For years American social historians tended to dismiss the nineteenth-century college with the derisive label, “The Old Time College”—meaning small and small-minded, limited in mission and funding, and dominated by religious denominations. Sumner’s archival research at numerous campuses counters that stereotype. Whatever limits the colleges faced were offset by an American combination of commitment and optimism. Eschewing metropolitan areas as suspect and even evil, a generation of college founders worked assiduously to fulfill the ideal of a “college on a hill.”
Sumner’s story prompts rediscovery of the admirable experiments that college builders undertook, lending a new appreciation for Dartmouth College’s motto—Vox clamantis in deserto (a voice crying out in the wilderness). It conveys the resolve of college builders prior to 1860 who set out to create on the frontier and away from major cities institutions that would serve as intellectual and social incubators for those who aspired to service...