New-York tribune., 1874-06-25
CONGRESS AND TIE COLLEGES.

This is season of breaking up. The
adjournment of Congress has filled us with
emotions of gratitude almost too deep for pen
and ink. The close of the collegiate year is
having the same effect upon classmen promoted
and upon young men and women equally
made Bachelors of Arts. And since the ad
iournment of Congress and the College COM
mencements come so near together, we hope
it will not be considered impertinent if we ask
why the colleges and our lower institutions of
learning do not furnish us with better members
of Congressi There is tough problem in the
question. OF course there are some edu-
Gated gentlemen in either branch, but
we can well remember, everybody old enough
can remember, when there were great many
more there than there are now. 1t Is lmpOs-
sble with truth to deny that the standard of
capacity for public affairs has been lowered.
Even rhetorical excellence, which usually sur
wives the ruin of everything else, has almost
entirely disappeared. Hardly single great
speech great considered simply as speech,
without reference to the right or wrong Of
it, has been made in Congress during the
session just closed. Compare the Senate, for
instance, rs 1t now exists with the same body
during the administration of Gen. JacksOn-a
period which VIC select because the Senate
then had great national Importance which
it has since lost Where are the McDuflies,
the Websters, the Calhouns, the Clays the
LvingstOns, the Haynes 7-where even the
Bentons, the Woodburys, the Grundys7 Every
body will remember what majority was that
which then fought the President inch by inch,
and what minority was that which upheld
the Executive standard. Looking back from
these degenerate days even Senators like
Wright and Buchanan and Tallmadge seem to
be great. A comparison of the House then
with the House now will show the same de-
cadence, or at any rate the same difference.
A debate then was q debate. 1t occupied it.
self with the question. 1t hardly ever degene
rated into low'and loud interchange of left
handed personal compliments. There were
small men there then, but they were recog-
nized as small men. When they talked they
were not listened to, and to their credit be it
said, they very seldom talked.
MediOcrity in boys is matter of course, and
we find no fault with it. But when we see it
continued, when we see professedly educated
men going on as they have begun, making the
most of a very little scholarship, and under
taking the responsible duties of legislators
with hardly any training for the task, We be-
gin to wonder how long the Republic can live
in this hit or miss way. For aw-making,
without regard to its specific purposes, is itself
science requiring peculiar tact and skill.
Why is not this science taught in our colleges
Three years after lad has taken his first
degree he may be q Member of Congress in
these times of pushing precocity; and what
has his college done to fit him for the bus-
nessi How much history, especially American
history, has it taught himf And how has it
taught what little it has undertaken to teach
We are not, speaking Of naked dates and of
simple names and of hackneyed events, but of
the inexorable laws which govern human af-
fairs and of the relation OF cause and effect
which makes all historyi Again, how much