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 OF 
 
 PROFESSOR PALFREY'S SERMON, 
 
 ENTITLED 
 
 "THE CLAIMS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
 UPON ITS SONS." 
 
 [From "The Christian Examiner" for September, 1834.] 
 
 There is good meaning, we apprehend, in the title of this 
 sermon. Of course, whoever thinks that the diffusion of 
 | knowledge has something to do with social welfare, and that 
 intellectual accomplishments make an element in the effi- 
 ciency of public men, regards a place of education in the 
 higher departments, which has tolerably well done its office, 
 as having established a substantial claim on a whole commu- 
 nity's good will. But to those who have enjoyed its disci- 
 pline, such an institution makes an appeal, resting on other 
 grounds. They stand directly indebted to it for personal 
 services of the most important nature. It has put them in 
 possession of valuable powers of action, and sources of en- 
 joyment. It has introduced them to places, where, promot- 
 ing on a large scale the well-being of others, they find them- 
 selves most effectually securing their own ; or it has helped 
 them to a selfish satisfaction in intellectual pleasures, which 
 are well worth having, when there is no taste for what is bet- 
 ter ; or, at all events, it has given them added capacities for 
 pushing their way in the world. And the sentiment of grati- 
 tude, so natural and well grounded, will scarcely fail of be- 
 ing excited to greater strength, by the force of associations 
 in the mind, unavoidably attaching themselves to the scene 
 of one's intellectual experience during the most impressible 
 and imaginative years of life. 
 
 If any one imagines that Harvard College has not deserved 
 well on an extensive scale, there is nothing better to do in 
 his behalf, than to commend him to the study of the history 
 of English North America. For more than fifty years from 
 its establishment, that is, for nearly twenty years after the 
 safety of the northern colonies was secured by the issue of 
 Philip's war, it was the only seat of higher instruction on 
 this side the water ; and the only two other institutions of the 
 1 
 
2 Harvard College. 
 
 same class during the first century of the settlements, date 
 from a period so nearly approaching to its close, that all the 
 educated men, who had arrived at the most prominent sta- 
 tions within that eventful time, had either studied abroad, or 
 were formed under the tuition of this college. How good 
 that tuition was, might be inferred from the fact that youth 
 were often sent from the parent country to enjoy it, if it 
 were not better shown by the well ascertained competency 
 of those, whom it had reared, to all duties expected of the 
 wise and learned. So, with a like exception for the youth 
 of Virginia and Carolina, who were sent to foreign schools, 
 the educated men, of an age to take any considerable part 
 in the revolutionary contest of argument or arms, were ne^ 
 cessarily furnished by Harvard College, or by some one of 
 two smaller institutions of the same character in New En- 
 gland, and four in the southern states ; and, in fact, the for- 
 mer school was the mother of far the greater portion of this 
 race, of which Otis, Warren, Quincy, and the Adamses, 
 were only most distinguished specimens. 
 
 If any one thinks that, individually, he has carried nothing 
 away from this college which he has occasion to think of 
 with pleasure and gratitude, he will naturally wish to keep 
 the opinion to himself, and will save us the pain of agrees 
 ing, and the trouble of disputing, with him. And those of 
 us, who are sensible or vain enough to be of another mind, 
 find much, of an accessory sort, to heighten the interest, 
 which could not fail to attach in our thoughts to the scene of 
 early study. If the English taste of our fathers for locating 
 the great houses of religion and learning in a plain by a riv^ 
 er's side, or if, otherwise, (which is a pretty old theory on 
 the subject) the desire of securing for their learned youth 
 "the orthodox and soul-flourishing ministery of Mr. Thomas 
 Shepheard " determined them to a spot which we might 
 not have selected from the whole beautiful vicinity, yet it is 
 one by no means destitute of natural attractions, and time 
 and art have built up around it one of the most agreeable 
 villages which the country has to show. " The scituation of 
 this colledg is very pleasant," writes old Johnson in 1651, 
 " at the end of a spacious plain, more like a bowling-green 
 than a wilderness, neer a fair navigable river, environed with 
 many neighbouring towns of note, the building thought by 
 some to be too gorgeous for a wilderness, and yet too mean 
 in others' apprehensions for a colledg." The "fairnaviga* 
 

 Harvard College. 3 
 
 ble river" still "wanders along its silver- winding way," 
 worth a dozen, as nature made it, of either Seine or Tiber, 
 to say nothing of such lesser matters as the lsis or the Cam. 
 The " spacious plain " is covered, in great part, with orna- 
 mental edifices and cultivated pleasure-grounds, enclosing 
 a central area, which reveals them to each other's view, and 
 is itself marked from a distance, by the towers of two 
 churches, each, in its way, of uncommon symmetry and 
 tastefulness. From its surrounding eminences (crowned 
 with their old and stately growth of the native oak and elm), 
 of which Mount Auburn is only the most lovely, you may 
 look down, among other " neighbouring towns of note," on 
 Brighton, Watertown, and Medford, each feasting the eye 
 with its own delicious landscape ; on the metropolis, close 
 by, which those, who know no better, call, in one way of 
 compliment, the cradle of American liberty, and, in another, 
 the American Athens ; on Lexington, where the first stand 
 was made in the battle yet waging for human rights ; on 
 Charlestown, where in the bloody ashes of a sore defeat 
 was read by penetrating eyes the auspicious presage of final 
 victory. When we go among the solid structures, which 
 time has brought into the place of that, " thought by some," 
 in its day, " too gorgeous for a wilderness," we move every- 
 where in the midst of sublime phantoms of the past. Our 
 college is older than Oxford, with its millenium of fame; 
 for its history goes back to the earliest infancy of the society, 
 of which it has been head and heart. There stands old Mas- 
 sachusetts Hall, that " fine and goodly house of brick," the 
 gift of the Province in its first century of generous poverty ; 
 there is Holden, bearing on its pediment, in the broadest relief 
 of painted plaster, the heraldic blazonry of its virgin givers, 
 cotemporaries of Anne; Hollis, not quite so fresh, though 
 for aught one can see, as firm, as when James Otis and his co- 
 adjutors reported to the General Court that they had " turned 
 the key " upon the consummate work, and " the Governor 
 and Council, with the lower House, met together in Holden 
 Chapel," (how sadly inadequate such a space for such a con- 
 vocation now !) to give the "very fair building, beautiful and 
 commodious," its greatly honorable name ; and Harvard, 
 another gift, or rather payment of the good commonwealth, 
 when its legislature, convened in the ancient library-room, 
 sat by fires which doomed it to sudden ruin, with almost 
 all its precious stores. Over the way is the enclosure which 
 
Harvard College 
 
 c 
 
 the dust of Dunster hallows, and the fresh inscription over 
 what was mortal of his successor,, one of the great English 
 scholars in the c'avs when ••' there were giants," the friend 
 of the blessed Usher, and exiled victim of the ezresious 
 Laud. A little further, in another direction, is the site of 
 the humble meeting-house, where the ecclesiastical fathers 
 of New England were convened to establish their Platform 
 of Church Discipline : and, in another, are yet traced re- 
 mains of the primitive fortification, which secured the hamlet, 
 then intended for a metropolis, against surrounding savages. 
 To come down to latei thee?, if. from the spot lately occu- 
 pied by a church, within which sat the convention that framed 
 the constitution of 17S0, we wend our way by an avenue, 
 which the commissioners for lavin 0, out a western road re- 
 ported that they rarl carried as far as Watertowo, and --'that 
 was as far as ever would be needed," we shall presently pass 
 the magnificent tree beneath which Washington issued his 
 first order to an American army, and the mansion where his 
 head-quarters were kept, while he was worrying out our 
 British visitors from beneath the shelter of those three sister- 
 eminences. 
 
 "Whose ridgy backs heave to the sky, 
 Piled d~z'iz.d riissv. close zzi high. 
 
 But we are not upon the composition of a guide-book; 
 audit is possible there may be readers of ours with the heart 
 to say, that such things have nothing to do with the point in 
 hand. At all events, we shall be speaking to it. when we 
 urge, that, at no previous time., has Harvard College, in respect 
 to advantages which it holds out, deserved to be regarded by 
 its sons with more pride and pleasure. The requisitions for 
 admission having been constantly, though gradually, increased 
 in passed years, the student brings preparation for a rapid 
 proficiency durins his term of residence. The studies in 
 Livy. Horace_. Cicero's philosophical works, and Juvenal, in 
 Latin, and Xenophon, Htmer, and some of the orators and 
 tragedians, in Greek, with the exercises in the writing of 
 these languages, and in antiquities, constitute, for our coun- 
 try, an extensive course of elementary classical discipline. 
 Hebrew, among ancient languages, is added, to such extent 
 as students may desire. Mathematical studies are pursued, 
 before the end of the second year, to the extent of some 
 good acquaintance with the differential and integral calculus : 
 
Harvard College. 5 
 
 and the three volumes of the Cambridge Natural Philosophy, 
 the text-books which are next taken up, present what may 
 be called a full outline of the branches in that department. 
 Of modern languages, — for the College is any thing but big- 
 otedly scholastic, — the French is taught to all, and perma- 
 nent provision is made for the acquisition of four others by 
 as many as wish to learn them, — a privilege which is large- 
 ly sought, — besides the very attractive lectures of the 
 Professor of Modern Literature. To a brief course in His- 
 tory and Grammar, succeeds one in Logic and Rhetoric, the 
 text-books being the recent admirable treatises of the Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin ; works, especially the former, which sub- 
 ject the mind to a severe and salutary training. In Intellec- 
 tual and Moral Philosophy, Locke's Essay, which we rejoice 
 to see lately restored in the place of Brown, Stewart's Ele- 
 ments, and Paley's Principles, are the manuals ; in Theol- 
 ogy, Butler's Analogy and Paley's Evidences ; in Political 
 Economy, Say's Treatise, which in a degree, like Paley on 
 Morals, we apprehend must be allowed to be a work excel- 
 lent for its clear statement of questions, however some of its 
 principles and conclusions may be disowned ; and in Consti- 
 tutional Law, Judge Story's Abridgment of his Commenta- 
 ries. In Natural History there are recitations from Dr. 
 Ware's revised edition of Smellie's Philosophy, and in 
 Chemistry from Dr. Webster's Manual. Exercises in En- 
 glish composition in different forms are continued from the 
 beginning of the second year to the end of the course ; and 
 lectures in different branches are given to the Senior class, 
 illustrated, in Natural Philosophy and Anatomy, by the 
 rich apparatus in the halls of those departments, and the 
 chemical laboratory ; and, in Natural History, by the valuable 
 collections in the mineralogical cabinet and the botanic gar- 
 den. 
 
 Having no personal reasons whatever for either modesty 
 or arrogance in this matter, we mean to make free to express 
 our strong conviction, that the advantages for education of- 
 fered at Cambridge are such, that whoever, having enjoyed 
 them, does not go away a better scholar than any other 
 American institution would have made him, has only his own 
 incapacity to lament, or indolence to blame ; in saying 
 which, we are not at all implying any offensive comparison 
 between the teachers there and at other similar institutions, 
 2 
 
6 Harvard College. 
 
 the latter. Indeed, considering the obviously su- 
 perior advantages »fCa nl nidge mother i; 3 acts, we could not 
 say a :rd less than we do, without positively instituting a 
 comparison to the prejudice of those who conduct its instruc- 
 tion. Further; some opportunities for making observa- 
 tions tc istify such a remark, we avow our persuasion, thai 
 the average scholarship created there year by year, is decid- 
 edly higher, — ire s leak with caution. — than that minis] 
 from any other American college. We do not watch the 
 methods of operation, but we look at the results. We are 
 sometimes present at an examination in one or another de- 
 partment and we coaioionly, on such occasions, ge away /rith 
 a hiib satisfaction in having made such use of our time. 
 A:::, at the yearly exhibitions at the end of the course, — 
 while we take care not to be so unreasonable as to expect 
 your._ men :: :e?.son like old ones, — we witness, on the 
 whole . 1 g as • and precision of thought, and a puritv and force 
 in composition, such as testify to a universal goo :. ti : oil s : 
 the mind. We do not, to find what their college? hai ; ne 
 :;: them, compare men together when, a score of ye 
 they have left these nurseries, hey have come to mat 
 figure in public stations. Various other influences have been 
 operating on them then, to reverse the conditions of their 
 early life. But we compare them in the years when the com- 
 parison may yet be made, and we submit, that, actually, the 
 professional students, and the young professional men, from 
 Harvard college, are found, on the whole, to think and write 
 better, and to know more, than those on whom rests, in this 
 
 ect. the reputation of any other of our great schools. 
 We have not finished vet : for, rather than the fact should 
 
 in unasserted, we are willing to undertake the uugra- 
 : mis task of its assertion. T: the e ; : of our knowledge and 
 belief, there is not in Europe, any more than in America, an 
 
 :ution which, year by year, sends forth a band of y : iitfa 
 of like age, so well, or better fitted, in discipline and accom- 
 plishments, to do the intellectual work of the community to 
 which it belongs. And this is the highest praise which could 
 he bestowed. It is nothing :: say that there are schools 
 abroad, which teach more of Greek, :: mathematics, or of 
 something else ~jrth kno~ iog. The sensible cues::: .: is. Is 
 there any me which can be shown to make better provision 
 than does ::.:.:: the : itejlectual wants »f the society 
 
Harvard College. 1 
 
 which they are respectively to influence ? If there be, it is 
 one of which we have not heard. 
 
 But if this, or any considerable part of it, is true, how 
 comes it that the number of students at Cambridge is ex- 
 ceeded any where else in the country, as it was exceeded 
 last year in three other colleges ? This is a problem, which, 
 on our premises, we may be fairly called on to solve. 
 
 One solution is to be found in the very fact of the greater 
 thoroughness of the course. The requisitions for admission 
 being higher than elsewhere, more time and money are re- 
 quired to prepare for it. And this being so, that large pro- 
 portion of young persons, who care not so much to have the 
 best education, as to have a tolerably good one, which will 
 introduce them speedily into a profession, are to be expected 
 rather to turn their steps in some other direction. This 
 impediment to the multiplication of students we hope never 
 to see removed. We would not have abrupt and exorbitant 
 advances made in the terms of admission. But we hope to 
 see Cambridge always as much in advance of its sister semi- 
 naries, as we believe it now to be, in respect to opportunities 
 of proficiency for such as desire to have the best. One dis- 
 tinguishing advantage which it possesses in its affluent en- 
 dowments is, that it can better afford than they to dispense 
 with the income, to be collected from a large number of stu- 
 dents. And one obligation to the literature of the country, 
 thus devolved on it, is, that it should make itself a kind of 
 model institution, constantly raising the standard of scholar- 
 ship, and leading the way in improvements, which other in- 
 stitutions, with the benefit of such countenance, will then be 
 justified and excited in their own due time to adopt. 
 
 Another important point in this connexion is, the situation 
 of Harvard College. Amherst is in the centre of New En- 
 gland, the most studious portion of the country, and espe- 
 cially in the centre of that district of New England, densely 
 inhabited by its substantial yeomanry, which furnishes the 
 largest proportion of the raw material for educated men. 
 Union College is at the centre, — not geographical, but of 
 population, — of the empire state, and within a two hours' 
 ride of its seat of government. Yale College is in a town, 
 which, besides being the capital of a state which is, for school- 
 masters, the " officina gentium/' is, by force of steam-boat 
 

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Harvard College. 9 
 
 in the latter, he is constantly subjected, — here more, there 
 less, — to remonstrance, vexation, and contempt, if they are 
 of an unpopular stamp. There are churches of the Episco- 
 palian, Baptist, Methodist, and Orthodox Congregational de- 
 nominations near the college, where all may worship, who, 
 being of age, desire it, or, not of age, whose parents or guard- 
 ians desire it for them. Roman Catholics have been freely 
 allowed (and always will be, till sectarism gains triumphs 
 there, which we do not anticipate,) to worship, not only on 
 Sundays, but on other holy days of their communion, at their 
 Boston Church. A Sandemanian has, with like deference to 
 his conscientious views, been dispensed from all attendance 
 on public services of the Sabbath, and allowed to pass the 
 day with his friends, according to his and their views of edi- 
 fication. And a Jew, besides being held excused from pres- 
 ence at worship on the first day of the week, has had the 
 seventh day equally at his disposal for his own religious uses. 
 Nor is there any pretence that the full privilege of the legal 
 provisions is restricted by intolerant practice of any other 
 kind, on the part either of the governors or of the young 
 men themselves. While apparent religious principle com- 
 mands the respect of the latter, there is no such thing known 
 among them, as any distinctive form of it being a ground of 
 favoritism or of dislike. And when we say, that not the 
 smallest reference is had to religious opinions, in adjudging 
 college honors or benefactions, we shall provoke a smile 
 from those who know any thing about it, so superfluous to 
 them is the remark, and so notorious the fact ; nay, so 
 impossible do they see it to be, that it should be otherwise, 
 in our state of society. We repeat our conviction, that too 
 much importance has often been attached to this theological 
 outcry, in reckoning the circumstances which have kept down 
 the number of students at Cambridge. People who are able 
 to choose the place where they may send their sons for an 
 education, — as many of those are, who are at sufficient dis- 
 tance to be practised upon, — will, other things being equal, 
 prefer, in the long run, to send them where they can get the 
 best. If they respect their children's religious principles at 
 all, or have been at pains to give them religious principles, — 
 (and if not, they will have little solicitude on the question,) — 
 they will have a confidence, that, at the age when young 
 
10 H. ..:•" C.~ r: 
 
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 exposure, even should that befall. And. in coining I 
 important a decision, they will be likely, if at all 
 to institute some inquiry 7 whether rnmoss which may cave 
 
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Harvard College. 11 
 
 tarian causes of alienation had scarcely begun to operate, 
 and other colleges had not begun, to any great extent, to 
 divide attention. The latter period, not to mention the 
 great diminution of one class, under circumstances of inter- 
 nal discontent, was that when other colleges multiplied most 
 rapidly, controversy was at the most unrebuked height of its 
 savageness, and all the forms of reviving business were calling 
 youth away from the Muse. Now, all which Harvard Col- 
 lege does, to lighten to its students the regular charges, as 
 we have stated them, is done with the gross annual amount 
 of one thousand dollars, distributed in sums, of which the 
 greatest is sixty dollars, and the least fifteen. 
 
 One thousand dollars in a year the sum total of appropria- 
 tions to beneficiaries, who, as to the rest, are subject to all 
 charges of the institution ! Meanwhile the Education So- 
 ciety paid last year to eight other New England colleges, for 
 the instruction of two hundred and ninety of its proteges, 
 the sum of seventeen thousand seven hundred and sixteen 
 dollars ; giving to the two which show a longer roll than 
 Harvard, four thousand seven hundred and fourteen dollars 
 for seventy-six pupils, and three thousand five hundred and 
 forty-six dollars for fifty-eight pupils respectively, the latter 
 of these two seminaries, unless well-accredited report has 
 misled us, numbering at the same time some scores of stu- 
 dents, supported by a well known munificent individual 
 among its friends. We greatly respect that institution. In 
 all fit places, we are in the habit of cordially speaking its 
 praise. But is not one most apparent cause of the difference 
 between the size of its annual catalogue, and that of Harvard 
 College, to be read in their respective legers ? 
 
 Nor is Harvard College an expensive host, because an ex- 
 orbitant one. To indigent students it gives all that it has 
 to give ; all, that either formally, or else (in its deliberate 
 estimation) equitably and reasonably, is subject to such 
 appropriation. Reasonably, we say ; for, while much the 
 greater portion of the property held by it, is held on terms, 
 that is, on a contract, of some specific use, from wdiich it 
 cannot, either honestly or lawfully, be diverted, there is no 
 doubt a balance, liable to be appropriated, from year to 
 year, according to the best judgment of its governors. They 
 may use this, if they see cause, to increase the advantages 
 
12 Harvard College. 
 
 of the institution, to hire more or better teachers, or buy 
 more books, or more apparatus ; or they may apply it to a 
 universal reduction of the tax for the enjoyment of advanta- 
 ges already possessed ; or they may give it to indigent stu- 
 dents ; or they may do something of all three. But certain- 
 ly they will not, for the support of a poor man's son, lay a 
 tax on the son of a man in middling circumstances, — no, 
 nor on a rich man's son, without any equivalent of benefit 
 to him. And they will be most scrupulously cautious about 
 doing, what virtually amounts to the same thing, providing 
 for the third object we have just named, at the expense 
 of the second. 
 
 The cause of the expensiveness of Harvard College is 
 two-fold. It is eminently expensive, because of the eminent 
 advantages which it furnishes, and because of what some 
 might think the disadvantages, and we reckon the precious 
 advantages, of the situation, where it furnishes them. 
 
 Of the ninety dollars which each student must annually 
 pay, (that is, unless he chooses to have a deduction made of 
 fifteen dollars for rent, and hire his room out of the walls,) 
 twenty-seven are paid towards charges which we suppose 
 cannot be materially lower any where ; though, if they are, 
 they will come under the category, to which we are presently 
 to proceed. Three dollars of them go to the Librarian's 
 salary, and the remaining twenty-four to the support of the 
 Steward's office, and the cleansing, heating, and repairing of 
 the public rooms, to which every student, living in or out of 
 college, is alike equitably bound to contribute. Fifteen 
 dollars go to the rent and care of a lodging-room and study, 
 which, however, he need not take nor pay for ; but if he 
 hire a room elsewhere in Cambridge, it will cost him much 
 dearer; and if he can be lodged more cheaply, while he 
 studies somewhere else than in Cambridge, he has certainly 
 found a very economical place. The remaining forty-eight 
 dollars go to defray the charge of instruction. 
 
 The instruction is dear, partly on account of the place, 
 where it is given ; and this again directs us to a view, at 
 which we have not yet arrived. Because the place, where 
 the instructers are to live and teach, is an expensive one 
 to live in, the salaries they live upon must be high. Actual- 
 ly high, in a comparative estimate, they are. No doubt the 
 incumbents of the same offices might be supported at less 
 
Harvard College. 13 
 
 cost elsewhere. But propo-rtionably high, we are equally 
 sure that they are not. So far from it, that we are satisfied 
 that the support afforded must before long become more 
 liberal, or the offices will have to fall into less able hands than 
 will be consistent with the best honor of the College, or the 
 best satisfaction of its friends. The expense of a domestic 
 establishment in Cambridge, even (as to tenements near the 
 College) in the article of rent, which might be supposed to 
 make an exception, is in all respects as great as in the 
 neighbouring city ; while scarcely a salary approaches, within 
 a quarter, to those afforded by the richer denominations, in 
 the city, to their ministers. But, passing this, the instruc- 
 tion is dear, chiefly because there is a great deal of it ; and 
 it is a very familiar principle and practice, that the more a man 
 buys, the more he pays for. We hope that there will never 
 be a fraction less ; and considering how much there is, it is 
 very far from costly. We observe that an accomplished 
 young friend of ours has just issued proposals for a school 
 for boys in this city, at the charge, not of forty-eight dollars a 
 year for each pupil, but of fifty dollars a quarter. And he 
 will have that school ; and he will succeed in it ; and we re- 
 joice that he will do so. The parents will receive every far- 
 thing of their money's worth ; and it is matter of mutual 
 congratulation for our College and its Boston neighbours, 
 that the former is able to give a learning to its sons, which 
 the latter have the sense and spirit thus liberally to compen- 
 sate them for the use of. And much as its students may be 
 thought to pay towards the accumulation of such a stock in 
 trade, they by no means pay for all that they receive. The 
 instruction which they buy of the College for forty-eight 
 dollars a year, costs the College one hundred and fifty dol- 
 lars, the difference being provided for from its funds, the 
 trust with it of public and private benefactors. 
 
 We said that we would not, for the greater cheapness' 
 sake, have the existing advantages of instruction abridged. 
 But, if any one should think differently, he is to be told, 
 that a material abridgment, of this kind, is not within the 
 option of the College. On the contrary, just in the pro- 
 portion that it has grown richer of late years, it has actually 
 been compelled to levy a heavier tax. This will be obvi- 
 ous, as soon as a single fact is considered. The benefactors 
 of the College have been in the habit of giving a particular 
 3 
 
14 Harvard College. 
 
 direction to their bounty. Generally this has been, to found 
 a Professorship in some department, which in the terms of 
 the endowment they have required to have kept filled. In no 
 case of a Professorship yet in operation.* has there he en 
 given for this purpose a larger sum than twentv thousand 
 dollars, while almost always it has been very much less. 
 The annual income of this principal amounts to between one 
 thousand and twelve hundred dollars. And. as no resident 
 professor, on a foundation, receives a less salary than fifteen 
 hundred dollars, the College is reduced to the alternative of 
 either rejecting such gifts, or else, as an essential condition 
 of their acceptance, assessing an additional tax of between 
 three and rive hundred dollars, at least, on its students, for 
 the advantage of each new professorship which it secures. 
 Could it. with any show of faithfulness to its trust, choose 
 the former side of this alternative ? 
 
 We said, again, that the College is expensive, because of 
 its situation. Whether this be thought a subject of felicita- 
 tion or complaint, it is a thing not now to be helped. To 
 say nothing of the impossibility, or the inconvenience, of 
 moving so much stone, and brick, and furniture, and the in- 
 expediency, if it could be, of forfeiting, as an instrument of 
 influence on the young mind, the benefit of associations 
 which generations of glory attach to a [.lace. — the Col- 
 lege is, by constitution and law, a college in Cambridge* 
 Ceasins to be in Cambridge, it ceases to be at all ; a/.d 
 Cambridge, a place three miles distant from one of the most 
 expensive capitals in the wo Id, unavoid :.bV partakes in its 
 expensiveness. But, though this is enough for the justifica- 
 tion of the College, we are not going to stop here : nor is 
 the practical question, for those who are selecting a place of 
 study, yet reached. We acmit, mos; fully, that the vicinity 
 to Boston is expensive. It increases the charse of living to 
 the instructers, whom the student must help to maintain ; 
 and it increases his personal charges for diet and other things 
 needful while he studies. And here we briefly remark, by the 
 way, that the College interferes for him, to keep the charge 
 from beirg nearly so onerous, as, on the principles of sale and 
 purchase, it would naturally be. Besides paying from its 
 
 * We make this qualification with reference to the late large endow- 
 ment in Natural History, by the venerable Dr. Fisher, of Beverly. 
 
Harvard College, 15 
 
 own treasury, two thirds of his tuition-fees, as has been ex- 
 plained, — if he chooses to board at its refectory, he pays 
 the College but one dollar and ninety cents in a week, for 
 what costs the College, all things included, two dollars and 
 twenty-five cents ;* and if he prefer to fare more delicately, 
 still, the College, by this under-bidding, keeps down the 
 price, which will be demanded of him at a private house ; 
 and the same is the operation of the low rate, at which it 
 rents its apartments, charging but twelve dollars a year for 
 accommodations worth from twenty to forty. But, leaving 
 this, we affirm, that while the vicinity to Boston is expen- 
 sive to the student, it is worth to him all, and very much 
 more than all, it costs him. 
 
 This worth is to be analysed into the influence exerted 
 from the circumstance in question, on his moral habits, and 
 the influence exerted on all the habits of his mind. 
 
 We have heard that, when the first bridge between Cam- 
 bridge and Boston was projected, materially facilitating com- 
 munication, and some friends of the College urged it to op- 
 pose the scheme, as hazardous to its objects, Judge Par- 
 sons, then a Fellow, assumed the opposite ground. If it was 
 so, we venture the conjecture that it was for reasons such as 
 we are about to present. 
 
 We say, that this vicinity to a city like Boston is worth 
 what the student pays for it, partly because it is a circum- 
 stance so auspicious to his moral habits. If the general 
 experience of our country does not deceive us, the vices 
 take their most odious, ruinous, debasing, hopeless form in 
 village dissipation. If all the experience of the world does 
 not betray, remote academical villages, containing two castes 
 in society, the one withdrawn from all domestic influences, 
 overlooked by no public opinion which it regards, making a 
 point of honor for itself, looking on the other but as furnish- 
 ing instruments for its wickedness, are well-nigh the most 
 painful objects to which a good mind can turn its view. 
 What keeps Cambridge from being such an academical 
 village? We answer, — after doing all justice to the good 
 dispositions of its youth, and the good management of its 
 governors, — that in great part what prevents this, is its 
 
 # Many of these statements are but repetitions of facts presented 
 in Mr. Gray's Letter to Governor Lincoln, in 1831. 
 
16 Harvard College. 
 
 a 
 
 vicinity to Boston. Place the College, with all the money 
 which it disburses, at thirty miles 3 distance from a great town, 
 and directly. — unless all influences, observed commonly to 
 : lerate in such institutions, were to cease to act. or unless 
 opposite influences were applied with a hitherto unheard of 
 power, unless youth should become immaculate, or tutors 
 omniscier.t; — there would be collected about its walls all 
 facilities and appliances of vice. .Nothing short of martial 
 discipline would keep them away ; and with that even, as 
 at West Pcir.t. they would not fail to wage a pertinacious 
 war. Now. all means of vicious pleasure already existing 
 at three miles' distance, as every great city provides then:, no 
 motive exists for bringing the::; nearer. To bring ti em 
 nearer, would, under such competition, cost the purveyors 
 more than it would come to. This seems a very simple 
 speculation; and it is justified, as every body knows,, who 
 knows Cambridge, by the fact. 
 
 But. it will be objected. " The argument is. that means of 
 vice beins: already near enough to be conveniently accessible, 
 all motive for bringing them nearer is withdrawn. If, then, 
 near enough already to be accessible, how is the naturally 
 resulting evil checked : n We answer, it is checked mightily, 
 in two or three ways. If. on an expedition to one's harm, 
 instead of bein; absent from one's proper place Ions enough 
 to fine some neigbbtorin; ia.te, it be necessary to be gone 
 two or three hours, to travel an open, frequented road, and 
 cross a bridge, the danger of detection is indefinitely in- 
 creased, and with it the securities for good order, as far as 
 this mav demand to be maintained by vigilance and coercion. 
 But, much further and better than this, students at Cam- 
 bridge. — unless their dulness hinder the perception, — see 
 themselves to be mere or less under the oversight, and to be 
 companions oi others who are most strictly under the 
 oversight; of a very enlightened, discerning, and moral 
 neighbouring community, of a consequence and power which 
 forbids them to be indifferent to its regard or censure. They 
 see themselves the sons, or associates of sons, of those, who 
 are near enough to turn a very watchful eye to the place of 
 their studies : the objects :: attention to men. whose esteem 
 is well worth having, and who yield it on no easier terms than 
 those of estimable cenduct ; tire neighbours of a band of 
 voutit. vrhc . in the coveted circles of societv. take care to main- 
 
Harvard College. 17 
 
 tain, in their various walks, a high standard of character, and 
 mean that whoever is ambitious to be their companion, shall 
 respect that standard. They live in a good moral atmosphere. 
 They must breathe it, or they must go away to find another. 
 
 These are some of the features of the moral condition of 
 students at Cambridge ; and we bear them emphatic witness 
 that we seo Hppy fruits of their position. We do not pursue 
 the train of thought. We have said enough to make our- 
 selves understood ; and we ask attention to it. We pro- 
 ceed to a like hint on the literary influences of the same 
 position ; and here again, having undertaken to present some 
 grave points, we do not mean that they shall suffer injus- 
 tice, through any bashfulness of ours in the statement. 
 
 When we look at the scholarship which Harvard College 
 actually forms, after giving all credit to the good judgment 
 with which its course of study is laid out, the talent and 
 faithfulness of those who conduct it, and the various obvious 
 advantages under which it is pursued, we are fain after all 
 to acknowledge, that the machinery is inadequate to the 
 product. We look for some further element of power, in 
 bringing about the consummation witnessed. And we do 
 not hesitate to say, that we find it in the circumstance of 
 situation, of which we have been speaking. Those who 
 do not know Boston, may need to be told, that a decidedly 
 literary tone pervades its good society. We do not say, 
 whether it contains great or little men, sciolists or scholars. 
 Let that take care of itself; we do not carry "this foolish- 
 ness of boasting" any further than suits our purpose. But 
 there is a love of learning. That its citizens love to read, 
 either what is superficial, or else what is not so, or both, 
 may be inferred from the large amount of its publications 
 compared with those of any other American city, or from 
 the single fact, that, exclusive of newspapers and of re- 
 ligious magazines, the amount of its periodical literature has 
 been reckoned to be as great as that of all the rest of the 
 country. At all events, there is a love of the fame of learn- 
 ing. Mothers, like Mather's mother, are ambitious to see 
 a son " a good scholar," as well as a " good Christian." 
 Fathers and sisters have an especial pride in the youth who 
 has won that name. The stranger, who has won it at Cam- 
 bridge, under the eye of this community, sees himself re- 
 ceived, on that ground, on an honorable footing, in society 
 
18 Harvard College. 
 
 where he may well desire to move. He finds himself, 
 wherever he may be introduced, to be, on that ground, the 
 object of a flattering consideration. The youth, who conies 
 here with his fortune to make, sees, — we do not scruple 
 to say it, — that, that reputation won, his fortune will be 
 made ; at least, that he will have brought it effectually 
 within the reach of his own further good conduct ; for he 
 will have been attracting the kindled eye of not a few, who 
 stand emulously ready to advance him, by such honorable 
 and effective aid as the risen may render to the rising. 
 Is there not found stimulus in all this ? And even for 
 those, on whom, from their individual circumstances, some 
 parts of it do not directly act, does not the raising of the 
 standard of attainment, through such means, indirectly pro- 
 duce the same effect? And is there no permanent, inevita- 
 ble impulse and discipline for the mind, in the literary cast 
 of all surrounding social intercourse ? And does not the 
 presence of individual examples of literary success and note, 
 — such as colleges and villages do not show in any num- 
 bers, — such as a city must show, or nothing, — does not 
 this have its vast effect? We ask to have this view of the 
 facts well weighed, by those by whom the facts are recog- 
 nised ; and we will be in the judgment of any discerning 
 parent, whether the expensiveness of the place of study in 
 question is not incident to advantages which it is no bad 
 thrift to pay largely for, if they may not otherwise be had. 
 
 But, while we so highly appreciate these advantages, and 
 cannot think the money ill spent that secures them, we 
 earnestly wish that they were otherwise to be had, and most 
 earnestly do we hope, before long, to see some resolute 
 measures taken to this end. This end is what the College 
 wants accomplished, to become what its living friends, and 
 its patrons, if they may look down to see the progress of 
 their blessed work, desire to see it, — an overflowing foun- 
 tain of refreshing waters to our beloved native land. This 
 it wants, to enable it to dispense its learned wealth with an 
 unstinted bounty. This it wants, to help it to inscribe its 
 name broadly and brightly as it should, on the history of 
 the American mind. Give it this, and it will confidently 
 leave, to those whom it invites, the question of further 
 endeavours, which will remain for themselves to make, to 
 accept its invitation. Give it this, and it will not defy, 
 
Harvard College. 19 
 
 but by the beauty of its usefulness, it will win and silence, 
 the jealousies of sectarian bigotry. Who shall give it ? 
 Singly, some of its sons have done their part ; and others, 
 who owed it nothing, except what good men owe to good 
 objects, have all along been bountifully doing theirs. Who 
 shall make this provision for the College? Its own sons 
 collectively, some have thought ; and so proposes the author 
 of the discourse before us. 
 
 " If God blesses us with wealth, I know not, among the pub- 
 lic distributions we may have grace to devise, what more grate- 
 ful object we can propose to ourselves, than to turn back to 
 pour a filial tribute into our mother's lap, to be dispensed to 
 her younger hopes, in ampler bounty than she could command 
 the means to afford to us. And here I will even ask, in pass- 
 ing, since the subject leads to the inquiry, whether, while 
 separately many of her children have ' done virtuously' in this 
 way, it is not time that some more extended and united action 
 of them together, should ' excel them all.' An eminent jurist 
 of the last century called his liberal testamentary endowment, 
 'a poor thank-offering to God from his unworthy servant, for 
 his many and great mercies to him in his education at that col- 
 lege ' ;* and the words, 'once a pupil, always a patron,' mak- 
 ing part of the inscription, in which her gratitude recorded 
 the merits of another distinguished magistrate, on the edifice, 
 by the gift of which he had evinced his filial regard, have a 
 truth and an interest for the many bosoms, in which the same 
 sentiment is doubtless devoutly cherished.' — p. 15, 16. 
 
 A subscription for Burlington College, among its sons 
 and perhaps others, had, previously to the beginning of last 
 July, raised for it twenty-six thousand dollars. Amherst 
 College lately obtained, in the same way, between thirty and 
 fifty thousand dollars ; and Hanover, not long ago, about as 
 much. Williamstown College has had its contribution of the 
 same kind, and the Alumni of Yale have testified their love 
 to their Alma Mater by the becoming gift of nearly one 
 hundred thousand dollars. Berkshire and Hampshire coun- 
 ties are not richer than the sea-board. Vermont and New 
 Hampshire can hardly spare more money than Massa- 
 
 * Chief Justice Dudley. " He honored and loved that his mother, 
 and was wont to say of her, that he knew no better place to begin the 
 forming of a good and worthy man." — Colman's Sermon on the Death 
 of the Hon. Joseph Dudley, 
 
20 Harvard College. 
 
 chusetts. The sons of Yale College do not owe more, than 
 those of Harvard, to the mother of their minds ; nor/should 
 we of Harvard be willing to have it proved, nor can it be 
 yet proved, that they love her bet er. A very generous ex- 
 ample has been set. Is there any reason to question, that, 
 at the fit time, it is destined to be as generously followed ? 
 We submit, whether a hint, in a note to the passage just 
 quoted, respecting that fit time, is not well entitled to 
 attention. 
 
 " ' The Court agreed to give ,£400 towards a schoale or Col- 
 ledge, whearoff =£200 to bee paid the next yeare, and ,£200 
 when the worke is finished, and the next Court to appoint 
 wheare and w* building.' 
 
 " Such is part of the record of the General Court of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay, convened Sept. 25th (Oct. 6th, N. S.), 1636, and 
 continued thence from day to day by adjournment. In little 
 more than two years, then, the second century from the foun- 
 dation of the College will be completed. 
 
 "Is it fit, or not, that her nineteen hundred living sons 
 should be thinking of doing honor to that event, by some joint 
 expression of their gratitude ? 
 
 "Their aggregate means are ample. The wants of the Col- 
 lege, in two respects, those of accommodation for its invalua- 
 ble library, and provision for indigent students, are great. To 
 keep the anniversary by a liberal united effort to advance the 
 object, to which it owes its interest, would make a sensible and 
 memorable novelty among forms of commemoration." — p. 16. 
 
 Truly, what an anniversary here would be ! The gather- 
 ed gifts to a common mother of nineteen hundred sons, re- 
 mitted from " all the borders of the country, and all the 
 corners of the world," — the north giving up, and the south 
 not keeping back, — and consecrated at the goal of the 
 second century of her history, in testimony of reverence for 
 her services, of the gratitude of the givers, and of confiding 
 hope that the coming ages would be terms of equal, and 
 more, usefulness and honor. Whoever should see that day, 
 would have some feelings to experience, worth the knowing. 
 He would witness something which he could not forget, nor 
 the world either. 
 
 As to the year 1636, here adopted as that of the founda- 
 tion, we apprehend that it ought to be so regarded ; though 
 the common reckoning we believe has fixed it in 1638, the 
 
Harvard College. 21 
 
 year when the College went into operation, the first class 
 being graduated in 1642. The date of the legal act, estab- 
 lishing it, appears to us properly to fix the point of time ; 
 and it is so recognised in the preamble to the fifth chapter 
 of the State Constitution, which recites, that, "Whereas our 
 wise and pious ancestors, so early as the year one thousand 
 six hundred and thirty-six, laid the foundation of Harvard 
 College, in which University, many persons of great emi- 
 nence, have, by the blessing of God, been initiated into 
 those arts and sciences, which qualified them for public 
 employments, both in church and state ; and whereas the 
 encouragement of arts and sciences, and all good litera- 
 ture, tends to the honor of God, the advantage of the Chris- 
 tian religion, and the great benefit of this, and the other 
 United States of America : it is declared," &c. 
 
 As to a contribution of the kind referred to, the nineteen 
 hundred living graduates, — though there are some seventy 
 or eighty earlier, and, among them, names of our eminently 
 affluent and liberal citizens, — may be regarded as distri- 
 buted through fifty classes, beginning with 1780, the more re- 
 cent classes being still young. Of the earlier of these classes 
 the surviving members are few, and those of the later have 
 not fully entered upon life. To make up, from fifty classes, 
 a like contribution for Harvard College, to what has been 
 lately made for Yale, an average sum of two thousand dol- 
 lars from each, would be requisite. There are others, who 
 can better tell than we, whether the hope of obtaining such 
 a sum would be extravagant. 
 
 Should a contribution, greater or less, ever come to be 
 made, and should it be applied to the object of which we 
 have been speaking, the lessening, to youth of limited means, 
 of pecuniary discouragements from studying at Cambridge, 
 such application would naturally take one, or the other, or 
 both, of two forms. It might either go to diminish the 
 charge for instruction for all the students indiscriminately, 
 or, leaving this as it is, it might be directed, in larger single 
 distributions, towards the maintenance of the more indigent 
 of their number ; or it might do a portion of both these kinds 
 of good. 
 
 In the first case, it would probably have the immediate 
 effect of bringing back that perhaps most desirable class of 
 students, the sons of families in the middling rank in respect 
 4 
 
22 Harvard College, 
 
 to property, in town and country, who, we fear, were driven 
 away in great numbers, by the change in the amount of 
 tuition fees in or about 1807. They mean to pay, to the full 
 extent, that others around them do, for whatever they have. 
 This is what they have been used to doing. It is their 
 habit ; perhaps it is their point of honor ; — no matter which. 
 Bat they are obliged strictly to consult economy. And the 
 difference of an annual expense of twenty or thirty dollars, 
 which their fathers will have to spare from the profits of a 
 farm or a shop, and pinch themselves to furnish, is, and 
 ought to be, with such, a very serious consideration. It is, in 
 fact, a consideration, decisive year by year, of the destina- 
 tion of numbers of youth, to whom the country owes, for its 
 own sake, the best advantages of education it can afford ; — • 
 of those, who, in moral and intellectual structure, are the 
 bone and sinew of the commonwealth, and on all accounts, 
 personal and public, entitled to its best training. 
 
 There is one obvious qualification of the advantage of this 
 use of funds. Along with those to whom it is of the first 
 importance, it would benefit others, who are in no need of 
 it whatever : — the sons of the rich, who, instead of caring 
 to pay less than they now do, would feel a considerable 
 increase of their liabilities to be no burden. But, on the 
 other hand, this equality of expenditure between the rich 
 and those who are not rich, is indispensable; else the object 
 of the latter, who intend, wherever they go, to pay all that 
 their associaies do, is defeated. And again ; as it is to be 
 supposed for a general rule, that the richer givers to such a 
 fund would be also the most bountiful, it would not be rea- 
 sonable to expect them to repeat their contribution, in the 
 payment of larger charges on their children's term-bills. 
 
 To an appropriation of funds, of the second description 
 named above, we have occasionally heard objections made, 
 to which we do not think it liable. We cannot say how 
 common the sentiment is, but we know that it exists, 
 that the more indigent class of students at college have 
 not generally, by the merit and services of later life, 
 shown themselves particularly well entitled to the aid af- 
 forded them in acquiring; an education. We are not of that 
 opinion. It is impossible to arrive at exact results in the 
 weighing of that question. It covers too much ground, 
 and it is too delicate. But, from such rough estimate, as 
 
Harvard College. 23 
 
 we are able to make, of what has fallen under our own 
 notice, we are inclined to think, that that class of students, — 
 not to speak of the individual instances of its furnishing lead- 
 ing lights, — has, on the whole, done its fair share of ser- 
 vice to the great interests of society. And, if it were other- 
 wise, we should by no means hold the question of the fitness 
 of such patronage to be settled. The experience of a few 
 years or decades cannot settle it ; and certainly there is 
 nothing in the reason of the case, to prove that the supposed 
 actual result is to be looked for. Nor, if the result were 
 both probable and realized, would we allow that the .assumed 
 practical inference follows, Independently of all such con- 
 siderations, we should still desire, — and that on grounds, 
 we think, of patriotism and good sense, — to have the 
 poorest man feel, that his son, if disposed to use them, had 
 the best advantages of education within his reach, and, with 
 those advantages, the privilege of the most favorable experi- 
 ment to lift himself to the highest places in society. We 
 should still earnestly desire to have the poorest men know 
 and feel, that opportunities for obtaining the best learning 
 were no aristocratic possession, and that they had none but 
 themselves to reckon with, if the best learning should be- 
 come characteristically an aristocratic accomplishment. 
 
 We know, again, that there is in some minds, an indispo- 
 sition to this form of bounty, on account of an impression, 
 that there is something humbling in becoming its object. 
 They think, that to receive it, argues, or forms, something 
 of an abject spirit, or does both. We cannot but hold, that 
 this view is taken in utter blindness to the conditions, under 
 which Providence has made us men to live on earth. He 
 who demands to be independent, must go seek quarters in 
 some other planet. Providence meant that all men should 
 find their own happiness in communicating it to others ; and, 
 if all are to confer favors, it can hardly be that all will not 
 have to receive them. It meant that there should be such 
 a happy sentiment as gratitude; and, as none were to be 
 excluded from its enjoyment, so none were allowed to be 
 above being served. Every human being is a debtor to men 
 before and about him; — a stipendiary to the past and to 
 the present. When so much of what we most value, and 
 are every moment enjoying, — the protection of good laws, 
 the spirit of society, the guidance of transmitted wisdom, — 
 
24 Harvard College. 
 
 is necessarily the free gift to us of the fruit of costly labors, 
 which cannot be estimated in money. — and, if they could, 
 which we have no money to pay for, — it clearly appears 
 to us more nice than wise, to be lofty about receiving the 
 smaller balance of kindnesses, which it still remains optional 
 with us to reject. And while a man is making his superla- 
 tive distinctions between what he can, and what he cannot, 
 help receiving gratuitously from others, he will only be 
 experiencing the multiform mortifications of that most morti- 
 fying passion, pride, till he is taught sense enough to be 
 willing to have his impracticable principle break down under 
 the distraction. He who is difficult about being a " charity 
 scholar," if such is the phrase, at Cambridge, — if he will 
 carry out his doctrine, must be disturbed and shame-faced, 
 when he goes thence, and comes to deposit his vote, or vent 
 his voice, in that eleemosynary establishment, Faneuil Hall. 
 For he is there a charity voter, and a charity orator. If 
 Faneuil had not given the Hall, the town would now have 
 to build it, and the citizen and speaker would be taxed to 
 pay the bill. At all events, Harvard College admits none 
 but charity scholars. Some rich men's sons are studying 
 there ; but not one of them all pays his scot and lot. As 
 truly as any of their associates, they are objects of the Col- 
 lege's bounty. It is simply a question between. them of 
 more and less. We take it that not a word of the state- 
 ment to this effect, on the fifth page of the sermon before us, 
 can be called in question ; and, if so, he who is a beneficiary 
 to the annual amount of one hundred and fifty dollars, while 
 at his right or left hand sits another who gets but one hun- 
 dred dollars, may be made by fifty per cent, a more abject- 
 spirited man than his neighbour, may be depressed half as 
 much again in his own esteem, but a most humiliating pro- 
 cess for all the ingenuous youth, without exception, must 
 doubtless be our college life. 
 
 Both of these methods, then, of relieving the expensive- 
 ness of an education at Cambridge, seem to have their re- 
 commendations ; and it is not improbable that, on a full view 
 of the subject, it might be thought wise to direct endeavours 
 towards a partial attainment of both, rather than an exclusive 
 one of either. In the case of any thing considerable of 
 the kind being done, it may be supposed that the govern- 
 ment of the College would feel more at liberty to direct any 
 
Harvard College. 25 
 
 funds, come or coming into their hands, and subject to their 
 direction, to the provision of safe and proper accommoda- 
 tion for its library. That is a thing which it is high time 
 were done, to whomsoever it may belong to do it. The 
 destruction of that library would be an intolerable stigma on 
 the name of the government, or the alumni, or the neigh- 
 bourhood, or the State, or the country, or whomsoever else 
 the stern justice of posterity might select to bear the blame. 
 We state familiar facts, when we repeat, that being con- 
 siderably the richest in the western hemisphere, it consists of 
 forty thousand volumes, many of which are rare, important, 
 and costly ; that it contains a collection, — undoubtedly the 
 most precious in the world in the department of American 
 History, — of six or seven thousand volumes, and thirteen 
 thousand maps and charts, bought, partly, against the com- 
 petition of a king, by one of those "merchants" of ours, 
 who are " princes," and partly furnished by the munificence 
 of a son of another of those " traffickers," who are " the 
 honorable of the earth " ; that it is necessarily disposed 
 in rooms, whose narrow dimensions absolutely forbid its 
 further extension, a measure for which other liberal citizens 
 are understood to be standing ready, so justly popular is 
 the object ; — and that it is within six feet of a building, 
 where in the winter are constantly kept thirty fires under 
 the care of youth, whose engagements, besides, cause them 
 to be absent three times every day, for an hour together. 
 The risk is appalling. We cannot sleep on a windy night 
 when we think of it. The burning of the comparatively 
 small, and on all accounts incomparably meaner collection, 
 seventy years ago, threw the province into a sort of univer- 
 sal mourning. A " ruinous loss " the papers of the time 
 well called it. The governor, on the second following morn- 
 ing, sent a message to the Representatives to " heartily con- 
 dole with" them " on the unfortunate accident"; and 
 America and Britain were moved to repair the mischief. 
 May this generation not be doomed to see on that spot such 
 another heap of priceless ruins ! But if the horror do not 
 befall, it is not wishing, that will have averted it. 
 
 The President says, in his " Considerations," submitted 
 to the Legislature the winter before last ; " Let the Legis- 
 lature of Massachusetts only grant sufficient means for such 
 a building as the case requires, and it is not too much to 
 
26 Harvard College, 
 
 say, nor to pledge, that this library, instead of containing 
 forty thousand volumes, shall, within ten years, contain 
 sixty thousand volumes. Dispositions to that effect have 
 been intimated by men capable of carrying them into exe- 
 cution." He says, again ; " It has been ascertained that the 
 books now actually constituting the library, w r ould require 
 thirty alcoves of the same height and extent (viz. with the 
 twenty, which now occupy the whole space,) properly and 
 safely to preserve them." We wish to suggest, in addition 
 to this object of safe preservation, the importance of that of 
 convenient use. Great libraries are not more, perhaps not 
 so much, depositaries of books to be borrowed from them, as 
 of books to be consulted within them. But to consult books 
 in Harvard College library, is now all but out of the question. 
 There is hardly so much as room to pass conveniently be- 
 tween the book shelves and other indispensable furniture. 
 Every book should be brought, by means of galleries, within 
 convenient reach. A moderate temperature should be kept 
 up throughout the room ; and the alcoves, furnished with ta- 
 bles and with stationery, should present accommodations and 
 a degree of retirement, for reading and writing. We have 
 occasion, from time to time, to visit that library, but we cer- 
 tainly do not go thither one time in ten times, that we should, 
 if the apartments were more tenantable. For ourselves, we 
 use no exaggeration in saying, that the day that arrangements 
 were made for Harvard College library, only similar to those 
 existing for that of the Boston Athenaeum, that day it would 
 rise tenfold in value to us. And that which is the case with 
 us, may not improbably be, more or less, the case with others. 
 It is not for us to predict what the Commonwealth will do 
 in the premises ; though we think we can guess what its en- 
 lightened people would do, if left to themselves. They make 
 it no sectarian question ; and the petitions of the several fac- 
 ulties of the Episcopal, Baptist, and Orthodox Congregational 
 schools cf theology, were cordially presented to second the 
 application of the College. And we think we can conjecture 
 what their intelligent representatives, following the generous 
 lead of the upper house, would do, if released from side-way 
 influences, and unbiassed by regard to considerations of sup- 
 posed practical connexion of this subject, with others, which, 
 in their own nature, are as remote from it as possible. Were 
 we legislators, we should plead for this provision for the Col- 
 
Harvard College. 27 
 
 lege, not on the ground of the College's wants, nor of its de- 
 serts, but on the ground of what the Commonwealth owes to 
 its own dignity, and growth, and greatness. We would say y 
 whatever influence you are to have in the councils and over 
 the destiny of this nation, you are to owe, not to the extent 
 of your territory, nor to your numbers, nor to your money, 
 but to the mastery of your minds. Look to the fair intellec- 
 tual fame of Massachusetts. See to it, that there be always 
 clear, and well trained, and well stored understandings, to 
 discern her rights, and interests, and honor, and, seeing, to 
 maintain and to advance them. Take care to make her, in 
 the way to which plain indications of Providence invite, " a 
 name and a praise " in the wide earth. Take good heed, 
 that, through your slowness, the republic receive no detri- 
 ment. The sons of the College are able to take care of your 
 interest within her walls, and they will do it, when they shall 
 know that you have abandoned it. But you have only 
 to speak the word, and the work is done. And if, while you 
 are hesitating, the brightest jewel in her crown is reft, look to 
 your reckoning with posterity, when it shall bitterly say, how 
 untrue it has found you to its claims and interests, while the 
 past had never been wanting to yours. * 
 
 We have only further, before leaving this point, to turn 
 the tables upon a former remark, and say, that if, in a de- 
 spair, — which certainly we could not undertake to justify, — 
 of provision from the public chest for this pressing want of a 
 library building, the sons of the College were to resolve them- 
 
 * " Think not, that the commonwealth of learning may languish, and 
 yet our civil and ecclesiastical state be maintained in good plight and 
 condition. The wisdom and foresight, and care for future times, of 
 our first leaders, was in nothing more conspicuous and admirable, than 
 in the planting of that nursery, and New England is enjoying the sweet 
 fruit of it. It becomes all our faithful and worthy patriots that tread 
 in their steps, to water what they have planted." — President Oakes's 
 Election Sermon, 1678. 
 
 " Behold un American University, which hath been to these plan- 
 tations, as Livy saith of Greece, for the good literature there cultiva- 
 ted, Sal Gentium; an University, which may make her boast unto the 
 circumjacent regions, like that of the orator on the behalf of the En- 
 glish Cambridge ; ' Fecimus (absit verbo invidia, cuiabest falsitas) ne in 
 Demagoriis lapis sederet super lapidem, ne deessent in templis theol- 
 ogi, in foris jurisperiti, in oppidis medici ; rem publicain, ccclesiam, 
 senatum, exercitum, viris doctis replevimus, eoque melius bono publico 
 inservire comparatis, quo magis eruditi fuerint.' " — Magnalia, IV. p. 128. 
 
28 Harvard College. 
 
 02 
 
 selves to make that provision, it would seem reasonable to 
 expect that the government, being just so far relieved from 
 occasion for the use of unappropriated funds, would be able 
 to devote them, to the same, or to some extent, to a reduc- 
 tion of the charge for teachins;. 
 
 We suppose we should not be excused, if, having in ano- 
 ther aspect brought the College thus largely to the view of 
 our readers, we should shrink from adverting; to notorious cir- 
 cumstances of its recent position before the public. We 
 would gladly be excused from this reference, if we might. 
 In the existing posture of things, we have perhaps a differ- 
 ent view of its expediency, in the abstract, from those irre- 
 sponsible and uninformed persons, who have not scrupled to 
 discuss very delicate questions touching the feelings of pa- 
 rents, the prospects of sons, and the honor of a most vener- 
 able and meritorious institution.* We shall not follow them 
 in that discussion. The case of the government is not yet 
 before the public. Very probably it will be, before long, by 
 means of a report to the Overseers, or otherwise ; and then, if 
 occasion be, we, perchance, shall be found as ready as others 
 to enter into its merits. What we care to say here, and what 
 is here to our purpose to say, is, that we have no belief that 
 any thing has occurred, which ought, or will, withdraw pub- 
 
 * The wantonness of the periodical press has perhaps rarely been 
 more strikingly manifested, than in the course of this business. We 
 have taken no pains to remember the instances, but one happens to be 
 before us. One of the Boston prints, late in June, or early in July, 
 had announced that ' ; all the {Senior class of Harvard College, who ac- 
 knowledged having approved of the circular, had been dismissed, and 
 that there would be no Commencement." Not a word of this was 
 true. The Faculty were holding meetings; but, as was fit under such 
 circumstances, they kept their own counsel, to that degree that their 
 own neighbours could not form so much as a probable conjecture, how 
 things were going on. When their decision, some two or three weeks 
 after, became known, it proved to be a dismission, not of the whole 
 class, but of a small portion of it. And that there will be no Com- 
 mencement, is an assertion which could not be safely made, as late as 
 the time when we are writing, towards the middle of August. 
 
 Now fair men very often make mistakes : and they have a very sim- 
 ple way of procedure, when they discover that they have done so. 
 They say that they had been misinformed, adding, or not adding, an 
 expression of their regret for any mischief which may have been so oc- 
 casioned. But what said this editor, when better information speedily 
 reached him? Referring to his previous insertion, he said, "We were 
 rightly informed in part only. Up to this morning, sentence had not 
 been pronounced, but it was expected momentarily" 
 
 I 
 
Harvard College. 29 
 
 lie confidence from the institution. A pretty strong proof to 
 the contrary is already furnished, by the fact, that, at the end 
 of the last term, in which the discontents occurred, so great 
 a number of students was offered for admission into the 
 Freshman class, that, if a like proportion as in past years 
 should be kept up at the examination in Commencement 
 week, — and we know no reason why this should not be ex- 
 pected, — a larger class will be formed than has ever en- 
 tered. 
 
 We are not, then, going to discuss the character of the po- 
 lice laws of the College, or of their administration in any in- 
 stance. They who conduct the latter are known, and the 
 former are on record, and are always on the trial of expe- 
 rience. Both are subject to a control, — by a large for- 
 eign body, that of the Board of Overseers, — -which the 
 wisdom of the Commonwealth has judged to be sufficient j 
 and when the College authority, in the several departments, 
 has entertained an important question, the public does not 
 commonly have to wait long, to be acquainted, in detail, with 
 facts and reasons. But it is to our point, to express the 
 confident opinion, that any possible disadvantage, greater or 
 less, to which the College may seem exposed, by occurren- 
 ces like those of recent date, is not to be often or long incur- 
 red through their repetition. We believe it impossible that 
 the evil, whatever it be, of such combined resistance to au- 
 thority, should be permanent, because of our persuasion that 
 it stands upon bases altogether insufficient to sustain it. We are 
 satisfied, that its grounds only need to be looked at with that 
 careful attention, which interesting consequences like those 
 lately witnessed will secure for them, to melt away beneath 
 the view. And, apart from this, we know the young gentle- 
 men to be such good reasoners, that the strength or frailty of 
 principles, on which they may have acted, will not eventually 
 remain concealed from their perception. 
 
 One of the grounds, on which combined resistance to au- 
 thority in such an institution appears to proceed, is a vague 
 idea, that, in the relation implied in its laws, the governors 
 constitute one party, and the students for the time being, the 
 other ; so that, if there be supposed fault to find in such laws 
 or their execution, the latter, being the sole party in interest, 
 are the party to find it, and to insist, if need be, on a rem- 
 edy. Now the students for the time being are not the other 
 5 
 
30 Harvard College. 
 
 party in that relation, but a very small portion of it ; a por- 
 tion so small, as to be, numerically, — almost insignificant, we 
 would say, if the word did not seem to imply disrespect, a 
 thing which, above all others, we mean to be careful to avoid, 
 No doubt they are so situated, in some respects, as to have 
 advantages, other things being equal, for an exact acquaint- 
 ance with the operation of the laws, and peculiarly to feel 
 the present pressure, if the laws work ill. But they do not 
 make up the party, for whose improvement and satisfaction 
 the laws are ordained and administered: no, nor are they so 
 much as the legal, nor so much as the rightful, nor so much 
 as the apparent representatives of that party. The laws are 
 made for the benefit of all the educable youth of the country, 
 alike of those who may come, as of those who have come under 
 them, — a number, of which that of the resident students at 
 any given time is but a fraction ; and they are made for the good 
 and use of others yet, of the friends of those youth, and of 
 the literary community at large, and of the body politic. It 
 is not then for A, B, and C, whose names this year are on 
 the College catalogue, to understand a supposed mal-adminis- 
 tration as a summons to themselves to put lance in rest. 
 They " take too much upon them," those " sons of Levi." 
 Before they can modestly assume that championship, they 
 must get authority from the youth of the country, with names 
 beginning with all the letters of the alphabet; and this done, 
 they must get authority from the many others, who have a 
 stake in the issue as well as they, and who, when they should 
 be consulted, might, or might not, be found to hold differ- 
 ent views, and decline their interposition. 
 
 What then is a person, so situated, to do, when he feels 
 himself aggrieved, and they, with whom lies the discretion, 
 will not right him ? Is he to submit to be oppressed ? There 
 is not a question easier to be answered. He is not to submit 
 to oppression. He is to go away, out of oppression's reach. 
 He has his own discretion in this matter, and one amply suf- 
 ficient for his own protection. The College does not want 
 to keep him to oppress, after a difference of opinion unhap- 
 pily arises, if he is not inclined to stay. Unless he be 
 chargeable with one of the higher offences, excluding him, 
 by academic courtesy, from reception elsewhere, — a case 
 which stands on its own grounds, and is very different from 
 what we are now supposing, — the arm of College authority 
 

 Harvard College. 31 
 
 cannot touch him, an hour after he wills that it shall cease to 
 do so. There is his remedy. If there be maladministration, 
 it follows not at all that the coercive correction is for him. 
 He is concerned for it, true, and so are very many others. 
 He, like others, under the obligations and with the advan- 
 tages of the place which he fills, may use his influence and 
 information to have it corrected in a legal way. But that cor- 
 rection is no more entrusted, either in law or in common 
 sense, to him and his two hundred and fifty associates, than 
 to any other two hundred and fifty citizens of the Common- 
 wealth, between the ages of sixteen and twenty. When ef- 
 fected, it is to be through the action of a body, which the 
 constitution and laws recognise as the true representatives of 
 the whole party actually concerned, the representatives of 
 the interest of students in Cambridge and out of it, and of 
 their friends, and of the friends of the College, of learning, 
 and of good order. 
 
 Another impression, which seems to be implied in recent 
 college movements, is, that the relation of classmate, or col- 
 lege-mate, imposes an obligation to make common cause ; so 
 that a man is concerned in honor to bring himself into trou- 
 ble, by illegal measures, when legal do not avail, either to ob- 
 tain redress for his associate who has in his judgment suffered 
 wrong, or, failing of this, to express his indignation at the 
 injustice. We speak under correction, when we say, that 
 we suppose this to be, at Cambridge, a modern refinement. 
 In old times, as far as we remember, general movements were 
 occasioned by some sense of general grievance. So it was 
 in the great commotion of 1768. So it was in that of 1807. 
 Nor can we, — though it may, we grant, be through defect 
 of memory or knowledge, — recall an instance, earlier than 
 within a score of years, in which resentment of supposed in- 
 dividual hardship led to a considerable combination in illegal 
 acts. But, new or old, this principle of action, we have no 
 idea is going to stand for ever, inasmuch as it stands on no tol- 
 erable grounds. If I take my seat in a stage-coach with a 
 stranger, I presently perceive that we have one point of sym- 
 pathy together, in the journey on which both are bound. If 
 I have common benevolence, I intend that his journey shall 
 be a pleasant one, as far as depends on me ; and little civil- 
 ities begin forthwith to pass between us. If he prove to be 
 an intelligent and well-disposed person, I am of course 
 
32 Harvard College. 
 
 pleased with the opportunity of such a familiar and uncere- 
 monious enjoyment of his society. And after we have part- 
 ed, should we ever meet again, I shall be gratified in recall- 
 ing with him the agreeable circumstances of our accidental 
 interview, and renewing the satisfactory communications 
 which had occurred. If I have had such a companion in a 
 Ions voyage, all relations of this description will have been 
 multiplied, and all interest heightened that grows out of them. 
 But. certainly 3 I cannot think of giving to every person with 
 whom I may have chanced to whirl in an omnibus, or to pace 
 a quarter-deck, such a control over my agency and standing, 
 that his honor is to be my honor; his quarrel, my quarrel; 
 his discredit or loss, a thing that he must be relieved from, or 
 else share it with me. If he gets into trouble, I shall wish 
 him, and do what I can to bring him, out of it. So much is 
 due to charity. If I think he suffers wrong. I shall remon- 
 strate and otherwise interest myself with the wrong-doer for 
 his indemnification, in such manner as my relation to the lat- 
 ter may make fit. So much is due to justice. If the case 
 seems to me flagrant, I shall be willing to put myself to 
 much expense and inconvenience to have him righted. But 
 it can hardly be so flagrant, that I shall find it my duty to 
 acknowledge claims (on the ground of any accidental fellow- 
 ship, independent of the claims of humanity,) which shall in- 
 volve disappointment and distress to other friends, to whom I 
 am attached in obligations of the earliest date and of the 
 closest intimacy ; and it absolutely cannot be so flagrant, that 
 I shall be willing to disregard such obligations as the latter, 
 when the disregard of them can be attended with no benefit 
 to him whom 1 would serve. Certainly I shall not. because a 
 man is my fellow-traveller, allow that he has a right to expect 
 me to take counsel in his behalf, on all occasions, of my feel- 
 ings, which may be hasty, and of my first judgment, which 
 may be dull. If he looks to me for good offices on the 
 common grounds of justice and generosity, as they bear on 
 the relations between man and man, these I understand, and 
 there is no danger of their creating interference with any of 
 my duties ; but if on the ground of a particular relation, 
 then there are other relations, which I ought to consider 
 much more ; relations, which will righteously call upon me, 
 as soon as there is conflict, or danger of conflict, to give them 
 practical precedence. 
 
Harvard College. 33 
 
 Now a college, as far as the question before us is concern- 
 ed, is a public conveyance, carrying its burden four years 
 forward from childhood into life. Nor is it only, nor mainly, 
 the length of the opportunity afforded by it, to those whom 
 it conveys, to mature a mutual interest, which causes it to 
 give a peculiar relish to the feeling thus inspired. The 
 intercourse, for which it affords occasion, is connected with 
 common occupation in engaging studies, and with the rapid, 
 and happy, and intense experience of youth. The college 
 journey, in a word, is a journey towards fairy -land, over a re- 
 ™ gion attractive enough to deserve to lie in such a line of way ; 
 
 a journey made by a party in high spirits, of quick percep- 
 tions, full of wit, of unoccupied hearts, of like age, and with 
 many other points of sympathy. And no wonder, that the 
 travellers should find it pleasant, and from the very begin- 
 ning feel very kindly towards one another. But after all 
 that can be said on that side, still we cannot get so far as 
 to say on the other, that a man is to feel himself bound, for 
 better for worse, for richer for poorer, for well-behaved or 
 roguish, to whosoever, unseen by him till then, has happen- 
 ed to vault or blunder into college on the same Midsum- 
 mer day with himself. We cannot find so much as a goodly 
 seeming pedestal of moon-shine to uphold the fancy, that an 
 obligation created by that accident, — an accident, it may 
 well be, and often is, which neither of the parties particu- 
 larly rejoices in, — is to supersede obligations which devoted 
 years of a mother's love have been establishing, and anxious 
 years of a father's sturdy toil. We submit, that that notion 
 will not stand the looking at. It trembles and sways under a 
 beam of light, like a balanced needle in an exhausted receiver. 
 It is soon going to be in the limbo of " things lost on earth." 
 £1 At all events, it will not do for our " climate and manners." 
 It is quite too sublimated ; too exquisite ; too German, we 
 would say, but that national reflections are illiberal ; at least, 
 too German after the manner of Professor Pottingen's daugh- 
 ter in Canning's play in the Antijacobin, who accosts another 
 fair traveller, whom she encounters in the common room of 
 an inn, with the proposal ; " A sudden thought strikes me ; 
 let us swear eternal friendship." — And then to go on, and 
 in this summary offensive and defensive alliance, do battle, 
 as soon as the uncertain trumpet sounds, at the hazard of 
 much that is interesting to one's hopes, and important in 
 
34 Harvard College. 
 
 the view of one's good sense, — why, this does seem to us 
 a most incoherent centaur-composition of excessive amenity 
 and exaggerated manliness. It is Captain Mac Turk grouped 
 with Damon and Pythias. Rather, it is the bravery of that 
 worthy, engrafted on the devotion of Araminta Vavasour, 
 and her gentle boarding-school friend ; 
 
 " We walked hand in hand to the road, love, 
 We looked arm in arm to the sky ; 
 And I said, when a foreign postillion 
 
 Shall hurry me off to the Po, 
 Don't forget your Medora Trevilian," &c. 
 
 We do not mean to leave any body at liberty here to 
 misapprehend us. We are not of those, if any such there 
 be, who think lightly of the interest of the relation of class- 
 mate at college. Perchance we know about its interest, as 
 well as younger men. Perchance we have had, in our day, 
 as much of the good of that relation as others, and have as 
 much reason as others to know the worth of permanent 
 friendships, there formed and nurtured. But we hope we 
 never saw the time, when we looked upon it as the great 
 dispensing relation of life ; if we ever did, that time is so 
 distant, though we are not octogenarians, as to have quite 
 faded from our memory. And in these few words we have 
 not designedly said one, to wound the feelings of any, who 
 have been implicated in recent transactions. Quite a dif- 
 ferent sentiment from any which would dictate this, is 
 excited in every observer of tolerable rectitude of mind and 
 heart. Those youth are our sons, or sons of our kindred, 
 neighbours, and friends. They are bone of the community's 
 best bone, and flesh of its dearest flesh. We love every man 
 and boy of them. We could not spare so much as one from 
 the good public service, which we hope they are destined 
 to render. We would trust them to-morrow with any thing, 
 in which uprightness of mind and heart was alone concern- 
 ed ; and with many things which called for clear judgment, 
 provided the case was one, in which that college idiopathy, 
 we have been commenting on, was out of the way. There 
 is sense and excellence among them, which ensures that 
 their errors, if they err, shall be viewed much more " in 
 sorrow than in anger." We do not expect Alcibiades to 
 have Socrates' grey hairs, though as often as he harms him- 
 
Harvard College. 35 
 
 self, he makes us wish that he had, for his protection, more 
 of the philosophy he is studying. Indeed, they must be 
 much more than commonly wise men, if, at twice their pres- 
 ent age, they never make great mistakes. And they must 
 be very much more than commonly good ones, if their mis- 
 takes have never a worse source, than an ill-defined and 
 exaggerated feeling of honor. And they must be very 
 much more than commonly fortunate ones, if they are always 
 told of their mistakes as good-naturedly, as we have desired 
 to comment on what we account such now. 
 
 For our glorious Alma Mater, we admit not a thought of 
 apprehension. It is not by so light a touch, that her age- 
 gathered honors are to be brushed away. Hers is a proud 
 and solemn mien, ready to frown, — but that it is too calm 
 and Jove-like, — on any thing like fear; — a radiant pres- 
 ence, that shines away every shade of gloom. We have no 
 doubt how her destiny is written. We wait in cheerful 
 trust till it be fully read. It is, in Milton's words, to "lead 
 and draw " her sons " in willing obedience, inflamed with 
 the study of learning, and the admiration of virtue ; stirred 
 up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy 
 patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages." 
 
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