Criminology in Northwestern University 1851-1951

Abstract

In this introductory article I attempt to point out some of the fruitful movements related to Criminology in which Northwestern University has been active. The University has been directly or indirectly responsible for starting some of them; others it has not only launched but fostered continuously. It is proper to recall, first of all, that the mere founding of the University and of similar institutions in the midwest about a hundred years ago, can be interpreted as expressing a conscious or subconscious urge of the founders and their followers toward security and order in public and private life; toward a smoothly functioning society of selfdisciplined men and women as a substitute for the every-fellow-forhimself-and-the-Devil-take-the-hindmost type of individualism which was ominous during many years preceding 1851, and which yielded but slowly thereafter. Every one of these institutions, at its founding, was a sign of long continued aspiration toward the higher values of life and of a protest, even a rebellion against the sordid, unruly and lawless features of the times. But even the best-intentioned men could not, by one motion, lay down the framework, shafts and gears of what would shortly become a social mechanism operating as smoothly and as accurately as a ship chronoscope. It was a period of almost inconceivably rapid development under forced draft.