LETTER TO EMERSON. 619 



TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 



December 12, 1864. 



MY DEAR EMERSON, If your lecture on 

 universities, the first of your course, has been 

 correctly reported to me, I am almost inclined 

 to quarrel with you for having missed an ex- 

 cellent chance to help me, and advance the 

 true interests of the college. You say that 

 Natural History is getting too great an as- 

 cendency among us, that it is out of pro- 

 portion to other departments, and hint that a 

 check-rein would not be amiss on the enthu- 

 siastic professor who is responsible for this. 



Do you not see that the way to bring about 

 a well-proportioned development of all the re- 

 sources of the University is not to check the 

 natural history department, but to stimulate 

 all the others ? not that the zoological school 

 grows too fast, but that the others do not 

 grow fast enough ? This sounds invidious and 

 perhaps somewhat boastful ; but it is you and 

 not I who have instituted the comparison. It 

 strikes me you have not hit upon the best 

 remedy for this want of balance. If sym- 

 metry is to be obtained by cutting down the 

 most vigorous growth, it seems to me it would 

 be better to have a little irregularity here and 



