Historical Bulletin Of The Southern Illinois State Normal University Classic Reprint

Author : Adam R. Nelson
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226829219
Total Pages : 495 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (268 download)

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Download or read book Capital of Mind written by Adam R. Nelson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2024-01-02 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second volume of an ambitious new economic history of American higher education. Capital of Mind is the second volume in a breathtakingly ambitious new economic history of American higher education. Picking up from the first volume, Exchange of Ideas, Adam R. Nelson looks at the early decades of the nineteenth century, explaining how the idea of the modern university arose from a set of institutional and ideological reforms designed to foster the mass production and mass consumption of knowledge. This “industrialization of ideas” mirrored the industrialization of the American economy and catered to the demands of a new industrial middle class for practical and professional education. From Harvard in the north to the University of Virginia in the south, new experiments with the idea of a university elicited intense debate about the role of scholarship in national development and international competition, and whether higher education should be supported by public funds, especially in periods of fiscal austerity. The history of capitalism and the history of the university, Nelson reveals, are intimately intertwined—which raises a host of important questions that remain salient today. How do we understand knowledge and education as commercial goods? Should they be public or private? Who should pay for them? And, fundamentally, what is the optimal system of higher education for a capitalist democracy?