The Victoria College, 1925-2000: A Tradition of Excellence

CHAPTER 1
GENESIS
The junior college movement in America began in the early 1850s. The initial thrust came, as far as
can be determined, from Henry Phillips Tappan, an admirer of the German education system and president
of the University of Michigan. Prior to his becoming the chief administrator at the state university,
he proposed in 1851 that in order to establish a distinct university, the first two years of higher
education should be designed to emphasize material that is essential for the development of a literate
person and to adequately prepare a student for the specialized studies taught at the university. Before
the decade ended, William L. Mitchell, a member of the board of trustees at the University of Georgia,
expressed the opinion of the board that too many of the all-male student body enrolled in that university
were not properly prepared for the demands of scholarly study. He argued “that the foundation of
failure, if not of ruin, is laid in the Freshman and Sophomore years of college life.” Mitchell therefore
formulated a plan separating the first two years of study from the last two. Neither Tappan’s nor
Mitchell’s innovative ideas became a reality, but their concepts were harbingers of what was to come. 1
Sentiment for a two-year educational institution ebbed and flowed as the nation made its way to
a new century. In 1851, the same year that Tappan made his unusual proposal, Lasell College, a private
school at Arburndale, Massachusetts, “offered two years of standard collegiate instruction” for
women. Four years after the end of the Civil War, the president of the University of Minnesota,
William Watts Folwell, took up the battle cry. In his inaugural address, he called for a system where
“a youth could remain at the high school or academy, residing in his home, until he had reached a
point, say, somewhere near the end of the sophomore year…Then [he could] emigrate to the university.”
Negative reaction to Folwell’s speech in the academic circles was nil, causing the president
to remark that the reason the proposal “was not openly and vigorously denounced was due to the
fact that it was not understood, or if understood, was not taken seriously.” 2
By the 1890s, a wind of acceptance for reform blew across the educational landscape. In 1892,
William Rainey Harper, first president of the University of Chicago, took advantage of the climatic
change by placing the first two years of the university into the Academic College and the next two
years into the University College. Four years later the respective designations became known as the
Junior College and the Senior College. Harper’s reference to the first two years of higher learning as
a junior college may have been the first use of the term. The University of Chicago also holds the
distinction of awarding the first associate of arts degree to graduates of the Junior College. The university’s
successful two-year educational scheme inspired the formation of private and public junior
colleges throughout the nation. In 1901, the Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Illinois, was created as an
extension of the high school, making it the oldest public junior college in the United States.
Afterwards, the number of two-year schools rose sharply. By 1909, there existed 20 junior
colleges. Thirteen years later the figure had increased to over 200. Two-year colleges, most of which
were private, were located in 38 states. They were most numerous in California, a reflection of that
state’s willingness to embrace the junior college concept. 3
In his narrative, The Junior College, published by the United States Bureau of Education in 1919,
F. M. McDowell suggested four principal reasons that motivated popularity of the junior college.
First, universities encouraged the development as a means of reducing or eliminating their general
courses required of all freshmen and sophomore students which allowed them to concentrate on the
specialized upper division and graduate classes. Second, teacher colleges became junior colleges
because of the perceived need to offer collegiate work and not limit themselves solely to pedagogical
subjects. Third, colleges with small enrollments were not academically strong enough to offer fouryear
programs that adequately met accreditation. Fourth, the junior college as a component of the
high school was an evolutionary step of the public education system. The addition of grades twelve,
thirteen, and fourteen allowed students who could not leave their communities to attend a four-year
✯
On February 4, 1925, Frank H.
Crain, Sr., made the motion to
establish the Victoria Junior College.
Genesis ✦ 7