DR WAYLAND S VIEWS. 475 



institution must be closed. But upon examining the 

 available statistics of six of the New England Universi 

 ties, it was found that the number of students they con 

 tained, in 1850, was 261 only eight more than it was in 

 1830, or twenty years before. It was also found, that 

 those schools which had lowered their rates of tuition, and 

 the general expenses of residence those even which edu 

 cated the greater number gratuitously had not increased 

 their numbers thereby ; but during the last twenty 

 years, had even, by the use of these means, barely kept 

 up their original numbers, notwithstanding the rapid 

 increase of the population everywhere around them. 

 This disposed of the second cause. 



&quot; I concluded, therefore,&quot; said Dr Wayland to me, 

 &quot; that the article we offered the public in all these 

 colleges was not what the public wanted ; and that, 

 therefore, they did not come to take it even when it 

 was offered for nothing. Let us offer them what they 

 wish to have, and they will not only come to us to 

 buy, but will not grudge to pay us a fair price for it. 



&quot; What is the article, then, we have been hitherto 

 giving, and what new kind of goods will better suit the 

 intellectual market of the present time ? 



&quot; The great men who founded universities in ancient 

 times intended, by their regulations, to make them 

 generally useful to the people, so far as their lights went. 

 We do not act up to the spirit of their wishes, by follow 

 ing the letter of their instructions in our time. &quot;Were 

 they living now, they would see with our eyes, and 

 reason by the aid of our knowledge ; it is our duty, 

 therefore, now to make them useful to the people of our 

 time, according to our lights, and thus to make them 

 accordant to the spirit of their intentions. 



u But, independent of this pleading for the reformation 

 of old institutions, in our free country every man has an 

 equal right to education, both in common schools and in 



