^-^^ 
 
 
 
 5^"^. 
 
 
 ^'^.•l^^ 
 
 
 
 ^o. 
 
 
 .<? "^^ 
 
 «^^ 
 
 'bV 
 
 ^^-n^. 
 
 •^0^ 
 
 
 'bV" 
 
 

 >'^ *!••- 
 
 
 
 ;.-..•- ^W ^ ♦..1 
 
 .H^e. 
 
 
 
 
 ' /\-^£;:.\ /,'MC\ /*/^.\ 
 
 
 > \'^^V "o*^^-/ \-^?^v 
 
 
 
 
 
 .4°* 
 
 
REPORT 
 
 PROPOSITION TO MODIFY 
 
 PLAN OF OSTPiUCTION 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, 
 
 MADE TO THE 
 
 I'amltjj ai tlje EniljeoitiJ, 
 
 Read before the Faculty, Sept. 21, and before the Board of Trusteesj 
 
 Sept. 26, 1854. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., 346 and 348 BROADWAY. 
 
 185 5. 
 
Baker, Godwin & Co., Pkinters, 
 No. 1 Spruce St., 
 New York. 
 
PREFATORY. 
 
 At a meeting of tlie Faculty of the University of Alabama, held on 
 Friday, the 14th day of July, 1854, the following paper was read by the 
 President : — 
 
 The President of the Board, and the Trustees now present, are unanimously 
 in favor of modifying the present system of instruction in the University of 
 Alabama, and respectfully request the Faculty of the University to report to an 
 adjourned meeting of the Board, on Monday, the 25th of September next, the 
 plan and details for the initiation and continuance of a system, conforming, as 
 near as our circumstances will allow, to the arrangements in the University of 
 Virginia. 
 
 John A. Winston. 
 
 Wm. H. Forney. 
 
 John N. Malone. 
 
 Ed. Baptist. 
 
 H. W. Collier. 
 University of Ala., July 12, 185-i. 
 
 This paper was referred to a committee appointed by the President, 
 consisting of Professors F. A. P. Barnard, John W. Pratt, and George 
 Benagh ; which committee was instructed to report to the Faculty at an 
 adjourned meeting, to be held on Monday, the 18th of September. On 
 that day the Faculty accordingly re-assembled ; but adjourned without 
 transacting business, in consequence of the absence of the President. 
 At a called meeting, on Thursday, the 21st, the committee reported in 
 explicit compliance with the terms of the request of the Board of Trus- 
 tees ; and the report which follows, was subsequently presented by Pro- 
 fessor Barnard, on behalf of himself and Professor Pratt, of the majority. 
 It was ordered by the Faculty, at a subsequent meeting, that this docu- 
 ment should be communicated to the Board of Trustees. The report was 
 accordingly read before that body, on Tuesday and Wednesday, the 26th 
 and 2'7th of September. The deliberations of the Board resulted, how- 
 ever, in the adoption neither of the plan originally suggested in the 
 paper above given, nor of that recommended in this report ; but of one 
 
•1 PKEFATORT. 
 
 wlucli mny perhaps be regarded as an experiment substantially new ; con- 
 servative, in the main, of the features of the existing college system, but 
 providing opportunity for such departures fi'om it, in particular cases, as 
 the judgment of the Faculty shall approve. The nature of this plan 
 may be more particularly gathered from the following ordinance : — 
 
 1. That the studies now pursued in the University, the extent to which they 
 are carried, and the number of recitations heard by each officer, shall remain as 
 nt present established, as near as may be. 
 
 2. Tliat twelve recitations shall be heard upon each day of the week, except 
 Sunday. The Faculty may, in their discretion, reduce the number of recitations 
 upon Saturdny, so that there be not less than four upon that day. 
 
 3. Tliat the recitations of each day shall be assigned by the Faculty to the 
 different hours in such a manner that a student, by taking three recitations per 
 day, may accomjilish all the studies taught in the University in four years. In 
 doing this, the recitations of the Professor of Ancient Languages, the Tutor of 
 Ancient Languages, and the Professor of Modern Languages, may be assigned to 
 the same hours; 'so, also, those of the Professors of Mixed Mathematics and Pure 
 Mathematics ; also, those of the Professors of Chemistry and Geology. All other 
 recitations must be assigned to hours at which no others are held. 
 
 4. Each student under the age of twenty-one years, desiring to select a par- 
 ticular study, shall be required to produce from his parent or guardian, if he 
 has one, a written declaration of the special object of the applicant in coming to 
 the University ; and the Faculty shall then jircscribe for him the course of study 
 which will accomplish his object in the shortest time and in the best manner, 
 liaving regard to the next two provisions. 
 
 5. Every student must have three recitations a day, as near as may be. 
 
 6. A student shall not enter upon the study he maj' select, until he has passed 
 such an examination as will satisfy the Faculty that he may, by proper applica- 
 tion, prosecute it successfully. 
 
 7. Upon a student's eomjaleting, and standing an approved examination upon, 
 all the studies in any department, he shall receive the degree of graduate in that 
 department, and a certificate bearing the seal of the University, and delivered at 
 commencement, in the usual mode. 
 
 8. The degree of Bachelor of Arts shall be conferred upon a student only 
 after he shall have passed approved examinations upon all the studies taught in 
 the University, 
 
 9. Honorary degrees shall not be conferred by tliis University, except by a 
 unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees. 
 
 10. All laws or ordinances, or jiarts of the same, now existing, which conflict 
 with the foregoing ordinance, are hereby repealed. 
 
REPORT. 
 
 The undersigned, a majority of the Committee ap- 
 pointed by tlie Faculty of the University of Alabama, 
 to consider and report on a request emanating from 
 certain members of the Board of Trustees, in regard to 
 a re organization of the plan of instruction in the Uni- 
 versity, having consented to unite with the minority in 
 a literal compliance with the request alluded to, and 
 having discharged that duty, beg leave respectfully to 
 present certain distinct views of their own, having a 
 bearing on the general question raised by the proposi- 
 tion referred to them, and also on the considerations out 
 of which, as they have reason to believe, this proposition 
 has grown. 
 
 Change, it is hardly necessary to say, will never be 
 sought for its own sake. Whenever and wherever there 
 arises a steady and earnest demand for a new order of 
 things in regard to matters which deeply concern man- 
 kind, whether they be affairs of state or systems of 
 education, it is obvious, from the very nature of the 
 interests involved, that the degree to which this demand 
 is real and sincere, must be matter of easy ascertain- 
 
RETORT. 
 
 ment. And wlieii, to a majority of the community, the 
 existence of a general feeling of dissatisfaction with the 
 actual state of things is entirely unsuspected and imper- 
 ceptil)le, it may well be questioned whether the impres- 
 sions of a few, however decided, can be wisely accepted 
 as of more weight in evidence than the tranquil content- 
 ment of nearly all beside. 
 
 It is by no means the belief of the undersigned, that 
 those members of the Board whose names are appended 
 to the request, which has led to the appointment of this 
 Committee, are all of them, by previous conviction, in 
 favor of the introduction into this University of the 
 system of which they ask for the details. It is quite 
 sufficient to suppose that the request was dictated by a 
 desire, on the one hand, to know explicitly and defi- 
 nitely what it is which it is proposed to substitute here, 
 in place of a system that, if not the best, has, neverthe- 
 less, the sanction of some centuries of experiment, and 
 the present support of the general suffrage; and an 
 equal desire, on the other, to satisfy the outside advo- 
 cates of change, that the Board are always willing to 
 examine any project for the improvement of the Uni- 
 versity, which, in the view of any friend of the cause 
 of education, may deserve their deliberate attention. 
 Those members of the Board to whom this inquiry is 
 owing, are therefore regarded by the undersigned as 
 occupying, equally with their colleagues, the attitude of 
 judges, whose opinions are jet to be expressed, and not 
 that of partizans, who are waiting only to act upon a 
 judgment already formed. 
 
REPORT. 
 
 The friends of the University, whose suggestions to 
 the members of the Board have probably occasioned 
 the present inquiry, appear to have been laboring under 
 some impressions which a candid examination of facts 
 cannot fail to dispel. These are — 
 
 1st. That the actual state of the University is not 
 prosperous ; 
 
 2d. That the number of students is smaller than is 
 usual in colleges of equal standing in years ; 
 
 3d. That there really exists an outside demand for 
 a radical re-organization of the University, powerful 
 enough, if resisted, to sweep down opposition before 
 
 it; ■ . 
 
 4th. That neither the Trustees nor the Faculty 
 have heretofore given thought to the possibility of 
 introducing improvement into the institution ; but that 
 both bodies have manifested indifference to the spirit of 
 progress which characterizes the age. 
 
 In speaking of the prosperity of an institution of 
 learning, the general public seem to regard but a single 
 criterion — -that of the number of students it attracts, or 
 succeeds in retaining. But this is a test which serves 
 very ill to enable us to judge either of the value of the 
 institution as a part of the educational machinery of the 
 State, or of the esteem in which it is held by the sur- 
 rounding people. It is perfectly well known to the 
 undersigned, that many who would be students of the 
 University are prevented from being so now, not 
 because of any objection to the course of study here 
 
REPORT. 
 
 prescribed, but because of what they please to consider 
 the too great severity of the tests imposed to secure a 
 certain respectable degree of scholarship and attain- 
 ment. Could the Faculty be induced to think it wise 
 to permit a material degradation of the standard of 
 scholarship insisted on in this University, there can be 
 no doubt that, without any other change whatever, an 
 immediate and large increase of numbers might be 
 realized. It is often charged that this Faculty is more 
 severe in its exactions than that of any other college in 
 the Southwestern States. Upon such an assertion it is 
 not for the undersigned to express any opinion. The 
 Faculty of the University of Alabama have acted with- 
 out reference to what may or may not be demanded 
 elsewhere. They have aimed but at the single object 
 of making this institution one in which scholars may be 
 formed worthy to be compared with those who issue 
 from the celebrated and time-honored Universities of 
 the older States. "Whether in this they have succeeded 
 or not, there can be no doubt, since it is matter of 
 pretty frequent complaint, that they have set up here 
 what is generally regarded as a high standard of schol- 
 arship. They have secured to the University of 
 Alabama the respect of the surrounding community, 
 and that of sister institutions throughout the country. 
 To say that, in regard to the great ultimate ends for 
 which colleges are instituted, there has been any faihire 
 here, or that there exists a want of a prosperity of the 
 noblest kind, is at once unreasonable and absurd. 
 
REPORT. 
 
 But in regard to tlie point of numbers. There is 
 not, we must admit, a large number of students in this 
 University, if we compare catalogues with Harvard or 
 Yale, or even with the State institutions of North and 
 South Carolina. But Harvard and Yale have several 
 thousand living alumni; and the two last-mentioned 
 colleges have several hundred — perhaps not less than a 
 thousand — each. All of these old institutions are, or 
 have been, the direct beneficiaries of the States to 
 which they belong, or of many of their wealthy 
 citizens ; and they thus secure that interest and those 
 sympathies from the surrounding communities, which 
 all men bestow upon the objects they have befriended 
 and cherished. The adult population of Alabama is 
 yet mainly immigrant ; the affections of the fathers of 
 our youth still cling around the homes of their child- 
 hood, and their spirits still do homage at those shrines 
 of learning, where they themselves, perhaps, were first 
 imbued with the love of letters. In addition to this, 
 there are growing up in this State, as in every other, 
 institutions endowed and patronized by particular 
 religious denominations ; which cannot fail, even though 
 they should offer advantages for mere intellectual ci^l- 
 ture much inferior to those which the University pre- 
 sents, to draw around them many who would otherwise 
 swell our numbers. Nor has this institution yet a hold 
 on the feeling of State pride, such as so powerfully 
 sustains the State Universities of the two Carolinas and 
 of Virginia. The population itself is too heterogeneous, 
 
10 REPORT. 
 
 and too newly thrown together, to heave learned even 
 to recognize the feeling ; and this feeling, so far as it is 
 represented at all, is at present but humbly represented 
 by a sort of sentiment of common interest. All these 
 considerations are unfavorable to the growth of an insti- 
 tution erected in the midst of a people like this, by 
 funds not contributed by themselves, interesting them 
 by no associations connected with the past, and allying 
 itself with no sympathies of theirs which may be linked 
 with the present, or may extend to the future. 
 
 Under circumstances like these, ought it not to be 
 a great thing, if the University is able to command 
 from Alabama an attendance as large, in proportion to 
 population, as the University of Virginia commands 
 from the people of Virginia? The name of the Sage 
 of Monticello ous^ht itself alone to be a sufficient 
 guaranty for a host of youthful devotees at the altar 
 which he reared to learning. The tone of exultant 
 pride, in which every Virginian alludes to this endur- 
 ing monument of the wisdom of Jefferson, would seem 
 to indicate that no other institution could have a 
 charm like this, to fill the imagination of a native of 
 the Old Dominion. And, to leave speculation aside, 
 it is in fact universally admitted, that the University 
 of Virginia is a flourishing and prosperous institution. 
 Now, in comparing that University with ours, in regard 
 to numbers, we must manifestly reject from both cata- 
 logues all students from beyond the limits of t]je 
 respective States. We must remember how many of 
 
REPORT. 11 
 
 the sons of Virginia have emigrated South and West ; 
 we must remember what attractive associations cluster 
 around the name of the patriot founder ; we must bear 
 in mind how easily, by means of the immense railway 
 system of the Atlantic States, students even from our 
 own borders may reach the Virginia University, more 
 quickly and more agreeably than they can our own. 
 Of this species of advantages we have not one. Hence 
 we confine the comparison strictly to the numbers fur- 
 nished by the respective States in which the Universi- 
 ties are situated, alone. 
 
 The catalogue of the University of Virginia, last 
 published (for 1853-54), shows a total, of students 
 belonging to Virginia, of 289. But, as a considerable 
 number of these are students of law and medicine, 
 they certainly, in a comparison like this, are not to be 
 counted. By a careful enumeration, it appears that 
 the number of these professional students belonging to 
 Virginia is 126. The students in the Department of 
 Arts are therefore only 163. According to the United 
 States Census for 1850, the total white population of 
 Virginia was, in that year, 894,800. The same authority 
 gives the total white population of Alabama, at the 
 same time, as 426,514. According to these figures, if 
 the University of Virginia is prosperous while the 
 State furnishes it one hundred and sixty-three students 
 of Arts, ours ought to be equally so, so long as we 
 have as many as seventy-seven. But the catalogue of 
 the University of Alabama, published last November, 
 
12 REPORT. 
 
 coutaius tlie names of ninety-eiglit students of Arts 
 from Alabama ; and, if we add those who were admitted 
 after the publication of the catalogue, we shall have 
 one hundred and seven. Is there any ground, then, for 
 asserting that our numbers are feeble; or that Ala- 
 bama does not patronize her own University as well as 
 other States do theirs ? Should the assertion be still 
 adhered to, it can be established only by comparison 
 with some State institution in which the close, instead 
 of the open, system of instruction is maintained ; and 
 hence the whole inference, which it has been sought to 
 derive from this fact, will fall to the ground. 
 
 In truth, the comparison just made is most disas- 
 trous to the claims of the Virginia system, as it respects 
 its actual popularity. For, be it observed, a main 
 reason why we are urged to adopt that system is, that 
 the existing one is so hopelessly unpopular as to render 
 some destructive outbreak in the legislature, or among 
 the people, all but absolutely inevitable. Yet, unpop- 
 ular as it is (if these assumptions are true), it is mani- 
 festly, as the figures themselves show, nearly fifty per 
 cent, more popular in Alabama, than the system of the 
 Virginia University is in Virginia. 
 
 Upon the question of success as tested by numbers? 
 these remarks may, perhaps, be esteemed sufficient. 
 Yet there are one or two passages relating to this 
 point, in the report made to the Board of Trustees 
 of this University at their session in July, 1852, by the 
 President of the University, so forcible and conclusive. 
 
REPORT. 13 
 
 that, as tliey are brief, the undersigned cannot refrain 
 from here reproducing them. 
 
 "Numbers," says Dr. Manly, "in an institution 
 depend upon its age and history, its position, the charac- 
 ter and personal influence of its officers — especially of 
 its graduates — the circumstances and character of the 
 communities surrounding it, and upon facts and rela- 
 tionships so various that the question of organization is 
 left comparatively a very small influenced And again : • 
 
 " In the earlier periods of its history, numbers have 
 not constituted a conspicuous feature in any college. 
 The first half-century, even, of the oldest and most 
 popular of them, would not present an average of num- 
 bers disparaging to our own, in the short period reck- 
 oned by the University of Alabama. In Harvard, 
 from 1806 to 1810 inclusive, a period of five years not 
 unfavorable for the comparison, and when the college 
 Avas 170 years old, the average number of undergrad- 
 uates was 211." Once more: — 
 
 " Compared with other colleges, however, this Uni- 
 versity has its fair average. Of 121 colleges in the 
 United States, reported in the American Almanac of 
 1850, 78 have fewer than were our numbers of that 
 year, and only 38 had more. * * * In a document 
 presented to the Board of Education in the city of New 
 York, 1851, of 53 colleges (comprising the older, the 
 endowed and popular institutions in the United States), 
 26 had more and 26 had fewer than our numbers of 
 that year." 
 
14 K E r K T . 
 
 To these extracts may be added the following, from 
 a letter addressed, by the Faculty of this University, 
 to Hon. W. K. Baylor, chairman of the Committee on 
 Education of the Senate of Alabama, in January, 1843: 
 "No college in the United States," say the Faculty, 
 " ever yet went into operation, which, in the years of its 
 infancy, was not as limited in this respect as the Uni- 
 versity of Alabama. Many have been much more so. 
 For fifty years from its foundation, the University of 
 Harvard graduated, annually, on an average, fewer 
 than seven individuals. For twenty years the average 
 number of graduates at Yale college was about five. 
 A young college, in a newly settled country, will 
 never, in its infancy, be numerously attended. The 
 demand for a high order of. education among the peo- 
 ple is neither great nor general. * * * If such a 
 college prepare, every year, but a few men to instruct 
 others, the immediate fruit of its operations may seem 
 indeed to be small ; but through those same men it is 
 still to operate through a long series of years, and to 
 carry the benefits of knowledge to hundreds and thou- 
 sands. * * '' How are the people ever to be made 
 ripe for learned institutions, but by first preparing the 
 teachers who are to diffuse among them the elements 
 of knowledge ? The streams which flow into the ocean 
 are fed by the evaporation of the ocean itself. And 
 the students who throng the halls of colleges, are 
 brought there by the learning which, silently as the 
 vapor rises from the sea, these colleges have scattered 
 
K E P O K T . 15 
 
 tbroue:!! tlie land." And further: "Great numbers 
 constitute, in general, the most trifling and shadowy and 
 insignificant evidence of excellence in a school, which 
 can be adduced. And if a seminary is young, and is 
 situated in a new country, and nominally exacts some 
 slight intellectual training as a condition of member- 
 ship; great numbers, suddenly collected, furnish a very 
 ominous indication as to the fidelity of its adminis- 
 tration." 
 
 But it has been affirmed, and it is so still, with 
 great positiveness and emphasis, that there exists exten- 
 sively, among the people of Alabama, a feeling of dis- 
 satisfaction with the plan of instruction pursued in this 
 University, and a disposition to originate measures 
 which shall result in forcing, should not the Board con- 
 ciliate it by yielding, a change. 
 
 That there may exist a general and somewhat vague 
 desire for the introduction of some improvements upon 
 the present system, the undersigned are not disposed to 
 deny. They are the less so, because of the fact, well 
 known to them, that a similar feeling has long existed 
 among the members, both of the Board and of the Fac- 
 ulty themselves. It, has been felt that the present 
 course of study is too greatly burthened ; and that the 
 Univei'sity of Alabama, in common with most or all of 
 the colleges of the country, has gone on increasing the 
 amount of its exactions from its students, until of the 
 two evils — superficial teaching on the one hand, and 
 overtasking the strength on the* other — one or the 
 
IG REPORT. 
 
 otlier seems almost unavoidable, and botli are not 
 unfreqiiently more or less experienced. That some 
 improvement ouglit to be made here, the undersigned 
 will not undertake to dispute. Of what precise nature 
 or form the change ought to be, they propose to con- 
 sider in the j)roper place. Every college which pro- 
 poses to carry its students through a definite course in 
 each distinct department — the University of Virginia 
 as well as the University of Alabama — must be yet 
 compelled, by force of circumstances, to look into and 
 to correct the evil which here undoubtedly exists. The 
 best manner of attempting to do this, has been subject 
 of discussion between one or both of the undersigned 
 and members of the Board of Trustees, at various 
 times, for years ; and plans have been actually drawn 
 up by them and committed to paper. The difficulty 
 and delicacy of the undertaking, and a natural unwil- 
 lingness to press views which, while generally ap- 
 proved, might have failed to carry conviction in all 
 their details, has hitherto prevented these discussions 
 from leading to any important practical result. 
 
 But while the undersigned fully recognize the exist- 
 ence of a general desire for the improvement of the 
 system of instruction which actually exists in this Uni- 
 versity, as having long partaken of that desire them- 
 selves, they by no means admit that there has yet 
 appeared any evidence of a wish or design, on the part 
 of the people, to subvert the system itself, and to erect 
 upon its ruins, a fabfic of so loose construction, and so 
 
K E P O R T . 17 
 
 doubtful a character, as that of the University of 
 Virginia. If any such disposition has appeared in any 
 quarter, it is believed not to have been indicative of 
 any general dissatisfaction, nor to have originated with 
 the people themselves. The undersigned entertain 
 great confidence in the conviction which they here 
 express ; and that for several reasons entirely satisfac- 
 tory to them. In the first place, they, like other 
 citizens, mingle more or less with the people, and they 
 do not entirely neglect to correspond with intelligent 
 gentlemen at a distance from Tuscaloosa. While they 
 confess that there have come to them, from time to 
 time, through such channels, complaints of one descrip- 
 tion or another, in regard to the University, — com- 
 plaints even of those evils connected with the course of 
 instruction, which the undersigned have just signalized, — 
 they are free to say that, until since this subject was 
 referred to the Faculty by the members of the Board 
 of Trustees assembled here at the late Annual Com- 
 mencement, they never received, from any source of 
 information whatever accessible to them, the slightest 
 hint of the propriety of any sweeping change, or the 
 most doubtful suggestion of the expediency of intro- 
 ducing here, the system of the University of Virginia. 
 This, it is true, is merely negative evidence ; but in a 
 question of great public interest, like the present 
 negative evidence has weight. That which agitates a 
 whole people, cannot but be in the mouths of indi- 
 2 
 
IS , R E r O R T . 
 
 viduals ; and that of which men talk, those who mingle 
 with men must hear. 
 
 That there can be no popular demand for the 
 introduction of the Virginia system here, is further 
 evident from the fact, that not one in twenty of the 
 people knows what the Virginia system is. It certainly 
 is not what it is apparently believed by some to be ; 
 and that is, a system which permits any student to 
 pursue any study selected by himself or his guardians, 
 at any time, to any extent, and with any rapidity he 
 pleases. And the prevalent misapprehension on this 
 subject, amounts really to a serious evil; since the 
 expectations which have been held out regarding the 
 plan are sure, should it be adopted here, to be sadly 
 disappointed. But on this point the undersigned pro- 
 pose to speak more fully in its proper place. 
 
 The absence of any popular demand for this species 
 of change is still further evidenced by the tone of the 
 public press, both before and after the request of the 
 members of the Board, who were present in July, was 
 laid before the public. Nothing can be more certain 
 than that, throughout the collegiate year of 1853-54, 
 down to the month of May, when some slight troubles 
 entirely connected with discipline elicited some discon- 
 tented remarks, not one word appeared in any public 
 print in Alabama, in relation to the University (and 
 the notices were many), which was not congratulatory 
 and almost exultant, in view of the steady improve- 
 
REPORT. 19 
 
 ment of tlie Institution in prosperity, and in view of its 
 well-established reputation for thorough and judicious 
 methods of instruction, and for the sound and substan- 
 tial attainments of its students. And in the expressions 
 of discontent just alluded to, and which were directed 
 entirely toward police and other regulations and meas- 
 ures for the government and not for the instruction of 
 the under-graduates, it is worthy of remark how gener- 
 ally, and in fact how almost universally, the conductors 
 of the press mingled with their words of dissatisfac- 
 tion the regret that these events should have befallen 
 at a moment when the University, having lived down 
 its disasters, had become so proudly prosperous, and had 
 succeeded in raising itself so deservedly high in the 
 confidence of the people of Alabama. Whoever has 
 had access to the public prints of the State generally 
 for the past twelve months cannot but be forcibly 
 struck with the truth of these reminiscences. The 
 undersigned therefore assert, without fear of contra- 
 diction, that, if the tone of the public press can be 
 regarded as in any degree an index of that of public 
 sentiment among a people, then it is so far from being 
 true, that there is a popular demand for the subversion 
 here of our time-honored course of instruction for the 
 sake of introducing one not even known to a majority 
 of the people, that the feeling of the masses has been 
 entirely the other way, — entirely one of satisfaction and 
 content. 
 
 If, further to test this question, we compare the 
 
20 K E P E T . 
 
 expressions of opinion put forth by the same organs, 
 explicitly upon the proposition brought before them in 
 the published request of members of the Board of 
 Trustees to the Faculty, which has occasioned this 
 inquiry, we shall find that nearly every press, in which 
 the subject has been elaborately treated, has been 
 decided in disapprobation of the change. Some of the 
 reasonings on the subject, which the proposition has 
 elicited, have proceeded from alumni of the University; 
 and the undersigned hazard nothing in saying that they 
 have manifested an ability which would do honor to 
 graduates of any college in the Union. 
 
 Upon the question whether the Trustees or the 
 Faculty have ever been indifferent to improvement, or 
 averse to it, some remarks have already been inciden- 
 tally made. More specifically it may here be stated, 
 that, in order to meet an alleged necessity or demand, 
 the Trustees, with the cordial assent of the Faculty, in 
 the year 1844, established a special school for the 
 instruction of such young men as might desire to 
 become teachers without completing the entire colle- 
 giate course. A plan of instruction was devised for 
 this school, which was designed to extend, in whole, 
 over three years ; and the Faculty were authorized at 
 their discretion to issue to the students, at their depar- 
 ture, certificates of proficiency. Extensive publication 
 was made of this arrangement, in the catalogues and 
 circulars of the University and in the public prints ; 
 biU not one student ever volunteered to avail himself of 
 
E E P O K T . 21 
 
 its benefits. In the year 1846, tlie Trustees created a 
 Department of Law, and elected a Professor. It was 
 thought that a professional school in this department 
 might be successful in Tuscaloosa, and that its success 
 might exert a reflex influence favorable to the pros- 
 perity of the Faculty of Arts. But no sufiicient 
 number of students ever presented themselves to 
 induce the Professor to commence his course, and by 
 degrees the school of Law (which the undersigned 
 believe was never abolished) passed out of recollec- 
 tion. 
 
 The report of Dr. Manly, from which some brief 
 extracts have already been given, is another evidence 
 of the solicitude which the Board of Trustees have 
 always manifested for the improvement of the Univer- 
 sity, and for the extension of "the benefits of the 
 Institution to a greater number of the citizens of the 
 State." In compliance with the request of that body, 
 the President of the University, in company with 
 another officer, made, during the summer of 1851, an 
 extensive journey through various States, attending in 
 the meantime the National Educational Convention at 
 Cleveland, and gathering, wherever he went, the results 
 of a great variety of experiments carefully made under 
 the eyes of experienced educators. All this he embod- 
 ied in a report read to the Board of Trustees only two 
 years ago, and printed by their order. It is absurd to 
 suppose that such an amount of pains was taken for 
 nothing ; or without a sincere purpose to profit by the 
 
22 R E r O K T . 
 
 experience of others, and to introduce here any changes, 
 whatever they might be, which should seem to hold out 
 a promise of increasing the usefulness of this University. 
 Yet so little encouragement did the carefully arranged 
 statistics of that rej^ort hold out to the spirit of inno- 
 vation, that, after the reading of it, not one single voice 
 was lifted in behalf of any departure whatever from the 
 existing system. It has not been without considerable 
 surprise that the undersigned have witnessed the inex- 
 plicable fact, that, after a lapse of only two years from 
 the presentation of that report, the same Board who 
 listened to it and ordered it to be printed, have seri- 
 ously entertained a proposition, which the statistics 
 contained in that document demonstrate to be ruinous 
 in its tendencies to the last degree. 
 
 Since the purpose of Dr. Manly in his report was 
 simply to state facts with their natural inferences, and 
 not to dictate measures to the Board of Trustees, it may 
 possibly be objected, that those who take the view of 
 its bearing here expressed fail to understand his state- 
 ments, or reason perversely from his figures. Such an 
 objection will hardly be thought to lie against the 
 inferences of gentlemen who peruse the pamphlet at a 
 distance, and whose habits of mind and whose acquaint- 
 ance with colleges may be presumed to fit them pecu- 
 liarly to form a correct judgment. Bishop Potter, ot 
 Pennsylvania, in a document (printed, but not pub- 
 lished) relating to the University of that State, which 
 he has kindly communicated to the undersigned, after 
 
REPORT. 23 
 
 speaking of Dr. Manly's report as " the fruit of much 
 laborious and careful research," and as " a most valuable 
 contribution to the cause of a higher education," charac- 
 terizes it as an "able and most conservative report." 
 E. C. Herrick, Esq., A. M., Librarian and Treasurer of 
 Yale College, remarks incidentally (in a private letter), 
 of the question now pending, " I cannot but think that 
 Dr. Manly's report would be a very satisfactory refuta- 
 tion of the proposed plan." And still more emphat- 
 ically observes Dr. Swain, of North Carolina, in the 
 conclusion of a most valuable letter on the general 
 question, " I read his [Dr. Manly's] pamphlet two years 
 ago with pleasure and profit ; and took it for granted 
 that his argument and authority would be considered 
 conclusive by the managers of your institution. Instead 
 of indulging in these hasty expressions of opinion, I 
 might well have contented myself with a simple in- 
 dorsement of his well-considered views." 
 
 But, notwithstanding all this, the whole question is 
 opened up again, and the undersigned are absolutely 
 constrained, against their will, to go back to first prin- 
 ciples, and to retrace all the steps of a discussion which 
 they had hoped, during their day, never to see revived 
 in this institution. 
 
 Let it be understood in the outset, that it is in no 
 spirit of unfriendliness or opposition to institutions for 
 professional, technical, special, or partial education, that 
 the undersigned are disposed to remonstrate against the 
 transformation to which it is proposed to subject this 
 
24: K E r O II T . 
 
 University. If there is a demand for such institutions, 
 let them be created; if it is true, as is so frequently 
 asserted, that hundreds of young men are absolutely cut 
 off from any opportunity to acquire the education they 
 need, because the University will not (it would be more 
 just to say, cannot) give it to them, then there should 
 be no delay in providing the facilities which their case 
 requires. It cannot be that means are wanting, or ever 
 will be so, if the alleged demand be real, to endow and 
 furnish schools fashioned in the strictest conformity to 
 the popular dictation; for schools to which hundreds 
 are waiting to resort so soon as their doors shall be 
 opened, can never fail to prove eminently lucrative, 
 considered merely as pecuniary investments. If, then, 
 this demand be real, there exists not the slightest 
 reason for insisting that the University shall provide 
 for it ; and if it be not, the argument in favor of change 
 crumbles away into nothing. 
 
 To exhibit, however, the entire and true basis upon 
 which the undersigned rest their opposition to the pro- 
 posed transformation, it is necessary to bring promi- 
 nently into view w^hat is the distinctive characteristic of 
 a University, — what is that peculiar function which it 
 is specially empowered, and, in fact, created, to fulfill ; 
 and the possession of which may perhaps serve to ex- 
 plain why it is that this frequent demand for popular, 
 easy, or optional courses of study, should be continually 
 directed against them, instead of venting itself in the 
 very obvious and effectual mode of providing institu- 
 
REPORT. 25 
 
 tions of the kind professedly required. This peculiar 
 function is the granting of degrees ; and in the exercise 
 of this, the University does all that is essential to its 
 office. The University of London, at the present time, 
 confines itself to the discharge of this single function ; 
 and the early history of all the old Universities of Eng- 
 land, or of the continent of Europe, shows that, while 
 they certainly furnished instruction, and their instruc- 
 tors were excessively numerous, the only recognized 
 point of contact between the University as a body and 
 the individual student was that in which the latter pre- 
 sented himself as a candidate for graduation. The 
 value of the degree conferred consisted, of course, as it 
 does still, in the fact that it stamped the graduate as a 
 scholar — a man well versed in what were called the 
 liberal arts, and in philosophy. By what course of 
 study he had attained the mastery of these subjects, 
 mattered not then, as, in point of fact, in London, and 
 to all intents and purposes in Oxford and Cambridge, it 
 matters not now: provided the candidate, on the appli- 
 cation of certain severe tests of his scholarship and 
 knowledge, was found to be worthy of the degree, it 
 was awarded as a matter of right. These tests were 
 examinations, extended and thorough, oral and written. 
 At the present time, the University of London employs 
 salaried examiners, who have no other duty than to 
 ascertain the merits of applicants for the honor of 
 graduation. 
 
 In the older Universities it used to be held, that 
 
26 RETORT. 
 
 education is not complete and thorougli until the 
 student lias been disciplined not only in receiving but 
 in imparting knowledge. Every Bachelor of Arts was 
 required to teach certain books or subjects, in order 
 that he might become a Master ; and " every Master or 
 Doctor was compelled by statute, and frequently on 
 oath, to teach for a certain period, which was commonly 
 two years, immediately subsequent to graduation."* The 
 instruction, therefore, which might have been acquired 
 in any school, preparatory to an application for gradua- 
 tion, was furnished in necessary abundance in the Uni- 
 versity towns ; and thus the business of teaching fell 
 naturally, in a great measure, under the regulation of 
 those institutions themselves. At Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, from which American colleges have borrowed 
 most of their peculiarities, a new feature was, in process 
 of time, developed. Eleemosynary establishments, 
 called colleges, were endowed for the support and 
 residence of poor students; and boarding-houses, for 
 those who were able to pay, arose in great numbers, 
 under the name of halls. Each of these colleges and 
 halls was made subject to the government of a resident 
 master, who was assisted in his duties by one or more 
 tutors. Since their origin, the character of these estab- 
 lishments has undergone great changes. At first, the 
 proj)er business of the tutors was, mainly, to look after 
 the conduct of the pupils, and enforce upon them habits 
 
 * Sir Will, llnmilton's Discussions on Philosophy, Ac. 
 
REPORT. 27 
 
 of personal neatness; but, in the progress of tlie muta- 
 tions -wliicli time lias introduced, they have become 
 almost exclusively the teachers of the under-graduates 
 in all the studies required to fit them for the University 
 examinations, which are to determine their title to a 
 degree. 
 
 Since graduation in the English Universities depends 
 strictly upon the results of examination, and not upon a 
 record of a more or less faithful attention to a pre- 
 scribed routine of daily study, it might appear that the 
 student there should be subject to no control in regard 
 to the order in which he may pursue his studies, or pre- 
 pare himself for the final ordeal. But this is not so. €t 
 is a manifest necessity that, where trial is by examina- 
 tion, there should be some established standard^ by 
 which the attainments of each candidate may be tested. 
 Such a standard can only be intelligible and definite 
 when presented in the form of a prescribed series of 
 books, of which the contents are to be perfectly mas- 
 tered. This reduces the business of University instruc- 
 tion, which is in its intention, and which may be in fact, 
 a teaching of subjects of hnoivledge^ to the mere inculca- 
 tion (for purposes of graduation) of the substance of 
 certain special treatises of science or philosophy, and 
 certain particular works of ancient and modern litera- 
 ture. Thus is established what is called the college 
 curriculum of study. 
 
 As the original design for which the academic honor 
 of graduation was instituted was to distinguish those 
 
28 REPORT. 
 
 who had submitted to a thorough course of intellectual 
 training, the subjects of examination, and consequently 
 the cuniculum of study, embraced from the beginning 
 matters designed to exercise, in due and symmetrical 
 proportion, all the faculties of the human mind. The 
 seven liberal arts, as they were called, received this 
 name because they were believed suitable to furnish 
 this training. They were distinguished from the arts of 
 handicraft — the mechanic arts — on the one hand, and 
 from the arts of embellishment — the fine arts — on the 
 other. They are fitted, in their several ways, to induce 
 those intellectual habits without which nothing valu- 
 able can ever be accomplished in the world of mind ; 
 and to furnish that exercise which is as necessary to the 
 development of mental as of physical vigor. The pur- 
 suit of mathematical studies is well fitted to induce 
 habits of close and concentrated attention, and the 
 power of following out a continuous and extended train 
 of thought. The study of Language invigorates and 
 strengthens the memory, leads to a facility in delicate 
 discriminations, multij^lies ideas, improves the power of 
 expression, gives increased command of the instrument 
 by which, mainly, mind influences mind, and suggests 
 much material for that species of reasoning which 
 rests on probable evidence, through the indications 
 it furnishes of the affiliations of the races of man. The 
 more systematic exercise of the reason is brought 
 into play in the study of Dialectics. Here the learner 
 becomes instructed how to apply the touchstone to 
 
REPORT. 29 
 
 argument, to distinguisli sound reasoning from soph- 
 istry, to arrange the materials of a discussion, and to 
 present truths of inference in the most impressive form. 
 Rhetoric cultivates at once many faculties. It stimu- 
 lates the invention by demanding what considerations 
 may be alleged in support of specific propositions; it 
 disciplines the judgment by calling upon it continually 
 to decide nice questions relating to the propriety of 
 language; it cultivates the imagination by exercising 
 that faculty in all the embellishments of figurative ex- 
 pression ; and it trains and corrects the taste by em- 
 ploying it to control the exuberance of a fancy too apt, 
 when unrestrained, to run into riotous extravagance. 
 Natural Philosophy, in its various branches, furnishes 
 numerous happy examples of reasoning from induction, 
 or inferring truth from probable evidence. Moral Phil- 
 osophy is a continuous and improving application of the 
 principles of logic to questions which concern the con- 
 science; and in its cultivation is calculated to render 
 more acute the power of discrimination in matters of 
 abstract truth, as well as to establish principles in place 
 of feeling as the guide of action. And the Philosophy 
 of Mind, the science of self-knowledge, the most impor- 
 tant, perhaps, of all studies, considering its influence 
 upon the subject, furnishes a discipline of the most 
 superior order, as it opens up a world vast as that of 
 matter and impalpable as the thinking essence itself 
 "Philosophy," says Sir William Hamilton, "the think- 
 ing of thought, the recoil of mind upon itself, is one of 
 
30 R E r O K T . 
 
 the most improving of mental exercises, conducing, 
 above all others, to evolve the highest and rarest of the 
 intellectual powers. By this the mind is not only- 
 trained to philosophy proper, but prepared, in general, 
 for powerful, easy, and successful energy, in whatever 
 department of knowledge it may more peculiarly apply 
 itself" Thus every study throughout the entire range of 
 the liberal Arts and the Philosophies has its peculiar use 
 and value in drawing into activity and cherishing into 
 vi«"or the various powers and faculties of the human 
 mind. When all are in due j)roportion combined in a 
 system of intellectual training, the pupil emerges from 
 the discipline with a mind well balanced, and equally 
 fitted to grapple with whatever difficulty. Should he 
 now direct his energies, as is usual with the majority of 
 men, into one particular channel, he is in no danger of 
 adding to the number of those characters so frequently 
 met with, whose one-sided development renders them 
 giants within the domain of their chosen profession, and 
 pigmies without. On the other hand, though in his 
 special pursuit he may attain eminence with much or 
 with little labor, it will not be at the expense of dis- 
 qualifying himself for intelligent intercoui'se with men 
 of every other class. Let anyone look round him and 
 silently count how very many, within the circle of his 
 own personal acquaintance, are men merely of a profes- 
 sion or a class. How many are there, whose merits in 
 their proper vocation are the theme of general admira- 
 tion and praise, yet who are so little thought of as fit to 
 
REPORT. 31 
 
 advise or suggest or lead in any enterprise out of this 
 their peculiar and narrow range of action, that the 
 merest hint at such a step, as likely to be volunteered 
 on their part, is sufficient to excite a smile. It cannot, it 
 will not, be maintained, even by those who most loudly 
 demand that our universities shall be converted into 
 schools for technical or professional education, that to 
 be a merely technical or professional man is all to which 
 a youth should aspire. It cannot be that even the most 
 earnest of our educational reformers can fail to perceive 
 how immensely higher, in the consideration of his fel- 
 low-citizens, stands the man who, whether his daily 
 avocation be that of a merchant, or a physician, or a 
 machinist, or a farmer, or a lawyer, or an iron-master, 
 possesses a mind cultivated in all its faculties, and 
 stored with a wide range of general knowledge, than 
 he who, whatever may be his mastery of his particular 
 pursuit, knows nothing beyond it. These men of uni- 
 versal cultivation and comprehensive knowledge, are 
 the men to whom the less fortunate majority look for 
 counsel and guidance in difficulties, for collected calm- 
 ness in periods of excitement, for the scrutinizing exami- 
 nation of projects of innovation or improvement, for 
 judicious opinions as to the results of measures of policy, 
 in short for all those manifestations of intellectual supe- 
 riority which secure to the thoroughly educated every- 
 where a position and an influence which nothing else 
 can do. These thoroughly educated men will always 
 be the comparatively few, as they always have been 
 
33 REPORT. 
 
 since the world began; and the reason is, that the 
 majority cannot for want of time and means, or will 
 not for want of disposition, submit to the steady, long- 
 continued, and even painful discipline which can alone 
 entitle them to rank among the aristocracy of mind. 
 To denounce our colleges, because, where hundreds of 
 young men are growing up together, they only educate 
 their tens, and to demand that their gates shall be 
 thrown so widely open that all those hundreds may 
 enter in, is neither just in the first instance nor wise in 
 the second. For the fact that, out of the many who 
 might be, but few are actually educated, is a fact which, 
 however unfortunate it may appear, is attributable to 
 nothing else but the unwillingness of the majority to 
 submit to the intellectual regimen which the colleges 
 prescribe. And the demand that some portions of this 
 regimen shall be omitted, and that the stamp of scholar- 
 ship, or the diploma which was originally designed to 
 be the stamp of scholarship, shall be awarded for a less 
 equivalent of labor rendered, can, if successful, have no 
 effect but to degrade the distinction and bring the 
 honor low, instead of lifting the graduate to the posi- 
 tion in fact, which he will have thus secured in name. 
 
 It is, however, very commonly asserted by the advo- 
 cates of revolutionary measures in our colleges, that 
 they aim not to break down existing systems of educa- 
 tion, if any prefer still to cling to them, so much as to 
 superadd other and varied methods, partial or thor- 
 ough, extended or brief, according to the option of the 
 student, or of those who direct his course of training 
 
REPORT. 33 
 
 Let tlie old curriculum stand, they say, for all who 
 choose to follow it ; but let not the college be so nig- 
 gardly of the treasures of its learning, as to deny a por- 
 tion to those whom misfortune or poverty, or advanced 
 age will not permit to enjoy the whole. We object 
 not — this is their profession — to any degree of severity 
 or thoroughness, or to any extent of range which you 
 may choose to prescribe to such as, bowing to your dic- 
 tation, consent to submit to this oppression; but we 
 demand that everybody shall be educated in his own 
 way, thoroughly or partially, profoundly or superfi- 
 cially, just as he pleases. 
 
 Now, for the sake of argument, let us admit that, 
 on the plan proposed, there may possibly be as many 
 volunteers for a thorough course of instruction — the 
 very course now prescribed — as there are at present ; 
 and therefore that the studies of this class may be sus- 
 tained, without any variation from the present arrange- 
 ments, no matter how widely the doors are thrown 
 open to others. But, then, with only the present means 
 and appliances of the college, what is to be done with 
 these others? If they are introduced to the regular 
 recitations and lectures of the thorough-course students, 
 they are tied up in each department to the same inva- 
 riable routine, compelled, willingly or unwillingly, to 
 travel over the same extent of ground, chained down 
 to the same unalterable rate of progress, against which 
 we hear so frequent and so stout protest ; and, in case 
 they desire to pursue but a single branch of study, or 
 but one or two, they find no remedy in the system 
 
 3 
 
34 REPORT. 
 
 against the necessary waste of two-thirds or three-quar- 
 ters of their time. They must, therefore, if properly 
 instructed at all, constitute a body entirely, or in great 
 measure, independent of the thorough-course students. 
 But the reasons which require that their wants should 
 be independently provided for, would also require that 
 there should be independent provision for every limited 
 group of them, whose choice of studies might happen to 
 fall in a common direction, while it differed from that 
 of the majority. Even in some instances, and in. many, 
 if this system of free choice of study should be carried 
 out wherever it may lead, a single individual might 
 require special provision for his separate instruction. 
 Our universities, with their feeble means, might be 
 expected to perform all that is attempted by those of 
 Germany, with professors and teachers numbered by 
 the score or by the hundred. " In the German Univer- 
 sities," says Dr. Manly, " which boast of a large circle 
 of branches, and are eminently expensive establish- 
 ments, professors are maintained who sometimes have 
 classes of not more than two or three students (he 
 might have said one, and often, for intervals of time, 
 none), and this in a country where scholars are num- 
 bered by tens of thousands." 
 
 This view of the case divests of all its plausibility 
 the proposition to transform our colleges into some- 
 thing new, in compliance with an imaginary popular 
 demand. It proves that if the thing, for which it is 
 affirmed that the popular voice is so decidedly pro- 
 nounced, should be conceded as a reality, the result 
 
REPORT. 35 
 
 would be substantially not to transform an old college, 
 but to superadd to it a new one, or lialf-a-dozen new 
 ones ; the whole, indeed, in some degree lending each 
 other natural aid, but each requiring, in the main, a 
 -separate and independent management. Now, even to 
 this it would not be necessary to raise any very strenu- 
 ous objection, if, along with the proposition to trans- 
 form, it could be shown, either that the officers of the 
 existing Faculties are able — and by this is simply meant, 
 able physically — to endure the increased burthen of 
 duties which the change would draw down upon them ; 
 or that the change itself would bring with it the means 
 of so increasing the academic staff, as to make it equal 
 to the vastly increased labor. It is evident, from what 
 has already been said, that the first branch of this altern- 
 ative cannot be maintained; and if it could, there is 
 no reason to suppose that college officers, not usually 
 extravagantly paid even for the services they now per- 
 form, would submit to a drudgery which would con- 
 sume their entire time and waste their entire strength, 
 while it condemned them, for absolute want of opportu- 
 nity, to a complete cessation, on their own part, from 
 all further intellectual progress. None will submit to a 
 degradation like this, but such as have uo desire or 
 aptitude for further personal improvement,^ — none, there- 
 fore, whose names enrolled in the list of a Faculty could 
 give to a college reputation, or awaken pride among its 
 patrons and friends. As to the other branch of the 
 alternative, the probability that the change would so 
 improve the revenues of the institution, as to make it 
 
36 REPORT. 
 
 practicable largely to increase the corps of instruction, 
 two remarks may be made. If this probability amounts 
 to a certainty, it would seem rather to call for the erec- 
 tion of a special institution, which, by the terms of the 
 supposition, must be self-sustaining; and which, being 
 untrammeled by the necessity of following, with a 
 large portion of its students, a Procrustean course, must 
 certainly accomplish its objects better than it could do 
 while so encumbered. If, on the other hand, there is 
 no certainty about it, if the chances are only equal, or 
 if they are less than equal, that the revenue will keep 
 pace with the necessary increase of expenditure, is it 
 not wrong, is it not almost wicked, to expose institu- 
 tions already doing good service in the cause of educa- 
 tion, to the hazard of utter ruin, for the sake of insti- 
 tuting a more than doubtful experiment ? 
 
 But perhaps it will be said that the University of 
 Virginia, from which it is proposed to draw the plan of 
 our remodeled system of instruction, has not a numer- 
 ous body of instructors — has not, in fact, a larger num- 
 ber of officers in its Faculty of Arts than we have in 
 ours. This fact is certainly undeniable ; but this very 
 fact proves that the arguments which are most confi- 
 dently relied on in favor of change, are entirely base- 
 less. It is said that we must introduce here the system 
 of the University of Virginia, in order that every stu- 
 dent may have the opportunity, in the words of Dr. 
 Wayland, to study "what he chooses, all that he 
 chooses, and nothing but what he chooses." Yet this 
 the undersigned have, as they believe, shown to be im- 
 
REPORT 
 
 37 
 
 possible, without that large number of teachers which 
 confessedly the University of Virginia has not. And if 
 we refer to the statement contained in the catalogue of 
 that institution for the last collegiate year, we shall find 
 that the Faculty, instead of making any pretence to pro- 
 vide for the varying wants of young men who wish to 
 study " what they choose, and nothing but what they 
 choose," merely arrange their students in classes — not 
 the usual college classes, which are the same with every 
 officer — but in classes which may be different in differ- 
 ent departments, while in the same department they 
 are constant throughout the course. It appears, from 
 this authority, that the number of classes receiving 
 instruction in each department is only in a few cases 
 greater, but is quite as often less, in the University of 
 Virginia, than in the University of Alabama. In illus- 
 tration of this statement the following comparison may 
 be made. It exhibits the number of classes simulta- 
 neously reciting similar subjects, in the two institutions. 
 
 Latin and its Literature, 
 Greek " " " 
 
 French, 
 Mathematics, pure, 
 
 " mixed, . 
 
 Geology, &c.. 
 Chemistry, 
 Ethics, (fee. 
 
 Total, 
 
 Jniv. of Ala. 
 
 Univ. of Va. 
 
 Four . 
 
 . Two. 
 
 Four 
 
 Two. 
 
 Three . 
 
 . Three. 
 
 Two 
 
 Three.* 
 
 Two . 
 
 . Three. 
 
 One 
 
 One. 
 
 One . 
 
 . One. 
 
 Four 
 
 Three. 
 
 Twenty-one. Eighteen. 
 
 The Virginia University appears to offer no advan- 
 
 * The department of pure mathematics in the University of Virginia has nom- 
 inally four classes ; but one of these is a class in mixed mathematics. The depart- 
 ment of mixed mathematics proper has but two classes. 
 
38 REPORT. 
 
 tage over our own, as it regards the freedom of the 
 student within a given department to select his own 
 studies, if we except a slight one in the departments 
 which embrace the exact sciences. Supposing, there- 
 fore, that the ordinance of the Board of Trustees of this 
 University, which was enacted in 1831, opening the 
 institution to what were called "partial-course stu- 
 dents," should be now again revived ; it would require 
 but very slight alterations in regard to the hours of lec- 
 ture and recitation, and in regard to the number of 
 classes in each department, to give to this college the 
 plan of the University of Virginia complete. The lan- 
 guage of the law referred to is the following, as printed 
 by order of the Board in 1837. " The University shall 
 be open to persons who do not desire to take the full 
 course and to be graduated as Bachelors of Arts, but 
 who desire to take a partial course and be graduated in 
 particular departments only ; provided they are found 
 qualified for the studies of the department which they 
 wish to join ; and provided they take not less than the 
 usual number of departments," <fec., <fec. 
 
 But it is certainly not this plan which we are told 
 that the people demand. The promise held out, has 
 been that the University, as reorganized, should give 
 instruction to all who come here to demand it, should 
 give them precisely what they demand, and should give 
 it precisely when they demand it. Such, at least, is 
 undoubtedly the popular understanding of the proposi- 
 tion made and widely published in regard to our Uni- 
 versity. If the call for change has assumed the definite 
 
REPORT. 39 
 
 shape of a demand for the system of the University of 
 Virginia, it is not because that system, as it exists there, 
 is known to the people of Alabama in general, and by 
 them approved ; but because that name has been used 
 to stand for the thing desired, and which, by the pro- 
 posed reorganization, it is hoped to obtain. Expressly 
 on this ground would the undersigned, under any cir- 
 cumstances, resist the alteration; for since the system 
 called by this — for the moment perhaps popular — name 
 is certainly not the thing which the people who are 
 said to ask for change expect, it is folly to suppose 
 that they will be satisfied with it after they come to see 
 what it actually is. The thing which the people do 
 really desire, if they desire any thing, is that which the 
 undersigned have shown to be what it does not belong 
 to this University to attempt to supply, on the ground 
 that it either will not pay and is therefore impractica- 
 ble and cannot but be ruinous, or that if it will pay, it 
 has no need of the University. 
 
 The very small number of students of Arts furnished 
 by Virginia to her own University, as has already been 
 shown earlier in this Report, is evidence enough that the 
 system has not the approbation of Virginians them- 
 selves. This fact will appear more unanswerably true, 
 if we extend the comparison to other colleges, where 
 the close system is severely carried out. The College 
 of South Carolina, for instance, exhibits a list of 189 
 under-graduates for the collegiate year 1853-54, of 
 whom 175 are furnished by the State of South Caro- 
 lina itself The total white population of the State, 
 
40 R E !• O R T . 
 
 according to tlie census of 1850, is 2*74,563 ; while that 
 of Virginia, as already stated, is 894,800, furnishing 
 only 1G3 students of Arts to the State University. If 
 South Carolina patronized her college no better than 
 Virginia does her University (the professional schools 
 apart), she would send to Columbia but 50 students 
 instead of 17 5. The South Carolina College is one of 
 some standing in years. Let us take another, also main- 
 taining rigidly the close system, which has been in 
 operation only for a limited period — the University of 
 Mississippi. The total number of students on the cata- 
 logue of this institution for the past year is 158, from 
 which subtracting all but those whose residences are 
 in the State, and who are pursuing the regular under- 
 graduate course, we shall have 134, upon a population 
 of 295,718. Yet if Mississippi were no more partial to 
 the course of education in her University than Virginia 
 seems to be to that which hers has adopted, she would 
 furnish to it only 53 under-graduate students. 
 
 In the following table are presented the results of 
 similar calculations for a number of colleges whose cata- 
 logues happen to be at hand. The dates are the latest 
 accessible, and are all recent. In the first column are 
 placed the number of under-graduates which each State 
 Tvould furnish to the college belonging to it, if it fur- 
 nished the same number, in proportion to population, 
 which Virginia furnishes to her University ; and in the 
 second are placed the actual numbers present, as given 
 in the several catalogues, excluding all from other 
 States, and all who are not regular under-graduates : — 
 

 E E P it T . 
 
 
 
 Proportional 
 
 Actual 
 
 
 Number. 
 
 Number. 
 
 University of Va., 
 
 . 163 . 
 
 . 163 
 
 University of Ala., 
 
 11 
 
 107 
 
 S. C. College, 
 
 . 50 . 
 
 . 175 
 
 University of Miss., 
 
 53 
 
 134 
 
 University of Geo., 
 
 . 95 . 
 
 . 107 
 
 University of N. C, 
 
 100 
 
 139 
 
 Yale College, 
 
 . 66 . 
 
 . 135 
 
 Harvard University, 
 
 178 
 
 238 
 
 Dartmoutli College, 
 
 . 57 . 
 
 . 160 
 
 41 
 
 It appears to the undersigned tliat facts of this 
 nature, and which admit of being multiplied to a much 
 greater extent, combine to furnish an absolute demon- 
 stration that the system of instruction practiced at the 
 University of Virginia is, for students not attending the 
 professional schools, absolutely out of favor and un- 
 popular where it is best known, — in the State of Virginia 
 itself. It appears that not one single consideration 
 exists to encourage the belief, that that system, trans- 
 planted here, would be any more favorite with the 
 people of Alabama than it is in Virginia. It appears 
 that, though the name has become a popular catchword 
 . nong those who have urged the remodeling of our 
 own State University, yet the reality which it repre- 
 sents is not at all that thing which it is evidently here 
 supposed to be ; and that its introduction with us could 
 only lead to immediate disappointment, and ultimate 
 dissatisfaction and disgust. If it should at first be suc- 
 cessful in attracting to the University a material 
 increase of numbers — and, considering how much has 
 been promised of which the performance is impossible, 
 
42 REPORT. 
 
 perhaps it might — it is quite hopeless to expect that its 
 popularity would outlive the discovery of the hoUow- 
 ness of its pretensions. 
 
 The undersigned have thus far argued this question 
 as if it were one of mere policy or interest — a question 
 to be decided by the probable comparative popularity 
 of different plans of organization. They have fully 
 proved, at least in their own opinion, that, even con-* 
 sidered from this humble point of view, the proposed 
 change is inexpedient, as being full of danger, if not 
 certain to end in disaster and ruin. But it is not here 
 that the undersigned find those considerations, which 
 ought first of all to demand the attention of a wise man 
 planning a scheme of education, which is perhaps to 
 give character to the intellectual training of a whole 
 people, and to perpetuate its consequences, for good or 
 for ill, to many succeeding generations. It will be a 
 sad day for the cause of sound education, if it shall 
 ever happen that our institutions of learning shall be 
 found watching the fluctuations of a too usually unin- 
 formed popular opinion, and endeavoring to adapt 
 themselves to its incessant changes. The will of the 
 people, in regard to the management of all public 
 interests, must of course ultimately prevail; but the 
 true will of the people can never be known until the 
 people themselves are fully informed. There are some 
 subjects which to present superficially is almost of 
 necessity to present erroneously; since it is true of 
 them, as of many things in material nature, that the 
 color of the surface is entirely the reverse of what 
 
REPORT. 43 
 
 appears beneath. To talk of the organization and 
 appropriate functions of colleges to those whose per- 
 sonal observation has never extended beyond the com- 
 mon school or the academy, is almost necessarily to 
 awaken unfounded impressions, unless much greater 
 explicitness of statement and copiousness of explanation 
 is employed, than it is always, or even generally, easy 
 to give. Therefore is it, that to appeal on these sub- 
 jects to the popular judgment — by which is meant the 
 judgment of the whole mass of the people — is, as a 
 general rule, injudicious ; since, while nothing is on the 
 one hand more easy than to unsettle confidence in the 
 existing order of things, nothing is more difficult on the 
 other than to make the whole subject so universally 
 clear as, if evils exist, to insure their wise correction, 
 or, if they do not, to re-establish again the confidence 
 which has once been shaken. 
 
 It is, on this account, in the opinion of the under- 
 signed, much to be lamented, that the question of the 
 proposed re-organization of this University has been 
 made a subject of general discussion, instead of being 
 considered and disposed of by the Board of Trustees 
 exclusively. It is not in their power to say that dis- 
 satisfaction has not thus been awakened in quarters 
 where it did not exist before. It seems to them, 
 indeed, hardly possible that some such effect should 
 not have been produced ; but so far from believing it 
 to be their duty, in case of the appearance of any 
 indications of this sort, to give way to the inconsiderate 
 demands of a popular clamor, or to abandon the cause 
 
44 REPORT. 
 
 of whicli their official position renders them, in their 
 own view, the bounden defenders, they would believe 
 rather that it belonged to them to put forth every 
 exertion of which they are capable, to enlighten and 
 correct and modify the public sentiment itself. And 
 if, after thus washing their own hands clean of all par- 
 ticipation in the sacrilege, they should yet be compelled 
 to witness the consummation of the threatened ruin, 
 they would prefer still to contend single-handed against 
 the destroyers, rather than join in the destruction ; and, 
 if it must come to that at length, to die in the last 
 ditch. 
 
 Discarding, therefore, the question, will the pro- 
 posed system be popular or not — will it bring great 
 accessions of numbers or not — as being one of but sub- 
 ordinate importance, the undersigned protest against 
 the system on the ground that its introduction would be 
 a practical treason against the cause of sound education 
 in Alabama, and against the interests of the great 
 republic of letters everywhere. It would be to offer 
 a direct encouragement and reward to the desertion of 
 that round of thorough and varied mental discipline, 
 which the scholars of all time have pronounced to be 
 absolutely necessary to make a scholar. It is to place 
 the partially, or the superficially, or even the partially 
 and superficially educated man (for it will come to that 
 at last), practically on a par, so far as college sanctions 
 go, with the profound and thorough — to prostitute the 
 people's mint to the manufacture of base counterfeits, 
 and give to worthless brass the stamp of gold. For 
 
REPORT. 45 
 
 tte popular demand of wliich we hear so often, and 
 to whicli we are reminded tliat we must yield if we 
 would not be swept away by it, is not, after all, a 
 demand so much, for tbe opportunity and permission to 
 learn, as for the attainment of a deceptive seeming to 
 have learned. It is not so mucb a claim for admission 
 to the schools, as for the diplomas which the schools 
 have it in their power to award. Nothing could put 
 this assertion more completely beyond all question 
 than the fact that the outcry is never for the erection 
 of independent schools, which, if the demand is real and 
 is for real knowledge, would of course be crowded and 
 could not but be profitable ; and which would have the 
 great additional advantage, that being erected to meet 
 a distinctly announced want, could be modeled on pre- 
 cisely the plan best adapted to satisfy the impatient 
 public; but is invariably for the transformation of a 
 college into some novel shape, for the breaking up of 
 its settled system of education, for the rejection of this 
 study as antiquated and that study as useless, and, in 
 short, for a Jack-Cadelike turning of the coat of the 
 commonwealth of letters, and setting an entirely new 
 nap on it. And if we compare with each other those 
 institutions in the country which have endeavored to 
 accommodate themselves to this asserted popular 
 demand, we shall find that, as a general rule, when 
 they have offered simply the knowledge without the 
 diploma, the boon has been regarded with contemptu- 
 ous indifference ; but that when they have offered the 
 diploma at the same time, they have sometimes secured 
 
46 REPORT. 
 
 a respectable attendance. Yet even in this case, there 
 lias been no example of a throng like what has been 
 anticipated here, attracted by the concession. If, in 
 describing the attendance, it is allowable even to use 
 the word respectable, as above, it certainly would not 
 be allowable to use a stronger word. 
 
 As an example of a college offering the knowledge 
 without the diploma — permitting students, in other 
 words, the same latitude of choice which is granted in 
 the University of Virginia, but withholding from them 
 the honor of graduation — may be instanced the Univer- 
 sity of Georgia. The latest catalogue of this institution 
 which happens to be at hand (that of 1848-9), gives 
 the total number of its students for the year at 140. 
 The number of partial course, or " University " students, 
 is not stated; but in Dr. Manly's report (1852) a state- 
 ment is given from one of the professors, which puts 
 the average number at only four or five. President 
 Church, in a recent letter, speaking of the system, says, 
 "The result has been anything but favorable. Occa- 
 sionally a student of this class has been clever and has 
 done well ; but most have not been much benefited — 
 and in many instances I think they have been injured." 
 Dr. Church proceeds to add — and it will be noticed 
 how completely the remark corroborates the position 
 which the undersigned have been endeavoring to main- 
 tain : " The friends, however, of the Virginia system, I 
 apprehend, will say that our partial course is very dif- 
 ferent from their system; that it takes away the 
 stimulus to effort by making the irregular student an 
 
REPORT. 47 
 
 inferior order, and depriving Mm of all expectation of 
 college honors. And this is doubtless true." Yes, it is 
 true — it is the desire for the stamp, and not for the 
 knowledge which the college has in its power to 
 bestow, which only can draw students of this class to 
 such an institution, or make them diligent after it has 
 attracted them. 
 
 A similar illustration may be found in the Univer- 
 sity of Rochester. In this institution there are two 
 distinct courses of study on the principle of the close 
 system; one called the Classical, and the other the 
 Scientific. They differ mainly in the respect that the 
 latter course substitutes the modern instead of the 
 ancient languages throughout the entire period of 
 instruction. The plan is also so arranged, that the 
 student may pass from the classical to the scientific 
 course, if he pleases, at the end of the Sophomore year, 
 without prejudice to his standing. But, besides this, it 
 is permitted to students to select their own departments 
 at pleasure, as in the Virginia University, but without 
 admitting them at the end, like the others, to a degree. 
 The catalogue of this University for 1853-4, shows, out 
 of a total of one hundred and eighteen under-graduates, 
 only eleven of this class, of whom oiAjfour have advanced 
 beyond a single year. 
 
 Union College, in the same State, may serve as example 
 of the influence which the hope of obtaining a degree 
 exerts to enlist recruits in this sort of educational 
 guerilla regiment. This College offers, like the Roches- 
 ter University, the scientific and the classical courses 
 
48 REPORT. 
 
 above described ; and it also offers, like the same again, 
 but with tlie offer of a degree besides, the full freedom 
 to select a course at pleasure, which is the distinguish- 
 ing characteristic of the Virginia University. In the 
 catalogue of this institution, for the third term of 1854, 
 we find a total of 241 under-graduates, and out of them, 
 the large number of 57 are " University students." The 
 number, we say, is large ; and it is so when we compare 
 it with the insignificant exhibit of the Kochester or the 
 Georgia University; yet, after all, it is remarkably a 
 minority in the grand total of Union College itself. 
 Now, if this " open system " is more popular than the 
 other, the fact ought to manifest itself in the colleges 
 which professedly furnish both and crown those who 
 follow them with equal honor, by showing the balance 
 of numbers correspondingly in its favor ; but this is a 
 thing which never happens. 
 
 The University of Virginia itself, prosperous as at 
 the first view of its catalogue it seems, enjoys but a very 
 moderate prosperity in its Faculty of Arts. Were it as 
 well supported by the people of Virginia as the College 
 of South Carolina is supported by the citizens of that 
 State, instead of 163 Virginia youth under this Faculty, 
 it would have 632. 
 
 The result of these comparisons is, in the view of 
 the undersigned, conclusive of the fact which they set 
 out to prove, viz. that the demand for an "open" 
 system of instruction in colleges, proceeds not, as is as- 
 serted, from a genuine desire for special or partial instruc- 
 tion, but simply and solely from the ambition to obtain 
 
REPORT. 49 
 
 the college stamp of scholarsliip, without submitting to 
 tliat systematic and severe intellectual training which 
 only can make the scholar. And it also incidentally 
 proves, that there is in the mass of the community, after 
 all, too much good sense, and too true a discrimination 
 between pretense and reality, between the tinsel and 
 the gold, to accept, as a general rule, the dispensation 
 when it is offered; but that, in contempt of all the 
 seducing railways to graduation which compliant Uni- 
 versities have seen fit to construct, the great majority 
 still press stoutly on in the difficult but well-beaten 
 path which their fathers trod before them, confident 
 that their well-developed muscles and vigorous limbs 
 will lend them, at the end of the course, an infinite 
 superiority over those who land from the cars with 
 scarcely the consciousness of Jiaving put forth an 
 exertion by the way. 
 
 The undersigned are further confirmed in the con- 
 viction they have expressed as to the true object and 
 motive of the demand for "open" systems, by the 
 nature of the objections so continually raised against 
 the usual curriculum of collegiate study. These objec- 
 tions are invariably founded on the assumed want of 
 practical usefulness of the classics and of the higher 
 mathematics. "It is objected that mathematical knowl- 
 edge, to most students, is of little practical use. The 
 plain rules of arithmetic, it is said, are all which most 
 men ever find occasion to apply. * * * Why, it is 
 asked, should a student be compelled to devote years 
 to the acquisition of a species of knowledge which is 
 4 
 
so REPORT. 
 
 useful only as it enables liim to advance to the study of 
 navigation, surveying, astronomy, and other sciences 
 into which mathematical principles largely enter ; when 
 he has no wish or expectation to engage practically in 
 either of these sciences; and will probably, from his 
 distaste for the whole subject, forget in a few years 
 what he has learned with so much labor ? " This is the 
 form in which the objection to the mathematics is stated 
 in the reply of the Faculty of Yale College to a resolu- 
 tion of the President and Fellows of that institution, 
 passed in 1827, inquiring into the expediency of remod- 
 eling the plan of instruction in operation there. And 
 in this form we continually hear it reiterated by those 
 who, among the people, complain of the severity or the 
 practical inutility of the plan of instruction here. What 
 is the man to do — that is the perpetually recurring 
 question — with the abstract mathematics with which 
 you weary the youth? Will the theory of functions 
 make him a better lawyer, or the calculus a better 
 theologian, or analytic geometry a better merchant, 
 than he would be without them? The objector utterly 
 ignores any other species of benefit derivable from the 
 study, but that which appears in the direct and visible 
 application of the knowledge acquired to the immediate 
 business of life. Even upon this ground, it is not diffi- 
 cult to meet and to answer him. Though he may not 
 himself have occasion to employ in practice all the 
 science in which he is instructed, yet he cannot avoid 
 coming in contact with men whose business it is to 
 make such applications. Is it of no importance to him 
 
REPORT. 51 
 
 to be able to judge of meu as well as of matter ? Will 
 it be of no value to him to be conscious of some power 
 to read and duly estimate tlie attainments of tliose on 
 wliose professional opinions lie may perhaps, at one time 
 or another, be called upon to stake all that he possesses ? 
 " Granting," say the Yale College Faculty, in the reply 
 above quoted, " that he loses from his memory many or 
 most of the details of the sciences, he still knows where 
 to apply for information, and how to direct his inquiries ; 
 and is able to judge correctly of the talents and preten- 
 sions of those who are prominent in any one department, 
 and whom he may wish to employ in the accomplish- 
 ment of actual business. He is acquainted in the region 
 where he is, acts more understandingly in what he un- 
 dertakes, and is found, in consequence of his knowledge, 
 to be, in all his transactions, a more practical man." 
 
 But what if he were not ? The undersis^ned desire to 
 rely on no such line of argumentation as this. What if he 
 does lose from his memory all the details of mathemat- 
 ical science he ever knew, above the mere arithmetic of 
 every day ? It is undeniable, and no sound reasoner on 
 the philosophy of education ever denied, that the study 
 of these details, if it has been diligently and not too 
 exclusively pursued, has left behind it an effect of inap- 
 preciable value. No study can compare with that of 
 the mathematics, in creating and fixing habits of close 
 and concentrated attention, and of following out con- 
 nected and lons^-continued trains of thousrht. Yet, 
 without habits of this kind, what may seem to be 
 natural gifts of the most brilliant character, may, and 
 
52 REPORT. 
 
 will fail inevitably to produce any valuable results ; since 
 in mincl, as surely as in matter, it is labor only whicli 
 builds the pyramids. Even Sir William Hamilton, in 
 his able and in most respects, it must be confessed, just 
 strictures upon the excessive employment of mathemat- 
 ical study, as an instrument of mental training, is com- 
 pelled to confess its usefulness in this particular. " The 
 study," he says, " if pursued in moderation, may be ben- 
 eficial in the correction of a certain vice, and in the form- 
 ation of its corresponding virtue. The vice is the habit 
 of mental distraction ; the virtue, the habit of continu- 
 ous attention." And though he maintains that " math- 
 ematics are not the only study which cultivates the 
 attention, neither is the kind and degree of attention 
 which they tend to induce the kind and degree of atten- 
 tion which our other and higher speculations require 
 and exercise ;" and though he quotes, with his assent, 
 the observation of Kirwan, that "there is no science 
 which does not equally require it," — still the experience 
 and testimony of ages must be regarded in these partic- 
 ulars as an offset to his high authority ; and it must be 
 admitted as incontestibly established, that the mathe- 
 matics are the most powerful of all known instruments 
 for training the mind to habits of undivided attention. 
 And so long as without the power of attention, no other 
 faculties of the mind are controllable by their possessor 
 so as to be available for any valuable end ; it is to no pur- 
 pose to sneer at this, as being in the humblest rank of 
 mental powers, in order to bring into disrepute the 
 studies by which it is most efficiently cultivated. 
 
REPORT. 53 
 
 To those, therefore, who cry out for the omission of 
 mathematical studies from the college curriculum, or for 
 a system so conveniently open that they may be able to 
 omit them for themselves, the undersigned would reply 
 that the omission destroys one of the most important 
 of the guaranties hitherto regarded as indispensable, 
 that the course of study shall produce the result, which 
 the University, by its diploma, is to certify to have been 
 produced — symmetrical mental training and sound 
 scholarship. 
 
 But if the mathematics, and especially the higher 
 mathematics of the college course, have been subjects of 
 attack, the ancient classics have been no less so. " It is 
 often asked," says President Sparks, in his inaugural 
 address, " Why waste so much time in studying the dead 
 languages, in acquiring Greek and Latin, which are sel- 
 dom used afterwards ? Why not fill up this long period 
 with studies of more immediate utility^ which, at the 
 same time that they help to train the mind and form 
 the character, communicate a knowledge of men and 
 things, which may he turned to account in the common 
 affairs of lifeV In the same spirit, an anonymous 
 English writer, in a vigorous onslaught upon classical 
 learning, published in 1850, and considered of import- 
 ance enough to be made the subject of an article in one 
 of the leading British reviews, inquires, " Is the mere 
 classical scholar as well fitted as persons trained in other 
 ways, for doing the things which need be done in such 
 times as those in which we are living ? Do we find that 
 this is the best training, in an active and jostling and 
 
54 REPORT. 
 
 stirring age like the present, for the senate, the bar, the 
 platform, or the press ? Can the mere scholar sway the 
 minds of the men of Manchester or of Birmingham f " 
 Without stopping to remark that the men who leave 
 the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and who are 
 here signalized as " mere scholars," have, for the most 
 part, swayed the minds of the men of Manchester and 
 of Birmingham, down to the present day, it is sufficient 
 to observe that in these extracts and many other similar 
 ones which might be quoted, we have still the idea 
 standing prominently out, that the college curriculum 
 ought to furnish " knowledge which may be turned to 
 account in the common affairs of life;" and that the 
 course of undergraduate training ought to be conducted 
 with the view to turn out youth immediately fit " to 
 sway the minds of the men of Manchester and of Birm- 
 ingham." The perpetual recurrence of this idea in all 
 the writings of all the modern advocates of new systems 
 of collegiate instruction, is truly disheartening. The ap- 
 parent absence of any just aj^prehension of what it is 
 which a college, in its intention, undertakes to do, or of 
 any sort of appreciation of the value of the object at 
 which the college aims, make it necessary continually to 
 fall back upon first principles, and to fritter away time 
 and waste breath in endless explanations. The true 
 philosophy of this subject is found so well expressed in 
 the following passage from the able letter of President 
 Thornwell of the S. S. College, to Gov. Manning of 
 that State, that the undersigned believe they cannot 
 do better than to adopt it. " The selection of studies 
 
REPORT. 55 
 
 must be made, not with reference to tlie comparative 
 importance of their matter, or the practical value of the 
 knowledge, but with reference to their influence in un- 
 folding and strengthening the powers of the mind ; as 
 the end is to improve mind^ tlie fitness for the end is the 
 prime consideration. ' As knowledge,' says Sir William 
 Hamilton, ' (man being now considered as an end to 
 himself) is only valuable as it exercises, developes, and 
 invigorates the mind, so a university, in its liberal 
 faculty, should especially prefer those objects of study 
 which call forth the strongest and most unexclusive en- 
 ergy of thought, and so teach them, too, that this energy 
 shall be most fully elicited in the student. For specu- 
 lative knowledge, of whatever kind, is only profitable 
 to the student, in his liberal cultivation, inasmuch as it 
 supplies him with the object and occasion of exerting 
 his faculties ; since powers are only developed in propor- 
 tion as they ai'e exercised, that is, put forth into energy. 
 The mere possession of scientific truths is, for its own 
 sake, valueless ; and education is only education inas- 
 much as it at once determines and enables the student 
 to educate himself.' Hence^ the introduction of studies 
 on the ground of their practical utility is, pro tanto, sub- 
 versive of the college. It is not its office to make planters, 
 mechanics, lawyers, physicians, or divines. It has nothing 
 directly to do with the uses of knowledge. Its business is 
 with minds, and it employs science only as an instru- 
 ment for the improvement and perfection of mind. 
 With it, the habit of soiind thinMng is more than a thou- 
 sand thoughts. When, therefore, the question is asked, 
 
56 REPORT. 
 
 as it often is asked, by ignorance and empiricism, ^o^lat is 
 the use of certain departments of the college curriculum, 
 the answer should turn not upon the henefits which^ in 
 aftei' life^ may he reaped from these pursuits^ hut upon 
 their immediate subjective influence upon the cultivation 
 of the human facultiesy 
 
 Now, considered as an instrument of intellectual dis- 
 cipline, the study of language has, from the earliest 
 times been regarded as inestimably valuable. Man can- 
 not think but in signs, and the signs of his thoughts are 
 words. But words in their connection combine them- 
 selves according to laws, which laws inhere deeply in the 
 nature of things, and closely connect themselves with 
 the philosophy of the mind. It is not true, as is often 
 asserted, that the study of language is the mere acquisi- 
 tion of a nomenclature, or the substitution of one nom- 
 enclature for another — a weary exercise of the memory 
 alone, with a lexicon for a text book. So far otherwise 
 is the fact, that there is no more improving exercise of 
 the judgment, no better sharpener of the perception of 
 nice distinctions, no more facile guide to the power of 
 easy abstraction, and certainly no more rapid and effi- 
 cient help to correctness, copiousness, and force of ex- 
 pression, than the critical study of language. If, in 
 some of these respects, it ranks below that of metaphys- 
 ics, rhetoric, or logic, in others it stands above them ; 
 and if the discipline which it furnishes is less severe, it 
 is on that account the more desirable to retain it, as it 
 furnishes the happiest preparation for that more trying 
 regimen which they introduce. 
 
REPORT 
 
 6T 
 
 But if the study of language generally lias the value 
 which is here claimed for it, that of the languages of 
 ancient Eome and Greece possesses this merit in an 
 eminent degree. In them those principles of the philos- 
 ophy of speech, to which allusion has been made, and 
 which constitute in their systematized form the science 
 of General Grammar, are more perfectly and more hap- 
 pily illustrated, than in any other known tongues, liv- 
 ing or dead. And not only is it true that, as languages, 
 they thus furnish to the linguistic philosopher the most 
 interesting, as they do at the same time to the youthful 
 student the most improving, of all the subjects em- 
 braced in this department of knowledge ; but also, it 
 most fortunately happens, that their literature presents 
 the happiest examples of language in its proper use — 
 the most unexceptionable models of historical, dramatic, 
 poetical, metaphysical, and oratorical composition, that 
 the world has ever seen. We have, then, in the Greek 
 and Roman tongues, the instrument of human thought 
 in its most perfect form ; and in the Greek and Roman 
 classic authors, the application and the uses of the 'in- 
 strument in their most admirable and elegant illustra- 
 tions. So strongly have these considerations impressed 
 the educators — it may almost be said universally — of 
 all modern time, that the perpetually recurring cry of 
 the " practical men " of the entire century which pre- 
 cedes us — Cui bono? what will all this Latin and Greek 
 do for us in the business of spinning cotton and raising 
 potatoes ? — has been of no avail whatever to dislodge 
 ^jhe classics from our colleges, or even to unsettle the 
 
 \ 
 
58 REPORT. 
 
 firmness of the tenure by which they maintain their 
 prescriptive prominence there. In view of these con- 
 siderations, how empty and shallow does all this revo- 
 lutionary clamor appear ! And of how utterly trivial 
 importance is it, whether the student who has experi- 
 enced the inestimable benefits which spring from a 
 thorough study of the "Humane Letters," remembers, 
 or fails to remember, through all his after life, the mere 
 facts of knowledge, which, as necessary incidentals to 
 this training, he picked up during his student career ! 
 To an objection of this kind — and it is one of no unfre- 
 quent occurrence — may be replied, in the felicitous lan- 
 guage of one of our own alumni, himself an honor to 
 the system of training hitherto pursued in the Univer- 
 sity of Alabama :* "Forgotten your Latin and Greek ! 
 Well, and what if you have ? Who expects you to re- 
 tain, as man^ all the 'knowledges' that you learned, 
 as hoy f But the discipline and refinement which those 
 noble models of thought and style imparted, you cannot 
 have lost. You cannot have lost that delicacy of per- 
 ception, that exactness of reasoning, that distinctness of 
 moral truth, that elegance and purity of expression, 
 which the classics invariably bestow upon their faithful 
 votaries. It is impossible to sit down to a symposium 
 with the gods, and rise up wholly mortal. Like Moses 
 descending from the Mount, you will bear, impressed 
 upon your front, some of the traces of Divinity." 
 
 But it is only the very unlettered, or the very weak, 
 who indulge in this utter depreciation of the value of 
 
 * W. C. L. Richardson, Esq., of Camden, Alabama. 
 
REPORT. 69 
 
 classical study. There liave certainly been learned and 
 good men, who, induced by the occasional earnestness 
 of the demand for more practical education for practical 
 men, have consented to lend their aid toward meeting 
 this demand. A number of the colleges of the country 
 have presented to the applicants for admission, a choice 
 between two courses of study — one of them that which 
 is common in the colleges of the United States, and the 
 other distinguished from this mainly in the exclusion of 
 the Greek and Roman classics from the curriculum. 
 The fact, however, that they retain these studies in 
 either course, sufficiently demonstrates the sense they 
 entertain of their value; a sense which, in some 
 instances in which the opportunity has naturally arisen, 
 they have not hesitated to express. An illustration of 
 this remark occurs in a report presented to the Board 
 of Trustees of the University of Rochester, by a com- 
 mittee of their body, in the year 1850, on the subject 
 of the plan of instruction to be pursued in the collegi- 
 ate department there. The plan recommended by the 
 committee, in this report, which was subsequently 
 adopted and which is now in operation, embraced the 
 parallel "classical" and "scientific" courses described 
 above ; yet the committee, in speaking of the classics, 
 use the following language : " They," the committee, 
 " have no desire of detracting from the value of classical 
 studies, and much less have they any disposition to go 
 over the old argument upon the subject. They are 
 unanimously of oj)inion that the critical and extended 
 study of the languages of ancient Greece and Rome — 
 
60 RETORT. 
 
 languages which, though no longer spoken in their orig- 
 inal forms, are still upon the lips of many nations, and 
 live again in several of the tongues of modern Europe, 
 constituting an important part of our vocabulary, and 
 affording, in the exercise of translation, a discipline of 
 incomparable excellence in the discriminating use of 
 words, and in all the niceties of construction ; languages 
 so copious in resources and admirable in structure, so 
 pure in the style of the authors, and rich in a literature 
 that can boast of the highest models of eloquence and 
 the best specimens of poetry in all its varieties ; that 
 contains the fountains of philosophy, and is replete with 
 the spirit of ancient civilization; that is stored with 
 glorious examples of patriotism and heroic virtue, and 
 adorned with the gay pictures of an imaginative my- 
 thology — is one of the most valuable as it is the most 
 elegant of studies, to those who aim at distinguished 
 scholarship and will devote the requisite time to their 
 education." 
 
 In like manner. President Quincy, of Harvard, in a 
 communication to the Board of Overseers of that insti- 
 tution, published in 1841, and prepared in advocacy of 
 a plan by which it was proposed to permit an entire 
 abandonment of the classics, at the pleasure of the 
 student, after the completion of the freshman year, 
 bears testimony to the great value of the studies which, 
 in obedience to an imaginary popular requisition, he 
 consents to see discarded. " That there are advantages 
 in the study of the ancient languages — that they are 
 better adapted than most other studies, to inure stu- 
 
R E P O K T . 61 
 
 dents to overcome intellectual difficulties, and secure a 
 habit of solid and vigorous application at an early 
 period of life — that these languages are mixed, etymo- 
 logically, with all the languages of modern Europe, and 
 with none more than our own — that, as mere inventions, 
 as pieces of mechanism, they are more beautiful than 
 any of the modern languages — that the w^orks they con- 
 tain have longest stood the test of time, and pleased the 
 greatest number of exercised minds — are reasons why 
 they should he made the groundivorh of the early train- 
 ing of all ivho aim at the distinction of a liberal educa- 
 tion ; and this, on the proposed system, will be effected 
 at the schools, and in the first year in college." And, 
 in connection with this testimony, it may here be re- 
 marked that " the proposed system," after a fair trial at 
 Harvard, proved an entire failure. During the presi- 
 dency of Hon. Edward Everett, the liberty of election 
 between studies, or, in other words, the freedom to 
 abandon the classics, was materially restricted; and 
 that gentleman himself, as the undersigned state on the 
 authority of a private letter received from him, was in 
 favor of returning entirely to a prescribed course of 
 study. 
 
 But while thus the value of classical study, in the 
 subjective influence it exercises upon the student, is vin- 
 dicated not only by a consideration of the nature of the 
 study itself, but also by the testimony of judicious edu- 
 cators everywhere, even of those who have consented to 
 its optional banishment from the college curriculum, it 
 is not difficult, after all, to disprove the assertion so fre- 
 
62 REPORT. 
 
 queiitly and so flippantly made, that the knowledge 
 which this species of study furnishes to the youth, is 
 without any practical use in later life. And here, in 
 employing the words, practical use, the undersigned 
 would not be understood to intend a use so intensely 
 and literally and materially practical, as to manifest 
 itself in superiority of skill in planting cotton, or unu- 
 sual wisdom in managing stock ; for if a test so gross is 
 to be applied to the attainments of the scholar in every 
 department, many other branches of learning beside the 
 ancient classics will fall under the ban. But if propri- 
 ety of speech, ease and copiousness of expression, and 
 those various graces of conversation which distinguish 
 the man of letters, may be regarded as practical bene- 
 fits to their possessor, if the greater respect which they 
 enable him to command from his surrounding fellow- 
 men is a tribute worth receiving, if the substantial addi- 
 tion to his influence over others, and to his power of 
 benefiting mankind which they bestow, be not a thing 
 to be despised, then will the man in whose youthful 
 culture the ancient classics have not been overlooked, 
 carry with him to the latest day of his life, advantages 
 derived from their study, which no sordid computation 
 of dollars and cents can ever adequately represent. 
 
 The practical usefulness of the learned languages is 
 also proved, by the extreme facility with which to one 
 familiar with them, the languages of modern Europe 
 may be acquired. It is believed that, with the oppo- 
 nents of classical study, the utility of a knowledge of 
 modem languages has never been questioned — or rather 
 
R E P O K T . 63 
 
 that this utility lias always been a cardinal point of 
 their creed. Now, since all the languages of southern 
 Europe, are directly founded on the Latin, and the Latin 
 itself is much dependent on and beautifully illustrated 
 by the Greek, the acquisition of these latter is substan- 
 tially an acquisition of all the rest. Whoever has, after 
 a tolerable acquaintance with the ancient tongues, ad- 
 dressed himself to the task of acquiring the French, or 
 the Spanish, or the Italian, or all of these languages, 
 must have been delighted with the extreme facility 
 with which he has found himself able to master them. 
 Nor is this entirely owing, though it may be so in great 
 measure, to the affiliation of all these offshoots from a 
 common linguistic origin ; but there is something in the 
 thorough study of a language which approaches so 
 nearly as the Latin, or the Greek, to theoretic perfec- 
 tion, which gives a power of mastery over all other 
 tongues not obtainable by any other species of prepara- 
 tion. The following passage from Dr. Wayland's inter- 
 esting work on the present collegiate system of the 
 United States, happily illustrates this proposition. " A 
 few years since," says Dr. Wayland, " I had the pleasure 
 of meeting one of the most learned German scholars 
 who has visited this country. I asked him how it was 
 that his countrymen were able, at so early an age, to 
 obtain the mastery of so many languages. He replied, 
 I began the study of Latin at an early age. Every 
 book I studied, I was made thoroughly acquainted with. 
 I was taught to read and to re-read, translate forwards 
 and backwards, trace out every word and know every 
 
64 R E P O K T . 
 
 tiling about it. Before I left a book, it became as 
 familiar to me as if written in German. After this, I 
 had never any difficulty with any other language!''"^' 
 
 And on tbis point, it may finally be added, that, in 
 tbe present state of the world's literature, some famil- 
 iarity witb the classic authors of Greece and Rome is, 
 to any man who aspires to the name of a scholar, simply 
 a necessity. The literature of all modern Europe is 
 inextricably interwoven with that of Greece and 
 Rome — our own no less than every other. We 
 cannot be literary men, and yet be ignorant of the 
 classics. The idea is utterly preposterous ; and all the 
 attempts to decry the ancient learning by representing 
 it as so much " learned lumber," and thus endeavoring 
 to bring it into disrepute, will have no other effect than 
 to awaken the suspicion or establish the certainty that 
 their originators are no better scholars than they should 
 be, themselves. 
 
 Is it possible, then, that the Trustees of this Univer- 
 sity will deliberately resolve to award the honor of 
 graduation, to confer the diploma which, from the ear- 
 liest history of colleges, has been recognized only as the 
 certificate of genuine scholarship, upon men who will- 
 fully neglect that which always has been, and inevitably 
 always must be, the first essential to the scholar ? Is it 
 possible that they will do this ruinous thing, at a time 
 when the University is in the enjoyment of a sound and 
 healthy prosperity, such as it never has experienced 
 before ; and such as, to all who have been familiar with 
 
 * Waj'laiul on the American College System, 
 
R E P K T . 65 
 
 the early history of other colleges, is not only satisfac- 
 tory but highly encouraging ? Is it possible that they 
 will do it, with the evidence before them of an entirely 
 tranquil contentment pervading the whole people, in 
 regard to the system of instruction in operation here ; 
 and in view of the fact that the proposition for a 
 change, published everywhere throughout the State, 
 has awakened only an occasional and feeble response ; 
 while it has at the same time elicited from the scattered 
 friends of sound education so numerous and elaborate 
 and able vindications of the existing order of things, as 
 to prove beyond all question that the sound sense of 
 the people is satisfied with what we have, and asks for 
 nothing better ? Is it possible that they will do this, 
 and in doing so substitute in place of a tried and ap- 
 proved system, one which has not even the guaranty of 
 past success to recommend it ; but which is actually, in 
 spite of all impressions heretofore existing to the con- 
 trary, unpopular at home, and which has, in point of 
 fact, already broken down in every other institution 
 which has attempted to borrow it ? Surely this cannot 
 be. 
 
 That it has so broken down, witness the statements 
 of Dr. Manly's very able and comprehensive report, 
 already repeatedly referred to. It there appears that, 
 in the State of Virginia itself, two other colleges made 
 the attempt, more than twenty years ago, to introduce 
 the system of the State University. Of Washington 
 College, Dr. Manly says, that " possessing an ample en- 
 dowment, it had no object in the change but to increase 
 
 5 
 
G6 K E P O K T . 
 
 the number of students^ and render itself more exten- 
 sively useful to the citizens of tlie State." It appears 
 that, in this institution, the attempt was made, really 
 and in good faith, to accommodate the instruction to 
 the varying demands of learners, and so permit each 
 student to " study what he chose, all that he chose, and 
 nothing but what he chose" (a respect in which we 
 have seen that, whatever the University of Virginia 
 may promise, or whatever its admirers may promise for 
 its system here, it actually makes no effort to fulfill ex- 
 pectation) ; for Dr. Manly remarks that the college was 
 soon overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task it had 
 assumed, "it soon found that, on the new plan, its 
 accustomed work had swelled into an intolerable bur- 
 then. With the same number of officers as before, and 
 no great increase of students^ the voluntary plan had so 
 multiplied sections and subdivisions of students as to 
 impose on some of the officers the necessity of hearing 
 recitations incessantly, from morning till night. These 
 small squads, having no definite amount of labor to per- 
 form in a given time, and wanting the stimulus of num- 
 bers (a serious want), dragged heavily through their 
 work." It is hardly necessary to say, that after a trial of 
 three or four years, an experiment so full of discourage- 
 ment was entirely abandoned, and that " every thing 
 was restored to its original organization," 
 
 The other example in Virginia, cited by Dr. Manly, 
 was that of Randolph Macon College, in 1832. Of the 
 " department method of organization," or that of the 
 University of Virginia, here introduced, Dr. Manly ob- 
 
REPORT. 67 
 
 serves, " As it had a popular aspect, the officers, when 
 elected men of experience, entered on its administration 
 with an honest purpose, and with the zeal belonging to 
 a new denominational enterprise — a fresh and specious 
 experiment. Before the end of ttvo years, their affairs 
 had run into great confusion^ 
 
 It is true that Dr. Manly says of these examples, 
 that " remedies might have been found for a portion of 
 the evils which had developed themselves ;" by which 
 the undersigned presume it to be meant that the stu- 
 dents in each department might have been forced to 
 conform to a manageable system of classification, or 
 retire ; that, in other words, while they continued to be 
 permitted to elect their departments, they might have 
 been deprived of any liberty of election within tlie de- 
 partments themselves — a state of things which is believed 
 actually to exist in the University of Virginia ; but it is 
 evident that the officers of these two colleges did not 
 regard such an arrangement as an honest fulfillment of 
 the promise which they had held out to the public, and 
 therefore they applied no such remedy. It appears 
 that in the institution last spoken of, " the more popu- 
 lar departments were obliged to distribute themselves 
 into four classes, involving quadruple labor to the offi- 
 cers — and with results to each of these minor classes far 
 from satisfactory. As subjects were taken up out of 
 course, and advancements were unequal, students were 
 becoming ready for graduation at different periods; 
 and had the college followed out the unrestrained spon- 
 
68 REPORT. 
 
 taneity of the system, tliey rniglit have been asked to 
 graduate a fragment every month." 
 
 Dr. Manly also cites the unsatisfactory results 
 attained in a similar experiment at Geneva College, 
 New York, in an experiment commenced about 1826. 
 " Few," he says, " entered the classes on that [the open 
 university] plan, who did not either retire or go into 
 the regular course." 
 
 The experiment in our own University of Alabama, 
 tried for about six years, between 1831 and 1837, may 
 also be fairly cited in connection with the foregoing. 
 It differed from the plan of the University of Virginia 
 in very little, beside withholding the full degrees of 
 Bachelor and Master of Arts from the students of the 
 voluntary course ; while, like that, it proposed to grad- 
 uate them in the several departments separately. But 
 no attempt was made here to accommodate instruction 
 to the varieties of preparation of the students offering, 
 by subdividing the classes; and this preparation was 
 evidently in many cases very meager. The consequence 
 was, the great degradation of the standard of attain- 
 ment, and the growth of habits of idleness and vice, 
 which terminated at last in uncontrollable insubordina- 
 tion. Of this experiment, the Faculty of the Univer- 
 sity, in the letter addressed to the Hon. W. K. Baylor, 
 quoted earlier in the Report, speak as follows : " Did 
 it [the voluntary system], while increasing the number 
 of the students, elevate the character of the college, or 
 promote its prosperity, or enlarge the sphere of its use- 
 fulness? The reverse of all this is notoriously true. 
 
REPORT. €9 
 
 Day by day, the standard of attainment in tbis college 
 sunk lower and lower. Hour by hour disaffection 
 grew, among students occupied but a portion of their 
 time, and left for the rest to that idleness which, with 
 the young and inexperienced, is but another name for 
 incipient vice. The disasters which early befell this 
 institution, were certainly in a measure chargeable upon 
 its officers ; but we must not forget that, at the same 
 time, they were in a measure attributable to the system 
 which those officers were compelled to carry out." 
 
 About the time of the publication of Dr. Manly's 
 report, it was understood that a new university, on 
 the entirely open plan, was going into operation at 
 Cleveland, Ohio. Upon the appointment of this com- 
 mittee, the undersigned lost no time in addressing a 
 letter to the president of that institution, soliciting 
 information in regard to its success ; but up to the date 
 of this Report, they regret to say that they have 
 received no reply."* 
 
 If the entirely open university system has thus re- 
 sulted in miserable failure wherever it has been tried, it 
 has fared scarcely better with those schemes for the sys- 
 
 * Since the above was written, a letter received from President Mahan states 
 that, owing to some unfortunate litigation, the operations of the university were 
 suspended about a year after the opening ; and that they have not yet been 
 resumed, though they probably will be so in a few weeks. The results, so far as 
 they went, appear to have encouraged the friends of the institution, and to have 
 given them confidence in their plan. The conclusion of the letter is in these 
 words: "For the reasons stated above, however, you will readily perceive that 
 we cannot speak from extended experience ; and this is the only form of experi- 
 ence on which safe reliance, aside from the considerations of the laws of mind and 
 the wants of the age, can be placed." 
 
YO R E P O K T . 
 
 tematic proscription of classical studies provided in what 
 are called the " scientific courses " of several of our col- 
 leges. Such courses are offered at Union College, and at 
 the Rochester University, New York, and at Brown 
 University, Rhode Island. Such a course, after the 
 freshman year, was also, some years since, offered at 
 Harvard, Mass. The result at Harvard has already 
 been stated, by anticipation. Nothing remains of the 
 scientific course there but a restricted liberty of election 
 of certain branches of the mathematics, in place of either 
 ancient or modern languages, during the junior and sen- 
 ior years. The catalogue of the Rochester University 
 does not distinguish to which of the courses individual 
 students belong, nor give the totals in each ; but an in- 
 teresting letter from Prof. Dewey, of that institution, him- 
 self strongly in favor of the plan in operation there, and 
 one of its originators, furnishes evidence that the scien- 
 tific course has not yet secured any very firm hold upon 
 the public confidence or approbation. " The two courses, 
 classical and scientific," writes Prof. Dewey, " which you 
 will see in the catalogue, you know are not new. Union 
 College and some others have adopted similar plans, and 
 find, I believe, the same difficulty in the execution. We 
 cannot keep any number in the scientific course. I did 
 suppose that many, who did not wish Latin and Greek, 
 would avail themselves of this course. Some have done 
 so, but only a few ; and many of those entering on it 
 have afterwards taken Latin and Greek, and fitted 
 themselves for the classical. So far as we have had 
 scholars in the scientific, the plan has operated well. 
 
E E P O K T . 71 
 
 N^oio we have only very few, not enough to make 
 much effort necessary. The power of public opinion in 
 favor of the learned languages^ and of the usual college 
 course^ entirely controls our youth ; and I am pained to 
 see, what I did not expect, the scientific course without 
 many applicants, and even with very few. This is the 
 result hereP Yet certainly it has been under the press- 
 ure of a presumed force of public opinion in derogation 
 of the learned languages, and in opposition to the usual 
 college course, that these new systems of collegiate study 
 have been originated ; and the fact that the public will 
 not, after all, patronize them when presented, is a satis- 
 factory demonstration that public opinion on this sub- 
 ject has been misapprehended. 
 
 Union College, in its catalogue for the third term, 
 1854, has a total of two hundred and forty-one students, 
 of whom nineteen only are in the scientific course. In 
 the freshman class, not a single individual belongs to 
 that course ; and in the junior class, there are only two. 
 
 In regard to Brown University, the undersigned have 
 no later information than that furnished by the report 
 of Dr. Manly. Although, directly after their appoint- 
 ment, they addressed Dr. Wayland, soliciting from him 
 some statement as to how far his anticipations had been 
 realized in the subsequent actual working of his system, 
 they have not yet been so fortunate as to receive his 
 reply. In this, and in several other instances, in which 
 their inquiries remain equally unanswered, it is probable 
 that the unfavorable season of the year in which they 
 were made, while most of the colleges of the country 
 
72 REPORT. 
 
 are resting from their labors, and their officers are prob- 
 ably dispei-sed, has prevented their letters from season- 
 ably reaching their destination.* According to the 
 report of Dr. Manly, out of the total number of students 
 in the first term of 1852-3, there were forty-five per 
 cent, studying Latin, and twenty-seven per cent, study- 
 ing Greek. In order to understand the significancy of 
 these numbers, it must be observed that the catalogue 
 embraces students of one, two, three, and four years' 
 standing, while the courses of Latin and Greek study 
 cover only two years. In the fourth year, the ancient 
 
 * The commencement at Brown University was tliis year holden on the 6th 
 of September, inst. According to the published reports, the degree of Master of 
 Arts was conferred on twenty-three young men ; that of Bachelor of Arts on 
 eight; and that of Bachelor of Philosophy on seven — the first being a four years' 
 coui'se, and the other two being each courses of three years. The total number 
 of graduates is, therefore, this year, only thirty-eight, of whom twenty-three take 
 the classics in full ; eight take them in full or in part ; and only seven not at alL 
 The suffrage at Brown University is, therefore, more than four to one in favor of 
 classical learning. Yet this college makes the experiment imder circumstances of 
 advantage thus signalized by Dr. Manly in his report: " How much is peculiar 
 here ! The reputation and energy of the distinguished president ; the enterprising 
 character of the population of New England ; and the degree to which the i-esults 
 of science are immediately wanted in the new and varied employments actually 
 going on around ; the fact, too, that it is the only institution already possessed of 
 age and standing which has adopted these new and promising features ; — all 
 together, have given that institution an increase of numbers which no other 
 sphere and no other circiuiistances could supply. In a densely peopled region, 
 alreadj^ educated above the average, eagerly pressing on the means of subsistence, 
 of accumulation, or of fame, qiiickcned to scientific inquiry by the direct superiority 
 which science gives to tlie emulous votaries of the productive arts — this institu- 
 tion has opened all its treasures. Need we wonder at the effect produced by the 
 glittering prize ? Sliould we anticipate similar results imder circumstances totally 
 fliffercnt, we might be greatly disappointed." Yet apparently these results are 
 not, after all, especially brilliant. 
 
E E P O E T . 73 
 
 languages are studied by none (so it appears, at least, 
 from the only catalogue at hand). In the first year, a 
 large majority take Latin, and a smaller number Greek. 
 In the second, out of the forty-three students (catalogue 
 of 1850-51), there are only Jive who do not take one or 
 the other ; and in the third, about one-third part take 
 Greek, while Latin disappears. The results, therefore, 
 of experiment at Brown University, so far as we have 
 them, serve most explicitly to corroborate the inferences 
 which have already been drawn from those previously 
 examined. 
 
 If, finally, appeal be made to the catalogue of the 
 University of Virginia itself, where the utmost freedom 
 is allowed the student in the selection of his studies, we 
 shall find the weight of evidence still leaning the same 
 way, and tending to demonstrate the fact that the peo- 
 ple tvill not abandon the Latin and the Greek. In each 
 of these languages, the course of that University covers 
 two years only ; and it is presumed that there, as else- 
 where, the two may be pursued simultaneously. Now, 
 if from the total of the catalogue for 1853-54, which is 
 466, we subtract 199 students entirely professional, there 
 remain 267 students under the Faculty of Arts. Of 
 these, 176 are in the department of ancient languages, and 
 156 only in that of the modern. In mathematics there 
 are 179, and in chemistry 220, many of the medical stu- 
 dents taking this department ; while in the remaining de- 
 partments of natural philosophy and moral philosophy 
 (the latter comprehending also metaphysics, rhetoric, 
 logic, criticism, and political economy), the numbers fall 
 
74 K E P O K T . 
 
 as low as 106 and 112 respectively. It appears, therefore, 
 that ill this University, in which students who aim at edu- 
 cation remain three or four years, while the classical 
 courses are completed in two, the proportion of the 
 whole number (two-thirds) who, by the latest catalogue 
 appear to be studying the learned languages, is so great 
 as to indicate that nearly all, at one period or another, 
 enroll themselves in that department. 
 
 The undersigned feel themselves, therefore, fully 
 sustained by the unvarying testimony of facts, taken 
 wherever they can be found, when they assert that there 
 is really none of that aversion to the learned languages, 
 or distaste for them, and none of that conviction of their 
 want of practical utility, of which we hear so much, 
 as being widely spread and deeply rooted among the 
 people. There is none, at least among those who- desire 
 to be liberally educated, whether we include only such 
 as submit themselves to the routine of study prescribed 
 in the close colleges, or whether we leave the decision 
 to the results of free volition, and confine our scrutiny to 
 the most widely open universities of the Union. Nor 
 is the ordinary college curriculum, as a whole, disap- 
 proved by the great majority of the people, or even 
 avoided by any large proportion of students themselves, 
 when the choice is in their hands. " It is found," says 
 Dr. Manly, " that those [colleges] whose course of studies 
 is fixed and uniform for all, have adopted such a course 
 that, when the largest practicable liberty of selection is 
 allowed, not less than three-fourths of the students volun- 
 tarily fallinto itj as on the whole the best; and that 
 
R E P O K T . 75 
 
 this proportion^ ivith larger experience^ is of late years 
 increasing.^'' 
 
 That there should be, nevertheless, a good deal of 
 uttered discontent with college courses of study, is not 
 surprising. For thirty years or more, it has been heard, 
 sometimes in one part of the country and sometimes in 
 another, always dwelling upon the same alleged evils — 
 the tediousness and long duration of the course ; the 
 unpractical character of the studies ; the sad waste of 
 time expended over classic lore and the higher mathe- 
 matics ; the absolute neglect to impart that training 
 which shall prepare the student, as he emerges from the 
 institution, to grapple at once and familiarly with the 
 affairs of life. But in this there is nothing: which ouo;ht 
 to surprise. " With the present century," says Dr. Way- 
 land, in his report of 1850, "a new era dawned upon 
 the world. A host of new sciences arose, all holding 
 important relations to the progress of civilization. Here 
 was a whole people in an entirely novel position. Al- 
 most the whole nation was able to read. Mind had 
 been quickened to intense energy by the events of the 
 Revolution. The spirit of self-reliance had gained 
 strength by the result of that contest. A country rich 
 in every form of capability had just come into their 
 possession. Its wealth was inexhaustible ; and its ad- 
 aptation to the production of most of the great staples 
 of commerce unsurpassed. All that was needed to de- 
 velop its resources, was well-directed labor. But labor 
 only can be skillfully directed by science ; and the sci- 
 ences now coming into notice were precisely those which 
 
76 REPORT. 
 
 the condition of the country rendered indispensable to 
 success. That such a people could he satisfied with the 
 teaching of Gree\ Latin, and the elements of the Mathe- 
 matics^ was plainly impossihley Here, then, is the 
 source of an early dissatisfaction with colleges, against 
 which, as Dr. Wayland proceeds to show, these institu- 
 tions endeavored to bear up — not by abandoning what 
 they had taught before, but by " adding science after 
 science to the course, as fast as the pressure from without 
 seemed to require it." But, in the mean time, they have 
 not extended the duration of the period of instruction. 
 Had they done so, they " must have encountered the 
 common prejudice in favor of a four years' course." 
 In consequence of this, according to Dr. Wayland, into 
 the particulars of whose calculation it is unnecessary to 
 descend, the average length of time which can be de- 
 voted to each several subject of study (apart from the 
 Greek and Latin) in American colleges, is but a fraction 
 over six weeks. Hence has arisen a new dissatisfaction, 
 w^hich has had its special and local manifestations of act- 
 ivity, at different times and in different quarters, during 
 the last half-century. It is, in the first place, a natural 
 outbreak of that restless spirit of the age, which chafes 
 impatiently with the desire to grasp results without sub- 
 mitting willingly to the labor necessary to prepare 
 them. But it is, in the second place, a feeling of well- 
 founded distrust of the possibility of teaching with thor- 
 oughness so much as is now attempted, in so little time. 
 And in attempting so much, it is to be apprehended 
 that colleges have themselves done a great deal to turn 
 
REPORT. 77 
 
 away public attention from tlie true and fundamental 
 object of collegiate education, and to encourage the idea 
 that it is their duty to train youth with special refer- 
 ence to what are to be their pursuits in life. No such 
 encouragement is necessary from such a source. The 
 idea is, to far too great a degree, spontaneously current. 
 And to this, after all, with perhaps that entire but very 
 prevalent misconception of the distinction between edu- 
 cation and instruction, which so often manifests itself in 
 what is written on this subject, may be mainly ascribed 
 the earnestness with which the university system of this 
 country has been so perseveringly assailed. " A mere 
 knowledge of facts and things," says President Sparks, 
 " is too often looked upon as the ultimate end of educa- 
 tion ; whereas it is little less than an accident^ the nat- 
 ural result of the discipline and training requisite to 
 form an educated man. It depends on the single faculty 
 of memory, which often exists with surprising activity, 
 where the other faculties are languid or obtuse. Knowl- 
 edge oipi'inciples arid causes is the fruit of experience, 
 observation, thought, solid and abiding, deeply wrought 
 into the mind till it becomes an assimilated part of the 
 intellectual man. This is the work of education, and 
 its chief work." 
 
 The unreasonableness of expecting our colleges, 
 whose, proper business is, and has been from the begin- 
 ning, to do this work of education proper, to provide 
 also, in the brief space of time allotted to them with 
 their pupils, that professional or technical training which 
 shall prepare them to engage directly in the business 
 
78 REPORT. 
 
 of life, has been already sufficiently considered. But to 
 what has been said may very properly be added the 
 important consideration suggested by the question, 
 How much, after all, could the college accomplish, pro- 
 vided it were converted altogether into a school for the 
 study of professions and of the practical arts of life? 
 Received, as the students of all American colleges are 
 received, with a very humble preparation, and in most 
 instances with no established mental habits, or with 
 very bad ones, they are not fit — at least as a general 
 rule — to be directly introduced to the study of those 
 professions or arts which are to occupy them in actual 
 life. If it be replied here, that the proposition is not 
 necessarily to introduce them to those studies thus 
 dii'ectly, but only to make their elementary training of 
 such as are manifestly subsidiary or fundamental to 
 them, the rejoinder may be that the entire college 
 course contains nothing which is not subsidiary to the 
 successful study of any profession ; and that, if the 
 intention be to indicate those studies which have a 
 direct affinity with the intended pursuit, the objection 
 to their exclusive use is the serious one, that they will 
 inevitably prevent the equal development of the facul- 
 ties, and end in producing an unequally balanced mind. 
 Yet, waiving every objection of this nature, what, after 
 all, can the college do, at best or at worst, toward turn- 
 ing out a practical man ? While time lasts, the farmer 
 will continue to be made in the field, the manufacturer 
 in the shop, the merchant in the counting-room, the 
 civil engineer in the midst of the actual operations of 
 
R E P O E T . 70 
 
 his science. The well-educated student, when he re- 
 ceives his diploma, is fitted, indeed, to enter upon any of 
 these scenes of labor, and is capable, by his own inde- 
 pendent effort, of perfecting himself in the knowledge 
 and the skill which they demand ; but to expect, by 
 any kind of college training whatever, to furnish him 
 with the ability or inspire him with the confidence to 
 stand forth as a master of any one of these or similar 
 professions, is entirely unreasonable and preposterous. 
 
 There can be little doubt that much of the bias in 
 favor of open universities for the instruction of youth 
 and men in all descriptions of knowledge, has grown 
 out of the vague and generally erroneous notions float- 
 ing through the country, in regard to the character of 
 the universities of Germany. These institutions are 
 substantially professional schools ; and if any of their 
 students are engaged in pursuits merely literary or 
 scientific, those pursuits are of an order much less 
 elementary than such as occupy the young men in our 
 colleges. "The institution in Germany," observe the 
 Faculty of Yale College, in their report already quoted, 
 " which corresponds most nearly to our college, is the 
 gymnasium. The universities are mostly occupied with 
 professional students. In Halle, for example, of eleven 
 hundred students, all except sixty are engaged in the 
 study of theology, law, and medicine." As to the 
 actual amount of instruction given in the gymnasia, the 
 unpublished pamphlet of Bishop Potter, mentioned in a 
 different part of this Report, cites, from the Report of 
 Prof Bache, on the State of Education in Europe, the 
 
80 REPORT. 
 
 examples of three Prussian gymnasia, two in Berlin and 
 one at Pforta, " as representatives of tlie instruction of 
 the kingdom, preparatory to tlie university course." 
 From these examples it appears, that " the pupil in two 
 of these German gymnasia studies nearly if not quite as 
 much mathematics as in our [Pennsylvania] University, 
 and makes respectable proficiency in Physics, Physical 
 Geography, Mechanics, and Chemistry. In that which 
 concedes the least time to science (Pforta), he is taken 
 into Conic Sections, the Diophantine Analysis, Trig- 
 onometry, Physics, Magnetism, <fec." And in regard to 
 Latin and Greek, and also Hebrew, the instruction is 
 more thorough than is probably furnished in any of our 
 colleges.* No argument, therefore, can be drawn from 
 the educational institutions of Germany to ours ; or if 
 such a one should be attempted, it ought to be rather 
 for the creation of a new and higher description of 
 schools, to which none but those who have completed 
 the usual course of college study should be admitted, 
 rather than for the conversion of our existing colleges 
 into what in Germany would be mere nondescripts, 
 having the form of the university and the grade of the 
 gymnasium. 
 
 There is, moreover, reason to believe that the word 
 university, in its popular acceptation in this country, 
 has had something to do with promoting the bias of 
 which mention has just been made. This word, says 
 Sir "William Hamilton, " in the language of the middle 
 ages, was applied either loosely to any understood class 
 
 * Princeton Review, Oct. 1852, and Oct. 1863. 
 
REPORT. 81 
 
 of persons ; or strictly (in the acceptation of the Roman 
 law) to a public incorporation, more especially (as 
 equivalent with communitas) to the members of a 
 municipality, or to the members of a ' general study ' : " 
 — studium generate^ " the oldest word for an unexclusive 
 institution of higher education." Thus the name uni- 
 versity denoted the entire body of persons engaged in 
 study, under a given organization, and not, as it is now 
 commonly understood, the entire circle of possible sub- 
 jects of study : — it was Universitas doctorum et schola- 
 rium^ and not Universitas scientiarum. It further 
 appears, according to the same authority, that "it was 
 the common custom to erect a university in only 
 certain Faculties ; and not unfrequently a concession of 
 the others was subsequently added." Instances are 
 cited of universities established without any Faculty 
 of Arts, and of others in which one or more of the 
 higher Faculties were originally wanting. The mistake 
 in regard to the meaning of this word, which in Eng- 
 land has led to consequences of serious practical import- 
 ance, and occasioned the agitation of legal questions of 
 moment, has in this country been productive of the less 
 grave but still annoying evil of aiding to promote those 
 movements which have had for their object the break- 
 ing up of the established collegiate system. It may 
 seem strange that a mere question of verbal definition 
 should exercise any important influence in a question of 
 this kind. To a thoughtful mind it would seem that, if 
 the common acceptation of the word were a correct 
 one, then in its application to the institutions which we 
 6 
 
K E P O K T . 
 
 call universities it is a misnomer, capable of being cor- 
 rected by tlie simplest of all possible processes, the 
 adoption of a new name; but by no means involving 
 the absurd necessity of remodeling the institution to 
 suit the word. It has nevertheless had its effect ; and 
 this rarely fails to be perceptible, in any argument put 
 forward in favor of changes like that which is now 
 urged upon the University of Alabama. 
 
 In conclusion, the undersigned cannot but believe, 
 that, on questions of this kind, some consideration is 
 due to the weight of authority. The most eminent 
 educators of youth in America, are almost with one 
 voice opposed to a system like that of the Univei'sity of 
 Virginia, for American colleges. The Faculty of Yale 
 College, at the time of the publication of their ably 
 argued letter to the trustees of that institution, from 
 which repeated quotations have been made in this 
 E-eport, embraced some of the most distinguished and 
 experienced instructors whom this country has pro- 
 duced ; among whom we may especially signalize Presi- 
 dent Day, and Professors Kingsley, Silliman, Goodrich, 
 and Olmsted. 
 
 It is certain that no college in the United States has 
 ever commanded a higher respect, or possessed a more 
 extended popularity, than this. And it is remarkable 
 that though it was among the first — perhaps quite the 
 first — to take a public and decided stand in opposition 
 to the views of those who would break up the existing 
 college system, and especially of those who would dis- 
 card the learned languages from the curriculum of 
 
REPORT. 83 
 
 college study, yet no period of its whole history has 
 been distinguished by a more signal prosperity than 
 that which has since elapsed. At no time have the 
 Faculty of that celebrated institution shown the slight- 
 est disposition to descend from the high position which 
 they assumed in 1828 ; and a recent letter received 
 from Dr. Woolsey, the accomplished scholar who at 
 present presides over it, accords entirely with the views 
 which have been expressed in this Report. "We have 
 ever," writes Dr. Woolsey, " been averse to the system 
 pursued at Charlottesville, on the ground principally 
 that students, at that stage of their education when 
 they are in college, are incompetent to choose what 
 they ought to study ; and on the ground that, at that 
 season, there is need of drilling and close examination — 
 of a daily responsibility — habits of study being yet un- 
 formed, and immediate motives being needed to put 
 young minds at work. It is surprising how much 
 stronger a motive acts in professional study than in 
 preparatory ; the student in the former case feeling 
 that success in life is in a good degree connected with 
 his diligence, and by no means so much in the latter. 
 Hence we are disinclined to an optional and to a lecture 
 system. We would introduce both sparingly, and 
 toward the close of a college life. And indeed a lec- 
 ture system, without frequent examination, is of small 
 account." 
 
 Dr. Woolsey then proceeds to consider the objections 
 which are usually urged against the existing system. 
 He observes, " There are two principal ones, 1st, that 
 
84: K E r O K T . 
 
 students will not study what they do not like ; and 2d, 
 that there is an inaptitude in some for certain branches. 
 To which may be added, that the course from the first 
 may be accommodated, on the optional system, to the 
 profession chosen. In reply to the last objection, we 
 say that the discipline of languages and mathematics, 
 and of moral science, is too e\ndently needed by all to 
 allow us to doubt that it is, in the main, the correct 
 system. The one-sidedness of men educated only (for 
 example) for and in physical science, is quite apparent. 
 
 "There is real force in the other objections. Stu- 
 dents cannot, as you must know, sometimes, be found 
 to take hold of mathematics or Greek ; and a college 
 life does some, therefore, but little good. Others are 
 incompetent, or nearly so, to master one of the dis- 
 ciplinary studies. The question arises, Is it desirable to 
 modify the system for this sort of minds ? How much 
 will they gain on any system ? Many of them very 
 little. For the rest, I would have a certain optional 
 system, say after half an academical life is over, in 
 which hard mathematics could be chewed by those who 
 don't like Greek, and hard Greek by those who don't 
 like mathematics. You will see that we are old Fogies 
 here. JSfolumus leges Anglice muta/rer 
 
 The position of Hon. Edward Everett, former Presi- 
 dent of Harvard University, on this question, as indi- 
 cated by himself, has already been given. That of Dr. 
 Walker, the present able head of the same University, 
 is expressed in a letter holding the following decisive 
 language : " We are far from wishing to prejudge the 
 
B E P O K T. 85 
 
 result of tlie experiments whicli other colleges are 
 trying. Our own experience, as far as it went, has 
 satisfied us that, in American colleges, neither the age, 
 nor the proficiency, nor the number of the students, nor 
 the number of the teachers, are such as to make the 
 introduction of an unrestricted elective system either 
 advisable or practicable. Merely to arrange the hours 
 of recitation on this plan so that they shall not inter- 
 fere, and yet secure to each student his share of atten- 
 tion and keep him properly employed, will be found to 
 be an almost insuperable difficulty. Most of the objects 
 aimed at by the voluntary system, are more effectually 
 and satisfactorily reached, as we think, by scientific 
 and professional schools connected with the college 
 proper." 
 
 Bishop Potter, of Pennsylvania, whose large expe- 
 rience as an officer and a trustee of several colleges, and 
 whose signal ability and ardent zeal, displayed in the 
 cause of education, entitle his opinion to the highest 
 respect — who, it may be added, is also an earnest advo- 
 cate of the open university system, in its proper place ; 
 and that is, " where young men, older and better 
 trained than our ordinary collegians, with more active 
 desire for improvement," and " where graduates of our 
 colleges, and other young men bent on gaining knowl- 
 edge," can be relied on to apply for its advantages, — 
 concludes an interesting letter on this general subject, 
 in these impressive words : — 
 
 "The attempt to popularize a college, is too often 
 an attempt to extinguish its collegiate character, and 
 
86 K E P O K T . 
 
 transform it into a liigh school. The classics are not 
 taught as they should be in our colleges ; and the great 
 reason is, that too much time is given to other studies. 
 In connection with the moral sciences, they are still, in 
 ray judgment — when well taught — the best gymnastic 
 for the production of a high culture, such as we must 
 have in the United States, if we mean to advance the 
 great work of Christian civilization, and raise up divines, 
 statesmen, and patriots, such as we need, perhaps, more 
 than any other nation in the world." 
 
 Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen, long Chancellor of 
 the New York City University, and now President of 
 Rutgers College, New. Jersey, speaks thus: "The plan 
 of remodeling our colleges for tlie times^ is, in my poor 
 judgment, very unpromising to the interests of a sound 
 education. It should be borne in mind, that the old 
 time-honored system furnishes to the student the ele- 
 ments of every art and science that the modern activity 
 of the mind has called into prominent notice. The 
 benefits to be derived from classical studies (the dead 
 languages, as they are called), are so rich and various, 
 that it would be a calamity to put them aside. They 
 discipline the mind and strengthen its powers, while 
 they purify the taste. And moreover, we must rely 
 upon them for the knowledge of our own language. 
 The classics, like the works of the great artists of other 
 times in painting and sculpture, are to be studied for 
 their purity, and will abundantly recompense the stu- 
 dent. I hope they may still have a full share of the 
 college course. They should be studied, if never opened 
 
REPORT. 87 
 
 again in after life. Much of the benefit will live after 
 them." 
 
 Dr. Thornwell, President of S. C. College, in his 
 letter to Gov. Manning, already quoted from, expresses 
 himself on the subject of two changes which had been 
 proposed in that institution — the first being to introduce, 
 substantially, the Virginia scheme ; and the second to 
 permit students to confine themselves to special branches 
 of study — as follows : " In the first place, young men 
 are incompetent to pronounce beforehand what studies 
 are subjectively the most beneficial. It requires those 
 who have experienced the disciplinary power of diffe- 
 rent studies, to determine their relative value. Only a 
 scholar can say what will make a scholar. The expe- 
 rience of the world has settled down upon a certain 
 class and order of studies ; and the verdict of ages and 
 generations is not to be set aside by the caprices, whims, 
 or prejudices of those who are not even able to compre- 
 hend the main end of education. In the next place, if 
 our undergraduates were competent to form a judg- 
 ment, their natural love of indolence and ease would, in 
 the majority of cases, lead them to exclude those very 
 studies which are the most improving, precisely because 
 they are so ; that is, because in themselves and in the 
 method of teaching them, they involve a degree and 
 intensity of mental exercise which is positively painful. 
 Self-denial is not natural to man ; and he manifests but 
 little acquaintance with human nature, who presumes, 
 as a matter of course, that the will will choose what the 
 judgment commends. Video melioi^a prohoque^ deteriora 
 
K E P O R T . 
 
 sequo?; is more pre-eminently true of tlie young than of 
 the old. They are the creatures of impulse. * * * 
 Easy exercises are preferred, simply because they do not 
 tax the mind. The practical problem with the mass of 
 students is — the least work and the easiest done. Is it 
 easy ? Is it short ? these are the questions which are first 
 asked about a lesson. I must therefore consider any 
 attempt to relax the compulsory feature of the college 
 course, as an infallible expedient for degrading educa- 
 tion. The college will cease to train. It may be a 
 place for literary triflers, but a place for students it 
 cannot be." 
 
 And again : " With respect to the other change, that 
 of allowing students under certain circumstances, to 
 pursue a partial course, it is evidently contradictory to 
 the fundamental aim of the college. These students 
 are not seeking knowledge for the sake of discipline, 
 but with reference to ulterior uses. They come not to 
 be trained to tlmik^ but to learn to act in definite 
 departments of exertion. It is professional^ not liberal 
 education which they want. The want, I acknowledge, 
 should be gratified ; it is a demand which should be 
 supplied. But the college is not the place to do it. 
 That was founded for other purposes, and it is simply 
 preposterous to abrogate its constitution out of conces- 
 sions to a necessity, because the necessity happens to be. 
 real. What therefore ought to be done is, not to 
 change the nature of the college, but, leaving that un- 
 touched* to do its own work, to organize schools with 
 special reference to this class of wants." 
 
K E P O K T 
 
 The following emphatic expression of opinion, is from 
 Dr. Church, whose great experience at the head of the 
 University of Georgia, where the voluntary system in 
 one form, has long been subject of experiment, entitles 
 it to much weight : " Far the larger number of students 
 who enter the colleges of the United States are, I ap- 
 prehend, too young to be thrown upon their own respon- 
 sibility in a matter of so much importance as their edu- 
 cation. They are incapable of judging what is best for 
 their mental and moral culture. Leave them to elect 
 the studies which they will pursue, and much the larger 
 portion will take what they consider the easiest and 
 pleasantest course. Leave them to study or not to 
 study, and most will prefer the pleasant circle of friends, 
 to the labor and self-denial necessary to profitable men- 
 tal culture. * * * Study is labor ; and but few will, 
 at the age at which most of our college students enter 
 our institutions, bend the energies of their minds to the 
 acquisition of knowledge, if left wholly to themselves. 
 The Virginia system was intended, I suppose, by its 
 illustrious founder, for men — not hoys. It would answer 
 well for our best scholars, who wish to prosecute their 
 studies after having gone through a good collegiate 
 course. Till the young man is about twenty-one, I am 
 of opinion that it is the great business of education to 
 develop and to properly discipline his intellectual and 
 moral powers and susceptibilities. I apprehend that our 
 usual course of study is as well calculated to do this as 
 any w^hich has yet been suggested. And if, in the com- 
 mon college course, and under the usual discipline, all 
 
90 REPORT. 
 
 cannot be influenced to apply themselves in such a man- 
 ner as to be greatly benefited, a mucli larger number 
 will than under a merely voluntary or elective system." 
 
 Dr. Church, it will be seen, speaks of the elective 
 system, as if the uncontrolled election of studies were 
 vested in the student himself. It has been sometimes 
 assumed that the manifest injudiciousness of such an 
 arrangement might be obviated, by putting the election 
 in the hands of the parent, instead of those of the stu- 
 dent. In nine cases out of ten, however, this regulation 
 is experimentally proved to be inoperative; and the 
 result has been found to be precisely what would have 
 occurred without it. The election is always^ in any 
 institution which allows election at all, in the parent's 
 hands. If he takes the interest he ought to take in his 
 son's education, he will use it without being required to 
 do so by any college law ; if not, he will use it to give 
 the sanction of parental authority to the student's 
 choice. 
 
 Dr. Swain, the distinguished President of the Uni- 
 versity of North Carolina, is no less decided in favor of 
 the views which this Report has presented, than any 
 other of the distinguished authorities already cited. 
 " Mr. Jefferson's original conception of the University of 
 Virginia," writes Dr. Swain, " with the exception that it 
 was somewhat in advance of the age, was an admirable 
 one. His design was to establish a system of schools, 
 in which young men who had completed the usual 
 course of scholastic training, might have an opportunity 
 to review all their studies, and push their researches in 
 
REPORT. 91 
 
 every branch of literature and science to a greater 
 extent than was practicable elsewhere. Experience has 
 shown, that there is too little wealth and too little 
 learned leisure in the country to afford the requisite 
 patronage to an institution of so high a grade. There 
 may be, by the close of the present century, but there 
 is not now. Instead of scholars resorting to that insti- 
 tution to enlarge their attainments in philology and the 
 severer sciences, young men imperfectly acquainted 
 with Webster's spelling-book press there, to enter upon 
 the elements of arithmetic and English grammar. A 
 few, and but a small proportion, go with better prepar- 
 ation and more extended views, become candidates for 
 degrees, and make valuable attainments. The Univer- 
 sity has unquestionably rendered eminent service to the 
 country, by training a few ripe scholars ; but whether 
 the good is not counterbalanced by the evil inflicted, in 
 sending forth a multitude of sciolists bedizened with 
 her livery, is an inquiry entitled to more consideration 
 than it has received. The success of the institution in 
 securing patronage, is not unfrequently over-estimated. 
 With all the advantages of prestige attached to the 
 names of Jefferson and Virginia, with an ample endow- 
 ment, an able Faculty, in the midst of a numerous popu- 
 lation and great wealth, a comparison of catalogues 
 during the last twenty years will probably satisfy you 
 that the number of undergraduates proper has not been 
 greater there than here. It is the schools of law and 
 medicine, which have given the great prominence in 
 numbers, and not the regular academic corps." 
 
92 REPORT. 
 
 And, ill regard to what is said of the demand for 
 "practical education," Dr. Swain observes, — "In my 
 judgment, no system of education can claim to be prac- 
 tical, in this country and at the present age of the 
 world, of which thorough instruction in the learned 
 languages and the mathematics does not constitute the 
 substratum. You may add any amount of attainment 
 in modern languages and natural and experimental sci- 
 ence, that increasing wealth and leisure may permit; 
 but the former can never be dispensed with." 
 
 In fine, the President of our own University, after 
 patiently and laboriously looking into all this subject, 
 only two or three years ago, at the request of the Board 
 of Trustees, announces the conclusion to which the 
 investigation has driven him, in the following passages 
 of his report : " It is obvious that, while experiments 
 among the colleges, for meeting the public demand, 
 have been innumerable, the new system (as it is called) 
 has not generally secured the approbation of educators." 
 "Voluntariness in the selection of studies cannot be 
 complete and absolute under any system." "Those 
 [colleges] which aim at specific adaptation to the busi- 
 ness of life in the courses of study, and lay claim to the 
 greatest voluntariness and the nearest approximation to 
 the wants of the age, and accommodation to the indi- 
 vidual, are obliged, ^^rac^zm?/^^, to admit that a specific 
 education, without the main features of the old college 
 course, is necessarily one-sided and imperfect." " The 
 ' partial course,' which does not lead to a degree, is an 
 acknowledged failure everywhere, not much sought, 
 
E E P O R T . 93 
 
 and attended witli but little satisfaction to any party. 
 The creation of a new degree whicli may be reached 
 without classical attainments, and the separation of old 
 degrees so as to admit of less classical study in some 
 cases than formerly, are expedients intended to apply 
 the stimulus of collegiate honors without the aid of the 
 inspiration drawn from classic fountains. As experi- 
 ments, they are too recent and too limited to show the 
 effect on members or mental culture." And finally: 
 " As an expedient for increasing numbers in this insti- 
 tution (extending its benefits to a greater number of 
 the citizens of the State) a change of organization is 
 deemed questionable. * '^ * The statistics in this 
 report have already furnished proof of the fact that 
 efforts of this kind, intended to popularize institutions, 
 have not replenished them ; that costly arrangements, 
 adapted both to general and individual wants, have 
 attracted but a scanty increase; while, in a noted 
 instance, the fullest classes have been those of the old 
 college system." 
 
 That the weight of authority, no less than the deduc- 
 tions of reason, is entirely opposed to the expediency of 
 a change in the college system of the country so radical 
 as is proposed for this University, cannot, therefore, be 
 questioned. Yet that the system admits of improve- 
 ment, its friends have nowhere attempted to deny. 
 The great burthen of studies which at present presses 
 on the course, the evil of which Dr. Wayland has so 
 ably exhibited, ought in some manner to be disposed of. 
 We must come back to the simple idea of the original 
 
94 REPORT. 
 
 colleGre, and endeavor to restrict these institutions to 
 the discharge of their proper function of education j 
 leaving mainly to special institutions connected with 
 colleges, as suggested in the letter of Dr. Walker, or 
 separate from them, the business of supplying facts, 
 information, knowledge for its uses — that is to say, all 
 instruction designed simply as such. Bishop Potter, in 
 his remarks at the close of the debate on college sys- 
 tems at the Cleveland convention, indicates what to the 
 undersigned appears to be the course which true wis- 
 dom would dictate. ""Were the speaker," he said, 
 " called to reconstruct the course of studies in colleges, 
 his motto would be midtum^ non multa. He would 
 greatly diminish the number of studies which all must 
 pursue. These he would have taught for a much lon- 
 ger time, much more thoroughly, and in a more scholar- 
 like way. Certain other branches, such as Natural His- 
 tory, tfec, he would malce accessible to all, through the 
 ablest and most brilliant professors, delivering short 
 courses of lectures on the rudiments. Other branches 
 he would reserve for those who had special qualifica- 
 tions, who would pursue them eagerly and spontane- 
 ously." The idea of Prof Potter, in regard to the lec- 
 tures on special subjects, above hinted at, is that the 
 most eminent professors in these branches might lec- 
 ture, by arrangement, in many colleges to which they 
 are not specially attached ; his impression (a very just 
 one) being, as he expresses it in a letter, that, " to a 
 young man who has reached the last year of his college 
 life, one month of intercourse with a great master in 
 
E E P O E T . 95 
 
 any branch, is worth more, in the way of permanent 
 incitement and impulse, than many months of study 
 with an inferior teacher." But leaving this topic aside, 
 it is evident that the plan which he suggests for the 
 relief of colleges under the oppressive weight of the 
 great mass of matter which they attempt to teach, is 
 the only true one, the only one from which relief can 
 come. The sole alternative is to lengthen the period of 
 collegiate training and instruction — an alternative to 
 which, evidently, the people will not submit. If, in the 
 progress of time, it shall become possible so to elevate 
 the requisitions for admission into college, as to throw 
 back much of the elementary training upon the prepar- 
 atory schools, and if these schools, in this country, shall 
 ever be brought up to the grade of the German gym- 
 nasia, or anywhere near it, then indeed we may reason- 
 ably hope to teach in our colleges, and teach well, all 
 which we now attempt to teach, and it is to be feared 
 too often teach ill. That state of things can only super- 
 vene by degrees, and can only be a reality in the 
 distant future. It is our business to legislate for the 
 present. 
 
 In regard to our own University, in case a reorgan- 
 ization of the plan of instruction be resolved on, the 
 following, in the opinion of the undersigned, are the 
 principles according to which it should be regulated : — 
 
 1. To prescribe a definite curriculum of study, 
 designed as a mental discipline, to extend over the 
 entire four years, and to which all regular candidates 
 for graduation are to be required to conform. In this, 
 
REPORT. 
 
 however, to include only those branches of study, or 
 certainly very few but those, which, by the consent of 
 the learned of all ages, are entitled to })e regarded as 
 the best instruments for evolving and exercising the 
 powers of the mind. 
 
 2. To embrace all the remaining studies of the 
 course, which are thus thrown out, in a group, out of 
 which the Faculty may, at the proper time, select such 
 as seem fittest to the intellectual wants of each indi- 
 vidual student, as ascertained by the observation of his 
 tastes, mental habits, and actual attainments during the 
 earlier years of study ; and to provide for his instruc- 
 tion in these, without exacting from him, as at present, 
 attention to the whole number. 
 
 In the application of these principles, it seems to the 
 undersigned advisable that, during the first two years 
 of the course, no study should be introduced which is 
 not obligatory upon all the students. The present 
 arrangement of the hours at which the daily exercises 
 occur, need not therefore of necessity be interfered 
 with. Whether or not that is the best arrangement, 
 the undersigned do not undertake to pronounce ; but at 
 present they see no reason to recommend any alteration 
 in this respect, in regard to this part of the course. 
 Should, however, any portion of the studies of the 
 junior and senior year, or of either, be made elective, 
 it will probably be found convenient to assign recita- 
 tions or lectures for these classes in some branches at 
 other hours, additional to those fixed by the present 
 regulations, and without disturbing the latter. What 
 
REPORT. 97 
 
 particular distribution of time may be best adapted to 
 secure all the ends aimed at by this new system of 
 instruction, it will perhaps be best to leave to the more 
 mature deliberation of the Faculty. A table of exer- 
 cises, or roster^ herewith submitted, may be regarded 
 as simply in the light of a suggestion for the purpose 
 of inviting amendment, than as a positive recom- 
 mendation. 
 
 Should a reorganization of the plan of instruction 
 on these principles be resolved upon, it becomes im- 
 portant to decide what studies shall be placed in the 
 elective group. To this class, it appears to the under- 
 signed, that there can be no hesitation in referring, — 
 
 1st. All such as deal principally in facts of observa- 
 tion ; 
 
 2d. Such as require a peculiar natural aptitude for 
 their successful prosecution ; and 
 
 3d. The study of the languages, ancient or modern, 
 pursued beyond the limit prescribed by the obligatory 
 course. 
 
 Under the first head may be included all the 
 branches of natural history, and also geology, 
 mineralogy, physiology, meteorology, and, possibly, a 
 second course of chemistry. 
 
 Under the second may be embraced all the 
 branches of the mathematics which rest upon the 
 algebraic, or symbolic, method (elementary algebra 
 excepted), and embracing in the existing course, 
 algebra applied to geometry, analytical geometry, 
 7 
 
98 K E P O K T . 
 
 and the calculus, difl^rential and integral; to which 
 may be added spherical trigonometry. 
 
 The third requires no specifications. 
 
 The undersigned design to enter into no argument 
 as to the propriety of the distinctions which they have 
 thus made between the subjects now overloading the 
 curriculum of college study. Since it is an admitted 
 fact that no student can possibly now be thorough in 
 all of them, limited as he is to the very few weeks 
 which can only be given to each, according to present 
 arrangements, it can be no serious objection to the pro- 
 posed plan to say, that it must necessarily cut off every 
 student from something. That is very true ; but it is 
 equally true that the entirely voluntary system permits 
 him to do the same for himself; and what is more, 
 makes it nearly certain that he will do it, while it fails 
 to guaranty to him a systematic intellectual training at 
 all. 
 
 The studies which will remain obligatory upon 
 every individual, after those above specified are ex- 
 cluded from the regular course, are such as are 
 universally regarded as furnishing the best discipline 
 of the mind and the most equable exercise of the 
 various faculties ; and such as, at the same time, by a 
 consent almost universal, and quite so if we except the 
 learned languages from the list, are esteemed as being 
 in themselves attainments absolutely indispensable to 
 every man of education. Moreover, in regard to the 
 learned languages, it has already been shown, that the 
 dissent just hinted at, is actually more imaginary than 
 
REPORT 
 
 99 
 
 real, that it is limited to a very small number of per- 
 sons, and that in this number we find hardly a single 
 name of any authority either in the great field of 
 education, or in the world of letters. 
 
 By the adoption, then, of a system of instruction 
 founded on the principles above stated, and in its prac- 
 tical application securing instruction, in any of the 
 branches of knowledge which usually form a part of 
 every collegiate course, to those and those only who are 
 likely to derive positive profit from their study, while 
 all are equally subjected to that thorough education of 
 the mind which it is the proper business as it was the 
 original design of the college to bestow, it appears to 
 the undersigned that whatever is objectionable in the 
 existing system may be eliminated, without putting at 
 hazard the sound prosperity of the institution by 
 changes unnecessarily larrge and startling, and which, 
 whatever confidence in their wisdom their immediate 
 advocates and friends may entertain, are certainly 
 regarded with anxious distrust by a large proportion of 
 our most judicious and thoughtful fellow-citizens. 
 
 If along with the change here proposed, some atten- 
 tion be paid to certain matters of detail, in regard to 
 which amendment appears to be possible, the efficiency 
 of the whole system, in the opinion of the undersigned, 
 cannot fail to be materially improved. The honors and 
 distinctions now awarded by the University, depend on 
 a method of estimating scholarship by giving a nu- 
 merical value to every performance, and preserving a 
 record of every exercise corresponding to its adjudged 
 
100 REPORT. 
 
 merit. To the undersigned this method appears to be 
 faulty in two particulars : first, it is a departure from 
 the sound principle on which the prerogative of grant- 
 ing degrees was designed to be exercised by univer- 
 sities — and that is, that none should be admitted to the 
 honor but such as should be found, by thorough trial, 
 to be actually possessed of the required attainments at 
 the time of receiving the degree ; and secondly, it does 
 nothing to stimulate, and in fact it does sometimes 
 appear to deaden, that honorable pride of scholarship, 
 which, to the generous youth, is one of the most power- 
 ful incitements to intellectual effort. 
 
 In regard to the first particular, it may be said that 
 the present marking system tends to induce a habit of 
 " studying up " or " cramming " for the immediate reci- 
 tation, without regard to such a thorough understanding 
 of the subject, as shall fix it permanently in the mind. 
 And to this may be added, that, by making the recita- 
 tion of the day or of the hour the all-important objecty 
 its influence is to interfere with the formation of com- 
 prehensive or connected views of a subject of study as 
 a whole, or the mutual dependency of its parts upon 
 each other, but to present it rather as a succession of 
 detached and independent doses of knowledge, each to 
 be taken by itself, without regard to what precedes or 
 follows. The consequence is, that by the aid of a toler- 
 able memory, a plausible display may be made at the 
 moment of recitation, when, a few weeks after, it would 
 be difficult for the student to recall any part of what he 
 had so glibly retailed at first. Nor is this absolutely 
 
E E P O K T . 101 
 
 the worst consequence whicli, in some instances, pro- 
 ceeds from the same cause. Artifices are often devised 
 by students averse to labor, by wliicli to make a false 
 exhibit of knowledge, and thus secure from the teacher 
 a high estimate for a performance which possesses no 
 merit at all. Concealed papers, interlined books, aid 
 secretly obtained at the moment of recitation by the 
 prompting of a fellow-student, exercises and composi- 
 tions plagiarized from books, problems and demon- 
 strations obtained from better scholars, and many 
 similar expedients, enable a student often to secure an 
 apparently high grade of scholarship upon the record, 
 when at the same time, his real attainments are very 
 low. These evils, which seem in both cases to be con- 
 sequences which the system directly encourages, may, in 
 the opinion of the undersigned, be both of them re- 
 moved by a slight alteration of the mode of determ- 
 ining grade in scholarship. Let this depend to a 
 degree almost exclusive of any other test, upon the peri- 
 odical and final examinations, and very little, if at all, 
 upon the record of daily recitation. It is important 
 that such a record should still be kept, that uniformity 
 of attention to study may be secured, and that the 
 negligent and grossly deficient may be admonished, or 
 required to withdraw ; but in the valuation of substan- 
 tial scholarship, let thorough examination be the prin- 
 cipal as it is the only sure test of merit. If, also, to 
 this be added the suffrages of the students themselves, 
 in regard to the comparative rank of their classmates in 
 literary and scientific attainments, as at Yale College, 
 
102 K E P O R T . 
 
 and as suggested by Sir William Hamilton, in his ideal 
 of " Oxford as it might be," we should offer to youth 
 one of the highest inducements that could be offered to 
 lead them to covet a reputation with their fellow-stu- 
 dents, who know them thoroughly, for genuine scholar- 
 ship, instead of striving, as now, to secure on the books 
 of the Faculty a record of merit, founded on a basis, at 
 the least illusive, if not fraudulent. 
 
 The habit of looking to a distant, and not to an im- 
 mediate responsibility, will secure more earnest study, 
 and a more sincere desire and determination to under- 
 stand principles, rather than commit to the memory, 
 facts. It will, moreover, be attended with the knowl- 
 edge and conviction that the responsibility is a real one, 
 which (if the examinations are properly conducted) no 
 art can evade, and for which there must be a substan- 
 tial and real preparation. 
 
 In order effectually to secure these ends, it may be 
 deemed desirable to give to the examinations a greater 
 duration than at present, and for this purpose to throw 
 all the three term examinations together at the end of 
 the year ; which will provide for an annual examination 
 of three weeks — a duration which might, perhaps, be 
 profitably extended to a month. And in addition to 
 this, a biennial examination might be held, as at Yale 
 College, and a final one at the end of the four years, at 
 which the classes should be examined upon all the 
 studies they had pursued from the beginning up to 
 that time. This would make the distant responsibility 
 a reality so serious as to necessitate the attainment of 
 
REPORT. 103 
 
 genuine, instead of seeming scholarsliip, and would 
 remove tlie temptations whicli now exist, to fall into 
 habits of systematic evasion of study. 
 
 There remains one other particular, in regard to 
 which a change appears to be desirable. According to 
 the rules at present existing in this University, if a stu- 
 dent fails in the performance of any particular exercise, 
 on account of sickness, or other sufficient excuse, he is 
 permitted to prepare and perform this exercise by him- 
 self separately, and is entitled to receive credit for the 
 performance, precisely as if it had been accomplished in 
 its due season. Should the principle of estimating schol- 
 arship according to the recorded marks of the term 
 exercises be abandoned, then this regulation, as depend- 
 ent on it, may as well be abandoned likewise. But if 
 otherwise, it is still to be desired that this, as the under- 
 signed believe, worse than useless rule, should be dis- 
 pensed with by itself. In the first place, the student 
 ought to be habituated in college, to contemplate the 
 stern truth that men's misfortunes will never be accepted 
 in life, as a reason why their competitors should pause 
 and wait for them, or should offer them a second trial, 
 in the race for the world's distinctions. By sickness, or 
 other misfortune, the student loses the benefit of a per- 
 formance which might have counted in his favor. Be it 
 so — let him accept the loss like a man. Another day 
 it may befall his rival. And it is well to learn, by 
 small mishaps like these, to bear those greater ills which 
 may lie before us in the world's ceaseless struggle, 
 where the race too often is to the swift, and the bat- 
 
104: K E P O R T . 
 
 tie to the strong. More than this, it is well to culti- 
 vate that energetic spirit which scorns to droop at every 
 trivial pain, or to relax effort at every insignificant dis- 
 couragement ; but which presses steadily onward to its 
 purpose, with a perseverance which never flags while 
 progress is a possibility. 
 
 With these suggestions, the undersigned conclude 
 what they have to say in regard to the important sub- 
 ject now pending before the Faculty and the Board of 
 Trustees. At the time of their appointment, they had 
 not contemplated any further action than a simple com- 
 pliance with the request contained in the communica- 
 tion of the Board, accompanied, perhaps, by a mere 
 programme of such a scheme as they have endeavored 
 to describe in this Report, for comparison with that 
 which had been specifically called for. Any very rad- 
 ical change in a system of instruction so generally ap- 
 proved as that which has long existed here, they had 
 not regarded as a possibility. A growing conviction, 
 however, that the cause of sound education in Alabama 
 is more seriously in danger than they had supposed, has 
 constrained them, under the pressure of a deep sense of 
 duty, to present in full the reasons which lead them to 
 deprecate the introduction here of an educational system 
 which a majority of our wisest men regard with distrust, 
 and which has never been more than doubtfully suc- 
 cessful in any college which has tried it in the United 
 
 States. 
 
 F. A. P. BARNARD, 
 
 JNO. W. PRATT. 
 
 TJnwersity of Alabama^ Sept. 18, 1854. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 COLLEGE GOYERHENT, 
 
 AND TIIK KVILS IXSKl'AKAIiLK I'UOM 
 
 €\}t ^merirait CoHciic ,Sj)stnii 
 
 IN ITS PRESENT FORM: 
 
 ORIGINALLY AUDKESSEU TO HuN. A. 13. MIOKK, ONE OK THE KDITOIW OF 
 TIIK MOIJILE KKCJISTEK. 
 
 FREDERICK A. P. BARNARD, M. A., 
 
 LAIK I'KOFK-JSOU OK CIIKMISTUV AXl) NATUUAl, lUSTDltY 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 !►. AITLEToN & CO., 340 AND 348 IJKoA 1 )\V.\ V 
 
 18 5 5. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER 1. 
 
 Page. 
 Strictures of the "Mobile Register," on certain regulations and usages exist- 
 ing in the University of Alabama, considered. — Examination of the law 
 known as " the exculpation law." 7 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Reasons why " the exculpation law " has proved a failure. — Inquiry how far 
 it should be deemed hishonorable for one student to give testimony im- 
 plicating another,. 17 
 
 LETTEE III. 
 
 Objection to the moral tendencies of "the exculpation law," considered. — 
 Substantial benefits derived from the existence of laws to compel the dis- 
 closure of truth, 26 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Diiliculty of the position of College officers as governors. — Personal qualities 
 essential to their success. — Principles of action by which they should be 
 guided, 35 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 The American College system mainly dependent for its successful operation 
 upon the personal qualities of disposition and temperament of the men 
 who conduct it. — Insecurity arising from this cause. — Enumeration of the 
 most essential of the moral qualities which the college officer should pos- 
 sess, 43 
 
* C O N T K X '1' S . 
 
 I 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 rage. 
 Objections of the " Register" to the daily visitation of rooms, considered. — 
 
 Design of this visitation. — Reasons for maintaining the usage. — Social 
 
 intercourse between officers and students ought to be cultivated, . . 51 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 No vindication of the existing system of college government can be univer- 
 sally satisfoctory ; because, first, no system can be equally suited to stu- 
 dents of every age ; and, secondly, the popular idea of the college student 
 is drawn from the class who need least to be governed, . . . 57 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 American colleges assume too great a responsibility. — The college system of 
 this country, considered as a system of moral training, is a failure. — Is 
 there any remedy ? 64 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Evils of residence in dormitories. — Synopsis of Dr. Wayland's views on this 
 subject, 72 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 Evils of the dormitory sj'^stem further examined. — Its tendency to make the 
 intellectual qualifications of instructors a secondary consideration. — Is it 
 possible to abolish the system ? su 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 Experiment proposed for the University of Alabama. — Consideration which 
 seems to have determined the choice of location for most of the colleges 
 of the United States. — Its fallacy. — The dormitory system will be aban- 
 doned ; but only very gradually, ........ 88 
 
 L E T T E li XII. 
 
 Positive advantages of large towns as sites for seminaries of learning. — Con- 
 clusion, ............. 06 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The letters embraced in the following pages are republished, in compli- 
 ance with numerous solicitations from sources entitled to respect. It may 
 serve to explain the somewhat desultory manner in which the topics which 
 they touch are treated, to say that they were originally designed for the col- 
 umns of a daily newspaper, and that they were expected to enjoy only the 
 ephemeral existence which such a channel of publication could secure. In 
 reproducing them here, it might, no doubt, have been possible to subject 
 them to a process of reconstruction, by which whatever they may contain of 
 general interest might have been more happily presented ; while superflui- 
 ties might, at the same time, have been retrenched, repetitions avoided, and 
 all that is of merely local application, suppressed entirely. But this, by the 
 pressure of more important occupations, has been rendered impracticable ; 
 and they are therefore reprinted with but very slight alterations of their orig- 
 inal form, in the belief that their imperfections, though they may do little 
 credit to the writer, will not tend to disparage the cause which he advocates. 
 
 It is obvious that, if there are evils really inherent in the existing 
 system of college organization, the correction of these evils can hardly be 
 looked for until the public demand it. So long as the people are content 
 to take things as they are, so long as patronage is bestowed without mis- 
 giving upon institutions embracing, as do most of our colleges at present, 
 the features which it is the object of these letters to exhibit as objectionable, 
 just so long, of course, will there exist no urgent motive to induce those 
 who control such institutions to modify them in any manner which may 
 involve expense. But if the public mind can be awakened to the magni- 
 tude of the evils inseparable from the existing college system, though it be 
 so far only as to demand that new colleges shall be constructed upon a 
 wiser plan, and if the evidence of the change of public sentiment shall 
 2 
 
in;tkoi)uctory. 
 
 appear in the greater favor shown to such, then it is to be reasonably ex- 
 pected tliat others, out of the mere instinct of self-preservation, will ulti- 
 mately conform tliemselyes to the popular preference. The appeal, there- 
 fore, must for the present be to the people. In making such an appeal in 
 regard to an interest so vast, a single individual may well feel his insignifi- 
 cance. But there are in the community great numbers of intelligent men 
 who well know the evils attendant on the present college system ; men 
 who, having been educated in colleges, have seen and felt them, but have 
 perhaps liardly considered the question how far they are capable of removal ; 
 and from among such men, if their attention can be drawn to the subject, 
 the isolated advocate of reform may reasonably hope that many will be- 
 come his hearty cooperators in the endeavor to impress the public mind, 
 AVere it not for the existence of such a class, and for the fact that they are 
 far more influential than any other in j)roportion to their numbers, the 
 writer of these pages would be disposed to regard the idea of a possible 
 reform of the prevailing college system as chimerical in the highest degree. 
 Nor even when they shall become fully aroused to the importance of the 
 change, if that shall ever be, and shall lend their united efforts to bring it 
 to pass, is it to be expected that the object can be very quickly .accom- 
 plished. So large are the pecuniary interests involved, that the disposition 
 to change may not always be accompanied by the immediate power ; and 
 an evil system may, in many cases, be perpetuated for years, for no reason 
 but the mere inability to abandon it. Still, though the benefits of the de- 
 sired reform should be reserved for the next, or even for a distant, genera- 
 tion, its advocates should strive none the less earnestly to demonstrate its 
 necessity; since it is only the faithfulness of their present efforts which 
 renders even that distant good a possibility. 
 
 It may be observed of these letters, that, though accident may be said 
 to have determined the time of their appearance, and though they were 
 written without any distinctly premeditated plan, yet in substance they 
 embrace the convictions of some years of experience and reflection ; and the 
 writer avails himself of this opportunity to acknowledge that his attention 
 was first drawn strongly to the subject by the valuable little work of Dr. 
 Wayland, to which he has taken occasion repeatedly to refer. 
 
 (IfiivcrsiUj of Mississippi, Dec. 10, 1854. 
 
LETTERS ON COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 STRICTURES OF THE MOBILE REGISTER, ON CERTAIN REGULATIONS AND 
 
 USAGES EXISTING IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, CONSIDERED. 
 
 EXAMINATION OF THE LAW KNOWN AS " THE EXCULPATION LAW." 
 
 To THE Editor of the Mobile Registee, — 
 
 Sir : — In tlie Camden Kepublic of June 24th, I find 
 some remarks credited to the Kegister, on a few of the 
 features of college government recognized in the Univer- 
 sity of Alabama. Your strictures, which accord very well 
 with observations I have often heard from intelligent gen- 
 tlemen in private conversation, indicate that there is a 
 defect or a difficulty somewhere in the American college 
 system, to which it is desirable that the attention of the 
 whole community should be understandingly drawn. I 
 say a defect in the system, because nearly all the colleges 
 in the United States are founded upon the same system, 
 and the features to which exception has been taken, are 
 features which have been adopted in each, without change, 
 from those which are older. The visitation of the rooms 
 of students, by members of the Faculty, which is spoken 
 
LETTERS ON 
 
 of in your article as " the plan pursued by the Faculty of 
 our University ^^'' is ])racticed in every college in the coun- 
 try, in which students reside in the college buildings — 
 that is to say, in every one in which it is practicable. If 
 it is a bad plan, the extent of its prevalence does not, I 
 freely admit, make it any better ; but the fact that it is so 
 prevalent, may not be known to all the readers of the 
 Register ; and for this reason an inference to our especial 
 prejudice (which I am sure you did not design) may be 
 drawn from your remarks. 
 
 Again, "the plan adopted at ow University^ of put- 
 ting the student upon his voir dire^'' is not peculiar to us, 
 as might be inferred by a cursory reader. It is really an 
 " adopted " plan, and the words of the law prescribing it 
 are a literal transcript from the printed laws of the Col- 
 lege of South Carolina. This again makes the plan no 
 better, if it be true that it is intrinsically bad. But it 
 suggests the possibility that a student, however distasteful 
 he may find the system of discipline practiced here, cannot 
 reasonably expect to mend his position in this respect by 
 resorting elsewhere. 
 
 All American colleges hold their students amenable to 
 the authorities for violations of good order and good 
 morals. All have a government of written law, and a 
 brief and simple penal code. Yet no Board of Overseers 
 or Trustees has yet been able, with all the advantages 
 derived from the personal experience of its members as 
 college students or college officers, or from observation of 
 the practical working of different systems for more than a 
 century, to devise a mode of administering that part of 
 
COLLEGE GOVEKNMENT. 
 
 college government wLicli relates to offenses, without em- 
 bracing in it provisions which have been sometimes made 
 a subject of grave complaint, and sometimes of unsj)aring 
 censure, directed against the governing body. 
 
 In the article upon which I am commenting, for in- 
 stance, it is urged against the " exculpation law" that "it 
 is contrary to natural justice — contrary to ' the perfection 
 of reason,' the common law — and contrary to any consid- 
 erate method of moral culture." As my present purpose 
 is not to vindicate exculpation law, or to meddle with it 
 in any manner, I shall join no issue here. Suppose it be 
 all you say of it, I wish to ask you whether or not (and I 
 ask now for information, for I really do not know) it is 
 the public impression that the principle of this law is at 
 the bottom of our ordinary metltods of iwoceeding in cases 
 of college discipline ? I ask this question, because, admit- 
 ting the principle to be as exceptionable as you claim, the 
 answer to it will have much to do in determining how far 
 our system of government is odious. If what I see in the 
 public prints (or have seen in former years) may be as- 
 sumed to furnish me with any fair means of judging, I am 
 justified in thinking that we are popularly supposed to 
 proceed on this plan every day or every week. Now, 
 the fact is that I have been an officer of the University of 
 Alabama more than sixteen years ; and during this long 
 period the offensive law has been resorted to only three 
 times. The unfrequency of its actual application may 
 serve to show that it is a measure in its original design 
 intended only for those extreme cases in which the altern- 
 ative is the annihilation of all government, and the tri- 
 
10 LETTEKS ON 
 
 Timpli of anarchy. Whenever they have been driven to 
 the adoption of this expedient, the Faculty of the Univer- 
 sity have never put it into practice without a sense of pain 
 and sorrow, for which their denouncers of the press or 
 among the people never give them credit. They are 
 charged with the preservation of order in college. They 
 have a duty to execute, and they are not the authors of 
 the system they are required to administer. When the 
 question is reduced to this — shall law prevail, or shall 
 misrule be triumphant and all the operations of college 
 come to an end ? they must use the only means put into 
 their hands to secure the supremacy of law, whether they 
 like them or not, or whether or not the surrounding pub- 
 lic approve. And this happens, perhaps, once in many 
 years; while the comments which so often reach us, 
 through our correspondence, through conversations with 
 gentlemen at or from a distance, or through the press, 
 proceed on the assumption that it is the commonest thing 
 in the world, and that very possibly, the first business of 
 the Faculty every morning after breakfast is, to put some 
 twenty or thirty students on their " voir dire!''' 
 
 I suppose that no government is anything better than 
 a name, which possesses no means of protecting public 
 order by the compulsory discovery of truth, when order 
 has been violated and the witnesses are certainl}', or the 
 offenders approximately, known. There are, so far as I 
 know, but two modes of proceeding effectual for this pur- 
 pose, and these are — 1. That which is sanctioned by " the 
 perfection of reason, the Common Law," to compel the 
 testimony of witnesses to the offense ; or, 2. The South 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 11 
 
 Carolina plan, adopted liere, to require the innocent to say 
 that they are innocent. The former is the plan of all the 
 older colleges at the North; and, perhaps, of the newer 
 also. The latter is peculiarly the Southern plan, intro- 
 duced expressly as a concession to the scruples of sensitive 
 young men. Since, liowever, the one and the other, when 
 successfully enforced, result alike in securing the ends of 
 government in the detection of the offender, the substitute 
 has proved no more palatable than the law which it re- 
 placed ; and the northern plan and the southern plan are 
 equally under the ban of popular opinion. In the mean 
 time, one or the other of them, from the stern necessity of 
 the case, maintains its place in the written code of every 
 college ; and both, when the painful necessity arises, con- 
 tinue to be put into force, in spite of their unpopularity 
 all over the country. 
 
 If our friends among the people, or if our friends of 
 the press, would turn their attention to the true point of 
 difficulty, and would aid us with advice how we may 
 escape from our present embarrassment, we w^ould receive 
 their suggestions witb gratitude ; and whatever we should 
 find in them adapted to remedy tlie evil, we would ear- 
 nestly recommend to tlie consideration of the Board of 
 Trustees. To judge from the manner in which we are often 
 spoken of, it would seem to be thought that we delight in 
 " exculpation " laws, and that we are never more happy 
 than when tke college guillotine is in active operation. I 
 am not using the language of hyperbole when I say this ; 
 I but repeat almost literally what I have often heard. Is 
 not this unreasonable ? Yet our case is not an isolated 
 
12 LKTTEK8 ON 
 
 one. Similar SMiigiiiuary tastes are imputed quite as fre- 
 quently to other Faculties. Can it be supposed that the 
 members of College Faculties generally — men, be it consid- 
 ered, who have been selected from the community on ac- 
 count of some supposed more than average fitness for their 
 places — can it be suj^posed that tbey are as a class so far 
 behind the rest of the community, in their sympathies 
 with the young men for whose benefit they labor, or in 
 their judgments of what will most promote the welfare of 
 their pupils, as to lean from choice towards measures 
 which shock the public sensibilities, and to require a pop- 
 ular censorship to restrain their tyrannical propensities ? 
 
 As no one has yet suggested to us what new substitute 
 we should adopt, in case we consent to expunge the " ex- 
 culpation" law from the college code, we are now held up 
 to public odium for an evil which we did not create, and 
 which we know not how to remove. Even you, Mr. Edi- 
 tor, would not have us go backward, and adopt the com- 
 mon-law principle, which compels every witness to his 
 neighbor's offense to testify to the fact or suffer. In this 
 application, even " the perfection of reason " would strike 
 you as an abomination. I do not say that I should en- 
 tirely agree witli you ; but I state what you will admit to 
 be a fact. I doubt if sucli of our citizens as condemn the 
 law of " exculpation," have ever set it beside these older 
 laws which it superseded. For their information, I will 
 give an example of both. The following is extracted ver- 
 batim from the laws of Yale College : 
 
 " Whenever a student shall be required by one of the 
 Faculty to disclose his knowledge concerning any disorder, 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 13 
 
 offense, or offender, against a law of the college, and sLall 
 refuse to make such disclosure, he may be sent home or dis- 
 missed. No student shall be questioned for any testimony 
 he may give in regard to a violation of a law of this col- 
 lege ; and in case any student shall so question his fellow- 
 student to ascertain whether he hath testified, or with 
 intent to bring into contempt any student because he 
 hath testified, the student so acting shall be deemed to 
 have committed an offense, and may be proceeded against 
 by the Faculty, according to the aggravation of the 
 offense, even to dismission." 
 
 While this was law in all American colleges, as it still 
 is at New Haven, the objection raised to it by students 
 was, that it is dishonorable to testify against a fellow- 
 student. The substitute was devised to obviate this 
 objection ; and as it stands in the code of the University 
 of Alabama, it is as follows : 
 
 " In ordinary cases, and for mere college misdemean- 
 ors, no student shall be called upon to give information 
 against another ; but when several persons are known to 
 contain among them the guilty person or persons, that the 
 innocent may not equally suffer with the guilty, they are 
 all liable to be severally called up, and each to be put 
 upon his own exculpation, unless the magnanimity of the 
 guilty shall relieve the Faculty from the necessity of this 
 expedient, by an ingenuous confession of his or their own 
 fault. If any student, when thus permitted to declare his 
 innocence, shall decline to exculpate himself, he shall be 
 considered as taking the guilt of the offense upon himself, 
 and encountering all the consequences. If a student shall 
 
14: L E T T E R S O N 
 
 deny that he is guilty, that shall be taken as lyriiim facie 
 evidence of his innocence ; but if it shall afterwards ap- 
 peal- from satisfiictory evidence that he was really guilty, 
 he shall be considered unworthy to remain in the Uni- 
 versity." 
 
 The requisition to testify against a fellow-student 
 being here abandoned, a scruple arose, of a character en- 
 tirely new. Hitherto it had been no part of the unwrit- 
 ten code of undergraduate law, that the good should pro- 
 tect, screen, and suffer martyrdom for the bad ; the whole 
 college body Avere not held bound to become accessories 
 after the fact to any enormity ; or to obstruct, by united 
 and systematic action, the operations of law for its detec- 
 tion. The popular sentiment in college favored the view 
 that it is well that law shall have its course — it is well 
 that offenders shall be reached and dealt with — it is well 
 that good order and good morals shall be preserved, — but 
 that it is not well that a student shall become an informer 
 upon his fellow-student. I say that this was the popular 
 sentiment, because I know it, having myself been educa- 
 ted in a college where the old law prevailed. What pop- 
 ular sentiment is with us now is evidenced in the fact, 
 that it has the power to force young men of the highest 
 standing for morality and personal rectitude of conduct, 
 into a combination for the defeat of all inquiry, and for 
 the protection of a fcAV disorderly individuals, whose tur- 
 bulence, both by night and by day, is such as to obstruct 
 all the operations of the University. Whether the young 
 men in their scrupulous regard for what is due to good 
 fellowship, are not beginning to " put too fine a point on 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 15 
 
 it," I sliall not stop here to inquire. It is sufficient for me 
 to say that when matters reach a pass like this, the neces- 
 sity that something should be done is crying, and all the 
 wisdom of University Boards has hitherto been able to 
 discover but the two modes of proceeding I have pointed 
 out, viz. — that which has the sanction of the " perfection 
 of reason," and that which makes every student liable to 
 be called on for his own exculpation. 
 
 Lest any erroneous inference should be drawn from 
 the time at which this letter is written, let me observe, in 
 conclusion, that, though it is elicited by remarks of yours 
 upon the late troubles in the University, it has no refer- 
 ence whatever to them ; and that the " exculpation -law " 
 was not applied during those troubles. Students already 
 under suspension, have, it is true, as a condition of restora- 
 tion, been required to make some disclaimers. Whatever 
 may be said or thought of the expediency of this requisi- 
 tion, of which I say nothing, thns much is at least true, 
 that to refuse to make the disclaimers required, could, at 
 this time, operate no advantage nor secure any protection 
 to any fellow-student, since, when they were exacted, all 
 parties were equally separated from the University 
 already. 
 
 Now, Mr. Editor, do not believe, because I have de- 
 tained you so long over the matter of this law, that I see 
 nothing in what seems to be the necessity of its existence 
 to regret, or nothing in the evils which too usually follow 
 its application to deplore. If you do so, you will do me 
 great injustice. My only object in asking you to publish 
 these remarks, is to draw the attention of thinking men in 
 
16 I. K T T E E S ON 
 
 the community to the most difficult point connected with 
 the whole subject of college discipline — the question how 
 shall the sujoremacy of law be maintained in the last emer- 
 gency, without an admitted power in Faculties to use 
 either the means of investigation employed by civil courts, 
 or those gentler, and (as was once thought certainly) less 
 offensive ones, in consideration of which they have been 
 content to yield the former. 
 
 The topic which principally occupies this letter, is but 
 one of several connected with college organization and 
 government, on which I have often wished to address 
 some observations to my fellow-citizens. With your per- 
 mission, now that my hand is in, I will endeavor to make 
 one or two further, but I hope not quite so formidable, 
 encroachments upon your space hereafter. 
 
 University of Alabama^ Jxih) 1, 1854. 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 17 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 REASONS WHY " THE EXCULPATION LAW " HAS PROVED A FAILURE. IN- 
 QUIRY HOW FAR IT SHOULD BE DEEMED DISHONORABLE FOR ONE 
 STUDENT TO GIVE TESTIMONY IMPLICATING ANOTHER. 
 
 In my last letter I promised, at greater leisure, to ex- 
 amine still further some of the particulars in which the 
 government of American colleges is attended with dif- 
 ficulties, so great as to indicate a fault somewhere inherent 
 in the system itself. I proceed to redeem my promise. 
 
 It is certain that the greatest of the difficulties here 
 spoken of is that to which my last communication was 
 principally devoted, viz. the means of suppressing distur- 
 bances of the peace, or of detecting their authors, when all 
 ordinary appeals have failed, and it has become necessary 
 to invoke the penalties of the law. Upon that subject I 
 have not yet completed all that I have to say. 
 
 I assumed that the very idea of government implies 
 the possession of the power to compel, in some manner or 
 other, the disclosure of truth, when that is necessary for 
 the i^rotection of order, and for the maintenance of the 
 supremacy of law. I described the two modes l)y which 
 it has been attempted, in different colleges, to exercise 
 this power : the first being no other than that used in 
 civil courts, and the second being the mode prescribed in 
 what is commonly called the " exculpation law," as it 
 exists in this University and some other Southern colleges. 
 
18 LETTERS ON 
 
 I have shown that the second of these modes was orig- 
 inally devised for the purpose of obviating objections 
 which had been made to the first. That it has completely 
 failed in its object, is rendered obvious by the frequency 
 Avith which we hear it denounced in conversation and in 
 the public prints. For an instance, I need go no further 
 than to your own expression of opinion in the Register, 
 which furnished the occasion of my former communication. 
 But, because I chose to demur to the grounds on which 
 you took exception to the law, you must not understand 
 me to regard the same law with entire complacency my- 
 self By no means. I can never believe that any law 
 which meets the disapprobation of the public, is a good 
 law. The efficacy of law is not to be looked for in the 
 pains and penalties it denounces, so much as in the sujd- 
 port and approval of all good men. Whatever enactment 
 fails to secure these, fails of the most essential element of 
 moral power. It matters not whether it be intrinsically 
 good or bad ; it is enough to make it bad, whatever be its 
 intrinsic excellence, that the community who witness its 
 enforcement regards it as oppressive and wrong. What 
 more is necessary to undermine the efficacy of any law, 
 than to crown with applause those who resist its opera- 
 tions, and to canonize its victims as martyrs in -a glorious 
 cause ! 
 
 It may be answered that no law can be intrinsically 
 good, against which the voice of the people among whom 
 it exists is so emphatically and so unanimously pro- 
 nounced. This argument is certainly plausible, but by no 
 means conclusive. The law of Congress providing for the 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 19 
 
 arrest and delivery of fugitive slaves is certainly a good 
 law ; yet tlirougliout the length and breadth of the States 
 for which it is designed, there is no division of opinion at 
 all as to its wrongfulness. Those even who give it their 
 support — politicians, editors, ministers of the Gospel — even 
 judges from the bench — do so avowedly for no other rea- 
 son but because it ^.S" a law, and not because they approve 
 of its provisions. It is plain, then, that public sentiment, 
 however decided, and however unanimous, is not always 
 of necessity right ; and that the old maxim, vox populi 
 vox DEI, is to be taken with a large latitude for error. 
 
 I assume, then, that the "exculpation law" is not 
 necessarily malum in se^ because the people do not like it ; 
 but I admit that the tribunal of public opinion has cer- 
 tainly made it malum pi'ohihitum^ to the extent that no 
 college Faculty can apj^ly it without being immediately 
 arraigned at that bar, as if they were the real offenders 
 themselves. It fails, therefore, in what I have described 
 to be the most essential element of moral power ; it fails 
 because the public, as well as every community of under- 
 graduate students, are banded against it ; and because ap- 
 plause instead of censure awaits every individual who sets 
 it at defiance. 
 
 Has any thing been gained, then, by the attempt to 
 substitute in colleges a method of legal investigation at 
 variance with the principles of the honest old common 
 law ? I think not ; yet while making this admission, I can 
 see nothing morally wrong in the substitute. It is other- 
 wise when we look at the subject in the light of expedi- 
 ency, or as a question of policy. I cannot but believe that 
 
20 LETTERS ON 
 
 a great mistake was made by the originators of this inno- 
 vation upon tlie time-honored principles and practices of 
 penal jurisprudence. It may be very noble, and honora- 
 l)le, and magnanimous, and all that, for young men or old 
 men to refuse to give testimony before any tribunal, the 
 effect of which would be to expose their companions or 
 friends to unpleasant consequences ; but it appears to me 
 that the court which claims the right to such testimony is 
 not called upon to make any such admission. And if it 
 does make such an admission, in regard to the open, hon- 
 est and straightforward form of explicit statement, then I 
 cannot see how it has any right to claim that a refusal to 
 permit the truth to be extracted from the witnesses by 
 indirection, is any the less noble or honorable or magnani- 
 mous. Both the old law and the substitute aim to fasten 
 the offense upon the offender by the force of testimony. 
 In the one case, the responsibility of this testimony is con- 
 fined to a few ; in the other it is divided among a greater 
 number. But that which is mean, or contemptible, or 
 wrong in any individual, is not the less so because a whole 
 community share in the taint. A stain upon the honor is 
 not a thing to be diluted by involving in its foulness the 
 honor of many. And whenever any governing authority 
 admits for a moment that it is mean, or that it is wrong, 
 for any individual of the subject body to give such testi- 
 mony as may be necessary to secure the ends of good gov- 
 ernment, it becomes self-divested of the most efficacious 
 and almost the only means of ensuring the due observance 
 of its laws. 
 
 The principle that no student may, in any case what 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 21 
 
 ever, without dishonor, give testimony to convict a fellow- 
 student of a violation of college law, is at once mischiev- 
 ous and wrong ; and one which the trustees and Faculties 
 of colleges should be the very last to admit. No matter 
 to what extent public sentiment may lend its sanction to 
 this principle, the governors of colleges should set their 
 faces resolutely against such a sentiment, and should en- 
 deavor, by all the means in their poAver, to correct it. 
 Least of all should they allow themselves to be borne 
 along with it, or commit an act so suicidal as to stamp 
 with their own openly expressed approbation, a principle 
 which denies to them a right absolutely vital to the ad- 
 ministration of any government. 
 
 It is my candid opinion that our colleges have them- 
 selves chiefly to thank, for the extent to which their 
 powers of government are paralyzed by the influence of 
 surrounding public opinion. Till they, in so many words, 
 relinquished the right to compel the witnesses to any 
 flagrant oftense to declare their knowledge, public senti- 
 ment did not so universally, so unanimously, or so sweep- 
 ingly stigmatize the act of giving such testimony. Why 
 should it? It is not dishonorable to testify in a civil 
 court. Nay, even when the civil power has occasionally 
 interfered to take the administration of justice out of the 
 hands of college Faculties, the very same young men who 
 assumed to be unable to state the truth to their academi- 
 cal superiors without dishonor, have shown no hesitancy 
 to give evidence before a jury — yet no one has thought 
 the worse of them. It is no reply to say that the civil 
 court may commit a witness for contumacy ; and that 
 3 
 
22 L E T T E R 8 O N 
 
 therefore he has no choice but to testify. We are talking 
 now about a question of right and wrong — honor and dis- 
 honor ; and if, instead of committing to prison, our courts, 
 like those of the Inquisition, could apply the rack, even 
 torture itself could not justify the disclosures demanded, if 
 it is really wrong or dishonorable to make them. 
 
 But as it is usually true tbat there cannot be any 
 widely spread or deej^ly rooted popular conviction, with- 
 out some original basis of reason, to whatever extremes 
 the conviction may have been carried which the basis will 
 not justify, it is worth while to inquire out of what plausi- 
 ble, or even in their first application just, considerations, 
 has grown the doctrine that no student may inculj)ate 
 another student by his testimony, without dishonor. In 
 the first place, then, students associated together in the 
 same class, or in the same college, occupy to each other 
 not only the relation of subjects to a common government, 
 but that, to a certain extent, of members of the same 
 family. And as in families mutual confidence is an una- 
 voidable necessity, so the obligation to guard it inviolable 
 is one which exists antecedently to and independently of 
 promises. It is not voluntarily assumed, and it cannot be 
 repudiated at the option of the individual. But, secondly, 
 it often happens, if not usually, that none are witnesses of 
 those violations of college laws which become the subject 
 of subsequent inquiry, who are not themselves to a greater 
 or less degree implicated in them ; and hence, that the act 
 of giving such testimony as may subject another to cen- 
 sure, betrays a seeming willingness to purchase immunity 
 to one's self by treachery to a friend. Viewed in this 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 23 
 
 light, the act of testifying is especially odious ; and to this 
 case I propose to devote no attention. 
 
 But in regard to the implied bond of confidence be- 
 tween members of the student-body, common sense sug- 
 gests that it is not and cannot be of the uncompromising 
 nature of that which accompanies the family tie ; while 
 we cannot but call to mind that the civil power does not 
 recognize even that as inviolable, when the public good 
 requires that it should be set aside. The students of a 
 college are by no means so compacted together that the 
 private acts of each one are of necessity exposed to his 
 companions. There does not, in other words, exist the 
 forced confidence of the family ; and the main argument 
 in support of the inviolability of that confidence in this 
 case falls to the ground. Yet, inasmuch as it is undesira- 
 ble that, in a community of generous and impulsive young 
 men, there should creep in any thing like a feeling of mu- 
 tual suspicion, I would have it continue to be thought, as 
 it is I believe pretty universally thought, among Faculty 
 and students equally, that information privately volun- 
 teered by one student injurious to another, is entirely dis- 
 honorable, and ought to be discountenanced by the au- 
 thorities, as well as frowned on by the students. 
 
 In many cases of disorder in college, not only are the 
 great majority of the community unacquainted with the 
 offenders — showing that no necessary confidence exists 
 which is in the nature of things unavoidable — but, when it 
 is otherwise, and when those who interrupt the good order 
 of college force themselves upon the notice of their peace- 
 ably disposed companions, it not seldom happens that 
 
24 L E T T E K S O N 
 
 strong displeasure is excited on tlie part of those whom 
 they thus make the witnesses of their lawlessness. It is 
 nothing short of an absurdity to say that persons who are 
 thus not necessarily cognizant of infractions of order, or 
 who when made acquainted with them, are made so 
 against their will, shall be held bound to identify them- 
 selves with the offenders, and, no matter what may be the 
 enormity of the offenses (and it is often great), shall actu- 
 ally themselves suffer the penalties due to the misdeed, 
 rather than by their testimony permit the authorities to 
 suppress the disturbances, and protect them in the enjoy- 
 ment of their rights, and in the peaceful prosecution 
 of their studies. 
 
 After what I have said, I suppose I need hardly tell 
 you that, had I a system of law to prepare for a college 
 about to go into operation, the " exculpation law " should 
 form no part of my code. Neither would I commit the 
 folly of requiring a Faculty to protect order and admin- 
 ister justice, without empowering that body to investigate 
 most thoroughly every case in which neglect of discipline 
 might endanger the preservation of the ends for which 
 government is instituted. And in order that nothing 
 might be wanting to their power in this respect, I would 
 make it obligatory on every student to give evidence — not 
 to individual officers in private — by no means — but to the 
 entire governing body, when sitting as a court of inquiry, 
 in regard to any breach of law which may have occurred 
 in his presence, or to his knowledge personally obtained, 
 no matter by whom committed. Should the student so 
 interrogated refuse to reply, he could but be dismissed ; 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 25 
 
 and tliat is the penalty whicli college Faculties are now 
 compelled to inflict on innocent men, when they refuse to 
 declare, under the " exculpation law," that they are inno- 
 cent. 
 
 I am by no means sure that the doctrine I here avow 
 will be a popular doctrine. I incline to think rather that 
 it will be the very contrary. Since colleges themselves 
 have done so much, in my honest belief, to aid in vitiating 
 the public sentiment on this subject, I have little hope 
 that the course which appears to me to be recommended 
 by the plainest common sense, will meet for the moment 
 the approbation of my fellow-citizens. I ask for no such 
 immediate approval. I ask only that reflecting men shall 
 turn over the subject in their minds, and come to no decis- 
 ion at all until after mature consideration. It is evident 
 that difficulties environ it on every side. Experiment has 
 satisfied me that there is no escape by endeavoring to go 
 round about. In this case, as in most in which there is 
 any thing serious to be hazarded, I believe that the safest 
 course is to take the bull by the horns. 
 
 In concluding this letter, I would merely add that the 
 modes of investigation of which I have been speaking, 
 both that of the old colleges and its substitute which ex- 
 ists here, much as they are denounced and rarely as they 
 are applied, have after all been productive of an amount 
 of good seldom considered and difficult to be estimated, 
 constituting as they do the most substantial guaranty for 
 the maintenance of order and the supremacy of law. This 
 point I shall further illustrate hereafter. 
 
 University of Alabama^ July 21, 1854. 
 
26 LETTEBSON 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 OBJECTION TO THE MORAL TENDENCIES OF THE "EXCULPATION LAW " 
 
 CONSIDERED. SUBSTANTIAL BENEFITS DERIVED FROM THE EXISTENCE 
 
 OF LAWS TO COMPEL THE DISCLOSURE OF TRUTH. 
 
 One of tlie objections advanced by the Register 
 against tlie particular law of this and other Southern col- 
 leges, which is known as the " exculpation law," I have 
 thus far omitted to examine. I allude to the assertion 
 that the mode of proceeding sanctioned by that law is 
 " contrary to any considerate method of moral culture." 
 Having frankly expressed my own very decided dissatis- 
 faction with the law in question, on grounds of expediency 
 and policy, I must still feel it to be my duty to defend it 
 on those of morality. 
 
 I have sh6wn that this law was adopted as a substitute 
 for another, which other was supposed to press too harshly 
 upon the delicate sense of honor of young men in Southern 
 colleges. Hitherto the main, if not the sole, objection 
 which has been alleged against it by the young men them- 
 selves and their friends, has been that it still oppressed 
 them in the same point in which the former had been 
 intolerable ; that, in short, it was but a mode of obliging 
 them to do indirectly, what the previously existing law 
 required that they should do directty, viz. discover to the 
 authorities the authors of any given violation of law. 
 Whether or not the sentiment upon which this objection 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 is founded is worthy of tte respect it has received, 
 whether it is the offspring of a true or a false notion of 
 honor, is a matter of no present importance ; its existence 
 is undeniable, and it has down to the present time consti- 
 tuted the entire basis of all the opposition which this un- 
 fortunate law has had to encounter. The objection of the 
 Register is new ; let us see if it is any more substantial. 
 To me it appears to involve suppositions entirely incom- 
 patible with each other. 
 
 How it can rationally be maintained, for instance, that 
 an individual whose sense of honor is so nice that he will 
 not tell the truth, when called upon, lest he should impli- 
 cate a companion, may yet not hesitate to tell a lie lest he 
 should implicate himself, I am at a loss to comprehend. But 
 should this phenomenon occur in an exceptional instance, 
 how the whole body of the companions of such a recreant, 
 should still feel bound, by the force of the sentiment above 
 spoken of, to maintain their silence nevertheless, and even 
 to give themselves up to martyrdom, in order to protect the 
 mean-spirited delinquent in the enjoyment of the benefits 
 of his falsehood, is still less conceivable. Can any thing- 
 be more certain than that public opinion would blast such 
 a wretch, and drive him out from a community of honora- 
 ble men? For, be it observed, the case in which an 
 offense is known only to its perpetrator, is a case almost 
 or quite without example in college; and I cannot con- 
 ceive that there could be any such case possible, in which 
 a Faculty would ever think of applying the " exculpation 
 law " as a means of investigation. The language of the 
 law itself, as I have cited it in a former communication, 
 
28 LETTEKSON 
 
 forbids sucli a supposition ; for it is there explicitly stated 
 to be designed to discover the offender only when he is 
 known to be one of several individuals distinctly designa- 
 ted. The offender is always, therefore, more or less gen- 
 erally known to the student-body ; and in case of an act 
 of moral turpitude like that supposed above, he could not 
 fail to become at once known to the whole. No young 
 man, after such an act, would be tolerated for a moment 
 in college; he would be ostracized without a dissenting 
 voice. Those who have had the slightest acquaintance 
 with such communities know this ; and I cannot but feel 
 surprised that the editor of the Register should so soon 
 have forgotten what his own observation as a student un- 
 questionably taught him. But the " exculpation law " has 
 not been assumed to exert any other demoralizing influ- 
 ence except that of holding out an encouragement to 
 falsehood. What that encouragement can amount to, in 
 the face of counteracting principles so efficient as those 
 which I have just pointed out, I leave my readers to 
 judge. 
 
 And here I might dismiss the subject were it not that 
 the present objection, like those which I have heretofore 
 disposed of, happens to lie with no less force against the 
 old law — which I have shown to be the only alternative 
 law — than it does against the present. Take the rule at 
 Yale College, for instance, that the student shall testify to 
 what he knows, let the evidence inculpate whom it may. 
 A refusal to speak draws down the censure of the Faculty 
 upon himself; a free declaration of the truth, criminates 
 his fellow-student, and involves the witness in popular 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 29 
 
 odium. In this case, as in tlie former, at a prima facie 
 view, it would appear tliat faiseliood would save the wit- 
 ness from unpleasant consequences on either hand. He 
 may testify, and so disarm the Faculty; but he may testify 
 falsely, and so save his companion. What is to prevent 
 his doing this ? Nothing, but his own strength of prin- 
 ciple, and that withering power of popular opinipn in 
 college, before which the deliberate liar cannot for one 
 moment stand. Thus, whichever be the mode of investiga- 
 tion sanctioned by the laws of any college, the same temp- 
 tation (if it is a temptation) to falsehood in the witness , 
 equally exists; and the same powerful counter-influences 
 co-exist with it, to neutralize its power to harm. 
 
 I asserted in my last communication that the college 
 laws to which so much exception has been taken, have, 
 notwithstanding, been productive, after all, of a great deal 
 of good ; and I promised further to illustrate this asser- 
 tion. You will certainly not understand me to intend 
 that they have effected this good by their frequent appli- 
 cation ; since I have distinctly admitted that they are sel- 
 dom put actually in force without being attended by tem- 
 porary injury to the institution which is compelled to fall 
 back upon them. I maintain that such ought not to be 
 the case ; but I admit, as I have said before, that in the 
 present morbid condition of public sentiment on the sub- 
 ject, such is, in point of fact, the unfortunate truth. The 
 good which they do is therefore not to be measured by 
 the amount of transgression which they punish, l)ut by 
 the much more considerable amount which they prevent. 
 
 As American colleges are organized to-day, the oppor- 
 
30 L E T T E K S O N 
 
 tunities of tlie Faculty personally to know in what man- 
 ner the time of the students is occupied, at all those hours 
 in which recitations or lectures are not actually proceed- 
 ing, are so extremely limited, as to be practically little 
 better than none at all. Our collegiate system is an 
 attempted imitation of that which was instituted at Ox- 
 ford and Cambridge, by the monkish lecturers of the mid- 
 dle ages, founded mainly upon the principle of the monas- 
 tery ; but the imitation is unfortunately complete only in 
 the least desirable of its features, while it is deficient in 
 most of the safeguards originally designed to secure it 
 against abuses. In those venerable universities of Great 
 Britain just mentioned, every college is a quadrangle, 
 securely walled in, with a janitor always at the door, and 
 with a definite hour for shutting in the entire community 
 by bar and bolt. Within the same architectural pile re- 
 side not only the governed, but all the members of the 
 governing body, from the President (master) down to the 
 numerous " fellows," one of whose duties it is to aid the 
 authorities in the preservation of order. The whole col- 
 lege body, moreover, not only reside under one roof, but 
 dine together at one table ; so that, in all save the reli- 
 gious aspect, the distinguishing features of the monastic 
 family are kept conspicuously prominent to this day. 
 
 It was not a very great undertaking for a body of gov- 
 ernors possessed of advantages like those here described, 
 to assume the responsibility of preserving good order 
 among a body of students committed to their guardian- 
 ship. With us in America the case is very different. Our 
 college dormitories are erected in an isolated group, in the 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 31 
 
 midst of an open area. No officers, or only liere and there 
 a tutor, occupy rooms in these buildings by night ; none 
 in some instances even by day. No president or profes- 
 sor meets the students at a common table ; nor do com- 
 mons continue still to exist, in the majority of cases. No 
 janitor marks, or can mark, who leaves the premises dur- 
 ing the hours which the law devotes to study ; still less, 
 who steals away or returns at those unwarrantable hours 
 of darkness when nearly every one of the offenses most 
 ruinous to good order and most difficult to manage is usu- 
 ally perpetrated. Yet under all these disadvantages, the 
 public demands of the Faculty of every American college 
 that it shall govern to the exclusion of every other species 
 of authority, and shall still govern well. The college is a 
 sanctuary which the civil power may not invade. It is an 
 irrvperium in ira'perio within whose confines no municipal 
 functionary may venture to set his foot. It is a commu- 
 nity shut out with more than Japanese seclusion from the 
 surrounding social world ; and subject in its members to 
 none of those restraining influences, by which j^ublic opin- 
 ion bears upon the conduct of the individuals who make 
 up the society to which man is born, and to which the 
 student himself must at length return. 
 
 Such a community, so utterly exempt from every other 
 species of control, it is which an American college Fac- 
 ulty are required to govern, and to govern well. Is it 
 reasonable to expect them to do this, without arming 
 them with the power % And is it not nonsense to talk of 
 furnishing them with such arms, while they are denied the 
 right to compel, under the highest penalties of the law. 
 
32 L E T T E K S O N 
 
 tlie disclosure of trutli, when the truth is necessary to the 
 protection of order and the vindication of authority ? I 
 have asserted, and nobody has denied, that there have 
 been yet discovered but two modes of exercising this com- 
 pulsion. I have admitted with regret that neither of 
 these modes finds favor with the public at large, whose 
 interests are deeply involved in the success of colleges, 
 and whose support ought always to be unhesitating and 
 prompt on behalf of college authorities. But in spite of 
 this I maintain that these laws have been productive of 
 incalculable good, and that they are so still, at this very 
 day. 
 
 They operate as a restraint of so powerful a nature, 
 against pushing disorders to extremes, as to render such 
 an event one of the rarest occurrences in college history. 
 Unfrequently as they are applied, no student is ignorant 
 either that they may be or that they inevitably will be 
 so, whenever the necessity arises. Now, though no doubt 
 it is a glorious fate, and one attended with much applause 
 of friends, to say nothing of an almost inevitable newspa- 
 per apotheosis, to perish (academically) in the fires of col- 
 lege martyrdom ; it is, nevertheless, not a fate which is spon- 
 taneously courted. No species of martyr — not even the 
 Christian — is usually such from absolute preference or 
 choice. And should the unbiassed testimony of young 
 men themselves, who have had the largest experience in 
 this way, be taken, I have no doubt whatever that it 
 would be found to accord in the main with the view ex- 
 pressed by the elder Weller of onatrimony^ viz. that it is 
 a very fine thing no doubt, " but whether it is worth while 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 33 
 
 to go tlirough SO mucli to gain so little, is perliaps more 
 than can be said for it." 
 
 As a general rule, it may be remarked that the student 
 finds college life agreeable. There is a sort of indescriba- 
 ble fascination about the microcosm of which it makes him 
 a member. There is a charm in the ties to which it intro- 
 duces him, and a fervor unfelt in later years, in the friend- 
 ships which in the yet unchilled warmth of his youthful 
 feelings it leads him to form. When, in the regular pro- 
 gress of events, the inevitable hour approaches which is 
 to dissolve this dreamy episode of his existence, he feels a 
 pang, deep and real as that of the exile who steps on 
 board the bark which is to bear him from his native land 
 forever. Exceptions may — such undoubtedly do — exist; 
 I speak of the great majority. And I say that a life so 
 charming will not on slight occasion be voluntarily self- 
 terminated ! 
 
 I take no account here, at all, of the deep and earnest 
 interest which many — possibly most — take in the intellec- 
 tual pursuits to which their college life is devoted. I say 
 nothing of the firm conviction and just appreciation of 
 the value of the opportunities which they enjoy, for self- 
 formation, and preparation to grapple with the realities of 
 life, by which the minds of all thoughtful young men are 
 impressed in the midst of the priceless advantages here 
 surroundino: them. These are benefits which no man of 
 sense will lightly relinquish, however ardent and impul- 
 sive the fires of youth may make him. But I say that, 
 when to these weighty considerations are added the pecu- 
 liar charm of student life, of which I have more particu- 
 
34 LETTERSON 
 
 larly spoken above, the inducement to avoid acts which 
 may raise, and to suppress practices which may provoke, 
 issues which, however attended with temporary eclat, 
 must necessarily terminate disastrously to the student at 
 last, is scarcely deficient in a single element of complete- 
 ness. It is thus that the laws of which I have been speak- 
 ing, exert a happy influence in spite of their unpopularity ; 
 while, were no such laws in existence, American colleges, 
 as at present organized, would possess no guaranty that 
 their tranquillity would remain undisturbed for a single 
 day. 
 
 University of Alabama^ July 26, 1854. 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT, 35 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 DIFFICULTY OP THE POSITION OF COLLEGE OFFICERS AS GOVERNORS. 
 
 PERSONAL QUALITIES ESSENTIAL TO THEIR SUCCESS. PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 ACTION BY ^yHICH THEY SHOULD BE GUIDED. 
 
 To wLat I have already said as to tlie necessity for the 
 existence of a substantial guaranty for the preservation of 
 good order in institutions organized as are, for the most 
 part, the colleges of this country at present, I have noth- 
 ing further to add. But having more than once alluded to 
 the evidence of an evil or defect inherent in the system 
 itself — evidence which cannot be evaded or impugned — it 
 might be expected that I should point out this defect and 
 endeavor to suggest a remedy. That is a part of my pur- 
 pose, liut I am not quite yet prepared to come to the 
 point. I have discussed but a portion of the evidence by 
 which the existence of the evil is manifested. There re- 
 mains still more behind. 
 
 Before giving further thought to that matter, however, 
 permit me to call the attention of the reflecting public to 
 the difficulty and delicacy of the position in which all col- 
 lege officers, under the existing system, are placed ; and 
 the great need which they have, when they faithfully dis- 
 charge their duty, of being sustained by the approbation 
 of the wise and thinking ; since it is vain for them to look, 
 when it is most to be desired, for that of the masses, who 
 are too apt to judge without consideration, and are predis- 
 
30 L E T T E R S O N 
 
 posed to condemn (as I have already shown) the only 
 basis on which a stable college government can be erected. 
 While matters proceed smoothly and the penal law slum- 
 bers, it is possible that those who happen to be at the 
 head of affairs may receive higher commendation than 
 they really deserve ; and that without possessing uncom- 
 mon qualities as governors of youth, they may yet be re- 
 jxited to possess them. But let disorders arise, and let it 
 become necessary to resort to measures of extremity to 
 suppress them, and it wall presently be manifest that no 
 prudence, no forbearance, no wisdom, can save the best 
 men from the much evil-speaking which the popular dis- 
 like of the system they administer is sure to draw down 
 upon them. 
 
 While this faulty system continues, then, will it ever 
 be jDOSsible so to conduct the government of any college, 
 as to avoid altogether the recurrence of scenes like that 
 through which the Universit}^ of Alabama has recently 
 passed, and which never fail to give a shock to the pros- 
 perity of the institution in which they occur, from which 
 it requires a sensible time to recover ? So long as human 
 nature remains what it is, the answer to this question 
 must, I fear, be negative. For in order that the possibil- 
 ity may exist, it is necessary that a government should be 
 so wise and so prudent and so benignant, as by its moral 
 power alone to accomplish all the ends which laws are en- 
 acted to secure. And such a government, by the terms of 
 our supposition, must not be merely temporary — as may 
 well happen under now and then a preeminently gifted 
 head — but permanent, under a succession of rulers. This 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 37 
 
 is more than can be reasonably expected. Yet the fact 
 that the strong arm of the law is not oftener invoked is 
 e\idence that college officers, as a class, do in fact possess 
 a large share of those qualities which render law unneces- 
 sary, and to the presumed possession of which they owe in 
 a considerable measure, their selection for the posts which 
 they fill. Persons unaccustomed to reflect upon this sub- 
 ject, may imagine that it is a very simple thing to dis- 
 charge at once faithfully and acceptably the delicate re- 
 sponsibilities resting upon. a member of the government of 
 a college. There is no difficulty in showing how great is 
 the mistake committed by such. 
 
 It is not enough that a man be a good man in order 
 that he may succeed as a governor of youth. The very 
 best of men may make the worst possible of governors. 
 Good men act from convictions of duty ; and when once 
 their course is chosen, the mens conscia recti not only sus- 
 tains them in it, but forces them to cling to it, whatever 
 may be the consequences. How important, then, that a 
 man should be wise as well as good — that his judgment 
 sliould be as sound as his purposes are upright and his 
 principles pure ! But wisdom and goodness combined are 
 still insufficient to guaranty the success of a college gover- 
 nor. Rectitude of intention and soundness of judgment 
 may lead to a correct decision as to what the exigencies of 
 a particular case demand ; but absolutely the same meas- 
 ure in the hands of two different men may be put into 
 force with results very unequally successful. In college 
 as in family government it is manner no less than sub 
 stance which secures subordination, and determines com- 
 4 
 
;>S L K T 'I' K K S O N 
 
 pliauce with the requirements of authority. This consid- 
 eration is of the very highest importance. I propose to 
 inquire, therefore, more positively, what are the qualities 
 which a member of the government of a college ought to 
 possess ? 
 
 Before descending to particulars, I may say in general 
 terms, that these qualities ought to be such as, in their 
 combination, to impress all whom his authority reaches 
 with the full conviction that toward them personally he 
 has but one feeling, which is a feeling of kindness ; and 
 that in whatever he does affecting them he has but one 
 motive, which is to do them good. It unfortunately too 
 often happens that an impression the very opposite of this 
 springs up and becomes permanently established among a 
 body of students. I have known this to occur in refer- 
 ence to men who certainly lacked none of the qualities 
 which miofht have enabled them to command a more desi- 
 rable reputation ; but who failed to appreciate the great 
 importance of establishing their rule on the basis of the 
 affections. I am aware that it is hardly with reason to be 
 supposed that any college officer can entertain toward the 
 students whom he instructs any feelings but those of the 
 utmost kindness and good will. The question is not, how- 
 ever, a question of fact on the one side, so much as one of 
 conviction on the other ; it is not whether the officer is, 
 but whether he is believed to be, the student's friend. A 
 conviction of this kind once established in his favor 
 throughout the little community to which he belongs, 
 arms such a man with a power to control, which all the 
 terrors of the law could not otherwise give him. 
 
C h L E G E G O V E K N M E N T . 39 
 
 But it may be asked, How can one who from the neces- 
 sities of his situation must sometimes admonish, sometimes 
 censure, sometimes perhaps even subject to punishment, 
 some of those who are placed under his guardianship, how 
 can he under such circumstances secure that universal and 
 eminently desirable confidence, which I have represented 
 to be so important an element of his success ? In reply, I 
 must refer to that distinction which I have made above, 
 in regard to manner in carrying out measures of govern- 
 ment. College officers may censure and punish without 
 destroying the confidence of those who incur their dis- 
 pleasure in the sincerity of their desire to promote in the 
 highest degree the welfare of all subject to their govern- 
 ment, or without shaking the belief of the culprit himself 
 that they entertain toward him personally no feelings but 
 those of friendship and kindness, even while they censure. 
 An assertion of this kind may be best established by illus- 
 tration. The venerable Dr. Day, of New Haven, still 
 lives, beloved of hundreds whose youthful indiscretions he 
 censured, whose youthful follies he rebuked, and whose 
 youthful passions he restrained and controlled. For half 
 a century he was an officer of the largest college in the 
 United States, and for thirty years of that period he occu- 
 pied the presidency. During his connection with the col- 
 lege more than four thousand students were graduated, 
 and there were not less than two thousand more who did 
 not complete the collegiate course. Out of all the great 
 number who thus came in contact with this admirable 
 man and faultless college officer, I never heard of one who 
 did not always regard him with feelings of confidence and 
 
4(> I, E T T ]•: R S (3 N 
 
 affectiou ; nor even now do I meet an alumnus of tliat 
 institution, however long graduated, whose heart does not 
 turn back, like my own, with a glow of grateful reniem- 
 l.irance to the guide and friend of his early years. The 
 thing, therefore, is practicable. What, then, are the per- 
 sonal qualities and what are the principles of action 
 which may enable any officer to realize it in his own 
 case? 
 
 To speak of the second point first. Confidence is a 
 feeling which cannot exist all upon one side, any more than 
 love ; nor can a college officer command the confidence of 
 students, without reposing, or at least seeming to repose, 
 a correspondent confidence in them. A principle of 
 action, therefore, from which no wise college officer will 
 depart, is invariably to treat the student as if he believed 
 him to intend rightly. In nine cases out of ten, he will 
 be able to do this from conviction ; for, manifestly, as a 
 general rule, the student must and will intend rightly; 
 and if in the tenth case circumstances arise to create a 
 doubt of this, he will at once frankly state these circum- 
 stances, and aftbrd the opportunity for an exj^lanation. 
 He will, in short, ujDon this point have no concealments, 
 nor allow his manner ,^to Jjetray any thing dubious. By 
 adopting this as a principle he will, in ninety-nine cases 
 out of a hundred, be met in a spirit of equal frankness, 
 and will remove the strongest of the temptations by 
 which youth are led to engage in violations of the rules 
 of order. To attempt deliberately to deceive him, or 
 to impose upon his confidence, will be regarded as an 
 act partaking of the nature of treachery — the most odious 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMEXT. 41 
 
 of all species of moral delinquency in the eyes of generous 
 young men. 
 
 It will be another principle of action which a w4se 
 governor of youth will observe, to resort to no means of 
 seeking to learn in what manner the hours of young men 
 ■are employed, during which his personal observation can- 
 not reach them, except such as are fair, above-board, and 
 distinctly avowed. This principle would be but a neces- 
 sary consequence of the former, provided that were adopt- 
 ed in full sincerity of purpose, and not merely in outward 
 show. But there is an element of suspicion innate in some 
 natures, which will not let them fully confide in those 
 around them, and least of all, perhaj)S, in those who are 
 subject to their authority. Such persons, though from 
 convictions of policy they may endeavor to wear an unsus- 
 pecting front, find it sometimes impossible to resist the 
 temptation to listen to information coming to them through 
 tlevious channels, or occasionally even from putting in train 
 devices of vigilance which differ little in principle from 
 deliberate and systematic espionage. It is to be doubted 
 w^hether any thing so learned is ever productive of any 
 substantial benefit to either party ; but it is quite certain 
 that if the means employed become known or even suspect- 
 ed, the moral power of the governor who uses them is bro- 
 ken forever. Between equals, nothing is more true than 
 that none confide in those who refuse to render confidence 
 in turn ; between subordinate and superior, this is, if possi- 
 ble, still more emphatically the case. It would be a curi- 
 ous, and at the same time an instructive inquiry, were it 
 practicable, to ascertain how many of the difinculties, great 
 
42 I- E T T K K S ON 
 
 and small, wLicli liave arisen to mar tlie peace of colleges, 
 have sprung from the irritation which a sensitive disposi- 
 tion never fails to experience at the impression conceived, 
 whether justly or unjustly, by its possessor, that his foot- 
 steps have been dogged, his private acts scrutinized, and 
 his careless and unguarded expressions noted down to be 
 used to his disadvantage. Conceived, I say, M-hether 
 justly or unjustly; but in the shape which the impression 
 too often takes, and which, not to mince matters, I pur- 
 posely clothe in the language which the exasperated stu- 
 dent himself is wont to employ, there can be no cpiestion 
 that it is always unjust. Yet this circumstance renders it 
 none the less prolific of evil. Upon him who entertains 
 it, it exercises all the powder of an odious reality to incense 
 and inflame ; and even when full conviction does not at- 
 tend it, it is so far from being the less irritating, that the 
 angry youth is often only the more angry at the sugges- 
 tion of a possible doubt. It is the part of w^isdom, there- 
 fore, to avoid anv thino^ which can furnish a basis, how- 
 ever shadowy, to impressions like these. IS^or do I believe 
 that college officers often err in this way. I believe that, 
 with most, there is a frankness of real confidence mani- 
 fested toward the students whom they meet, which engen- 
 ders an equally unreserved reciprocation of the same feel- 
 ing ; and that the instances are rare indeed, in which the 
 foundation of this desirable state of things is broken up 
 by such measures of vigilance on the part of superiors, as 
 are calculated to destroy that mutual kindness and good 
 will, which are the firmest security for the stability of any 
 government. 
 
 University of Alahama^ July 31, 1854. 
 
COLLEGE G O V K R N M E N T . 
 
 LETTER V 
 
 THE AMERICAN COLLEGE SYSTEM MAINLY DEPENDENT FOR ITS SLCCESSELL 
 OPERATION UPON THE PERSONAL QUALITIES OF DISPOSITION AND 
 TEMPERAMENT OF THE MEN WHO CONDUCT IT.^-INSECURITY ARISING 
 
 FROM THIS CAUSE. ENUMERATION OF THE MOST ESSENTIAL OF THE 
 
 MORAL QUALITIES WHICH THE COLLEGE OFFICER SHOULD POSSESS. 
 
 I HAVE spoken of certain principles of action, the 
 observance of wliicli on the part of those who are charged 
 with the government of young men, I consider to be 
 essential to the permanent success of their rule. I am 
 about to speak of certain positive qualities of disj^osition 
 and temperament, which, in their very highest manifesta- 
 tions, are perhaps the gift of few, but of which the posses- 
 sion, in a degree greater than belongs to the generality of 
 mankind, is apparently no less essential to the certain 
 attainment of the ends of good government. Nor in doing 
 this am I deviating from the main purpose I have in view 
 in this series of articles, which is to demonstrate the exist- 
 ence of an imperfection in our college system as at present 
 organized, in order that I may proceed to suggest what 
 seems to me a simple and easy remedy. 
 
 I do not wish to anticipate, nor to take up things out 
 of their natural order; yet since I have distinctly an- 
 nounced my ultimate design, it may not be amiss to say 
 here, for the sake of preventing misconceptions, that what 
 I have to propose is no great an(J sweeping change, no 
 
44: T. K T T E R S OX 
 
 suspicious or startling innovation. Neither tLe evil nor 
 its remedy have any necessary connection whatever with 
 the system of instruction now generally practiced in 
 American colleges. The removal of that evil involves no 
 derangement of that system, nor any injury to a single 
 one of its important features. But of this, those who have 
 patience to follow me to the end, will be able to judge in 
 due time. 
 
 Meanwhile, if I show it to be a fact, that the successful 
 operation of the existing system of government depends 
 almost wholly upon the character of the men who admin- 
 ister it ; and further, that the peculiar endowments which 
 especially fit men for this difficult task, are in their fullest 
 development rare, I shall have established a priori^ what 
 exj^erience corroborates, that such a system is always in- 
 secure; and that, if this element of hazard admits of 
 removal, the remedy ought to be applied. 
 
 The first trait of character which I regard as essential 
 to the success of a college officer under our present system 
 of government, is one in which few are found to fail ; but 
 which rather from its occasional predominance over the 
 milder traits, gives sometimes something like a tone of 
 harshness to the manner, which it were better to veil ; and 
 that is firmness. No government can succeed which fails 
 to command respect, and no respect can be felt for a vac- 
 illating, timorous, or irresolute superior. The hand must 
 be at once strong and steady which holds the rein over 
 the giddy impulses of heedless or undisciplined youth ; 
 nor will any be found more ready to admit this necessity 
 than those, or at legist the majority of them (for most 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 45 
 
 young men are ingenuous) wlio themselves need tbe 
 restraint. But upon this point it is unnecessary to multi- 
 ply words, since the absence of the quality under consider- 
 ation is rarely one of the faults of an American college 
 officer. 
 
 It may be occasionally otherwise in regard to the qual- 
 ity of which I am next to speak, and of which the import- 
 ance is always most felt in connection with the last. I 
 mean a mildness of manner^ which divests the firmest 
 government of every appearance of sternness, and clothes 
 the severest decrees of justice with the exterior of kind- 
 ness. The popular appreciation of the value of such a 
 union of qualities is manifested in the frequent application 
 of the maxim, which, with aphoristic brevity, associates 
 them, as the '■'' suaviter in modo^fortiter'in reP Napoleon 
 observed of the French, that they needed for their control 
 " a hand of iron in a glove of velvet." One of his subjects, 
 who probably knew by experience the feeling of the hand, 
 remarked, that the great monarch never failed of the irou 
 grasp, but often forgot to put on the glove. The observ- 
 ation of the French emperor is not inapplicable to the 
 impulsive youth of our American colleges ; and while I 
 yield to no one in my conviction of the indispensable 
 necessity of firmness and decision in college government, I 
 sincerely believe that an exterior of unvarying mildness 
 on the part of those who administer such a government, is 
 a means of preventing evil, more eflicacious than all the 
 penalties of the law put together. If youthful passions, 
 prompt to efifervesce, are easily excited, so are they quite 
 as easily soothed ; and the fable of the sun and the wind, 
 
46 LET T ]-: K S O N 
 
 thoiigli it symbolizes a trutli as universal as human nature, 
 is nowhere more strikingly illustrative than within the 
 walls of a college. 
 
 Much, also, of the success of college government de- 
 pends upon the exercise of a ivise discretion by the officer, 
 in regard to the use he may make of his own powers. 
 Because he may punish, it does not follow that he always 
 should j)unish, whenever occasion arises. It does not even 
 follow that he should always betray his knowledge of the 
 offense, farther than to the offender himself By privately 
 admonishing the individual of the impropriety of his con- 
 duct, and pointing out to him the danger to which he has 
 exposed himself, much more good may often be accom- 
 plished, in the way of prevention and reformation, than 
 by all the disgrace attendant on public rebuke and cen- 
 sure. When such a course is possible, it is obviously the 
 wisest, as it is the kindest and most forbearing. But such 
 a mode of proceeding may not always answer the purpose ; 
 and on this account it is, that no quality of mind is of 
 higher value in the officer than a clear and discreet judg- 
 ment. Censures, penalties, punishments of all kinds, are 
 unavoidable necessities, arising out of the imperfection of 
 human nature ; but as their main design, in human insti- 
 tutions, is the prevention of offenses, so the less they are 
 resorted to, consistently with the attainment of this end, 
 the better. 
 
 It is not an'unfrequent occurrence, that a young man 
 in college feels himself aggrieved by something which has 
 occurred between him and his instructor. He may imag- 
 ine that a fair hearing has not been given him in the reci- 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 4T 
 
 tation room; or lie may interpret in an injurious sense, 
 words addressed to him in the hearing of his class ; or he 
 may believe that he has not been rated as high, on the 
 record, as his performances merit ; or some other cause of 
 dissatisfaction may arise, to induce him to remonstrate or 
 complain. Nor should the instructor turn from such rep- 
 resentations contemptuously away. Patience should be 
 one of his marked characteristics ; and he will probably 
 never find it more thoroughly tried than on occasions of 
 this kind. For if he possess the qualities I have already 
 enumerated, especially the last two named, he will have 
 been steadily laboring against the very errors which he 
 sees thus imputed to him, and he must feel that his inten- 
 tion is certainly wronged, whatever impression his words 
 or acts may have conveyed. But this must not provoke 
 him to listen any the less patiently, or to explain any the 
 less circumstantially, the occurrences out of which the 
 dissatisfaction has grown ; nor if he pursues such a course 
 will he usually fail to dispel the momentary chagrin, and 
 re-establish the feeling of confidence and kindness which 
 it had temporarily disturbed. 
 
 I need not say how important it is that the college 
 officer, whether in dispensing censure or praise, should be 
 actuated by no feeling of favor on the one hand, or of 
 prejudice on the other. There exists no higher necessity 
 in the civil courts, that justice should be meted out with 
 severe impartiality^ than that the same principle should 
 preside over all the awards of college authority. No 
 more frequent charge is advanced against the oflicers of 
 our literary institutions, than that they are partial. The 
 
48 I. E T T E K S ON 
 
 partiality alleged to exist, is more eommouly one of favor 
 than the contrary ; but we hear it sometimes asserted, 
 nevertheless, that the prejudices of officers blind them to 
 the merits of certain individuals, or lead them to exercise 
 toward such an undue severity. As a general rule, it 
 may be said that these imputations are unfounded. The 
 disregard Avith which, often as they are made, they are 
 treated by the public, shows that they are considered to 
 be, as on the slightest estimate of probabilities they must 
 appear, entirely baseless. They point out, nevertheless, a 
 quality which it is absolutely indispensable that the col- 
 lege officer should possess ; while they admonish us that 
 it is not the possession alone, but the reputation of pos- 
 sessing (I refer to the reputation within the college itself), 
 which the judicious officer will aim to secure. 
 
 It may be observed that the most cautious wisdom 
 will not always preserve to the most judicious college 
 officer, the invariable and unfailing good-will of those 
 whom it is his duty to control. Sudden ebullitions of 
 temper on the part of excitable young men, may 2)rompt 
 them to hasty words or acts, well suited to subvert the 
 equanimity of any one, however by nature imperturbable. 
 Yet the imperturbability of the college officer should be 
 superior to all such provocations. He should tranquilly 
 suffer the moment of excitement to pass by ; and allow 
 the offender, under the influence of the self -rebuke usually 
 consequent upon reflection, to make the reparation which 
 the case demands. To allow himself to become excited, is 
 but to widen the breach and render it irreparable ; when 
 but a single consequence can possibly follow. He who 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 49 
 
 has set at defiance tlie authorities of the college, or treated 
 its representative with gross disrespect, can no longer re- 
 main a member of the institution. The necessity, there- 
 fore, oi great power of self co^mnand on the part of a col- 
 lege officer is obvious; for though the occasions which 
 may severely try it can never be frequent, yet the want of 
 it, whenever they occur, is a misfortune for which nothing 
 can adequately compensate. 
 
 I have but one thing more to add. To a wise college 
 governor, the word inexokable ivill he unhnown. The 
 faults of youth are usually faults of impulse rather than of 
 deliberate purpose. They evince not so much settled wick- 
 edness as thoughtless folly, or giddy recklessness of dispo- 
 sition. Few so immature in years as are the majority of 
 college youth, are already entirely abandoned ; while it is 
 a fact almost without exception, that those among every 
 body of students who have passed the climacteric which 
 separates them from boyhood, have ceased any longer to 
 require the restraining influence of college governments. 
 The culjDrits, then, who are brought to the bar of college 
 justice, are almost invariably boys, whom vice has not had 
 time utterly to subjugate, and whose consciences are not 
 yet callous to every appeal. From such, when they repent, 
 a considerate governor will be slow to turn unfeelingly 
 away ; nor while there remains room for pardon will he 
 hesitate to extend it to them. He will remember, that on 
 his decision, perhaps hangs the entire destiny of the often- 
 der, for this world if not for another ; and no considera- 
 tions but such as involve the highest interests of the entire 
 community over which he is placed as a guardian, will 
 
50 I. E T T p: K S ON 
 
 prevent his accepting the evidence of sincere repentance 
 as an exj)iation of .the most serious fault. 
 
 But were all college officers gifted in the highest degree 
 with the qualities which I have enumerated, I do not know 
 that it would follow that troubles would be impossible. I 
 only know that the non-existence of these endowments, to 
 at least a pretty large extent, leaves open a wide door for 
 their entrance. It is true, therefore, that the existing col- 
 lege system is dependent for its successful operation, in a 
 very eminent degree, upon the kind of men to whom its 
 administration is entrusted ; and this fact, if it inheres in 
 the system only in consequence of the existence in the 
 same system of features which are inessential to the great 
 purposes of education, and which admit of easy removal, 
 is an evil the more to be deplored, because it is unneces- 
 sary. 
 
 University of Alabama, Aug. 5, 1854. 
 
COLLEGE Ci O V E R N M E N T . 51 
 
 LETTER VI 
 
 ■OBJECTIONS OF THE "REGISTER TO THE DAILY VISITATIOX OK UOOMS, CON- 
 SIDERED. DESIGN OF THIS VISITATION. — REASONS FOR MAINTAINING 
 
 THE USAGE. SOCIAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN OFFICERS AND STUDENTS 
 
 OUGHT TO BE CULTIVATED. 
 
 I AIM now prepared to return to the consideration of a 
 college usage to which you have raised serious objections, 
 but which I dismissed, in the commencement of this dis- 
 cussion, with no other remark than that its prevalence is 
 co-extensive with that of the system itself : — I allude to 
 the practice made obligatory on the officers of colleges to 
 visit, from time to time, the rooms of the students, during 
 the hours set apart for study. 
 
 You object to visitation mainly upon two grounds: 
 First, that it is an invasion of the natural right of the stu- 
 dent to privacy ; and, secondly, that its object is to obtain, 
 by sly and stealthy approaches, a knowledge of such un- 
 lawful practices as would not probably be reached by fair 
 and honorable means. I do not say that you charge, in 
 so many words, premeditated and systematic meanness on 
 all college officers, but this charge is certainly contained, 
 by implication, in your objections to the practice under 
 consideration. 
 
 Now, in what sense, I ask, is any natural right of the 
 student invaded by subjecting him to this liability to visi- 
 
52 L K •!' T E R S ON 
 
 tation ? The college receives him as a student, only on 
 the condition that he consents to yield up a material por- 
 tion of his time to the direction of the authorities. These 
 authorities, in order that there may be no possible mistake 
 as to how far this condition extends, and as to what they 
 claim as their own, have specified, in printed rules, a copy 
 of which is furnished to each individual affected by them, 
 precisely what hours of the twenty-four shall not be pri- 
 vate to the student ; but may be, if they so require it 
 (and they occasionally do) passed uninterruj^tedly in their 
 immediate presence. The officer who is to meet a class at 
 a certain hour, for recitation or lecture, may require their 
 attendance upon him, if he pleases, during all the preced- 
 ing hours of preparation. I have often done this. On 
 special occasions, I have been repeatedly requested to do 
 it by the classes themselves. But in case this right is 
 w^aived, as it usually is, and study is prosecuted in the stu- 
 dent's own aj)artment, the law recognizes no privacy what- 
 ever during the period allotted to study ; and it provides 
 for the visitation of the rooms, as a practical standing asser- 
 tion of the fact that his time is in no sense whatever the 
 property of himself, but that it belongs to the authorities 
 to dispose of, absolutely as they please. Beyond these 
 hours, thus set apart for university purposes, the system 
 of visitation does not extend; and, in modern colleges, 
 never has extended. Out of this time, so long as no dis- 
 order occurs to require interposition, the privacy of the 
 dormitories is as much respected by the authorities, as 
 that of the Grand Turk's seraglio by all good JMusselmans. 
 Now, here you have the whole system in a nutshell — 
 
COLLEGE G O V E E N M E NT . 53 
 
 its original design and its basis of riglit and reason. Con- 
 sidered from tliis point of view, what can you find in it 
 exceptionable l Nevertlieless, I am sure that the officers 
 of colleges — those of this college at least — are not tena- 
 cious of this practice. They would be willing to abolish 
 it to-morrow, if they were not convinced that the students 
 would never be permanently contented under such a 
 change. This doubtless will surprise you, and you will 
 beg leave to record your emphatic dissent ; but we hioiv 
 what we say, because we have tried the experiment. For 
 a year or two — I am unable to say how long — while our 
 numbers were fewer than they have since been, we prac- 
 ticed no visitation. We resumed the practice at the re- 
 quest of the students themselves. Those who desired to 
 study, and these are always a majority, found their pri- 
 vacy so encroached upon by those who did not, as seri- 
 ously to annoy them, and obstruct the prosecution of their 
 regular pursuits. The nuisance continued to grow, with 
 growing numbers, until it became intolerable ; and the re- 
 sult was what I have stated. And so I do not doubt that 
 it would be again, were we to discontinue the practice 
 once more. I do not suppose that the evil would instanta- 
 neously reappear. Habits of lounging from room to room 
 and wasting time in profitless trivialities, do not grow up 
 in a day ; but that they will grow up, where there is no 
 check to prevent their development, in tlie midst of any 
 community embracing a hundred or two of young men 
 brousrht too-ether at random, I believe to be as certain as 
 that human nature always remains the same. The check 
 afforded by the system of visitation is slight. It creates 
 
54 L E T T E K S O X 
 
 only a liability on the part of individuals to be found, 
 more or less frequently, inattentive to their own proper 
 business, and interrupting their neighbors in the prosecu- 
 tion of theirs ; but while it is inadequate to the complete 
 prevention of such irregularities, as every plan short of 
 constant supervision must be, it is efficient enough to pre- 
 vent their becoming excessive. Still, I repeat, the Fac- 
 ulty of this institution regard the system of visitation so 
 much more in the light of a favor shown to the students, 
 than in that of an oppressive molestation, that, I have no 
 question at all, they would abolish it without hesitation, 
 were the majority of the fathers who have sons here, or 
 even of the sous themselves after carefully considering 
 the subject on all sides, to desire it. 
 
 Your second objection, I am disposed to believe, you 
 will, upon reflection, retract. I know that it is not very 
 uncommon for young men, when under the influence of 
 excitement caused by some act of college discipline, to say 
 things very disparaging to those whose only fault is, that, 
 often with pain to themselves, they have faithfully dis- 
 charged their duty ; butsurely, a gentleman who knows the 
 world so well as the editor of the " Register," cannot for 
 a moment believe that an individual fit to occupy the dis- 
 tinguished post of a professor of elegant letters or of the 
 liberal arts, would be capable of practices which would 
 make him unworthy to share the society of honorable 
 men. Upon this objection I shall therefore dwell no lon- 
 ger than to express my regret, that imi^utations which 
 may easily be pardoned to hasty and inconsiderate youth, 
 prompted by excited feeling, should have found a place in 
 
COLLEGE G O V E R X >I E N T . 55 
 
 a journal, so widely circulated and so influential as the 
 " Register." 
 
 In dismissing this topic, I would remark, that the duty 
 of official visitation, necessary as under the existing col- 
 lege system it seems to l3e, is one which peculiarly tests 
 some of those qualities of the college officer of which I 
 made mention in my last communication, and especially 
 those which relate to manner. Consideration for the stu- 
 dent's necessary occupation will not ordinarily admit of 
 more than a moment's delay dui'ing the visit to each 
 room ; and the extent of the round to be made admon- 
 ishes the visitor that he must economize his own time. 
 The brevity of the call, therefore, adds something to that 
 tendency to stiffiiess which the consciousness of its official 
 character is aj^t to imj^art to it. He who can discharge 
 this duty so as invariably to give and receive pleasure at 
 every repetition of it, must be considered to~possess a tem- 
 perament peculiarly adapted to the position he occupies. 
 Yet the thing is not impossible. I have known it to be 
 true of men who have been subjected to the test for 
 years ; and this I regard as an additional evidence that 
 the system, however unlovely may be the colors in which 
 you have painted it, is not in itself necessarily odious. 
 
 One additional remark in conclusion. While speaking 
 of official visitation, I would express my belief that, if 
 there were more unofficial visiting between officers and 
 students than usually takes place in our colleges, the effect 
 would be eminently beneficial. Let there be moments 
 when the artificial relations of instructor and pupil shall 
 be forgotten, or at least by common consent kept out of 
 
56 L E T T ]•; li s ox 
 
 sight; and tliere cannot fiiil to grow wp a feeling of kindly 
 personal interest between the parties, of wonderful efficacy 
 in promoting the harmony and happiness of the entire 
 community. On the part of officers, it is often difficult, or 
 even impossible, to do in this way so much as they would ; 
 both because of the pressure of burthens public and pri- 
 vate on their hands, and because of the large number of 
 the young men between whom their attention must be 
 divided ; but they ought to invite and encourage the vis- 
 its of students to themselves, so far as their engagements 
 will allow ; and I have no hesitation in saying, that they 
 should recijDrocate such visits whenever it may be in their 
 power. It is my candid opinion that all the laws which 
 were ever enacted for the good government of colleges, 
 are weak ai;id nugatory, compared with that boundless 
 moral influence which it is possible for the individual offi- 
 cer to acquire, by winning the affections, instead of oper- 
 ating on the fears, of those whom he instructs. Perhaps 
 there is no sinsj'le means more effectual towards the accom- 
 plishment of this desirable end, than that he should mani- 
 fest a prompt willingness to meet and reciprocate with 
 them all the ordinary courtesies of life, in a spirit and with 
 a manner which shall show that they are something more 
 than empty forms. 
 
 Wniversitf/ of AlahcDiia^ ^i^^'A S, 185-4. 
 
COLL K G E G <3 V E R N ISI 1-: N T . 5 1 
 
 LETTER VII, 
 
 NO VIXDICATIOX OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM OF COLLEGE GOVERNMENT CAN 
 BE UXIVEKSALLY SATISFACTORY ; BECAUSE, FIRST, NO SYSTEM CAN BE 
 EQUALLY SUITED TO STUDENTS OF EVERY AGE ; AND, SECONDLY, THE 
 POPULAR IDEA OF THE COLLEGE STUDENT IS DRAWN FROM THE CLASS 
 WHO NEED LEAST TO BE GOVERNED. 
 
 I HAVE examined those features of the system of gov- 
 ernment common to the colleges of this country, which 
 have been made especially the subjects of your strictures. 
 If I have not removed your objections to them, I have at 
 least shown that they may be j)lausibly defended. I 
 think I have shown that, so long as colleges are organized 
 on the existing general plan, these features present noth- 
 ing unreasonable ; perhaps I may say, nothing unneces- 
 sary. 
 
 Now, were I to examine every other regulation con- 
 nected with the government and discijDline of colleges to 
 which exception has been taken in any quarter, and were 
 I to detail with like minuteness the reasons which have 
 led to the introduction of each into the code of college 
 law, I have no doubt that I should be able to make as 
 good a case in every instance, as I have done in the one or 
 two I have considered. I ought to be able to do so, for 
 these regulations have not been the creation of a day, of a 
 year, or even of a century. They rest upon no foundation 
 of mere opinion or judgment — not even upon the opinions 
 
5S LETTKKS OX 
 
 or jiulgmeiits, nncorrected by experience, of tlie wisest 
 men ; Ijut they are results wrought out by actual experi- 
 ment, and by the comparison of difterent methods during 
 the course of several centuries. 
 
 Yet after all, it cannot be denied that the most unan- 
 swerable vindication of the existing system of college gov- 
 ernment, leaves upon the minds of many, an unsatisfied 
 impression, and that the reply will continually recur — 
 "But you offend the self-esteem, you mortify the pride of 
 character, you wound the innate feeling of personal dig- 
 nity, in a sensitive young man, by subjecting him to a 
 code of regulations fit only for the government of boys." 
 True, we do this ; if a young man, w^hose maturity of 
 years and fixedness of principle enable him to be a law to 
 himself, chooses, on joining our community, to regard our 
 system of law as having been established exjDressly for 
 him. But it is not for such that we legislate ; nor is it 
 just to denounce our rules as oppressive, because there are 
 some individuals for whom they are unnecessary. The 
 difficulty is to induce the public — even the most sensible 
 part of the public — to reflect, that all laws must be made 
 to meet the cases of those who most need restraint, and 
 not of those who need it least. 
 
 I have already, in a former letter, mentioned the fact, 
 that .the individual students who become subjects of col- 
 lege discipline, are almost invariably boys. Our rules 
 allow us to receive candidates for admission at the early 
 age of fourteen ; and very many enter below sixteen. On 
 the other hand, not a few have attained, or nearly 
 attained, their majority, before becoming members of col- 
 
COLLEGE G O V E K N M E N T . 59 
 
 lege ; and the consequence is, tliat we liave a community 
 very heterogeneous in character, very unequal in power 
 of self-command, very widely different in degree of manli- 
 ness, very unfit to be all subjected to the same uniform 
 regimen. In the younger classes we find usually a major- 
 ity who have come directly from the schools, where their 
 conduct has been subjected to the restraint of immediate 
 and constant supervision. Such, even if they possess the 
 power have not yet acquired the habit of self-control; 
 and the almost irresistible proj^ensity of juvenile nature 
 to avail itself without consideration of every accidental 
 opportunity to give way to frolic mirthfulness, on the 
 slightest relaxation of the severe vigilance of school super- 
 vision, is carried into -the college, and is not laid aside 
 until familiarity with freedom neutralizes the temptation 
 to extravagance. Life in college, indeed, very rapidly 
 transforms the boy into the man. In such communities, 
 'especially where the numbers are large, the members of 
 the several classes are almost as clearly distinguished from 
 each other by outward signs of manner and deportment, 
 as by reference to the official register; and acts of thought- 
 less frivolity, which in the earlier years are by no means 
 rare, become almost unknown to the later. 
 
 It is a very great disadvantage of college govern- 
 ment, that it can provide but one system of discipline 
 for all variety of subjects; and that consequently, the 
 stringent system which the more volatile — those in whom 
 the boy spirit still predominates — require, is felt to be 
 unreasonably oppressive and galling by the graver class 
 who disdain even the suspicion of puerility. The popular 
 
C)0 LETT E K S ON 
 
 idea of the colle2:e student is drawn much more from the- 
 latter class than from the former; and, hence, such stric- 
 tures as those of the "Register" upon the visitation of 
 rooms, carry with them an appearance of weight and rea- 
 son which they would hardly possess were it remembered, 
 that this system does not exist for the supervision and re- 
 straint of those who need no restraint, but on account of 
 those others who do need it, yet cannot possibly be sepa- 
 rately reached. And the same might be said of nine out 
 of ten of the rules existing in colleges for the regulation 
 of the student's conduct. 
 
 It is a curious fact that, while the popular idea of the 
 college student at the present day invests him very much 
 Avith the character of a man — though many individual 
 students are in fact but boys, — in the early history of col- 
 leges, both in this country and abroad, the case was com- 
 pletely the reverse, and the college or university student 
 was looked uj^on and treated as a mere school-boy. It 
 was this fact, indeed, which, if it did not determine the 
 erection of colleges and halls in the universities, at least 
 suggested the form of their organization. The Universi- 
 ties of England taught only, and assumed no responsibility 
 for the deportment or morals of the students. The lectu- 
 rers — ultimately styled professors — did nothing, and do 
 nothing to this day, but lecture ; they heard no recapitu- 
 lations of the subjects by the students — that is, no recita- 
 tions. But boy learners require both moral control and 
 mental drilling. The colleges and halls were erected to 
 subserve both these purposes. In these establishments 
 the students were boarded, lodged, and kept under close 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. Gl 
 
 supervisiou. They were each governed by a master, 
 assisted by one or more tutors as necessity might require. 
 It was the business of the tutor to see that the youths 
 duly attended the lectures, and to interrogate them upon 
 what they heard — that is, to hear them - recite. It was 
 also his business to give them religious instruction, and to 
 " do all that in him lay to render them comformable to 
 the Church of England." In addition to this, he had the 
 further rather troublesome charge of " containing his pu- 
 pils within statutory regulations in matters of external 
 appearance, such as their clothes, boots, and hair," with 
 the somewhat unpleasant liability, in case his unmanage- 
 able urchins evaded his vigilance, expressed in the follow- 
 ing clause — " Which if the puj^ils are found to transgress, 
 the tutor, for the first, second, and third oifense, shall for- 
 feit six and eight j^ence, and for the fourth, shall be inter- 
 dicted from his tutorial functions."^'* Corporal punish- 
 ment was inflicted, says Sir Charles Lyell, in the English 
 Universities, so late as the time of Milton. The same 
 appears to have been true in the early years of Harvard 
 and Yale, in this country. Down to the commencement 
 of the present century, the fagging system survived in 
 both those colleges — a system which rendered the stu- 
 dent, during his freshman year, the drudge of his fellow- 
 students above him ; and to cj[uite as late a j^eriod, the 
 whole Ijody of the students were comj^elled to observances 
 towards the college oflficers, which would now be held to 
 be degrading, and could only then consist with the idea 
 
 * Sir William Ilaniiltoirs Discussions on Pliilosopliy. 
 
02 r. ]■; T T E 11 s on 
 
 that the stiiileut is a mere school-boy. In those primitive 
 daAs, nice questions of casuistry, as to how far a student 
 ma}' or may not, by his testimony, I'lghtfully or lionoral;)ly 
 criminate his fellow, were unknown ; but tlie youth who 
 refused to testify — if that plienomenon ever occurred — 
 was neither remonstrated with nor dismissed, but simply, 
 I suppose, " licked !" However, we have changed all 
 that, and very propei'ly ; but so far lias the change gone, 
 at the ]3resent day, that nearly all attempts on the part of 
 college Faculties to use coercion of any kind, if not re- 
 sisted in limine^ are at least met with remonstrance and 
 complaint. 
 
 From the foregoing statements, it is apparent that tlie 
 American colleges have assumed to themselves the dou- 
 ble duty, wliich, some centuries ago in England, was 
 divided between college and University — the duty of 
 instruction and that of government. It is true that the 
 Englisli colleges bave done the same at Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, by that gradual and systematic usurj^ation by 
 whicb the tutor lias supplanted tlie professor in his func- 
 tions, and by whicb the college has substantially super- 
 seded the University. But in undertaking this two-fold 
 responsibility in this country, we liave failed as I have 
 heretofore sliown, to coj^y from our models the devices 
 by which they secure the ability to discharge it. Our 
 college officers neither live in the same building nor eat 
 at the same table with the students, nor are the premises 
 shut in Ijy walls, or secured by locks and bolts. In 
 the absence of these material safeguards, we have spun 
 around our colleges a cob-web of words ; instead of imnie- 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 63 
 
 diate and constant supervision, we have substituted law ; 
 instead of bolts and bars, we have invoked penalties; 
 instead of substantial stone and mortar, we have built our 
 reliance upon a barricade of paper. What wonder that 
 the merest breath sometimes bears down the barrier 
 before it ! 
 
 University of AJahama^ Avg. 10, 1854. 
 
6-i L E T T P: R S ON 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 AMERICAX COLLEGES ASSUME TOO GREAT A KESPOXSIBILITY. THE COLLEGE 
 
 SYSTEM OF THE COUXTRY, CONSIDERED AS A SYSTEM OF MORAL TRAIX- 
 ING, IS A FAILURE. IS THERE ANY REMEDY ? 
 
 Though as yet I have not explicitly stated wliat I 
 believe to be the defect of our present college system, out 
 of wliicli, in spite of all the prudence, caution, and fore- 
 sight of the wisest officers, we may fairly expect trouble 
 more or less frequently to arise, my last letter, I presume, 
 can have left little doubt as to my impressions upon that 
 point. But, as I wish to be distinctly understood, I shall 
 not leave my oj)inion to Ije a mere matter of infer- 
 ence. The simple truth is here — Americcm colleges- 
 assume a responsihility ivhicli tliey have not the ])oicer ade- 
 quately to discharge. They undertake not merely to train 
 the mind and inform the understanding, but also to regu- 
 late the conduct and protect the morals. This great 
 weight of responsibility was without doubt originally 
 incurred in full view of its magnitude, and of deliberate 
 purpose ; but it was not incurred without a careful pro- 
 vision of the means which might render its fulfillment a 
 possibility. In its origin, the college was strictly a fam- 
 ily, and its government was a parental despotism. Con- 
 stant and immediate supervision, locks, bolts, and bars. 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 65 
 
 and obligatory observances whicli would now be called 
 degrading, stood, as I have sliown, in place of our cobweb 
 laws; and for penalties, there were personal restraint, 
 privation of enjoyments, cumulation of tasks, and even 
 that terror of childhood, the rod itself. The system, in 
 its inception, was evidently designed for boys and none 
 else ; though it must be confessed that, at that primitive 
 period, not only did boyhood cover a much larger space 
 in human life than it does at present, but all ages sub- 
 mitted without murmuring to restraints which would not 
 now be tolerated for a moment. Holmes, in three lines, 
 gives us a happy idea of the state of things existing in 
 those days: 
 
 " The people were not democrats then, 
 They did not talk of the rights of men, 
 And all that sort of thing." 
 
 Sir AVilliam Hamilton tells us that colleges and halls 
 for lay students were created " in imitation of the Hos- 
 2yitia which the religious orders established in the univer- 
 sity towns, for those of their members who were attracted, 
 as teachers or learners, to those places of literary resort." 
 It does not appear that, in the original design of the 
 universities of Europe, whether British or continental, 
 any control of the conduct or regulation of the morals of 
 the students was contemplated at all. The researches of 
 the writer just cited, make it evident that the exposures 
 were very peculiar, which rendered the institution of sOme 
 moral safeguards necessary. When we consider what pre- 
 cisely were these exposures, as they are described in an 
 extract from the Cardinal de Yitry, which Sir William 
 
66 I. E T T E K S O N 
 
 ("quotes but does not venture to translate, we cannot with- 
 out a smile endeavor to imagine the holy horror with 
 which those respectable ecclesiastics who founded the col- 
 leges of Paris, must have regarded a proposition to give 
 to them such a constitution as that of Yale, or Harvard, 
 or Princeton, or the University of Alabama. In the view 
 of those men, this constitution could not but have ren- 
 dered these exposures tenfold more dangerous. In pro- 
 fessing to throw up moral defenses around the youth 
 committed to their charge, they aimed at realities and not 
 at shadows ; in place of empty prohibitions, they erected 
 physical barriers; and they provided against transgres- 
 sion by the simple expedient of rendering it impossible. 
 It is no part of my business to prove that they did not 
 err in one direction as widely as we do in the other ; it is 
 enough that I show, that, having a definite object in view, 
 they adopted means to accomplish it ; while we, with the 
 same object, adopt next to none at all. We have aban- 
 doned supervision — we have discarded the family arrange- 
 ment — we have given up the college cloisters to the 
 almost exclusive control of their juvenile occupants. No 
 Cerberus in the form of a janitor guards the college gates 
 — no blank, uncompromising wall shuts in the academic 
 court — no "fat professor or lean and ghostly tutor" (I 
 think I quote you correctly) glides along the passages — 
 no shooting-bolt, as tolls the college curfew, obstructs all 
 further commerce with the external world. In place of 
 all these securities, we have introduced a single substi- 
 tute : it is law ; and it has failed. I do not find especially 
 the evidence of this failure in acts of insubordination, of 
 
C L L E a E G O Y E R N :\r E N T . 67 
 
 whicli — of such at least as are serious — the occurrence is 
 after all but rare ; but I find, in my own personal experi- 
 ence as a student, and in my observation both as a stu- 
 dent and as an officer, conclusive j^roof that the system of 
 government existing in American colleges, considered as 
 a system of moral restraint, is all but worthless. My own 
 convictions would justify me in using even stronger lan- 
 guage than this. To me it has all the character of an 
 ascertained fact, a matter of immediate knowledge and 
 not of inference or information, that initiation into the 
 charmed collegial circle is, morally, rather a release from 
 old restraints, than an imposition of new ones. The pub- 
 lic eye no longer rests upon the neophyte ; public opinion 
 no longer encourages, intimidates, or guides him ; he is, 
 except for flagrant crime, substantially absolved from alle- 
 giance to the laws of the land ; and, between him and the 
 only authority which he does acknowledge, is interposed 
 that unwritten " higher law " of colleges, the law of the 
 Bursclienscliaft^ which enables him to defy investigation, 
 and baffle inquiry. 
 
 Is it reasonable to expect good to grow out of a sys- 
 tem like this ? And if young men emerge spotless from 
 the ordeal of a college life, is it not plain that they do so, 
 not in consequence of the system, but in spite of it ? Vice 
 and crime would be unknown but for temptation ; temp- 
 tation would usually be powerless but for opportunity. 
 Youthful passions rarely fail to find the first ; the Ameri- 
 can college system furnishes the second in its amplest 
 form. 
 
 This system also, is such as to open to evil example a 
 
68 L E T T E 11 S ON 
 
 lield for the most powerfully pernicious influence. If 
 Satan, in Lis fall, drew after liim a tliird part of the host 
 of Heaven, much more is it to be expected that one of his 
 ministers on earth may lead astray no small proportion of 
 a community of inconsiderate and impulsive young men. 
 Social sympathy — the feeling of companionship — will 
 often carry a youth along, where his conscience forbids 
 him to go. If he betrays his scruples, he soon learns to 
 blush with mortification at the ridicule they excite. What 
 should naturally follow, but that he should presently 
 cease to have a conscience at all ? Truly it seems to me, 
 that, had it been the original design of the college system, 
 instead of guarding the morals of young men, to expose 
 them to danger, and instead of watching over them, to 
 abandon them to the protection of chance, a scheme more 
 happily devised to efl:ect this object could not have been 
 sketched out. It has maintained its ground to this day 
 through an unquestioning veneration of antiquity, though 
 every feature that recommended it to the men of olden 
 time, by whose wisdom it was planned, has long since 
 been abandoned. Could now all recollection of the past be 
 effaced, and could the question be brought up before the 
 present generation as one entirely new, what ought to be 
 the oro:anization of an institution desis^ned for the educa- 
 tion of youth and the cjuardianslii^ of their morals^ I have 
 not the least idea that the system now so all but univer- 
 sally prevalent would obtain the vote of a single man of 
 sense in the entire civilized world. 
 
 Is there any remedy ? Certainly there is. It -v^-ould 
 be a remedy — not one perhaps accordant with the sj^irit 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT, 69 
 
 of the age, nor likely to prove economical, but a remedy, 
 nevertheless — to return to the system of the English 
 schools of learning, as it existed down to the eighteenth 
 century, to revive the distinction between University and 
 College, to separate the business of mental culture from 
 that of moral training, and to re-establish the wide difter- 
 ence between the functions of professor and tutor. Un- 
 der this system, government, besides being rendered effec- 
 tual by all the expedients I have specified, might be 
 divided with us, as it was (and is yet) at Oxford and 
 Cambridge, between many Colleges and Halls, and in- 
 struction could be given for the Avhole by a single corps 
 of Professors, constituting the University Faculties. By 
 this subdivision of the student body, the difficulty of con- 
 trolling the whole would be much reduced. At Oxford, 
 early in the fourteenth century, as Sir William Hamilton 
 informs us, the number of halls and colleofes was about 
 three hundred ; and at the present time, it is twenty-four. 
 A recent visitor at that celebrated seat of learning informs 
 us that no Oxford college has more than about one hun- 
 dred and forty students, while some have as few as ten. 
 Since the total number of students in the University is 
 about fifteen hundred, it is evident that any difficulties 
 which may arise in the government of a particular college, 
 even though they should be aggravated to the point of 
 rebellion, could produce no sensible eftect upon the gen- 
 eral tranquillity of the University. 
 
 In this country and in this age, however, a variety of 
 causes render a resort to a remedy like this entirely 
 impracticable. Every thing in our political principles and 
 
 6 
 
L E T T E R S ON 
 
 our federal organization opposes concentration. All relig- 
 ions denominations stand here upon the same footing, and 
 all of them ivill^ whether it be well or ill for the cause of 
 education in the end, have schools and colleges for the 
 education of their own children, in the hands of teachers 
 of their own persuasion. Such a thing as a privileged 
 University, like those of England and France, could not 
 exist here. And, moreover, the spirit of the age, impa- 
 tient as it is of restraints even the most salutary, wonld 
 not sanction the restoration of the prison-like quadrangle 
 and the compulsory regularity of hours. The college 
 would probably be deserted, and the experiment would 
 fail. It is hardly necessary, therefore, to superadd the 
 objection, that the remedy suggested would require a 
 total reconstruction of all the college buildings in the 
 country. 
 
 Is there no other remedy ? There is one to which, 
 little favor as it may find at present, especially with col- 
 leges which have invested large sums in costly buildings, 
 I sincerely believe that the whole country will come at 
 last : it is to ahandon the cloister system entirel}^, and with 
 it the attempt to do, what is now certainly done only in 
 pretense, to watch over the conduct and protect the 
 morals of the student. I am aware that this is high 
 ground to take. Deeply satisfied as I have been, from 
 the day I became a freshman in college to the present 
 hour, of the vast evil and the little good inherent in the 
 prevalent system of government in American colleges, I 
 perhaps should not even yet have felt emboldened to 
 speak out so publicly my convictions, in the face of the 
 
COLLEGE G O V E R N M E 2n" T . 71 
 
 quiet contentment witli wliicli my compeers and tlie pub- 
 lic everywhere apparently regard the existing state of 
 things, had not one of the most eminent of our American 
 educators long since condemned the system as j)ublicly 
 and as decidedly as I have done, and ujDon the same 
 grounds. Eut Dr. Wayland, though he exhibits the evils 
 which necessarily attend this system, in a manner irresisti- 
 bly conclusive, hesitates to pronounce them sufficient to 
 call for or to justify the abandonment of buildings already 
 erected to serve as residences for college students. He 
 confines himself to deprecating the erection of any more. 
 I am disposed to take one step further. I say that Dr. 
 Wayland himself has proved the system to be so pernic- 
 ious, as to require that the ax should ibe laid directly at 
 the root of it, no matter what the expense may be. But 
 this subject requires a letter to itself. 
 
 University of Alctbama^ Aug. 12, 1851. 
 
72 LET T K K S O X 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 EVILS OF RESIDENCE IX DORMITORIES. SYNOPSIS OF DR. -VVAVLAND's 
 
 VIEWS ON THIS SUBJECT; 
 
 If I have dwelt much upon the moral and material 
 securities with which the founders of the colleges at the 
 English Universities sought to surround those institutions, 
 I have done so only that I might render more striking by 
 contrast our entire deficiency in those most important 
 respects. But I am by no means unaware that all those 
 stringent provisions have, by the entire disregard of their 
 original design, which has grown out of modern abuses at 
 Oxford and Cambridge, become, in those renowned seats 
 of learning, entirely nugatory. I am aware that, to an 
 outside observer at the present day, an English University 
 would present rather the appearance of an abode of lux- 
 ury, a precinct consecrated to physical enjoyment, than 
 that of a chosen retreat of science, or a habitation of the 
 Muses. I draw my illustration not from the Oxford of 
 the nineteenth but from the Oxford of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury ; I speak of the usages, not of the twenty-four stately 
 palaces of ease and dissipation which still exist ; but of 
 the three hundred halls, now nearly all extiuct, where, in 
 the time of the First Edward, thirty thousand youth bowed 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. T3" 
 
 their necks to the austere yoke of monastic rule. In 
 those days, a wine-bibbing, dinner-giving, " tandem-driv- 
 ing, hunting, steeple-chasing, and horse-racing" Oxford 
 student was unknown ; but it was no uncommon spectacle, 
 according to Sir James Nore, to see " the poor scholars of 
 Oxford a-begging, with bags and wallets, and singing 
 Salve Recjina^ at rich men's doors."""* Those were the 
 days when moral restraints in the Universities of England 
 were a reality : — now they can scarcely be said any longer 
 to exist. 
 
 I stated in my last letter that Dr. Way land had 
 thrown the weight of his high authority in opposition to 
 the plan of providing buildings for the residence of stu- 
 dents in an isolated community, during their college life. 
 What he has so well said I would not venture to repeat, 
 nor to what he has said would I add a single word, were 
 it possible or probable that the persons whom these let- 
 ters will reach would find access to his able examination 
 of the same subject. The improbability of that, justifies 
 me in repeating some of his arguments. In addition to the 
 views which I have already presented. Dr. Wayland urges 
 against the arrangements of the prevailing system, that 
 they are unnatural. They remove the young from the 
 enjoyment and benefit of family sympathies and society, 
 at a time of life when these are of the highest value. 
 They deprive them of that watchful attention, in time of 
 sickness, and of that heedful care, in time of health, which 
 are so important at this early age ; and which in their new 
 
 * Princeton Review, Jul}', 1854. 
 
74 L E T T E K S ON 
 
 position there will be none to bestow. Moreover, in pass- 
 ing from tlie family circle into tlie artificial society of a 
 college, there is at present a rude and harsh transition 
 from a position in which they are sustained and guided 
 by the counsel and solicitude of those on whom they are 
 accustomed to rely, to one in which, as it must be in the 
 great world at last, they have but themselves to consult 
 and depend on, in every emergency. The transition is 
 too abrupt to be courted, or to be probably beneficial. 
 
 Dr. Wayland further finds, in the unequal ages of the 
 students who make up the college community, a reason 
 for objecting to the cloister system. Small as is the 
 amount of supervision, which the most anxious and vigi- 
 lant Faculties can exercise over young men so situated, it 
 is more than those of their pupils who are most advanced 
 in years require. To prescribe to such their times for 
 going and coming, or for study and relaxation; and to 
 subject them to the necessity, little less than mortifying, 
 of applying for special permission to do even so simple an 
 act as to call upon a friend, or to that of rendering an ex- 
 cuse for receiving one at an hour not privileged by the 
 rules, when by the laws of the land and the usages of 
 society they are recognized as capable of self-government, 
 seems as unnecessary as it is apparently odious. And 
 yet, in a society where there can be but one rule for all, 
 such regulations cannot be dispensed with ; while the 
 greater difficulty is, on the other hand, to make them 
 stringent enougli to meet the case of those who have no 
 habits of self-government as yet established at all. This 
 latter class, in truth, can never be adequately provided 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 75 
 
 for under our present college system ; and the sooner we 
 distinctly and candidly admit the fact, the better. If 
 there be a student who requires the direct influence and 
 prompting of a superior, whether to stimulate him to ex- 
 ertion, or (a rarer case, certainly, but one not very uncom- 
 mon) to restrain him from too severe and injurious appli- 
 cation, whether to aid him in the prosecution of his 
 studies, or to guide him in the selection of his miscella- 
 neous reading, or to advise him in the choice of his amuse- 
 ments, or to warn him against the appro ches of tempta- 
 tion, or to arrest him in his first downward steps, should 
 he unhapj)ily incline toward vice, such a student is not 
 conveniently or favorably or even safely situated in the 
 heart of an American college, where no superior, however 
 zealously devoted to his welfare, can know his habits, his 
 wants, or his dangers. 
 
 The influence of our arrangements upon health is fur- 
 thermore regarded by Dr. Wayland. to be more or less 
 injurious. The compactness of the community, and the 
 confinement of all the necessary duties within a very nar- 
 row precinct, if they do not directly discourage and pre- 
 vent the bodily exercise so important to the full vigor of 
 the animal system, hold out at least no inducement to its 
 practice. No trivial number of the cases in which stu- 
 dents withdraw from colleges with impaired health or 
 broken constitutions, are cases in which disease has been 
 either engendered, or at least aggravated, by neglect of 
 suitable exercise. The arrangements of college buildings 
 afford few conveniences or comforts, in cases of sickness ; 
 and should an infectious disease make its appearance, it is 
 
76 L E T T E R S O N 
 
 clifficiilt if not impossible to prevent its spreading tlirougli 
 the entire community. 
 
 In looking at this question in its moral aspects, 
 Dr. Wayland takes altogether the view which I have 
 already presented. He enforces his opinion by one or 
 two considerations which seem to me to have a peculiar 
 importance. In regard to the dangerous influence of evil 
 example, he observes that the votaries of vice are much 
 more zealous in making proselytes than the devotees of 
 virtue. No remark could be more emphatically or more 
 sadly true. There is apparently a malignant pleasure felt 
 by the vile in marking the gradual steps by which the 
 pure in heart become wicked like themselves ; and it is 
 ■with, a sort of fiendish ingenuity that they invent allure- 
 ments and ply seductive arts, to the end that they may 
 ruin where they profess to befriend. The unsuspicious, 
 unreflecting natures of ingenuous youth, make them espe- 
 cially prone to yield to those whose greater familiarity 
 with what is called life, but is in fact too often only the 
 road to death, gives them a seeming superiority and lends 
 to their opinions and their example a most mischievous 
 fascination. Some such, we may say with too unfortunate 
 a certainty, will usually be found wherever one or two 
 hundred young men are assembled together as members 
 of the same community. Some such will, indeed, have 
 been almost unavoidably attracted to our colleges, by the 
 peculiar social features which they present ; and by the 
 imdeniable fact, which I have heretofore illustrated, that 
 the college is a place of freedom rather than of restraint. 
 Is there not here an exposure dangerous to every unsophis- 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 77 
 
 ticated yoiitli, and liable too often to become aljsolutely 
 ruinous ? 
 
 It is further observed by Dr. Wayland, that where a 
 number of persons are collected together, and by the cir- 
 cumstances of their association are disconnected almost 
 wholly from the surrounding world, there will inevitably 
 come to be recognized among them certain peculiar prin- 
 ciples of action, there will come to be received certain 
 peculiar convictions of duty, which are not elsewhere rec- 
 ognized, but derive their character from that of the com- 
 munity among whom they originate. So striking an illus- 
 tration of this truth has been presented in the discussion 
 which occupied the earlier letters of the present series, 
 that I consider any further explanation of the meaning of 
 the foregoing proposition unnecessary. It is sufficient to 
 say that, in the college code, the highest honor is not 
 bestowed upon that which is good and right; nor the 
 sternest disapprobation awarded to that which is bad and 
 wrong. To be gentlemanly, is better than to be moral ; 
 to be generous, is better than to be just. It is much to be 
 doubted whether a protracted residence in a moral atmos- 
 phere, characterized by the j^i'^valence of doctrines like 
 these, can exert a healthy influence upon the character ; 
 or whether the usages to which it familiarizes the youth 
 are such as to render the man either better or happier. 
 
 Dr. Wayland does not forget to glance at the preju- 
 dicial effect which the long-continued intercourse of young 
 men, exclusively or nearly so, with each other, cannot fail 
 to exert upon their manners ; to which I might add the 
 tendency, so constantly noticed that I suppose it must be 
 
78 L E T T E K S ON 
 
 esteemed inevitable, of the language of their conversation, 
 nnder similar circumstances, to degenerate into rudeness, 
 or something even worse. That men will be rude, that 
 they will be vulgar, occasionally, without having these 
 propensities developed and nourished in them by any spe- 
 cies of hot-house culture, and in spite of all the purifying- 
 influences of the best society, I am well aware ; but that 
 is no reason why, without any manifest necessity, we 
 should exjDose all our young men who aspire to a high 
 order of education, to an influence which can hardly fail 
 to blunt, to some extent at least, their native delicacy, or 
 vitiate their sense of what constitutes true politeness. 
 
 "While thus every argument derived from the fitness 
 of things, and from considerations of health, of morals, and 
 of manners, seems directly to condemn the college cloister 
 system prevalent in this country, hardly, I think, on the 
 other hand, will a single substantial advantage be found 
 to recommend it. That it is cheaper to the student, Dr. 
 "Wayland has, in my opinion, satisfactorily disjDroved. 
 That it is immensely more expensive to the public at 
 large, where colleges are created and sustained by their 
 munificence, he has made equally evident. Indeed, where 
 money to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars or 
 more, has, in a single institution, been invested in dormi- 
 tories alone, and where, as in the University of Alabama, 
 not one sinsrle dollar of revenue is derived from this 
 investment, in the way of rent or otherwise, it requires no 
 argument to show that, if the dormitories are unnecessary, 
 all this is a dead loss. In our own particular case, it is 
 worse than a dead loss; for not only do these buildings 
 
COLLEGE a V E R N :M E N T , T9 
 
 return no income to tlie treasury, but they keep up a con- 
 tinued drain upon it, to tlie extent of several hundred 
 dollars per annum, to preserve them in decent repair, and 
 in tolerably habitable condition. Is there a single j)lausi- 
 ble reason to be urged in favor of the perpetuation of 
 such a system, but the unfortunate fact that it cannot now 
 be abandoned here without a heavy pecuniary loss ? 
 
 UniversiUj of Alalama^ Aug. 15, 185-4. 
 
80 L K T T E K S <D N 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 EVILS OF THE DOKMITOKY Si'STEM FURTHER EXAMINED. ITS TEXDEXCV TO 
 
 MAKE THE INTELLECTUAL QUALIFICATIONS OF INSTRUCTORS A SECOND- 
 ARV CONSIDERATION. IS IT POSSIBLE TO ABOLISH THE SYSTEM ? 
 
 The evils wMcli I have tliiis far considered as resulting 
 from the system of residence common in American col- 
 leges, are such as proceed from the direct influences 
 exerted by the system on the student himself In former 
 letters of this series I have, however, pointed out to what 
 extent the successful administration of college government 
 is dependent upon the personal character and disposition 
 of the officers who conduct it ; yet this dependency, it is 
 now evident, is almost entirely a consequence of that pecu- 
 liar organization of our academic society, out of which so 
 many other evils grow. It is certainly at present an ur- 
 gent necessity, in the selection of persons to fill the respon- 
 sible posts of instructors in colleges, to give anxious atten- 
 tion to considerations very different from those which 
 (Qualify a man to impart knowledge, or render him likely, 
 by his reputation, to give character to the institution of 
 which he becomes a member. Yet these latter considera- 
 tions are undeniably, in intrinsic importance, paramount 
 to all others. It is a simple truism to say that to be a 
 
COLLEGE G O V E E N M E X T . 81 
 
 good teaclier, one must first of all tilings know how to 
 teach; but it by no means follows that to be a success/ id 
 college teacher^ the same qualification will stand in the 
 foremost rank of importance. Profundity of learning, 
 fluency .of language, fertility of invention, and felicity of 
 illustration, are hopelessly buried, so far as college useful- 
 ness is concerned, in one who possesses not the art to con- 
 ciliate, or the power to control, or the faculty to stimulate, 
 or the wisdom to advise, those with whom he is constantly 
 in contact in the relation of a moral governor or guide. 
 These qualities are no doubt of great value under any cir- 
 cumstances; but it is a peculiarity arising out of the 
 nature and magnitude of the responsibility we are com- 
 pelled to assume, which places them, in colleges organized 
 as ours are, so far above those intellectual endowments 
 and acquisitions which we naturally associate with the 
 character of an able teacher. 
 
 It is very certain that much of the success of a colle- 
 giate institution, in the popular sense of the word, depends 
 upon the consideration in which its officers are held as 
 men of letters and science, in the community from which 
 it draws its patronage. There is no virtue in vested funds, 
 or costly buildings, or legislative grants, or even in libra- 
 ries and cabinets and apparatus of science, however mag- 
 nificent, to attract to a particular spot such multitudes of 
 interested and willing learners as throng some of the favor- 
 ite colleges of the United States. No allurements which 
 wealth can spread out have power to draw disciples 
 around the academic chairs of teachers who are them- 
 selves deficient in that moral magnetism which nature only 
 
82 L E T T E R S ON 
 
 can bestow. Nor will this or tliat form of internal organ- 
 ization, or a more or less severe aclliesion to any particular 
 routine of instruction, to any imjDortant degree determine 
 how far any given set of men, in any given school of learn- 
 ing, may be successful in securing that evidence of popular 
 approbation, which numbers are commonly supposed to 
 aftbrd. 
 
 It is certainly, then, in the very highest degree desira- 
 ble that in the selection of men to fill the very responsible 
 positions of officers of instruction in colleges, there should 
 be nothing in the nature of the duties they are to be re- 
 quired to discharge, which shall prevent the very first con- 
 sideration from being given to their mental qualities and 
 acquisitions, their learning and their power of luminous 
 utterance, — qualities which, while they make them able 
 and successful and often fascinating in the lecture-room, 
 render their names also household w^ords in the dwellings 
 of the people. Suppose a board of governors to be un- 
 trammeled by any considerations such as these, in the 
 choice of individuals to fill the chairs which may become 
 successively vacant in a college under their control, or the 
 new chairs which they may create ; suppose, further, that 
 they have it in their power to offer a remuneration suffi- 
 cient to command the services of the most eminent talent 
 the country can furnish ; suppose that they make known, 
 as they naturally will on every such occasion as widely as 
 possible, the existence of the vacancy, and invite competi- 
 tion from men of ability, every where, to fill it ; they can 
 hardly, under these circumstances, fiiil to secure not only 
 able men, but men whom the people know to be able. 
 Such men will never be deserted, unless for men of greater 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 83 
 
 presumed ability; and thus tliere will be maintained, 
 between all institutions governed by these principles, an 
 honorable and advantageous emulation, which will secure 
 to each a gratifying popularity, and a fair and» encouraging 
 amount of patronage. 
 
 So long, however, as the first quality to be looked 
 after in a college officer is not in his ability, nor his learn- 
 ing, nor his well-earned reputation as a man of letters or 
 science, but his capacity for governing youth, and for 
 managing all the complications which arise out of the ad- 
 ministration of the internal police and penal laws of our 
 artificial form of society, there is no absolute security that 
 the men selected will be eminently able, or that they will 
 have that hold on the confidence of the surrounding com- 
 munity which springs from an already established acquaint- 
 ance with their names and characters. They may even 
 be, and they often are, entirely unknown ; and thus, in 
 cases of difficulty, they have to contend against that indif- 
 ference in the public mind which is usually felt towards 
 such as have only the stranger's claim to sympathy. I do 
 not forget that reputation is a growth of time ; and that, 
 when a valuable college officer is secured, it is all the bet- 
 ter that he is secured young. But I much question 
 whether an individual can have had time to manifest that 
 moral fitness to grapple with the difficult resj^onsibilities 
 which a college officer has to encounter, and which is un- 
 der our system so indispensable, at an age earlier than 
 that at which his intellectual superiority, if he possesses it, 
 begins to lift him above the level of common men. 
 
 Our system of obligatory residence, therefore, in build- 
 
84 L E T T E R S O X 
 
 ings specially erected for college purposes, involves the 
 great evil of much restricting the freedom of choice, on the 
 part of electing boards, in providing suitable officers for 
 the institutions under their care. And since that system 
 seems really to be recommended by no positive advan- 
 tages, but to be open, on the other hand, to the very grave 
 objections which I have endeavored in my foregoing let- 
 ters to exhibit, we find in this last consideration a forcible 
 arsrument in favor of its total abolishment. 
 
 But suppose this system of compulsory residence abol- 
 ished, what is the alternative ? Let the students find their 
 own residences, as all other persons do, young or old, 
 wherever they can, among the citizens of the surrounding 
 community. They are now in the community but not of 
 it. The college walls present an impenetrable barrier to 
 all scrutiny of their conduct and actions. They are not 
 subject to the restraining influences of public opinion. 
 One of the strongest moral safeguards known to mankind 
 has na existence for them. We have seen that the pre- 
 sumed surveillance of college government is nothing but a 
 nullity. By closing our dormitories and sending back our 
 students into the world, we abrogate for them the freedom 
 of the microcosm, and re-subject them to the common 
 restraints of society. This expression, the freedom of the 
 microcosm, which drops accidentally from my pen, sug- 
 gests, by similarity of sound, another phrase which we 
 sometimes hear in our metroi:)olitan towns — the freedom 
 of the city. What this freedom is, precisely, at the pres- 
 ent day, I do not know ; but it is now and then presented, 
 sometimes with pomp and ceremony, to the favored 
 
COLLEGE G O V E R N IM E N T . 85 
 
 guests of the municipal authorities. Now, if any thing 
 could be wanted to demonstrate the truth of what I have 
 asserted — that admission into college is rather an intro- 
 duction to freedom than a subjection to restraints, — it may 
 be found in the fact that young men who are not students 
 are sometimes, by their friends among the initiated, in- 
 vested with this freedom also, — not with ceremony, nor by 
 any explicit form of words, but by being introduced 
 within the privileged limits, and made temporary denizens 
 of the charmed circle. Here, secure from the reach of 
 any prying eye from without, and unmoved by shadows 
 which possible coming " exculpations " sometimes cast be- 
 fore them ujDon the spirits of legitimate residents, they 
 are ready to lend their efficient aid in j)romoting any dis- 
 orders which may incidentally spring up, and they join 
 with especial unction, as occasion arises, in those vocal and 
 tintinnabulary performances with which youth, in seasons 
 of excitement, seem to delight to " make night hideous." 
 I do not know to what extent the officers of collecres else- 
 where may have remarked this evil ; and I do know that 
 in some places there is little congeniality or intercourse 
 between " town and gown ;" but I have no idea that any 
 college constructed on the plan popular in this country is 
 entirely exempt from the nuisance, and I am persuaded 
 that the University of Alabama has occasionally suffered 
 from it deeply. 
 
 But when I propose that our dormitories shall be 
 
 closed, and our students shall be left to provide residences 
 
 for themselves among the citizens of the neighborhood, I 
 
 anticipate the reply that my remedy, however plausible in 
 
 7 
 
S6 I^ K T T E R S «3 N 
 
 theory, will iu many cases, and notably in that of the Uni- 
 versity of Alabama, be impracticable. Not only is this 
 institution situated an entire mile beyond the corporate 
 limits of the city of Tuscaloosa, but, by an intentional pre- 
 caution of the Board of Trustees, it holds the title to 
 nearly every square foot of land for at least a quarter of a 
 mile in every direction around it; and thus repels the 
 approach of those who might be disposed to build in its 
 vicinity. The default of a social neighborhood might of 
 course be repaired, by removing this restriction, provided 
 there were any disposition to build ; but as none such has 
 been manifested hitherto, and none such is likely to be 
 awakened by any immediately existing causes, my pro- 
 posed remedy is, I admit, only applicable to the case of 
 this University, on the condition that the center of its 
 operations be transferred to the heart of the town. The 
 sacrifice of the buildings now used as dormitories, and their 
 abandonment, if necessary, to ruin, would be well repaid 
 by the much higher benefits which would attend the 
 change. It would, in point of fact, be no sacrifice at all, 
 since, as I have heretofore stated, these dormitories return 
 no income for the large investment wrapped up in them, 
 but require, on the other hand, a considerable annual 
 expenditure to keep them in repair. But the proposed 
 removal would involve a more serious sacrifice than this. 
 The buildings erected to subserve the purposes of instruc- 
 tion, and which embrace the library, the laboratory, the 
 cabinets of minerals, rocks and fossils, the lecture rooms, 
 and all the rooms for recitations, to say nothing of the 
 dwellings of the officers, would not only have to be aban- 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 87 
 
 donecl here, but replaced in the new locality. The ques- 
 tion how far this consideration must be regarded as tend- 
 ing to make the proposed reform hopeless, I reserve for 
 examination hereafter. 
 
 University of Alabama^ Aug. 16, 1854. 
 
88 L E T T E K S N 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 EXPEIUMENT PROPOSED FOR THE CASE OF THE VMVEKSITV OF ALAHAMA. 
 CONSIDERATION AVHICH SEEMS TO HAVE DETERMINED THE CHOICE OF 
 
 LOCATION FOR MOST OF THE COLLEGES OF THE UNITED STATES. ITS 
 
 FALLACY. THE DORMITORY SVSTEM WILL BE ABANDONED ; BUT ONLY 
 
 VERY GRADUALLY. 
 
 In my last communication I maintained tliat the 
 proper remedy for most of tlie evils -wliicli attend the 
 administration of college government, and wliicli tend to 
 affect injuriously the morals of the youth who are subject 
 to it, as well as indirectly to detract, perhaps, somewhat 
 from the consideration which their officers are likely to 
 command from the public, is an entire abandonment of 
 the cloister or dormitory plan of residence. I admitted 
 the difficulty of doing this in cases where the college is, 
 like the University of Alabama, separated by a consider- 
 able space from any community capable of furnishing the 
 accommodations which the college itself ceases to suj^plj*. 
 I had the question under inquiry, how far the considera- 
 tion of the great sacrifice of property which must usually 
 attend the removal of such an institution, though the 
 removal should be but for a mile or two, is likely to ren- 
 der the proposed remedy impracticable. I do not purpose 
 to hazard any general decision of this cjuestion, further 
 than to remark that, so great are the advantages which 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 89' 
 
 the presence of a school of hxrge resort usually brings to 
 the town in which it is situated, that when the trustees of 
 a popular college manifest a serious disposition to remove 
 it, the expenses attendant on the erection of new buildings 
 are not likely to fall upon themselves. Be this as it may, 
 the University of Alabama possesses a special advantage 
 for the trial of an experiment of the kind I have pro- 
 posed. It is not necessary, in order to make such a trial, 
 to abandon even the dormitories at once. By the liber- 
 ality of the Legislature of the State, the large and sub- 
 stantial building formerly occupied as the State capitol, 
 has been made the property of the University. Now, for 
 several years, it has been true, that the number of stu- 
 dents here has been too great to find convenient accom- 
 modations in the dormitories ; and in consequence of this 
 fact, the Board of Trustees, one year ago, resolved on the 
 erection of an additional building. An appropriation was 
 made which was presumed to be adequate, plans were 
 drawn, specifications prepared, and proposals invited, by 
 public advertisement, for the execution of the work. 
 None of the proposals fell within the limit of the appro- 
 priation, and consequently no contract was made. At 
 their session in July last, the Board were unable, for want 
 of a quorum, to reconsider the subject ; but the necessity 
 for some additional accommodations to meet the wants of 
 the students is no less urgent than it has been heretofore. 
 Now, instead of burying an additional fifteen thousand 
 dollars by the side of the one hundred and fifty thousand 
 dollars which they have already buried here in brick and 
 mortar, let the board devote five thousand, if that sum be 
 
DO L E T T E R S O N 
 
 necessary, to tlie restoration of the State-house (an infi- 
 nitely better building than the very best that stands upon 
 the University campus) to a condition fit to serve for college 
 purposes ; and let them then provide that the senior class, 
 to begin with, shall attend all their exercises there. This 
 senior class will of necessity be obliged to find lodgings in 
 town. They will relieve the pressure on the dormitories, 
 which occasionally now makes those buildings absolutely 
 unpleasant residences ; and an experiment, on a limited 
 scale, of the advantages arising from subjecting young 
 men to that direct influence of public opinion which serves 
 as a more wholesome restraint than any that a college 
 faculty can exercise over the occujoants of college cloisters, 
 will be made without disadvantage to any one. There 
 will be saved, too, at least ten thousand dollars, which is 
 now in a fair way to be sunk in that gulf of unprofitable 
 investment, where so many kindred thousands have 
 already been swallowed up for ever. 
 
 Should the result of this experiment prove satisfac- 
 tory — and that it would, I entertain no doubt whatever — 
 the junior class might next be transferred to the city in 
 like manner. Should all the classes ultimately be re- 
 moved — and whether they would or not I believe would 
 depend upon the manner in which the demand for lodg- 
 ings should be met in town — it would matter little what 
 should become of the buildings standing on the college 
 campus. For every purpose connected with instruction, 
 the State-house, in its transformed condition, would pre- 
 sent ample accommodations and facilities ; and, remarka- 
 ble as the fact may seem, it would furnish to the library 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 91 
 
 and to all the departments of physical science except 
 astronomy, vastly more suitaUe and more convenient 
 accommodations than any which can be fonnd in the build- 
 ings on the University grounds, and toliich were erected 
 specially for the purposes to which they are devoted. This 
 is one of the happy results of employing men to build for 
 special purposes who do not understand the purposes for 
 which they build. 
 
 Here, then, for the case of the University of Alabama, 
 I offer a definite and specific plan. And as the trustees of 
 this University are shortly to be in session again ; and, as 
 they cannot escape or evade the question what shall be 
 done to relieve the pressure on the dormitories, I earnestly 
 solicit their attention to this proposition, before they re- 
 solve to entangle the institution still more inextricably 
 than it is at present, in the meshes of a bad system. 
 
 It seems to be by the accident that we possess the 
 abandoned State capitol, that a mode of ultimate relief 
 from the trammels of our j^resent organization is easily 
 opened to us. But many others, situated precisely like 
 ourselves, have not a similar advantage. It is worth while 
 inquiring how came we, how came they, originally to be 
 in such a situation ? How came so many of us to occupy 
 situations chosen evidently in each case iipon some uni- 
 form i^rinciple of selection (since the peculiarities are 
 every where the same), and what is this principle ? We 
 find, first, that a large number of the colleges of our coun- 
 try are planted in retired and quiet portions of the inte 
 rior ; and secondly, that instead of being placed in the 
 
92 L E T T E R S O N 
 
 midst of any eoinmimlty, even tliat of a small country 
 village, tliey are situated at some moderate distance from 
 sucli a spot, sufficient to be measured by a walk of per- 
 haps half an hour. There has evidently been a common 
 design in all this, and it is clearly traceable to a fear of 
 the dangerous temptations which are presumed to lie in 
 wait for youth, wherever human beings are gathered 
 together in society. These temptations are greater in 
 large towns ; therefore large towns are, first of all, sedu- 
 lously avoided. They are not absent even from small 
 towns and villages ; therefore small towns and villages are 
 in like manner tabooed. Yet as neither young men nor 
 their instructors can conveniently live cut off from all com- 
 munication with their fellow beings, the neighborhood of 
 the lesser town is tolerated ; but it is held at such a conve- 
 nient distance that, if it possesses any allurements to lead 
 young men astray, such yielding youths can find them out 
 without any trouble at all, and enjoy them with that sat- 
 isfaction of conscious security which arises out of the 
 knowledge that their instructors and guardians are quietly 
 housed a mile and a half off. The fact is, that all this 
 reasoning, from beginning to end, is founded in the most 
 mistaken impressions in the world. The temptations of 
 great cities do not corruj)t the youth of great cities, any 
 more than the differing, but no less real, ones of the coun- 
 try, as a general rule, corrupt the youth of the country. 
 The grand melo-drama which is placarded all over Eoyal 
 street in Mobile, arrests no eager glance from the Mobile 
 lad as he passes along on his way to his schoolboy tasks. 
 
COLLEGE G V E R K M E N T . 93 
 
 Familiarity breeds contempt, indifference, unconsciousness. 
 And so it is with all other presumed fascinations of the 
 same nature. In like manner, young men from abroad, 
 sent to commercial towns to become initiated into the 
 ways of trade, though entirely free to dispose of their 
 evenings as they please, do not more frequently contract 
 bad habits in such places, than students in our most seclu- 
 ded collesjes. Facts further demonstrate that there is ac- 
 tually less complaint of irregularity and dissipation in 
 those colleges in cities which have no dormitories, than is 
 often heard in those country institutions where compul- 
 sory residence in college buildings is a feature of the 
 system. This is true of Columbia College and the City 
 University, in New York; and also, according to Dr. 
 Wayland, of the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, 
 in Scotland. 
 
 To this false notion, therefore, of what the moral 
 safety of young men in college requires, we evidently owe 
 the location of so many of these institutions in situations 
 Avhere the provision of dormitories for the accommodation 
 of students is an absolute necessity, and where a change 
 of system without a change of site is quite impossible. 
 The evil in many cases is done ; and the money that has 
 thus been, as it seems to me, lamentably wasted, cannot 
 now be restored. But it is to be hoped that a similar 
 perversion of means which might be so much more wisely 
 employed, will not continue hereafter to be made — or not 
 at least to so great an extent. It is doubtless too much 
 to expect that in all, or even in many, of the institutions 
 
94 I- E T T ]•: K S O N 
 
 so unfortunately situated, there will he any very early 
 change of plan. The conviction that a change is desirable 
 is far from being yet universal ; and if it were so, the 
 means for effecting the change could not be immediately 
 forthcoming, nor perhaps could they be obtained at all. 
 The needed work of reformation must evidently be a work 
 of time ; and not only that, but of a great deal of time. 
 It may be expected to be accomplished somewhat in the 
 followins^ manner. Those institutions which shall do 
 away with the cloister system, and those new ones which 
 shall be erected without ever adopting it, will become, 
 w^ith the progress of information, so much more the favor- 
 ites of the people than the rest, that these latter will, 
 one after another, be compelled to reform themselves, in 
 order that they may maintain any thing like an equal 
 comj)etition for the public patronage. By degrees, there- 
 fore, change will make its way into all those institutions 
 in which it is a possibility ; while for those in which it is 
 not, no alternative will remain but to dwindle away and 
 perish. It may take a century to accomplish all this; 
 but that it will be accomplished, I entertain not the 
 slightest doubt. 
 
 Twelve years have now passed since Dr. Wayland 
 published his judicious views on this subject to the world. 
 That his little volume has been effectual in preventing 
 much financial folly of which the country would other- 
 wise have been guilty, in connection with college build- 
 ings, there can be no doubt ; but the frequent evidences 
 which appear that there is still work of this kind to be 
 
COLLEGE G O V E K N M E N T . 95 
 
 done, sufficiently prove that tlie perusal of this valuable 
 book has not yet been quite universal. If through the 
 medium of these letters I accomplish no other good than 
 to draw attention to an authority so much more compe- 
 tent to pronounce upon subjects of this kind than I am, I 
 shall be satisfied that my labor has been well spent. 
 
 University of Alabama^ Aug. 17, 1854. • 
 
96 L K T T E R S ON 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 rOSlTIVE ADVANTAGES OF LARGE TOWNS AS SITES FOH SEMINARIES OF 
 LEARNING. CONCLUSION. 
 
 Having expressed tlie opinion tliat the consideration 
 wliicli appears to liave determined the location of so 
 many of our colleges in situations remote from large 
 towns, is without any substantial foundation, I should 
 leave the discussion of the subject incomplete, should I 
 fail to point out some of the advantages which such towns 
 possess as sites of seminaries of learning, and which appear 
 to have been almost entirely overlooked. The simple 
 advantage already adverted to that they afford convenient 
 accommodations to students, in regard to board and lodg- 
 ing, though the first to arise in the course of my argu- 
 ment, is far from being the first in point of importance. 
 There are others so obvious that it would seem impossible 
 they should be disregarded, had we not the fact before us 
 that they are so, in probably a majority of cases. Some 
 of these, in their influence upon the prosperity and useful- 
 ness of an institution for the education of young men, are 
 so far above the imaginary security to morals which is 
 believed to be found in the retirement of the country, as 
 to demand from the founders of such institutions the very 
 earliest attention, and to yield to no consideration what- 
 ever save the single one of healthfulness. That the spot 
 
COLLEGE G O ^' E K N M E N T . 97 
 
 selected as tlie site of a University should be free from 
 liability to frequent visits of epidemic or pestilential dis- 
 eases, is of course a condition paramount to every otber. 
 But next to this should obviously come a regard for the 
 convenience of tlie people whom the institution is designed 
 to benefit, and a consideration of the manner in which the 
 circumstances of location may facilitate or embarrass the 
 operations of the institution itself. 
 
 No one will deny that those parents whose residences 
 are so immediately in the vicinity of a college, that their 
 sons may be educated without being withdrawn from the 
 genial influences of the family circle, enjoy a great advan- 
 tage over those who are compelled to send them to a dis- 
 tance from home ; more particularly if, in so doing, they 
 have no choice but to consign them to the artificial society 
 whose uu propitious influence I have endeavored to j^oint 
 out, in speaking of the inadequacy of college government 
 to supply the place of those restraints which it supersedes. 
 In proportion as a college is retired, in the same propor- 
 tion is the number of those diminished, to whom this 
 great advantage is available. Retirement is therefore pur- 
 chased at a large sacrifice, even if we look at the question 
 as one which concerns only the morals of the youth it 
 affects. For were college government capable of accom- 
 plishing all it undertakes — and we have seen how far at 
 present this is from being the case — it would ill supply 
 the loss of that watchful and anxious solicitude which sur- 
 rounds every young man in the bosom of his own home. 
 I might, to this consideration, add that of the greatly 
 increased exj^ense which attends the education of a son at 
 
98 LET T K K S ON 
 
 a distance from Lome ; a consideration of so great import- 
 ance witli many, as quite to determine the question 
 wlietlier lie shall enjoy the benefit of a college education 
 or not ; but this is too obvious to require more than an 
 incidental mention. 
 
 It is evident that, in a large town, there will usually 
 be a considerable number of students residing with their 
 parents. It is also as generally true that, owing to the 
 denser population of the country in the vicinity of such 
 towns, many more will be within such easy distance of 
 their homes, that they will be more or less under the con- 
 trol of domestic influences. These are not only themselves 
 benefited by this cause, but they serve in some degree to 
 infuse a better leaven into the whole mass, than can rea- 
 sonably be looked for where almost every one is beyond 
 even the occasional observation of those who are most 
 deeply interested in his welfare, and likely earliest to de- 
 tect, when occasion arises, any incipient habits of idleness 
 or vice. This consideration strongly recommends popu- 
 lous towns as sites for seminaries of learning ; and detracts 
 much from the force of the argument, were it not other- 
 wise illusory, urged in favor of rural retreats as being 
 more favorable to the preservation of good morals among 
 young men under education. 
 
 I should do wrong to ignore, as I may seem to do, the 
 presumption (continually put forward) in favor of the 
 country, that its calm tranquillity predisposes to thought, 
 and soothes the mind into a fitting frame for study. With- 
 out being in the least disposed to deny that quiet is neces- 
 sary to concentration of thought, I repudiate the assump- 
 
COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 99 
 
 tion that sucli quiet, to the full extent to which it is 
 needed, is not to be found in large cities. If study were a 
 pursuit to be prosecuted in the open streets, the argument 
 might have a weight, which, in the question of fact before 
 us, it lacks. The academic halls of Yale College, New 
 Haven, and of Columbia College, New York, possess every 
 recommendation of noiseless tranquillity which is to be 
 found in those of the University of Alabama ; nor have 
 all the thunders of the great Babel of London power to 
 penetrate the recesses of the British Museum, or to disturb 
 the researches and the meditations of the patient book- 
 worms who plod among the treasures of-its vast library. 
 
 Nor need it be said that the uproar which assails the 
 ears of the student, as he emerges from his retirement into 
 the streets of a great city, creates an unfavorable, or even 
 an undesirable, distraction of his thoughts from the sub- 
 jects of his studies. It is good that the bow should be 
 unbent; and the more complete the recoil, the better. 
 The student studies to little purpose, who is studying 
 always. The muscle becomes capable of but a languid 
 effort which is ever on the strain. Let the hours of relax- 
 ation be hours of relaxation in earnest, that in those of 
 study the mind may bring to the task all the energies of 
 an unexhausted vigor. 
 
 But large towns are preferable, also, to small ones, as 
 situations for seminaries of learning, because they place 
 these institutions more cons2:)icuously in the view of the 
 whole people. At one time or another, almost every citi- 
 zen of a State visits its principal city. While there, the 
 father of a family will look with especial interest upon the 
 
100 L E T T E K S ON 
 
 University in wliicli lie designs to educate liis son ; and 
 every one, wlietlier lie he drawn toward it by sucli a mo- 
 tive or not, will naturally rank it among those objects 
 wliicli earliest deserve tbe attention of the stranger. In- 
 telligent men from every part of the country become thus 
 acquainted with the institution itself, and with the officers 
 who conduct it. It occupies a larger place in their 
 thoughts than it otherwise would do. They learn to view 
 it with a pride proportioned to its celebrity, and it grows 
 itself in repute by the operation of the very causes which 
 acquaint them with it. Its public exhibitions are also 
 attended by larger and more intelligent audiences than 
 €an nsually be gathered in the country ; the young men 
 who come forward as performers are made conscious that 
 they have a more discriminating audience to please, and a 
 more honorable name to gain by their successful efforts ; 
 ambition is thus stimulated, and higher excellence is the 
 natural result. 
 
 But there are still other important advantages to be 
 gained by the location of colleges in populous towns. If 
 such an institution would be celebrated, its professors 
 must have a personal rej^utation as men of letters and sci- 
 ence ; and this is what cannot be gained by any ability or 
 any success in the routine of elementary instruction. But 
 if they would themselves prosecute study, they must have 
 access to the collected results of past intellectual labor, in 
 the valuable libraries which can only be looked for at 
 present in our large towns. In saying this, I do not over- 
 look two facts : first, that we have really very few public 
 libraries yet in this country of which we have any great 
 
C O T- L R a E G O V K R N M E N T . 101 
 
 reason to be proud ; and, secondly, that all colleges have, or 
 intend to have, libraries of their own. But, in regard to 
 the first point, it is certain that our best libraries are, and 
 are always likely to be, found in our largest cities ; and as 
 to the second, whatever value the libraries of particular 
 colleges may have now or hereafter, it is manifestly al)- 
 surd to suppose that one in twenty of the whole number 
 will, in any length of time, become adequate to the wants 
 of a profound scholar or philosopher. No amount of 
 talent or industry can ever elevate to the i-ank of authori 
 ties men who are deprived of the necessary facilities for 
 research. If, therefore, we would give our college officers 
 the opportunity (I do not say that all would improve it), 
 but if we could give them the opportunity to become 
 honorably eminent, we should place them where they may 
 have within their reach such means to become so as the 
 country affords. 
 
 To these considerations we may add, that, in illustrat- 
 ing the laws of nature, it is necessary to employ much 
 delicate and costly apparatus. Instruments of great value 
 are liable to occasional derangements, the correction of 
 which it is not wise or safe to int^rust to rude or inexperi- 
 enced hands. It is rare indeed to find, in an obscure 
 country town, artisans competent to undertake the repair 
 of articles which, even for their ordinary use, require spe- 
 cial training and peculiar skill. To send them to a dis- 
 tance involves both expense and delay ; to say nothing of 
 the hazard of conveyance, often, over ordinary roads, which 
 is so great as not seldom to involve a more serious damage 
 than that which it was sought to correct. In the large 
 
102 L E T T E K S <) N 
 
 towns are to be found the manufacturers of this species of 
 apparatus ; or at least persons whose occupations are so 
 far analogous as to insure in them the possession of a skill 
 which may be trusted with comparative safety. This is a 
 consideration of great practical importance. In conse- 
 quence of trifling accident, I have, in more instances than 
 one, known instruments to be set aside and to remain un- 
 used for long periods of time ; and in others I have known 
 them to be irreparably injured in unskillful hands, or rap- 
 idly to deteriorate in consequence of attempts to em- 
 ploy them when they were not in proper condition to be 
 used. 
 
 After what I have said, it may seem trivial to "mention 
 so apparently insignificant a disadvantage of a situation 
 remote from the great marts of trade, as the occasional 
 failure of text books for ordinary use in college classes 
 which, in spite of every precaution, appears to be occa- 
 sionally inevitable. Nor would I allude to this, if I had 
 not, in many instances, both seen and felt the extreme in- 
 convenience resulting from such a failure. And it is with 
 reason that I say that no ordinary precaution seems to be 
 entirely adequate to prevent the occasional occurrence of 
 so untoward a state of things, since I have seen the whole 
 business of providing text books taken out of the hands 
 of booksellers, and entirely assumed by the college itself, 
 without securing any very sensible improvement in this 
 respect. In a situation such as are all those to be found 
 in the interior of Alabama, the distances from Avhich sup- 
 plies of this kind are to be brought, the dangers of the 
 seas,^the uncertainty of the rivers, and the irregularities of 
 
COLLEGE (} rt V E K N M E N t . 103 
 
 land conveyance, conspire in no unfreqnent instances to 
 defeat all the arrangements of tlie wisest human foresight, 
 and thus to leave, a college for months in a state of great 
 embarrassment, from a cause which, at first view, might 
 seem the least likely of all to be an occasion of annoy- 
 ance. 
 
 For these reasons combined, it is my well-settled belief 
 that, in the selection of. a site for a college, the most pop- 
 ulous town should be preferred before any location in the 
 country, however apparently tempting ; and that no con- 
 sideration should be allowed to disturb this preference, 
 except that of healthfulness only. And when we con- 
 sider that, in the course of human events, it is possible, 
 and in this country not very improbable, that a small town 
 may become a large one, especially when stimulated in its 
 growth by the presence of a great seminary of learning ; 
 and that suburbs are likely to be swallowed up and lost 
 in the expansion of the towns to w^hich they belong ; it 
 will be obvious that the most careful preference originally 
 given to seclusion and retirement can at best but secure a 
 very temporary enjoyment of the advantages which such 
 situations have been idly imagined to possess. 
 
 The design with which I have ventured to undertake 
 this series of letters is now answered. I had not in view, 
 in writing them, so much to vindicate any existing state 
 of things in the University of Alabama, or to urge with 
 any strong anticipation of success, any change of such of 
 its features as I suppose to be capable of improvement, as 
 to correct certain of what seem to me to be errors of pub- 
 lic impression or opinion in regard to colleges, some of 
 
101 LETTERS ON 
 
 them of long standing and of evidently extensive preva- 
 lence. In this, if I have not succeeded, I trust I have 
 done enough to induce reflection, and. perhaps to elicit 
 from abler minds a more thorousfh examination of the 
 whole subject. 
 
 R A. P. BARNARD. 
 
 University of Alahaiiia., Aug. 18. 1854. 
 
 459 - 90 
 
MN Q 1901 
 
'^mfm 
 
-^ '^-ws J- 
 
 
 
 
 
 _ . / "V 
 
 ^O 
 
 
 V '%>. ''F,^** A^ ^<> **y?^^ ''^ 
 
 
 /\ 
 
 
 
 '^..v^'i' 
 
^. •. 
 
 
 4J>^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 HECKMAN 
 
 BINDERY INC 
 
 ^, DEC 90 
 
 Writ' N. MANCHESTER, 
 J^^ INDIANA 46962