St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-07-19
Is the College Worth the Candle ?
From the Rutland Herald, Edited by Graduate

From the Rutland Herald, Edited by Graduates ]
The colleges have nearly all closed
their educational year with the custom
ary celebration termed commencement,
and perhaps it is worth while to ask the
question care our average colleges
worth the candle ?" If this question
was honestly answered by any keen,
sensible man of the world, who guaged
the worth of a college by the ambitious
rhetoric and tedious defamation poured
out by under graduates, or by that mix
ture of cheap philosophy, literary gush
and mutual admiration panegyric that
form the annual after dinner incense
burned by faculty, alumni and other
guests, we suspect the answer would be
decided negative. We do not say
that there might not be college so
conducted that young man would be
helped both for this world and the world
to come, by spending four years within
its walls, but there is no college in Yer
mont that is worthy of any young mans
time or attention who has real thirst
for any higher latitude of learning and
culture than is afforded him by an ex-
cellent common school. The vast ma
JOrity of young men who go to college
are intended for practical callings; there
are pElpits and professors chairs for
the few; the time expended upon Latin
and Greek is a waste; the study of
pure metaphysics is a waste; indeed
the whole course of OuI average college
seems TO us to be ingeniously crammed
with the mere lumber of learning; il is
Il culture built out of dates, names, and
all the other dried fish of history.
Something is done towards bun dening
the memory not much toward stimu-
lating the powers of thought and the
faculty of clear, simple expression.
Nine-tenths of our Vermont college boys
can't be trusted to write simple news
paper paragraph with ordinary perspi-
Guilty and force; very many of them
spell frightfully, and are grossly ignOr-
ant of English grammar. Most of them
know next to nothing of English litera-
ture; even of the great names, like
Shakespeare, Byron and Shelley, and
they are equally ignorant of Hawthorne,
Emerson, Lowell and Webster.
The only weapons with which an
average college student finds himself
armed fol battle with the world may
be summed up in his possible, by no
means certain, ability to "sOlve an
equation OF construe page of Sallust."
In the press the editors trained from
the printers case are not only his su-
peIiOrs in keen instinct for the conduct
and organization of newspaper, but
! they are able to teach him how to write
his own language with accuracy, purity
and power. Into whatever calling they
go they find themselves easily matched
and often Overmatched by fellows whose
schooling ended with the common school
but whose education of thought and ex-
perience had been going on steadily,
while boys at college were learning
dead languages instead of mastering
their own noble speech. Yawning cul-
ture is never match for live thought.
| General Sherman talks at Princeton,
and teaches the whole faculty from
Doctor McCosh down, new lesson in
the art of shooting home high philOsO-
ply into the bOsOms of men; Lincoln
! and Everett talk at Gettysburg, and
Lincoln's speech is immortal while no
body cares to read Everett's. Go to
the board of agriculture meetings and
you will find farmers, who can hold
their own i'll speech, or in printed argu-
ment with any of our college professors
on their own ground, no wonder they
hesitate to send their boys to- institu-
tions that do not promise more than
they have won themselves without a
college.
The boy who wants deeper draught
than the common school wins his way
to those higher ATTITUDES, and he doesn't
need to linger four years i'll college
walls to do it either; and if he has not
thirst you cannot make him drink to
any advantage he drools and dribbles
without drinking.