3 1 6 Report on a Course of Liberal Education. 



ological, Medical, and Law Institutions attached to Yale 

 College, there were added what is called in Germany a 

 School of Philosophy for the higher researches of literature 

 and science, the four departments together would constitute 

 a university in the European sense of the term. The proper 

 collegiate department would still have its distinct and appro- 

 priate object, that of teaching the branches preparatory to 

 all the others. It would, in our opinion, bo idle to think 

 of adopting in tlie college, the regulations and plan of in- 

 struction in a university ; unless the students of the former 

 were advanced three or four years farther than at present, 

 both in ai^e and acquirements. Would parents in this coun- 

 try consent to send their sons, at the age of sixteen, to an 

 institution in which there should not be even an attempt at 

 discipline, farther than to preserve order in the lecture room ? 

 When the student has passed beyond the rugged and cheer- 

 less region of elementary learning, into the open and en- 

 chanting field where the sreat masters of science are moving 

 onward with enthusiastic emulation; when, instead of plod- 

 ding over a page of Latin or Greek, with his grammars, 

 and dictionaries, and commentaries, he reads those langua- 

 ges with facility and delight ; when, after taking a general 

 survey of the extensive and diversified territories of literature, 

 he has selected those spots for cultivation which are best 

 adapted to his talents and taste ; he may then be safely left 

 to pursue his course, without the impulse of authoritative in- 

 junctions, or the regulation of statutes and penalties. But 

 we question whether a college of undergraduates, unprovided 

 with any substitute for parental control, would long be pat- 

 ronised in this country. 



Although we do not consider the literary institutions of 

 Europe as faultless models, to be exactly copied by our 

 American colleges ; yet we would be far from condemning 

 every feature, in systems of instruction which have had an 

 origin more ancient than our republican seminaries. We 

 do not suppose that the world has learned absolutely noth- 

 ing, by the experience of ages ; that a branch of science, or 

 a mode of teaching, is to be abandoned, precisely because it 

 has stood its ground, after a trial by various nations, and 

 through successive centuries. We believe that our colleges 

 may derive important improvements from the universities 

 and schools in Europe ; not by blindly adopting all their 

 measures without discrimination ; but by cautiously introdu-^ 



