The University of Edinburgh and the United States at 250 (part four)

Just because the Left and Right at the moment seem to have different levels of commitment to the American Revolution--and different conceptions of its meaning and legacy-- doesn’t mean that these positions will remain fixed. History is a never-ending colloquy between the past and present, shaped by the questions that preoccupy us in our time. Our preoccupations and concerns will change in the future and we (and our successors) will ask different questions of the past yielding new insights. Indeed, renewed attention to the era of the American Revolution in 2026 and beyond may be the catalyst for such a change. We may well be on the cusp of a new burst of scholarship and public interest in the founding of the United States and this volume, in small way, might be a harbinger of that change. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what this century’s equivalents of Bicentennial Minutes and McDonald’s placemats might yield among future historians presently in elementary school.  

The Edinburgh Connection 

Edinburgh has deep connections to the new United States. In 1776 more than ten percent of the University’s graduates came from the region. Three Edinburgh alumni  (four if we include Benjamin Franklin who received an honorary degree from the University) -- John Witherspoon, James Wilson and Benjamin Rush -- signed the American Declaration of Independence . (There is a plaque commemorating these signatories in the entrance to the courtyard by the Old Medical School behind McEwan Hall.)  Thomas Jefferson, the man who drafted the US Declaration of Independence, explained Edinburgh’s appeal to Americans. ‘As far as Science is the object’, he wrote to Edinburgh’s Professor of Moral Philosophy, Dugald Stewart, in 1789, ‘no place in the world can pretend to a competition with Edinburgh.' Three years earlier Jefferson had advised an eighteen-year-old Virginian studying in Edinburgh, ‘you are now in a place where the best courses upon earth are within your reach, and being delivered in your native language … Such an opportunity you will never again have. Jefferson urged the student (who would later become his son-in-law, a US Congressman, and serve as governor of Virginia) to pay particular attention to courses and lectures in natural science, mathematics and moral philosophy, subjects in which he believed Edinburgh was world-leading. Despite the fact that William Robertson, an historian, was the Principal of the University at that time Jefferson sniffed, 'While you are attending these courses you can proceed by yourself in a regular series of historical reading. It would be a waste of time to attend a professor of this.' Decades later, when he was helping to establish the University of Virginia, Jefferson sought to poach academics from Edinburgh to Charlottesville because, ‘Edinburgh standing on equal ground of science with any transatlantic place, and speaking the same language with ourselves, we look to that as most likely to furnish us advantageously [with faculty.]’   

The overwhelming majority of the students from the United States (and its antecedent colonies) in the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries studied medicine. Indeed, the majority of university-educated medical doctors in the early United States were Edinburgh graduates. Benjamin Silliman, a Yale professor who visited the Edinburgh medical school during the first decade of the nineteenth century, observed, ‘that there are at present twenty-five [Americans] in Edinburgh, and most of them are from States south of New England.’ Perhaps the most famous of these students was Benjamin Rush (1746-1813). Rush, born near Philadelphia, received his medical degree from Edinburgh in 1768. He was active in the movement for American independence, signing the US Declaration of Independence and serving from 1777–78 as surgeon-general of the Continental Army. He participated in a wide range of reform activities including supporting temperance, the abolition of slavery, health care for the poor and the mentally ill, prison reform, and education for women. Rush taught medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Rush was perhaps best known for his bravery during Philadelphia’s 1793 yellow fever epidemic.  

Divinity was another popular subject for American students during the period. One theology student from the US, John Mason, was the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister who had emigrated to the United States. The elder Mason sought to prepare his son for life in Scotland. ‘While in Britain, say little about your own country’ counseled Reverend Mason. He continued, ‘Speak respectfully of the British government, avoid controversy about the late contest between Britain and the United States, and do not directly or indirectly advise mechanics or farmers to leave the British dominions.’ Most of this advice holds true today. Another theology student, Henry B. McLellan, experienced culture shock when he arrived in Edinburgh in the early 1830s. McLellan, a recent Harvard graduate, was disappointed to hear Edinburgh students talking during lectures and shocked that many of his fellow students kept their hats on in lecture theatres. 

The number of US students at the University declined during the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The emergence of a full range of universities and liberal arts colleges in the United States meant that many Americans remained at home to study. Those who did go abroad were increasingly drawn to other European countries, particularly Germany, where educational reforms and improvements (including the introduction of the Ph.D. as a degree) led to the development of a more modern curriculum which attracted many Americans. During this period university study on both sides of the Atlantic was mainly confined to men (and small numbers of women) of means. This remained the case until the middle of the twentieth century.  

After the Second World War there was a boom in higher education that led to the democratization of universities on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States the federal government provided funding for millions of ex-service personnel to attend colleges and universities. Between 1944 and 1956 the United States government spent $14.5 billion to educate veterans under the terms of the GI Bill. All told 7.8 million veterans (50 percent of those who served) benefited from the programme of whom 2.2 million attended universities. Most of these were first-generation students. Just under 497,000 Americans (two-thirds of them men) received university degrees in 1950 compared to 216,500 in 1940. This expansion of the higher-education sector in the United States coincided with an increase in investment in colleges and universities. In addition to the GI Bill, which enabled individuals to go to university, many states invested in their public universities. The post-war boom in California’s population was accompanied by an expansion of the state’s higher education system as the University of California system set the standard for state-funded higher education in the United States. Other states such as Michigan, Texas and Ohio also made substantial investments in their public universities. 

The postwar expansion of US higher education coincided with the Cold War. At the same time that increasing numbers of students were attending colleges and universities in the United States the federal government expanded its funding for university research in science, technology, engineering and medicine to counter the perceived threat posed by the Soviet Union (the fear of which became acute after the USSR launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957). The US government also came to appreciate the value of soft power and encouraged the study of the United States in allied countries--providing funding for American Studies programmes at international universities. The US also provided visas and funding for foreign students to study in the US. Meanwhile, with the growth of US students numbers a growing number of American students began to study abroad--either as visiting students on exchange or doing full undergraduate or postgraduate degrees. One early postwar applicant to study in Edinburgh was  a young theology student from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania who expressed interest in doing a PhD in Divinity in 1950. He wrote, ‘For some time now I have had a great deal of interest in Edinburgh, and would like very much to study there. I would appreciate it very much if you would send me an application form, a catalogue of the Divinity school, and any information that would be valuable to me at this point. Please let me know of the possibilities of my entering in the fall term of 1951.’ Martin Luther King was admitted to the University in February 1951 but elected to attend Boston University instead. 

The UK became a favoured destination for many American students--back in 1786 Thomas Jefferson had recognised the attraction of courses ‘delivered in your native language’ and the US and UK governments sought to foster closer cultural links between their countries under the auspices of institutions such as the Fulbright and Marshall commissions. Edinburgh, which emerged as an important destination for US (and other) tourists with the advent of the Edinburgh International and the Fringe festivals in 1947 emerged as an attractive destination for US students. In 1975 Edinburgh completed one of its first international exchanges with the University of Pennsylvania. By the 1980s dozens of US students came to Edinburgh each year on exchanges as well as a growing number coming for undergraduate and postgraduate study. An exchange student from the University of Pennsylvania who studied politics in Edinburgh in the late 1980s recently told me that the experience changed her life. ‘The tutorial system in Edinburgh suited me much better than the lectures I attended at Penn. Edinburgh taught me how to think for myself. I believe I learned more in a year in Edinburgh than three years at Penn.’ Presently the University welcomes hundreds of visiting students from the United States each year.

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