Report on a Course of Liberal Education. 315 



expedient, provided that starvation is not the consequence of 

 a patronage so minutely divided. We anticipate no disas- 

 trous results from the multiplication of colleges, if they can 

 only be adequately endowed. We are not without appre- 

 hensions, however, that a feeble and stinted growth of our 

 national literature, will be the consequence of the very scanty 

 supply of means to most of our public seminaries. 



The Universities on the continent of Europe, especially in 

 Germany, have of late gained the notice and respect of men 

 of information in this country. They are upon a broad and 

 liberal scale, affording very great facilities for a finished ed- 

 ucation. But we doubt whether they are models to be co- 

 pied in every feature, by our American colleges. We hope 

 at least, that this college may be spared the mortification of 

 a ludicrous attempt to imitate them, while it is unprovided 

 with the resources necessary to execute the purpose. The 

 only institution in this country, which, so far as we know, has 

 started upon the plan of the European universities, required 

 an expenditure, before commencing operations, of more than 

 three hundred thousand dollars ; a sum far greater than Yale 

 College has received in a century and a quarter, from the 

 bounty of individuals and the state together. The students 

 come to the universities in Germany at a more advanced 

 age, and with much higher preparatory attainments, than to 

 the colleges in this country. The period of education which 

 is there divided into two portions only, one of which is spent 

 at the gymnasium and the other at the university, is here di- 

 vided into three, that of the grammar school, the college, 

 and the professional school. The pupils, when they enter 

 the university, are advanced nearly or quite as far, in litera- 

 ture if not in science, as our students are when graduated. 

 The institution in Germany which corresponds most nearly 

 to our colleges, in point of attainments, and the age of the 

 students, is the gymnasium. The universities are mostly oc- 

 cupied with professional studies. In Halle, for example, of 

 eleven hundred students, all except sixty are engaged in the 

 study of Theology, Law, and Medicine. But in the United 

 States, the professional schools are scattered over the coun- 

 try, and many of them are at a distance from the colleges. 

 The different denominations of christians have their sepa- 

 rate Theological Seminaries. Students at law are distribu- 

 ted in the several states, to accommodate their education to 

 the peculiarities in the legal practice of each. If to the Th&- 



