Growth of an American Invention A Documentary History of the Junior and Community College Movement

"Diener has pulled together into a single volume some of the outstanding documents that are representative of the historical development of the American Community College. As one reviews the growth of higher education in this country one can come to only one logical observation: a major goal...has been increasing access to higher education and to continuing or lifelong education. The mission of the American college has been to develop leadership for the nation: political leadership, economic leadership, social leadership, religious leadership, and community leadership. This same mission was a major emphasis in the newly developing universities during the nineteenth century. With the democratic emphasis on opening avenues to leadership roles and the need to increase access in order to keep those avenues open to the whole structure of American society, there had to be an ever increasing number of alternative roads to higher and continuing education. The statements of the university presidents of that period emphasize this need..." -- Foreword, page xii.