New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-06-29
CONCERNING UoMsNs COLLEGES

CONCERNING UO1fSN'S COLLEGES.
We confess that we have taken the accounts
of the wonderful proficiency and thoroughness
of the fair graduates of Yassar College with
the prudential grain Of salt Those young
women seem TO us abnormal absorbents who,
in a brief four years, have achieved elegance
and fuency in Greek prose, in Latin verse, in
German and French classical and modern lit
erature and compositions; who have devoted
themselves to music "a to an Art; who shine
i'm philosophy, logic, rhetoric, zoology, meteo-
rology, history, political economy, botany, and
mathematics. For they have by no means
neglected the cultivation of the body.
Their system has been a charming paraphrase
of that admirable method devised by the OK
cellent Wackford Squeers, for which rude
world has never given him half credit enough.
Having learned that bottiney is a knowledge
of plants, they go and know 'em by
the process of healthy and scientific garden
ing. Mastering the natural history of the
horse, they straightway master the horse and
caracole in the riding-schoOl. Reading how
Palinurus nodded at the helm, or Of Cleopa-
tra's galley, or Of the sailing of the Ar
gonauts, they row matches on their lovely
lake, and neither nod, nor flee, nor fail.
If anything could enable spine, and eyes,
and pulpy cushions of the brain, TO
resist the ravages of Anthem, Smith,
Fasquelle, Fischer Paley, Butler, Whately,
Quackenboss, Youmans and Company, we
should say it was this excellent out-of-door
life. But, when we attempt to divide the sum
of twenty four hours by the stupendous frac
tons which represent eating, sleeping, recrea-
ton, study, and recitation, the dividend incon-
tinently changes places with the diyisor, and
the problem seems solvable only in that future
chronology wherein one day is as n thousand
years. Either Yassar encourages an inhuman
system of examining; or its graduates are
young women who inaugurate the Age Of Rea-
son or they are learning with marvellous ia
cility, as quick. witted girls are apt to do,
books upon books, TO be forgotten next month";
or they are digging, from that great cOnglom-
crate made up of all books, A Thousand
Things not Worth Knowing.
We honor most profoundly this brave and
unique attempt of Vassar College to put within
the reach of young women as comprehensive
and thorough course of study rs, in humid
red towns, invites young men. Ii presents a
system as much better than that adopted in
most Young Ladies' Seminaries, as theirs is
larger than the notion which limited woman's
proper requirements to q familiarity with The
Frugal Housewife and the family account
book. But we do but borrow the phrase
Of Vassar's valtdctorian when We say
that culture is means, not an end,
and that its value 10 every one OF these grad
yates is the helpfulness, the breadth, the COM
pleteness, the availability, it is to give her life
Assuming for the argument that each is q
Champollion of acquisitions, and assuming that
three -fourths of them 1--WE heartily wish it
were four fourths) are to make their own way
in the world, it seems to us that their Alma
Mater has by no means given them the fittest
preparation. Their training in Latin, Greek,
and mathematics would be most helpful to
teachers, preachers, lawyers, doctors, and chem
ists The ranks of teachers are already fear
fully overcrowded. 1t will be years before tho