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3 2 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3of the country.” 18 The growing sectarianism in the Union caused religiousand political rivalries, and even feuds in colleges both within and betweendenominations. 19 While there was much competition in the free market ofhigher education between rival colleges, there was rarely toleration for viewsthat even appeared to run counter to an understood theological positionwithin an institution. Employees and professors who expressed “unorthodoxviews” were threatened with termination or fired. 20 The history of Christianeducation is one in which the learning environment was rigidly closed. Tolerancewas not a virtue.Some contend that denominationalism increased in the late 1800s, evenas early as 1850. 21 This development caused some college presidents to lamentthe rise of sectarian colleges as a “grievous and growing evil” and thus disastrousfor liberal education. 22 The developments led to a curriculum that madelearning useless to the needs of the young republican government. Accordingto historian David B. Potts, it was rare that narrow denominational interestsdrove college presidents or their boards. Institutions before 1850 weremore involved in their community and less denominational. Colleges drewtheir students, and their funding, from the surrounding community. Collegeswere essentially local. Because they were community oriented, theyreflected the diversity of the local populace. However, after 1850, with the rise18Thomas G. West, “The Transformation of Protestant Theology as a Condition of the AmericanRevolution,” in Protestantism and the American Founding, ed. Thomas S. Engeman and Michael P.Zuckert (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004), 204. As West notes, this began tochange in 1715 when Yale received a gift of modern philosophy books from Jeremiah Drummer. Thegift had the effect of converting some to “new learning.”19Beverly McAnear, “College Founding in the American Colonies, 1745–1775,” Mississippi HistoricalReview 42 (1955): 27; Ringenberg, Christian College, 39. Yale was not a tolerant school. In additionto firing “heretical” faculty and administration, it expelled two students in 1744 for attending thewrong (in this case a “new light”) religious service when they were in town. And they were expelleddespite being on vacation. The president of Yale sent them packing because even their action allowedtoo much of the pluralism of the age to seep into the institution. “New lights” accepted and even likedrevivalism, while “old lights” found revivalism a threat to the authority of the church. The presidentof the college (Clapp) was a heresy hunter. He fired many tutors and forbade books to be taught in theclassroom that he deemed “heretical.” Though the college lost money and was on the brink of financialruin, it was kept afloat by the charismatic Clapp until the 1760s. Clapp was such an authoritarian thatthe townspeople and students of the college finally had enough, rioted, and damaged his home in1765, forcing his resignation in 1766. See Marsden, Soul of the American University, 52–53, 55–56.20Ringenberg, Christian College, 83. Sometimes these theological positions were understood only bythe administration. In other words, they tended to be arbitrary.21David B. Potts, “American Colleges in the Nineteenth Century: From Localism to Denominationalism,”History of Education Quarterly 11 (Winter 1971): 363.22Quoted in ibid., 364. The quote is from Presbyterian theologian Philip Lindsley, president of theUniversity of Nashville. Julian Sturtevant, president of Illinois College, also found liberal education tobe under threat from the growing sectarianism of many colleges.