342 Report on a Course of Liberal Education. 



prescribed to them. There his duty stops." And again — ■ 

 "Not one of our colleges is a place for thorough teaching j 

 and not one of the better class of them does half of what it 

 might do, by bringing the minds of its instructors to act di- 

 rectly and vigorously on the minds of its pupils, and thus to 

 encourage, enable and compel them to learn what they 

 ought to learn, and what they easily might learn." That 

 the faculty of this college have always fallen upf>n the best 

 methods of instructing, or, in all cases, have done the utmost 

 which it has been in their power to do, they will not say ; 

 but to the assertion, that all they undertake " is to ascertain 

 from day to day, whether the young men assembled in their 

 presence have probably studied the lesson prescribed to 

 them," they would oppose an unqualsried denial. The 

 most abundant pains are taken to explain and enforce the 

 principles of every branch of learning to which the students 

 are required to attend, not only when they are assembled in 

 classes, but often, as they need assistance, individually. If 

 the faculty know what is meant by " bringing the mmds of 

 the instructors to act directly and vigorously on the minds of 

 their pupils," they think they should fail in their duty to 

 themselves and to the institution, if they did not assure the 

 committee, that, in their belief, something very much like it 

 exists here. 



This writer goes on to ask, " Who in this country, by 

 means here offered him, has been enabled to make himself 

 a good Greek scholar? Who has been tauyht thoroughly to 

 read, write, and speak Latin? Nay, who has been fnught any 

 thing at our colleges with the thoroughness that will enable 

 him to go safely and directly onward to distinction in the de- 

 partment he has thus entered, without returning to lay anew 

 the foundations for his success?" That the students of this 

 college learn every thing in the several branches here taught, 

 which it is desirable to know, is not maintained. Their in- 

 structors are very far from laying claim to such attainments 

 themselves ; nor have they known or heard of any set of in- 

 structors, either at home or abroad, whose just pretensions 

 rise so high. That in classical literature, particularly, all is 

 not accomplished which in other circumstances might be 

 hoped for, is not denied. That this branch of the collegiate 

 course is gradually improving, amidst all the discouragements 

 under which it labors — discouragements which originate 

 chiefly from without; that many scholars leave the college 



