Vanguard’s Pivot Away From the Cult of Bogle Irks Loyalists

Jack Bogle is gone. But head west from Philadelphia, toward the leafy borough of Malvern, Pennsylvania, and turn onto the Vanguard Group campus. There’s old Jack, cast in bronze, surveying his singular creation: Vanguard, the mutual-fund giant that changed everything.

At Vanguard’s headquarters, 117 miles and a world away from Wall Street, Bogle’s figurative heirs are charting new paths for his quirky company, that great popularizer of low-cost index funds.

The changes might seem quintessentially Vanguardian: slow, steady, even a bit boring. But to diehard fans, what’s at stake is the very soul of Vanguard, a colossus that oversaw $8 ...