Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1864-10-13

I HarvaIu, VA W, r.,
ersity, has e .eand the New YORK UNI
80, nros, u the last thirty years been
meet IN, 4erous in every important ne
fn,,ed IN any other college In the
,and States. Professor Gillespie
NV ast the head Of teachers and lee
= .ers on practical mechanics, engin-
ring, projectiles, gunnery, &c. This
Institution, although greatly hamper
cd with outside departments" is not a
whit behind Others in the number of its
eminent linguists and mathematicians.
Three probable reasons may be assigned
for the fact that az those collegiate insti-
tutions which have been the most "en-
numbered with extra scientific depart
ments," have also produced the greatest
number of eminent classical and mathe-
NAUTICAL scholars. IN the first place
they have had the good fortune to receive
O larger proportion thaH Others of tai
ented young men. That this should be
uniformly the case, however, would seem
to be owing to something besides mere
chance The fact is, young men Of hon
est pride and lofty aspirations have a
sort of hydrophobia of what they some
times call d "one horse college," and
they will not unfrequently go out of
their own neighborhood and state to en-
ter an institution of greater power and
pretensions. In the second place, their
students were better fitted to enter up.
on the severe college course with vigor
and success. 1t is notorious that a great
many are admitted into some colleges
who have not half mastered their pre-
paratory studies, and the first year or
two of the college course is frittered
away either in doing the work which
ought to have been done in the acade-
my, or in worrying along without I'M
Outstanding word of the lessons. Those
colleges that are well endowed, and
well supplied with students, will not be
! so likely to let down from their require
ments the students they do admit will
| have the advantage of a good prepara-
ton, and will come out better scholars
In the end. In the third place the pro-
fefsors themselves are more deeply i'm
bued with the spirit of improvement.
! In colleges where Latin, Greek and
Mathematics overshadow everything
else, the daily routine consists mainly
in the students reciting to a professor
| lessons from text book. If they re-
cite perfect" lessons, the professor may
sit in silence during the entire hour
| and at all events he gives explanations
and Illustrations which he has given
/ twenty times before, and he makes little
or no improvement himself,
Having proved to his own satisfaction
that the college proper" would be seri-
ously injured by the proposed incum-
! brance, Educator next proceeds to
| prove that the tincumbrance" itself, OF
the college improper, would be still
more seriously damaged. The reasons
assigned are again principally two
first, that it would be impracticable fol
the students of the scientific department
to receive instruction in the recitation
rooms of the classical department with
the college students" and second, that
the students of these other depart
ments" would be looked doom upon by the
college students. .ss..,
In reference to the first proposition
Educator" says that "the college class
.es will be large enough, if not too large
without the others" Now SO far as tht
Vermont colleges are concerned, we
opine that, from the time that Middle
bury graduated Its zone scattering
Bachelor in 1902 until now, the recita
ton rooms have not been very much
crowded. AS Educator" has in al
probability "seen the inside" he may
know that college classes are not unfre
quentiy so large that they have TO be
| divided into two and three divisions, tc
recite to as many different professors II
their respective rooms. The plea o
want of room, therefore, is not valid
the remedy is simply that of hitching or
another car in consequence of the large
number of passengers. Educator" g,es
on to say, 'even when the college stu
dents might be pursuing for the time thu
same branches with the agricultural
it would not be thought at all expedien'
to put them all into the same class I'M
der the same instructor" "No, one who
has been inside Of a college would think
of advocating it," This last assertion
is not strictly true, because some who
have been "inside' do think of advocat-
ing 1t. We should like then, to know
what there is in the nature of the case
to prevent those who are suitably pre-.
pared from reciting together in such
branches as Natural Philosophy, Chem
istry, Geology, Technology, Rhetoric
Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Prac
tical Mathematics, Meteorology, and
the like. We happen to recollect some
instances of this kind that took place