244 ^^'^ College^ Errors in Respect to its Object and Aim. [June, 



educated, learned — that it should still require the same number of 

 pages of Homer and Virgil, of Cicero and Horace to the end of 

 the chapter, to be entitled to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, in de- 

 spite of whatever else the student may lay claim to ; as if to suc- 

 cessfully master these, was all of scholarship, all of liberal learning. 



A revolution is now going on, silently, it is true, yet none the less 

 surely ; and although the devotion to ancient forms and customs, es- 

 pecially among the learned, is deep and strong, yet we find not the 

 same homage now rendered it as formerly. Amid the march of 

 human improvement, incidental upon the developments of physical 

 science, and the multiplication of subjects, not only of study but 

 those well calculated to discipline the mind, it is not thought nec- 

 essary that all should follow the same beaten track, in order to be- 

 come eminent and learned. And though the temple of science has 

 not yet been thrown wide open to its votaries, and equal privileges 

 granted to them with the lover of literary honors, yet its mighty re- 

 sults, and wide-spread influence is doing for them and for it, what 

 the College or the University can neither claim or accomplish, and 

 ■which is calculated to place the aspirants of scientific honors in their 

 true position. 



It has been to meet the felt wants of our age, that a more liberal 

 course of scientific training has been devised, and adopted in Farm- 

 ers' College. And while we disparage no department of liberal 

 learning, but have furnished in our institution a full curiculum of 

 classical studies to the aspirant to literary honors, we have neverthe- 

 less cut ofi" what to the scientific student would be adventitious and 

 unnecessary. We have not done it at the expense of the forfeiture 

 of equal honors to his scientific rival. 



And while the Trustees and faculty of the Farmers' College are 

 fully imbued with the faith that there is no royal road to knowledge 

 by an easier or speedier route, than has hitherto been adopted, and 

 ■while they freely admit that there are certain indispensable elements 

 and instruments of knowledge, which all should acquire, and cer- 

 tain general principles, and departments, equally useful to all, yet 

 they as firmly hold that the study of the dead languages is not one 

 of the indispensable elements that must lie at the basis of all modes 

 of liberal culture, without which, the scholar must forego his im- 

 munities and honors They hold that the multiplied subjects, 

 the numerous sciences now introduced into the course of every 

 College catalogue, can neither be mastered, or rendered eminently 



