The move towards university-based dental education institutions…

The move towards university-based dental education institutions (as they exist today) begins on July 17, 1867, with the formation of Harvard Dental School, the first university-based dental school.

Most dental practitioners in the early nineteenth century had either learned their "trade" through apprenticeships, or had simply offered their services to the public as self-proclaimed experts.

The move toward more formal dental education in the United States had begun when the state of Maryland chartered the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery in 1840.

The establishment of this independent college, which may have occurred after the University of Maryland refused to add dental education to its curriculum, exemplifies the nineteenth-century debate over whether dentistry should be part of scholarly education, or be taught in separate "trade" schools.

As a result of this resistance, the four American dental schools in existence by 1865 are all freestanding.