The New York herald., 1876-12-26


College Of Physicians and Surgeons. 90 42l
ST. johns college. ge...-................ ~ 419
College OF St Francis Xavier ......... 4S 694
Manhattan College ................... 10 100
General The eoIog.cal Seminary. ........ IS
Union Theological Seminary IL III
College OF New York. rk.................3 - SA
This table shows that we are not ill pro-
vided with institutions authorized to confer
degrees. They compare favorably with most
other colleges of the same kind in the
United States, but none Of them reaches or
approaches the rank Of the great European
universities or has standing like Harvard
and Yale in our own country. But their
aggregate attendance of nearly four thou
sand young men proves that an institution
of the highest class would not lack stu
dents.
1t may be said that the multitude of ex-
isting colleges in this city and everywhere
in the United States leave no room for q
great university. This is true if Columbia
should bid against them on their own
ground and pursue their methods. But there
is ample space above their heads. Swift,
whose wit often conveyed valuable mean
ings even when it seemed most whimsical
"In all assemblies, though you wedge them
ever so close, we may observe this peculiar
property, that over their heads there
is room enough, but how to reach
it is the difficult point" We COM
mend this idea to the authorities Of
Columbia College. Let them raise their
institution into the vacant space above
Al. L l.. L - III
Disdaining vulgar competition in stone
and mortar, not relying too much on the
growing demand for polytechnic instruction
which so many colleges are properly attempt
ing to satisfy, they should feel that for them
has been reserved the high mission of Great
ing university which will make culture an
end to be pursued for its own sake and not
means for fittingmen to be instruments. Just
as athletic sports are pursued for the pleas
ure felt in them, although they strengthen
the body for every useful purpose, SO intel
lectual culture should be pursued for its
own nobleness and as its own great reward,
and the mind will meanwhile be invigorated
for all the exertions of practical life. AS the
country grows in wealth we shall have
constantly increasing class of young men
who inherit q competence, and who will
start in life with the means of gratifying a
taste for art, love for manly recreations,
delight in foreign travel and desire
for intercourse on an equal footing with able
and cultivated men. If we had univer-
sity organized on the principle that culture
is to be priced for its own sake and is to be
courted for its beauty more than for its
dowry, its standards of excellence would be
so raised that all our colleges would be
stirred to emulation. Nothing tends to diff
fuse itself like high excellence, even in
trivial arts. The champion billiard players
have filled all our towns with billiard tables
the champion boatmen have covered our
lakes and rivers with healthful and ex-
hilarating sport the race course is filling
the country with improved breeds of horses.
One Pope or one Tennyson spawns a
school of imitators, whose productions
Heaven save us from reading, although they
illustrate the tendency Of excellence to
excite effort in the same direction. All
kinds of culture descend, like streams, from
their sources but n there were no noun
tains to give them birth there would be
no rivers to diffuse fertility and beauty
through less elevated regions. A univer-
sity which erects the loftiest standards, and
pursucs noble culture with disinterested
aims, imparts something of its dignity
and spirit to institutions Of tho
next lower grade, and these in turn to
seminaries of the third order, operating
like the little leaven which the woman in
the parable "hid in three measures of meal
till the whole was leavened."
If Columbia aspires to supply this great
central want-the want of potent stimu-
lus in American culture-she must take
hold of the problem by the right handle.
Her thoughts must not run upon q campus,
and edifices, and laboratories, and OBJ
servatories, and apparatus and vast ex-
ternal appliances, which are the mere
husks Of university, but her first effort
must be to assemble galaxy of able and
brilliant professors. For propagating re-
ligion one St. Paul would be worth ell the