© 1997 Lawrence University Press
Milwaukee-Downer as a Liberal Arts Institution: Its Mission
A closer look at the Milwaukee-Downer mission allows us to better appreciate the depth of the kinship that existed between this school and other women's -- as well as men's and coeducational -- liberal arts institutions.
From the earliest days of Milwaukee-Downer, up to and even beyond the end of her administration, President Ellen Sabin maintained that the education that develops mental power alone is "profitless," that, to be complete, education must also exert moral and religious influences aimed at development of the entire personality. Sabin consistently held that "training that does not result in a positively good character is a dead failure." There existed so-called "educated" people, she warned, who, disappointingly, were not trustworthy, or truthful or conscientious or unselfish, whose large knowledge of books might coexist "with selfish and unloving hearts and undeveloped consciences." These convictions moved Sabin to make the following impassioned statement to her students in Chapel:
My dear girls, with all my heart I desire your highest good. Your progress in knowledge and culture, your development in high and aesthetic interests will be nothing if there is not in your hearts the deep motive of love of right, and the noble, prevailing purpose that as far as in you lies [the power] you will strive, you will renew your effort with every failure to be right, true, pure, loving. May God bless every effort and help us to grow into a true and firm Christian character.
For Ellen Sabin, the chief goal of education was clearly the building of Christian character in each student. And, in seeing its mission as character-building, Milwaukee-Downer College was not unique among smaller institutions of higher education in late 19th- and early 20th-century America. Many of the small New England liberal arts colleges for men, for example, also shared this goal, often expressing it as a desire to achieve "well-roundedness" in the members of their student bodies.
"Start with the postulate that man is intellect alone," warned Cyrus Foss, president of Wesleyan University, in 1881, "and your scheme of education must be radically defective and vicious. Man is body, intellect, heart, will, conscience, and spirit."
The ideal was to produce the "Whole Man," thoroughly educated in traditional culture and thoroughly imbued with Christian spirit. The college could not legitimately limit itself to training men's minds only; it also had to commit itself to the development of men's character.
A similar view of liberal arts education was later echoed in small coeducational colleges of the Midwest. Lawrence College President Henry M. Wriston, for example, defined liberal education as consisting in the "acquisition and the refinement of standards of values -- all sorts of values -- physical, intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual."
To what end would this education be directed? As originally conceived, the small New England liberal arts colleges for men were evangelical institutions that aimed to produce pious Christians, dedicated to religious service. Gradually, in the latter 19th century, their mission became the production not of Christians, but of "Christian gentlemen," men of character, who would occupy positions of civic leadership, firmly committed to the service of society. By the turn of the century, this commitment to social service was being expressed by college men through involvement in social reform, under the banner of Progressivism. In short, evangelical religion had been replaced, as the chief concern of the small liberal arts college, by a greater concern for service to society through participation in public life.
This shift from evangelism to social service to accomplish the building of character could be discerned, as well, in some of the Eastern institutions for the higher education of women. Mount Holyoke, for example, had, in its early days in the 1830s, been steeped in the evangelism of its founder, Mary Lyon. Above all, her goal had been to strengthen the religious conviction of students who counted themselves as Christians and to achieve the conversion of students who did not. By the time Mary Woolley became president of Mount Holyoke in 1901, the concept of education for women at this school, while still containing a strong religious component aimed at the achievement of Christian piety, had shifted to emphasize the importance of service to society. The mission of education was not just to impart the values of civilized, Christian living; it was also to facilitate a sympathetic and mature understanding of national and international problems. Mount Holyoke women were encouraged to seek placement in situations in which they could be of most service to the world, in which they could make the world a happier place.
In much the same manner as its Eastern counterparts, Milwaukee-Downer College gradually shifted its educational mission from simply imparting to students the values of civilized, Christian living to heightening their awareness of general social problems. The former approach, focused on instilling Christian values, had been set within the relatively narrow context of the family and the home and had been well exemplified in the education offered by both of Milwaukee-Downer's predecessor institutions.
Milwaukee College had educated young women to take the roles of homemakers and teachers and to shape the family and the home according to highest standards of Christian morality. Downer College had frankly viewed itself as a "handmaid" of religion, its primary responsibilities being the education of women to serve in the roles of Christian wives and mothers and the training of women for possible service as Christian missionaries. Of the two institutions, Downer had been by far the more overtly committed to the strengthening and perpetuation of Christianity, and the combined institution, Milwaukee-Downer College, under the direct influence of Ellen Sabin, herself a former president of Downer College, became heir to the Downer commitment.
Sabin was a consistent advocate of the Christian concept of "right conduct," always seeing it as a critical factor in character-building. Over time, during her administration, the concept of "right conduct" became increasingly associated with service to society, Sabin viewing such service as the obligation of every college-educated individual. In her own words, "Society looks to our colleges and universities for trained men and women who shall hold right and just views and fill responsible positions of trust and leadership."
College-educated women could perform service to society, outside the confines of the home, specifically through contributions to current literature, through work in the field of home economics, and through informed philanthropic work. Milwaukee-Downer women did indeed become involved in the work of such burgeoning social settlements as the University Settlement and the Jewish Settlement in Milwaukee. In essence, the school remained Christian and continued to adhere to the goal of character-building; what changed was its willingness to allow the influence of students and graduates to extend increasingly to the wider society outside.
Milwaukee-Downer as a LIberal Arts Institution: Its Curriculum
