher learning during the decades after 1865. The second part examines the academic structures that came to shape the university and the effect it had on professional temperaments. In the late 19th century, the American college came under the microscope for its role in society, the influence of wealthy donors (Cornells, Hopkinses, and Rockefellers) and state funding (Wisconsin and Michigan), and the '' rapid expansion of science''. The expansion of science challenged the old curriculum. Veysey writes: “No longer could the old curriculum even pretend to account for all major areas of fact, nor could it adequately explore the ‘laws’ which men of that time believed could almost effortlessly be derived from fact.” (11) What resulted was three specific conceptions of the university, between 1865 and 1900: “These centered, respectively, in the aim of ''practical public service, in the goal of abstract research'' on what was believed to be the pure German model, and finally in the attempt to diffuse standards of cultivated taste.” (12) By the early 20th century, the university sat at two extremes: the administration and trustees who spoke of the social and economic purposes of the university (outward image/public relations) and the faculty who could (relatively) propose controversial ideas and questions (tension). The three principal academic philosophies were thus accommodated into the university, un-reconciled.

See also: Julie Reuben, The Making of the Modern University; John Thelin, A History of American Higher Education;