An indispensable condition of intellectual growth is liberty. That liberty the present system denies. More and more it is straitened by imposed tasks. And this I conceive to be the reason why, with increased requirements, the College turns out a decreasing proportion of first-class men. If the theory of college rank were correct, the highest marks should indicate the men who are to be hereafter most conspicuous, and leaders in the various walks of life. This is not the case, not so much so now as in former years. Of the present chief lights of American literature and science, how many, if graduates of Harvard, took the first honors of the University here? Or, to put the question in another form, Of those who took the first honors at Harvard, within the last thirty years, how many are now conspicuous among the great lights of American literature and science? -- Carlyle, in his recent talk to the students at Edinburgh, remarks that, "since the time of Bentley, you cannot name anybody that has gained a great name for scholarship among the English, or constituted a point of revolution in the pursuits of men, in that way." The reason perhaps is, that the system of the English universities, though allowing greater liberty than ours, is still a struggle for college honors, in which renown, not learning for the sake of learning, is the aim. The seeming proficiency achieved through the influence of such motives-knowledge acquired for the nonce, not assimilated-is often delusive, and is apt to vanish when the stimulus is withdrawn. The students themselves have recorded their judgment of the value of this sort of learning in the word "cramming," a phrase which originated in one of the English universities. mined activity, — command of one's time for voluntary study. There are two things which unless a university can give, it fails of its legitimate end. One is opportunity, the other inspiration. But opportunity is marred, not made, and inspiration quenched, not kindled, by coercion. Few, I suspect, in recent years, have had the love of knowledge awakened by their college life at Harvard, — more often quenched by the rivalries and penalties with which learning here is associated. Give the student, first of all, opportunity; place before him the best apparatus of instruction; tempt him with the best of teachers and books; lead him to the fountains of intellectual life. His use of those fountains must depend on himself. There is a homely proverb touching the impossibility of compelling a horse to drink, which applies to human animals and intellectual draughts as well. The student has been defined by a German pedagogue as an animal that cannot be forced, but must be persuaded. beside opportunity, the college can furnish also the inspiration which shall make opportunity precious and fruitful, its work is accomplished. The college that fulfils these two conditions-opportunity and inspiration will be a success, will draw to itself the frequency of youth, the patronage of wealth, the consensus of all the good. Such a university, and no other, will be a power in the land. If, Nothing so fatal to inspiration as excessive legislation. It creates two parties, the governors and the governed, with efforts and interests mutually opposed; the governors seeking to establish an artificial order, the governed bent on maintaining their natural liberty. I need not ask you, Alumni, if these two parties exist at Cambridge. They have always existed within the memory of "the oldest graduate." Professors should not be responsible for the manners of students, beyond the legitimate operation of their personal influence. Academic jurisdiction should have no criminal code, should inflict no penalty but that of expulsion, and that only in the way of self-defence against positively noxious and dangerous members. Let the civil law take care of civil offences. The American citizen should early learn to govern himself, and to reenact the civil law by free consent. Let easy and familiar relations be established between teachers and taught, and personal influence will do more for the maintenance of order than the most elaborate code. Experience has shown that great reliance may be placed on the sense of honor in young men, when properly appealed to and fairly brought into play. Raumer, in his History of German Universities," testifies that the Burschenschaften abolished there the last vestige of that system of hazing practised on new-comers, which seems to be an indigenous weed of the college soil. It infested the ancient universities of Athens, Berytus, Carthage, as well as the mediæval and the modern. Our ancestors provided a natural outlet for it when they ordained that the Freshmen should be subject to the Seniors, should take off their hats in their presence, and run of their errands. This system, under the name of "Pennalism," had developed, in the German universities, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a degree of oppression and tyrannous abuse of the new-comer unknown to American colleges, and altogether incredible were it not sufficiently vouched by contemporary writers, and by the acts of the various governments which labored to suppress it. A certain German worthy writes to his son, who is about to enter the university: "You think, perhaps, that in the universities they sup pure wisdom by spoonfuls, .... but when you are arrived there, you will find that you must be made a fool of for the first year. . . . . Consent to be a fool for this one year; let yourself be plagued and abused; and when an old veteran steps up to you and tweaks your nose, let it St. Augustine records his connection, when a student at Carthage, with the "Eversores (Destructives), an association which flourished at that university. not appear singular; endure it, harden yourself to it. Olim meminisse juvabit." The universities legislated against this barbarism; all the governments of Germany conspired to crush it; but in spite of all their efforts, which were only partially successful, traces of it still lingered in the early years of this century. It was not completely abolished until, in 1818, there was formed at Jena by delegates from fourteen universities a voluntary association of students on a moral basis, known as "The General German Burschenschaft," the first principle in whose constitution was, "Unity, freedom, and equality of all students among themselves, — equality of all rights and duties,"—and whose second principle was "Christian German education of every mental and bodily faculty for the service of the Fatherland." This, according to Raumer, was the end of Pennalism in Germany. What the governments, with their stringent enactments and formidable penalties, failed to accomplish, was accomplished at last by a voluntary association of students, organizing that sense of honor which, in youth and societies of youth, if rightly touched, is never appealed to in vain. The question has been newly agitated in these days, whether knowledge of Greek and Latin is a necessary part of polite education, and whether it should constitute one of the requirements of the academic course. It has seemed to me that those who take the affirmative in this discussion give undue weight to the literary argument, and not enough to the glossological. The literary argument fails to establish the supreme importance of a knowledge of these languages as a part of polite education. The place which the Greek and Latin authors have come to occupy in the estimation of European scholars is due, not entirely to their intrinsic merits, great as those merits unquestionably are, but in part to traditional prepossessions. When after a millen Raumer's "History of German Universities." Translated by Frederic B. Perkins. nial occultation the classics, and especially, with the fall of the Palæologi, the Greek classics burst upon Western Europe, there was no literature with which to compare them. The Jewish Scriptures were not regarded as literature by readers of the Vulgate. Dante, it is true, had given to the world his immortal vision, and Boccaccio, its first expounder, had shown the capabilities of Italian prose. But the light of Florentine culture was even for Italy a partial illumination. On the whole, we may say that modern literature did not exist, and the Oriental had not yet come to light. What wonder that the classics were received with boundless enthusiasm! It was through the influence of that enthusiasm that the study of Greek was introduced into schools and universities with the close of the fifteenth century. It was through that influence that Latin, still a living language in the clerical world, was perpetuated, instead of becoming an obsolete ecclesiasticism. The language of Livy and Ovid derived fresh impulse from the reappearing stars of secular Rome. It is in vain to deny that those literatures have lost something of the relative value they once possessed, and which made it a literary necessity to study Greek and Latin for their sakes. The literary necessity is in a measure superseded by translations, which, though they may fail to communicate the aroma and the verbal felicities of the original, reproduce its form and substance. It is furthermore superseded by the rise of new literatures, and by introduction to those of other and elder lands. The Greeks were masters of literary form, but other nations have surpassed them in some particulars. There is but one Iliad, and but one Odyssee; but also there is but one Job, but one Sakoontalà, but one Hafiz-Nameh, but one Gulistan, but one Divina Commedia, but one Don Quixote, but one Faust. If the argument for the study of Greek and Latin is grounded on the value of the literary treasures contained in those tongues, the same argument applies to the Hebrew, to the Sanscrit, to the Persian, to say nothing of the modern languages, to which the College assigns a subordinate place. But, above all, the literary importance of Greek and Latin for the British and American scholar is greatly qualified by the richness and superiority of the English literature which has come into being since the Græcomania of the time of the Tudors, when court ladies of a morning, by way of amusement, read Plato's Dialogues in the original. If literary edification is the object intended in the study of those languages, that end is more easily and more effectually accomplished by a thorough acquaintance with English literature, than by the very imperfect knowledge which college exercises give of the classics. Tugging at the Chained Prometheus, with the aid of grammar and lexicon, may be good intellectual discipline, but how many of the subjects of that discipline ever divine the secret of Æschylus's wonderful creation, or receive any other impression from it than the feeling perhaps that the worthy Titan's sense of constraint could hardly have been more galling than their own. Give them Shakespeare's Tempest to read, and with no other pony than their own good will, though they may not penetrate the deeper meaning of that composition, they will gain more ideas, more nourishment from it, than they will from compulsory study of the whole trio of Greek tragedians. And if this be their first introduction to the great magician, they will say, with Miranda, "O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! O brave new world, That has such people in it!" The literary argument for enforced study of Greek and Latin in our day has not much weight. What I call the glossological argument has more. Every well-educated person should have a thorough understanding of his own language, and no one can thoroughly understand the English with There out some knowledge of languages which touch it so nearly as the Latin and the Greek. Some knowledge of those languages should constitute, I think, a condition of matriculation. But the further prosecution of them should not be obligatory on the student once matriculated, though every encouragement be given and every facility afforded to those whose genius leans in that direction. The College should make ample provision for the study of ancient languages, and also for the study of the mathematics, but should not enforce those studies on minds that have no vocation for such pursuits. There is now and then a born philologer, one who studies language for its own sake, studies it perhaps in the spirit of "the scholar who regretted that he had not concentrated his life on the dative case." are also exceptional natures that delight in mathematics, minds whose young affections run to angles and logarithms, and with whom the computation of values is itself the chief value in life. The College should accommodate either bias, to the top of its bent, but should not enforce either with compulsory twist. It should not insist on making every alumnus a linguist or a mathematician. If mastery of dead languages is not an indispensable part of polite education, mathematical learning is still less so. Excessive requirements in that department have not even the excuse of intellectual discipline. More important than mathematics to the general scholar is the knowledge of history, in which American scholars are so commonly deficient. More important is the knowledge of modern languages and of English literature. More important the knowledge of Nature and Art. May the science of sciences never want representatives as able as the learned gentlemen who now preside over that department in the mathematical and presidential chairs. Happy will it be for the University if they can inspire a love for the science in the pupils committed to their charge. But where inVOL. XVIII.—NO. 107. 20 spiration fails, coercion can never supply its place. If the mathematics shall continue to reign at Harvard, may their empire become a law of liberty. I have ventured, fellow-graduates, to throw out these hints of University Reform, well aware of the opposition such views must encounter in deeprooted prejudice and fixed routine; aware also of the rashness of attempting, within the limits of such an occasion, to grapple with such a theme; but strong in my conviction of the pressing need of a more emancipated scheme of instruction and discipline, based on the facts of the present and the real wants of American life. It is time that the oldest college in the land should lay off the prætexta of its long minority, and take its place among the universities, properly so called, of modern time. One thing more I have to say while standing in this presence. The College has a duty beyond its literary and scientific functions, a duty to the nation, a patriotic, I do not scruple to say a political duty. Time was when universities were joint estates of the realms they enlightened. The University of Paris was, in its best days, an association possessing authority second only to that of the Church. The faithful ally of the sovereigns of France against the ambition of the nobles and against the usurpations of Papal Rome, she bore the proud title of "The eldest Daughter of the King," - La Fille aînée du Roi. She upheld the Oriflamme against the feudal gonfalons, and was largely instrumental in establishing the central In the terrible power of the crown.* struggle of Philip the Fair with Boniface VIII., she furnished the legal weapons of the contest. She furnished, in her Chancellor Gerson, the leading spirit of the Council of Constance. In the Council of Bâle she *"C'est ainsi que peu à peu ils [that is, "les lettres"] parvinrent à sapper les fondements du pouvoir féodal et à élever l'étendard royal là où flottait la bannière du baron."— Histoire de l'Université, par M. Eugene Dubarle, Vol. I. p. 135. obtained for France the " Pragmatic Sanction." Her voice was consulted on the question of the Salic Law; unhappily, also in the trial of Jeanne d'Arc; and when Louis XI. concluded a treaty of peace with Maximilian of Austria, the University of Paris was the guaranty on the part of France. Universities are no longer political bodies, but they may be still political centres and sources of popowers, litical influence. Our own College in the time of the Revolution was a manifest power on the side of liberty, the political as well as academic mother of Otis and the Adamses. In 1768, "when the patronage of American manufactures was the test of patriotism," the Senior Class voted unanimously to take their degrees apparelled in the coarse cloths of American manufacture. In 1776, the Overseers required of the professors a satisfactory account of their political faith. So much was then thought of the influence on young minds of the right or wrong views of political questions entertained by their instructors. The fathers were right. When the life of the nation is concerned, in the struggle with foreign or domestic foes, there is a right and a wrong in politics which casuistry may seek to confuse, but which sound moral sentiment cannot mistake, and which those who have schools of learning in charge should be held to respect. Better the College should be disbanded than be a nursery of treason. Better these halls even now should be levelled with the ground, than that any influence should prevail in them unfriendly to American nationality. No amount of intellectual acquirements can atone for defective patriotism. Intellectual supremacy alone will not avert the downfall of states. The subtlest intellect of Greece, the sage who could plan an ideal republic of austere virtue and perfect proportions, could not preserve his own; but the love of country inspired by Lycurgus kept the descendants of the Dorians free two thousand years after the disgrace of Chæronea had sealed the fate of the rest of Greece. In my college days it was the fashion with some to think lightly of our American birthright, to talk disparagingly of republics, and to sigh for the dispositions and pomps of royalty. "Sad fancies did we then affect To our own prodigal excess All such nonsense, if it had not already yielded to riper reason, would ere this have been washed out of us by the blood of a hundred thousand martyrs. The events of recent years have enkindled, let us hope, quite other sentiments in the youth of this generation. May those sentiments find ample nutriment within these precincts evermore. Soon after the conquest of American independence, Governor Hancock, in his speech at the inauguration of President Willard, eulogized the College as having "been in some sense the parent and nurse of the late happy Revolution in this Commonwealth." Parent and nurse of American nationality, such was the praise accorded to Harvard by one of the foremost patriots of the Revolution! Never may she cease to deserve that praise! Never may the Mother refuse to acknowledge the seed herself has propagated! Never may her seed be repelled by the Mother's altered mind! "Mutatam ignorent subito ne semina matrem." When Protagoras came to Athens to teach in the university as self-appointed professor, or sophist, according to the fashion of that time, it was not to instruct Athenian youth in music or geometry or astronomy, but to teach them the art of being good citizens, Τὴν πολιτικὴν τεχνὴν, καὶ ποιεῖν ἄνδρας ἀγαθοὺς πολίτας. That was his profession. With which, as we read, Hippocrates was so well pleased, that he called up Socrates in the middle of the night to inform him of the happy arrival. We have no professorship at Cambridge founded for the express purpose of making good citizens. In the absence of such, may all the professorships work together for that end. The youth intrusted to their tutelage |