Before 1850s, what was an American college used for?

Before 1850s, the United States had a number of small colleges, most of them dating back to colonial days.(4)They were small, church-connected institutions whose primary concern was to shape the moral character of their students. Between the mid-century and the end of the 1800’s, more than nine thousand young Americans went to Germany for advanced study.(5)Some of them return to become presidents of colleges—Harvard, Yale, Columbia—and transform them into modern universities.
    The new presidents broke all ties with the churches and brought in a new kind of faculty. Professors were hired for their knowledge of a subject. The new principle was that a university was to create knowledge as well as pass it on. Graduate training leading to the PhD was introduced.(6)The new university greatly expanded in size and course offerings, breaking completely out of the old, constricted curriculum of mathematics, classics, rhetoric, and music. The president of Harvard pioneered the elective system, by which students were able to choose their own course of study. The notion of major fields of study emerged. Students were also trained as economists, architects, agriculturalists, social welfare workers, and teachers.