New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1866-06-29

shades. n it'll what CELEBRITY would that respectable
s. r. D. be xpelled from his office, even although ho
couched the obnoxious sentiment in Latin and said;
"--quarenda pecunia primum est;
Virtus posi- nummoo"
But we do not see why he should not say it, when we
all mean it and do it, with our whole heart, and mind
and strength. And pay what should be the business
Of College but to prepare young gentlemen for the
business of life Then why should We not have Pro.
essorShps Of Stock Broking Y-charS devoted to the
art and mystery of cOmerng a stock'--teachers Of
the science of bamboozling jury and of driving a
coach and horses through the flaws of an Indictment
Lecturers on the pure mathematics OF Number One
good hard-headed, practical Doctors of the Main
Chance, with appropriate and necessary Textbooks
II it is to TO that at last, why not in the begin
ming
Questions like these bring us out of the salt fog Of
our cynicsm into grateful and sunny recognition of
what the Colleges have done for us, and may. with all
their faults, still do for us. This is very imperfect
world it is "prone and obedent," as Sallust has it,
"to the belly" and colleges, like churches per-
petual protests against complete surrender to the tenn
poral and the mechanical They are q confession of
faith which it is better to gable unconsciously
than not to say at ALL When man who
can hardly read English dies, and leaves
$50 900 to endOw Hebrew chair. he acknowledges
duly by hand and seal that there is ething better
than bulling or bearing stock Hewould have scofied
at Parson Adams if he had met him with Eschylus
in his pocket in wallst but the of that seeth
ing thoroughfare grows faint in his dying ears he
bethnks him that it will be very good thing to have
poor boys taught Greek. These are miracles, but we
have had too many Of them TO dsbeleve in them al
together Most of our seats of polite learning owe
their existence to the liberalty Of departed shop
keepers Hundreds of churches are under like oblga-
tions. mutation Of the hide aud tallow market may
give the languishing Chinese mission new lease OF
life SO Colleges are to be cultured and endowed, and
honoraby mentioned in last wills and testaments, If
for no other reason than for proof that Poor Richard
was right and that learning better than house or
lands" All the world in muzyy sort OF way feels
and acknowledges this
On the other hand, what Wealth does for Learning
is amply and generously repaid both by the new paths
Of enterprise and emolument which cultivation opens,
aud by respectable methods Of expanding money
which refinement establishes. Mr.. Astor would never
have thought Of establishing his great library if there
had not been so many little in the country. One
never knows in what form the planted seed will spring
up. Harvard College generates picture galleries in
New-York, and Yale may have something to do with
the Academy of Music. The beginning of all news
paper success is in the dame-school where the
alphabet is taught. The great operations OF
the banks are first scrawled upon a boys slate.
1t is not the ignorant money-changer who is
intolerable, but the money-changer who is
ignorant Of the wretchedness Of ignorance. The
main educational idea of this age is that of diffusion;
that of a past age concentration. We may have
fewer great scholars than lived and pored and end
lessly wrote in monastic times; but what we have
gained is a suficieney Of knowledge, so that no man
need be miserable through ignorance. In the promo
ton of this Colleges do their part especially in keep
ing up high Standard and the multiplication OF
universities only shows an advance in the ambition
and intelligence Of the masses. For this, whatever
may be collegiate shortcomings let US be grateful.