Which was founded earlier, Amherst College or the University of Pittsburgh?
Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its president, Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher education in Massachusetts. The institution was named after the town, which in turn had been named after Lord Jeffery Amherst. Amherst was established as a men's college and became coeducational in 1975.
History of New York University The history of New York University begins in the early 19th century. A group of prominent New York City residents from the city's landed class of merchants, bankers, and traders established NYU on April 18, 1831. These New Yorkers believed the city needed a university designed for young men who would be admitted based on merit, not birthright or social class. Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson, described his motivation in a letter to a friend: "It appeared to me impossible to preserve our democratic institutions and the right of universal suffrage unless we could raise the standard of general education and the mind of the laboring classes nearer to a level with those born under more favorable circumstances." To the school's founders, the classical curriculum offered at American colonial colleges needed to be combined with a more modern and practical education. Educators in Paris, Vienna, and London were beginning to consider a new form of higher learning, where students began to focus not only on the classics and religion, but also modern languages, philosophy, history, political economy, mathematics, and physical science; so students might become merchants, bankers, lawyers, physicians, architects, and engineers. Although the new school would be non-denominational – unlike many American colonial colleges, which at the time offered classical educations centered on theology – the founding of NYU was also a reaction by evangelical Presbyterians to what they perceived as the Episcopalianism of Columbia College.