The development of higher education in colonial times

Of the nine colleges established before the Revolution, viz. Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth, only four, Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth and Princeton, have followed closely the lines first laid out. They have always been most conservative and have not been inclined to get away from the emphasis of the study of the classics which they had taken from the English universities.