New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1854-06-02
COLUMBIA COLLEGE.

Schools is one which is so habtuaily brought oeorc
the public either officially or unoheal!y, that IL ma!
be well said there is theme better understood ahd
the result is growing improvements IN schooi-oooAs'
school houses schOo masters and last ana not ieas
school mistresses. The high-reaching qualities OF our
INNER Common Schools such that 1t IL difhcuit UT
impossible to say where they end and where a cone
catc course begins in comparison; and 1t may De iur
Their affirmed that some branches are better taught III
the Common Schools than in the Colleges. But taking
the Colleges at their own valuation, the COrin'han
capital of Education it may be we'll to look into the
condition Of that one which should most adorn and
illustrate this our City and give it metropolitan not
to say cosmopolitan, fame in letters and arts we
take occasion all the more to treat OF this College,
as though recent events have brought it seriously
into question, it has not awakened but turning
on one side the wrong side, and snoring the PuoNc
is still made acquainted with the fact that 1t Is not
dead but sleepeth, and requires to be aroused
In the first place we would inform our readers that
Columbia College is in the City OF New-lork, and not
in Columbia South Carolina, or in one OF the other
one hundred towns or villages which rejoice IN that
mythico national name 1.-The solitude OF crowd Is
90 greater than that of the woods" saying realized
in the case of Columbia College which though perched
on the classic nights of community containing some
seven hundred thousand souls and receiving besides as
MANY immigrants in a week AS Athens contained OF
citizens when most gorOus--yet is almost uhotce'
and unknown Why is it that Columbia College 10 so
poor in fame Why is it that Oxford, Cambridge
and Gottinpen in Europe, and Yale, Harvard and
Princeton in America should have wide, or the
widest reputation, and Columbia College only be Gel
ebrated by some such reverson to the dark ages as
its refusal recently to vote for an emnently conpe
tent person Professor of Chemistry merely because
he is a Unitarian We think there is a connection
between immobity and stOlidity, and II Coiumoia
College were more active in education III would DC
less befogged in theology 1t is time therefore, 10
seek to enven public sentiment on the necessity OF
having College worthy of this City-worthy as re-
CARDS its endOwments, the number OF its students,
the course of it's studies the reforms needed, and as
TO what ought to constitute College; and also as re-
CARDS the religious freedom suited to people outside
of mad house.
First we would premise that nothing can be done
without money in a college, and the more money the
more can be DONE Now Columbia College is not
Door On the contrary is rich. 1t is very rich IL
is the richest educational institution in the United
States. 1t commands resources to the amount Of
nearly five millions. Its revenue, therefore, ought
TO be over two thousand dollars a week. snug SUN
this Rightly spent it ought to confer the very
highest reputation on the College. But who knows
of it What though the President be liberal and
learned man, and there be- professors who would do
credit to any institution What do they show
whole Where is the evidence of their being abreast
with the age Where is that true classic discipline
brought out in the German schools in imitation Of the
Creeks Where are the gymnasia attached to the Col
lege where physca culture the basis mental-mens
sona in eorpore sano-and the beauty and strength of
gods and heroes made the beginning of all manly char
acterl Where, too the studies for the eye, in
complete course of drawing and paintiDg-opening
the vision to the truths and glories of the external
world and insisting the taste indispensable to high
culture Where is the classic study of music giving
Demosthenic breadth and strength 10 the chest
teaching the orator his secrets and aOrdng the most
social and spiritual of the arts Columbia College
calls itself cassic its masters and boys speak of
Athenan cuture-but of the soul of Athenian learn
ing they know nothing. So much for their pompous
assumption of classic taste and pursuits 1t is mere
sham 1t is an deaess imitation of perverted models
without one ray of genius.
But this is an age of science it has crawed out of
astrology into astronomy out of charms into chems
try; it has no witches who ride on broomstcks no
CHASTITY visitants from pandemonum; the earth is no
longer the center of creation, and the universe
mere appendix to little planet; but genius,
poised and positive as the reflex of unerring truth,
rides on the wave in trenchant triumph, brazens the
coolest sea- clutches dangers and distances as it
would caress loves and dOmesticties; perces the
iron-suied mountain; spans the cleft strait ensayes
the elements visible and invisible, that the Titans
of romance work under our eyes and the zig-zag OF
the skies plays postman TO the naons measures and
weighs the stars and predicts of the planets all their
crossings in the awful dance of eternity and reads in
every drop of water an infinite world of life and
beauty-nothing that is not god-like when radiated
through the prism Of science. And to be high priests
at this altar what glorious asprants there How
Europe and America bound forward in the struggle
We ii from the time when Franklin stood the pi-
Oneer on this continent to this moment when Hum
boldt stands in Europe the last and richest in the
treasures of thought. States, cities colleges, all
tend for precedence in the world-dgging water-dy-
ing sky-percing hosts of science. But in this army
what has Columbia College with its vast pecuniaryre
sources, TO show 7 Nothing whatever If its gradu.
ates are not ignoramuses in all that respects the
laws and principles which God reveals to man through
the universe of nature, they owe it to themselves,
not to their nggard and arid Alma Mater.
Take them, too, in etters-what have they done
What bold thoughts do they encourage in any Of the
movements of the epoch What motive power of
the intellect have they set going Where is their
stern cry for Liberty-Libcrty for all-for the
oppressed well the oppressor Liberty for the