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tion, seem to me to occupy felse positions, not only in relation 

 to an elevated standard of popular education, but in regard 

 to learning generally as a system. When in this country we 

 erect a literary institution, and call it a university, we seem to 

 imagine that we really have something resembUng a German 

 establishment of that denomination. So we estabhsh colleges, 

 and, misled by a name, we come near spoiling these valuable 

 seminaries, by attempting a miserable imitation of those learn- 

 ed republics which bear that name at the English universities 

 of Oxford and Cambridge. It does not seem to be at all un- 

 derstood what kind of institutions these latter are, or the pur- 

 poses they are designed to answer. The more ancient of 

 them were at first monasteries; and to this day each college 

 is a distinct community, living under a head in particular 

 buildings, and stUl in some degree after the monastic mode of 

 life. Every thing in them partakes of the spirit of this origin: 

 poUce, discipline, costume, habits, the subjects of study, and 

 the marshaUing of ranks, classes and degrees. The course of 

 education was originally prescribed with a special reference to 

 the great object of their foundation— that of supplying and 

 training candidates for orders in the established church: for 

 with this national establishment both universities were, and 

 still are, intimately blended. It was in this way, and under 

 the mighty influence of these very universities, that classical 

 hterature obtained that undue ascendency which even yet it 

 preserves. 



Now it seems to me plain, that in attempting to imitate the 

 EngHsh coUeges in ours, we have succeeded in copying their 

 defects very exactly, while we have been utterly unable to ap- 

 proach to a rivalship of their exceUencies. We bring the col- 

 legers together in particular buUdings, and form them as nearly 

 as possible into monastic communities, and instal ecclesiastics 

 at their head.* We establish that sort of discipUne which com- 



