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The Secularization of the Academy. Edited by GEORGE M. MARSDEN and BRADLEY J. LONGFIELD. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. x + 323 pp. 35.00 cloth; $15.95 paper.
The Secularization of the Academy combines research by George M. Marsden and Bradley J. Longfield with papers from a conference held in 1990 at Duke University, in order to illuminate a major social transition in American higher education. Between the 1870s and the 1970s, Marsden and Longfield assert, the nation moved "from an era when organized Christianity and explicitly Christian ideals had a major role in the leading institutions of higher education to an era when they have almost none" (p. 5). More specifically, this Christian role was a Protestant role. They conclude from their research that, until recently, Protestants were dominant in setting the standards for American universities. If the academy had "a soul, in the sense of a prevailing vision or spirit," Marsden states, "its lineage was...