Bowdoin College

Two guiding ideas suffuse Bowdoin’s mission. The first, from the College of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, defines education in terms of a social vision. “Literary institutions are founded and endowed for the common good, and not for the private advantage of those who resort to them . . . but that their mental powers may be cultivated and improved for the benefit of society” (President Joseph McKeen’s inaugural address, 1802); “To lose yourself in generous enthusiasms and cooperate with others for common ends . . . ; this is the offer of the College” (President William DeWitt Hyde, 1903). The second idea stresses the formation of a complete individual for a world in flux: there is an intrinsic value in a liberal arts education of breadth and depth, beyond the acquisition of specific knowledge, that will enable a thinking person “to be at home in all lands and all ages” (President Hyde).