60 Our Views and Reviews. [January, 



The Schools of Cincinnati and its Vicinity, by John P. Foote. Cincinnati, C. F. 

 Bradley & Co., 1855. 



To pei'petuate the memorials of its various scientific and literary societies, is 

 no small service to a community. That service Mr. Foote has most effectually 

 rendered to this community, in his excellent book bearing the above title. With- 

 out such memorials, our history must needs be incomplete ; for with the history 

 of its institutions of learning, is bound up much of the public and domestic 

 history of every city and community — much especially, as our author has sug- 

 gested, that is explanatory of the rapid growth and permanent prosperity of our 

 City. 



As Mr. Foote remarks, " The entire period of the history of Cincinnati, is within 

 the memory of persons now living." And yet, when passing our thronged 

 streets, along which palatial mansions and wealth by millions meet the eye, how 

 incomprehensible to those not conversant with " the record," is the statement 

 that no longer than sixty-six years ago, thirty inlots, each of half an acre, and 

 thirty out-lots of four acres each, were offered to " ie given to settlers, upon pay- 

 ing one dollar and fifty cents for the survey and deed for each lot ;" so that for 

 ninety dollars, the "settler" could have secured a farm of one hundred and 

 thirty acres, in the midst of what is now the third city on the continent. 



Under the title " Cincinnati College,'' the author has given many reminiscences 

 of those distinguished pioneers, whose cultivated minds, enlarged views and 

 liberal hearts and hands, left an auspicious impress upon our institutions of 

 learning. 



Speaking of "i^ar?«ers' College,'' the author says : "This Institution is established 

 at College Hill — one of those beautiful hills that surround Cincinnati, and which, 

 like the mounds of our predecessors of a remote antiquity, that seem to imitate 

 them, are monuments — not like them of the dead, decayed and forgotten, but in 

 their present high state of cultivation, of the life-aiding loveliness of Agricultural 

 and Horticultural sciences and art, when brought into legitimate operation." 



Again he says: " The charter of Farmers' College was granted in 1846, with 

 all the powers usually conferi-ed on such Institutions ; and an endowment has 

 been obtained by voluntary donations for that purpose, amounting, in buildings, 

 grounds, etc., to upward of $130,000." Its Faculty includes professorships of 

 mental and moral science, rhetoric and institutes of civil law ; of history and 

 political economy ; of mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy ; of ancient 

 languciges and literature ; of the natural sciences, with their application to agri- 

 culture and the arts; of modern languiges and literature; and of botany and 

 vegetable physiology, with a Principal in the preparatory department, who is 

 adjunct professor of mathematics, a Principal (Mr. Carey) of the Farm Depart- 

 ment, a professor of scientific and practical agriculture and horticulture ; with 

 an Actuary of the Farm Department and Teacher 6f Landscape Gardening. These, 

 with two tutors, cons.titute a powerful Faculty. The curriculum is extensive, 

 embracing two courses, one termed the classical, which does not differ from the 

 curriculum of our colleges generally, and the other termed the scientific course, 

 which omits the ancient, and includes the modern languages, with the sciences 

 and practical agriculture," etc. 



* Since Mr. Foote's book was written, the additional sum of about $113,000 has been raised, 

 making the property and endowment of the Institution now amount to about $243,000 



