Princeton in the Nation's Service

P.C. Kemeny argues against the conventional idea that Protestantism effectively ceased to play an important role in American higher education around the end of the 19th century. Choosing Princeton as an example, Kemeny shows that Protestantism was not abandoned but rather modified to conform to the educational values and intellectual standards of the modern university. Drawing upon a wealth of neglected primary sources, Kemeny examines what was happening at Princeton both inside and outside the chapel and the classroom, and shows that religious and secular commitments were not neatly divisible but rather commingled.