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By Root 473 0

is one of the most important factors blocking reforms that are so desperately needed. The story begins in 1798 in Immanuel Kant’s small town in Prussia, where Kant was better known to his neighbors and local shopkeepers for the punctuality of his daily walks than for his transformative philosophical vision that marks the transition to the modern world. His philosophy, which has been dubbed critical philosophy, had redefined the nature of knowledge, recast the foundations of morality and religion, summed up the Enlightenment, framed the guiding principles of the French Revolution, and first proposed the definition of art that became normative for the entire history of modernism. Kant’s interests were not merely theoretical; to the contrary, he always insisted that in some of its capacities reason must be guided by practical interests that have concrete implications for daily life in the real world.

The practical impact of Kant’s abstract and often difficult philosophy has nowhere been more directly felt than in the history of the modern university. Kant lived during a period of enormous change, when the early stages of the industrial revolution were transforming the economy and creating great human suffering and social upheaval. These developments gave rise to doubts and uncertainties that called into question long-held beliefs and well-established institutions. It was also a time of widespread political turmoil throughout Europe. The ancien régime was collapsing, and the modern nation-state was taking shape.

Such rapid change had a significant impact on higher education. Prior to the modern period, the dominant model for the university throughout Europe was the medieval university. During the Dark Ages (ca. 476–999), learning throughout the West was confined to monasteries or schools associated with local cathedrals like Paris, Chartres, Rheims and Utrecht. The most important of these schools were under the direction of prominent teachers who exercised considerable influence in shaping the texts and traditions that were handed down to later generations. As the economy improved and society revived, the growing population migrated to rapidly expanding cities. During the Middle Ages (ca. 1000–1517), major universities were founded in leading European urban centers. With the shift from local schools to urban universities, education became more expansive and educators more cosmopolitan. However, there were limits, which in time became barriers to further development: medieval universities were closely associated with the church, and religious education as well as theological training formed an important part of their mission. But the world was changing; travel increased with the growth of commerce and trade and with repeated Christian crusades to recover the Holy Land, which had fallen into the hands of Islamic “infidels,” and as Europeans ventured farther afield they came into contact with different cultures and intellectual traditions. These developments set in motion changes that eventually would bring about the end of the Middle Ages and lead to the modern world.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the medieval system of education was no longer functional. Educational institutions had to be transformed to meet new societal needs. Most important, nascent nation-states replaced the churches as patrons of higher education. When the source of funding shifted from church to state, the purpose of education changed. Universities struck a deal with states: in return for dependable funding, they would provide an educated workforce to fill positions in rapidly expanding administrative bureaucracies—civil servants, professionals and businessmen. A win-win system.

Kant recognized the far-reaching implications of the changes and in 1798 published a treatise entitled The Conflict of the Faculties, in which he provided the blueprint for the modern university. In his remarkably prescient opening paragraph, he applied the central principles of his overall philosophical vision to the structure of the university:

Whoever it was that