For the Common Good

Charles Dorn is Professor of Education and Chair of the Education Department at Bowdoin College. He is the author of American Education, Democracy, and the Second World War.

• The Early National Period1. "Literary Institutions Are Founded and Endowed for the Common Good" The Liberal Professions in New England2. “The Good Order and the Harmony of the Whole Community” Public Higher Learning in the South3. “To Promote More Effectually the Grand Interests of Society” Catholic Higher Education in the Mid-Atlantic The Antebellum and Civil War Eras4. “To Spread Throughout the Land, an Army of Practical Men” Agriculture and Mechanics in the Midwest5. “The Instruction Necessary to the Practical Duties of the Profession” Teacher Education in the West Reconstruction through the Second World War6. “To Qualify Its Students for Personal Success” The Rise of the University in the West7. “This Is to Be Our Profession—To Serve the World” Women's Higher Education in New England8. “The Burden of His Ambition Is to Achieve a Distinguished Career” African American Higher Education in the Mid-Atlantic The Cold War through the Twenty-First Century9. “A Wedding Ceremony between Industry and the University” The Urban University in the Southeast10. “To Meet the Training and Retraining Needs of Established Business” Community Colleges in the Northeast and SouthwestEpilogue

In teasing out the emergence of different social ethoses within higher education over time, Dorn has produced a book that offers insightful analysis on the past and important perspective to the present.(History of Education Quarterly) Charles Dorn has written an excellent historical overview of American higher education that diverges from other histories of the institution in several advantageous ways. Dorn's book is a gift to us. It is a model for combining analytical breadth and complexity and of using the particular to illuminate the general. It is now the best single-volume history of American higher education available.(Journal of American History) For the Common Good makes a strong contribution to the scholarship on American higher education through its close analysis of how the concept of civic-mindedness has continued to play out at so many different types of institutions in many different times and places. For the Common Good will make you think about both the historic and present role of higher education in the United States, and that is high praise.(New England Quarterly)