33G Report on a Course of Liberal Education. 



The college ought not to presume upon its influence, nor to 

 set itself up in any manner as a dictator. It" it should pursue 

 a course very different from that which the present state of 

 literature demands ; if it should confer its honors according 

 to a rule which is not sanctioned by literary men, tlie faculty 

 see nothing to expect for favoring such innovations, but that 

 they will be considered visionaries in education, ignorant 

 of its true design and objects, and unfit for their places. 

 The ultimate consequence, it is not difficult to predict. The 

 college would be distrusted by the public, and its reputation 

 would be irrecoverably lost. 



Another plan for improving on the collegiate system, is, — 

 to confer degrees on those only who have finislied the pre- 

 sent established course, — but to allow other students, who do 

 not aim at the honors of the college, to attend on the instruc- 

 tion of the classes as far as they shall choose. This scheme, 

 it is supposed, has a manifest superiority over all others. It 

 will satisfy the wishes of those who are pleased with the old 

 system, and open the advantages of the college to such as 

 from their circumstances wish for a partial education. That 

 an education may be partial, and still useful, is not denied. 

 Such an education must, after all, be that which is acquired 

 by the great body of the community. That the means of 

 such an education should be abundant ; that the encourage- 

 ment to it should be every way adequate to the object, all 

 acknowledge. The only question is, whether two schemes 

 of education, so diverse, can be properly united in the same 

 seminary. The objections to such an union in this college 

 arc obvious and great. 



In colleges differently constituted from this, such a union 

 might be unobjectionable ; here, certainly, both classes of 

 students would only injure each other. 



But with respect to all proposals of this kind, the in(]uiry 

 should be, is there such a demand on the part of the public 

 for these changes as to make it imperative on the college to 

 adopt them in any of the forms in which they have been pre- 

 sented? That there are complaints of the old system of colle- 

 giate education in some of the public journals ; that individu- 

 als are clamorous on this subject, and consider every thing old 

 as of course wrong, and every thing new as of course right, 

 is admitted. But that the great body of the supporters of 



