COLLEGE LEARNING. 159 



culture upon a certain order of minds : ' My acquaint- 

 ance with men of education, though not very extensive, 

 is yet sufficiently so to convince me that the people 

 whose capacities average between mediocrity and the 

 lower extreme of intellect are rather injured than bene- 

 fited by being made scholars. Men of this kind, when 

 bred up to a common mechanical profession, are generally 

 quiet and unpretending, useful to society and possessed 

 of an almost instinctive knowledge of those rules of 

 conduct an attention to which makes easy the passage 

 through life. As scholars, however, they frequently 

 bear a character much the reVerse of this. I have met 

 with such newly set loose from college, and have taken 

 an inventory of their intellectual stock. A smattering 

 of Greek and Latin ; an affected admiration of writings 

 whose merits they have neither taste nor judgment to 

 appreciate ; a few confused philosophical notions ; a few 

 broken ideas, the imperfect transcripts, not of things, 

 but of other ideas ; an ability of conveying trite 

 thoughts in common language; a pride that gloats 

 enraptured over these attainments ; and a sincere con- 

 tempt for the class of people whom they deem the ignor- 

 ant. Parnell's beautiful description of a lake when 

 perfectly calm and when ruffled by a pebble illustrates 

 happily the minds of men of true and of fictitious learn- 

 ing. The sensoriums of the former are mirrors of the 

 universe, those of the latter present only scenes of 

 broken fragments/ 



Swanson, like most young men of ability who study 

 in the Scottish colleges, was an eager metaphysician, 

 immersed in the study of Locke, Hume, Berkeley, and 

 Reid. On the lighter departments of literature he 

 looked with indifference, tempered by disdain. Miller's 

 pursuits and preferences were of precisely the opposite 



