The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1896-11-07

VNNA 0uittNou VI tub NibpA M
examination of the biographical sketches
OF Congressman reveals the additional
fact, that one-half Of those who have served
In the United States Senate. have been col
lege trained; and the same thing may DO
said OF somewhat more h one-third OF
those who have been members OF the House
of Representatives. II we turn to the State
Governments, we find the influences of col
leRes no less unmistakable. DIR. THw1NG
tells us that Of the men who have been con-
spicuous in the public affairs OF Rhode
Island during the last century and n half,
only three can be mentioned who have not
been graduates Of Brown University. AL
most equally potent has been the role OF
Harvard College in Massachusetts, of Yale
College in Connecticut, Of Dartmouth Col
lege in New Hampshire, of Bowdoin College
in Maine, and Of Union College in New York.
1t is further to be noted that many, though
by nc means all, of the advances made by
Americans in the knowledge of tho laws of
nature, have been made under the patron
age Of the colleges, even IL they have not
been directly effected by college officers. DIR.
TIMING asserts that of the ten Americans
who have contributed most largely to the
progress Of natural and physical science,
eight will be ound to have been enrolled in
the college faculties. The greatest American
linguists, as we'll as the greatest American
mathematicians, Dur greatest philosophers
and psychologists, and several of our ablest
economists, have at one time or another
served as teachers in our universities.
Most Of the researches into the condi-
ton of the early races Of this CONT
nent, or of the Latin and Greek pep
Piles, or of the natives of the far East,
have found in the colleges their chief sup
porters and leaders. 1t Is usually in con-
nection with colleges hat archaeological
museums are organized. 1t Is also true
that our acquaintance with the liter
allure of the Greeks and Romans, the two
peoples which. next to the Hebrew people,
have most profoundly affected modern CIV
ilization, is derived largely through college
in~strumentalities. Without the college,
scholarship proper would be bereft of it's
most useful agency and its most healthful
conditions. The American scholar. in the
conventional sense of that term, has usually,
though Of course not always, been an officer
in an American university.
We pass, lastly, to a question which, as
DR.. THwING admits, is not so easily answered,
namely, the value Of the college considered
as a means Of promoting literature. 1t is
u~ndisputed that in any list of Ameri-
can writers, working at any given date
and at any given locality, the number of
college-bred men would not be found to
exceed the number of those who nave lacked
a college training. The principal worth of
the contribution, which colleges make to
literature, is to be measured by the extent
to which they uphold literary standards, in
spire literary motives. and by the degree in
which they foster literary atmospheres and
conditions. At the same time, DIR. TIMING
contends that of the really great authors of
the country. a majority are college trained.
Thus, he thinks, it would be generally ac-
knowledged that, of the five or six men who
are commonly regarded as the greatest poets
of the United States, four out Of the five,
or five out of the six. have been college
graduates. OF the five greatest historians
Of America: BANCROFT, HILDRETH, PRES
COLT, MOTLEY, and PARKMAN are, of course,
referred to, all received q college training.
The foremost nan HAWTHORNE, and
the foremost essayist. EMERSON, were sons
of New England colleges. When we add
that our greatest writers upon philosophi-
cal, ethical, and theological subjects nave
had, with hardly an exception, the advan-
tages of receiving a university education, it
will be generally acknowledged that Amer
can colleges have had a large share in the
creation of American literature.