Anglophilia of Colonial Era
For young men like Adams, the value of a higher education lay not in professional training but elsewhere.
It derived from the belief that a course of learning endowed those who completed it with cultural
attributes that were signs of superior status . This was by no means a crude , calculating attitude , but
rather one composed of multiple , scarcely conscious , sets of values . The ability to quote a Greek
maxim in a legal brief was not essential but helpful. More important was the prevailing conviction that
those who had sharpened their minds on the complexities of Greek thought would be better able as a
result to deal with the day - to - day problems of trespass and contract. Most important was the
awareness that colonial society still put a premium on and assigned practical rewards to people who
could display such signs of gentlemanly rank as command of the classics.
Thelin, John R.. A History of American Higher Education (p. 36). Johns Hopkins University Press.