Higher education plays a significant role in shaping our cultural identity. Yet, in this ever-changing world, it's important to consider what adjustments American universities are making-or need to make-to meet the dynamic societal requirements.

Change is often challenging for large institutions, and academia is no different. The contributors to this issue of The Annals take a hard look at current changes in higher education and propose further modification for the American university in the coming decades.

The issue opens with a blueprint for change that looks at the...

Higher education plays a significant role in shaping our cultural identity. Yet, in this ever-changing world, it's important to consider what adjustments American universities are making-or need to make-to meet the dynamic societal requirements.

Change is often challenging for large institutions, and academia is no different. The contributors to this issue of The Annals take a hard look at current changes in higher education and propose further modification for the American university in the coming decades.

The issue opens with a blueprint for change that looks at the...

Peter Ditchfield (1854-1930) was a graduate of Oriel College, Oxford, and sometime Inspector of Schools for Diocese Of Oxford. He was Rector of Barkham from 1886 until his death. A leading Freemason, he was Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of England as well as of the Mark Grand Lodge. He was a passionate historian of old England and wrote about English sporting customs, cathedrals, ancient guilds, village folk traditions, and in this volume about the byways of London. The destruction of parts of the old city during World War II makes this a valuable source of architectural history."

Sir Alfred Rawlinson, the son of a famous Orientalist and envoy to Persia, was himself a pioneer aviator, celebrated sportsman, and important British intelligence officer. As a colonel in the British intelligence corps, he played a significant role in the Middle East. His capture, imprisonment, and unhappy deprivations at the hands of the Turks was in its time a celebrated incident. Since the concept of Orientalism was popularized by Edward Said, the notion that views of the Muslim world were colored and slanted by Western prejudices has revised attitudes of the British imperial cadre that...

Charles W. Eliot was the longest tenured Harvard president and one of the founders of the modern American university. He became an iconic figure in American life, called upon for opinions on virtually every subject under the sun. His "five foot shelf" of books that everyone should read became a staple in the American home, and when inscriptions were to be chiseled on the fronts of post offices and libraries, it was to Eliot that an appeal was made for apt words. A dedicated Unitarian whose son, Samuel Eliot, became president of the denomination, he had a pragmatic and common sense approach to...

The collecting of autographs of American presidents is done with a passion that is not found about similar figures in other countries. Canadian prime ministers or Finnish presidents are not the focus of hobbyists. The enthusiasm of getting a set of presidential signatures is something of a comment on the energetic American historical emphasis on the country's chief executives. Even in George Washington's time there were forgers who allegedly would produce a Washington letter for a drink at a tavern, so the authenticity of Presidents is a subject marked by intrigue and misadventure. Paul C....

The Reverend Thomas Starr King left the amenities of bookish and comfortable Boston, where he was lionized as a charismatic and courageous preacher, to take a struggling Unitarian pulpit in a San Francisco that in the 1850s was hardly the sophisticated city that it is today. He soon found himself involved in the desperate fight to keep California in the Union and slave free. Not coincidentally, he became Grand Chaplain of the Masonic Grand Lodge of California, joining brother freemasons in the struggle against succession.

James Martineau was for more than four decades a professor in what is now Oxford's Harris Manchester College. His theology integrates the very personal in religious experience with the transcendent and seeks to infuse daily living with the sense of divinity. He retained a sense of awe which rationalism sometimes excludes, and in some ways anticipated Albert Schweitzer's ideas of reverence for life. Notably, Schweitzer also had connections with Harris Manchester.

The Pearl Harbor attack, which launched United States participation in World War II, has been the subject of endless speculation as to how much President Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance about Japanese intentions, about the state of readiness of American forces in Hawaii, and about the handling of raw intelligence that might have spurred the American military to preparations. The attack itself was the subject of enormously interesting reports from reporters in the field. These were originally produced in a very limited circulation collection, which is here presented as original material for...

Possibly the formal study of book plates can be dated to the work of Lord de Tabley in the 1880s. He attempted a schema of British plates, starting with the pre-Reformation period and identifying Jacobean, Queen Anne and Georgian styles. Plates as a reflection of the times have continued to multiply and, with the advent of the ebook, a growing number of plates are appended to electronic books. Royal bookplates, as this volume illustrates, are an important aspect of the subject. A Guide to the Study of Book-Plates (Ex-Libris), by Lord de Tabley (then the Hon. J. Leicester Warren M.A.) was...