Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1908-07-10
derive from practice in its higher

uSii'S HOhi PldCtlCc III us nlRneI
reaches.
Secondly, with more men we could
broaden our course, and meet the
unquestioned demand of the times
for Scientific Course, without re-
CURED Latin. We are to-day the most
strictly classical College in New Eng
land. We are the only one in which
Latin is required for more than one year,
and one of four which it is impossible
to enter, in any course, without Latin.
We should not turn this College into a
technical school we need not try to
make ourselves University; but we
should have College that makes men
by whatever studies the men that are
needed in these times can best be
made. The boy is not made for the
College, but the College should be
made for the boy. 1t is no shame
to ask the student what he wants but
it is a shame, within reasonable limits,
not to give it to him. Unquestion-
ably the scholar, the man of highest
culture, the student skilled in .philoso-
ply, literature, or historical research,
must have Greek as we'll as Latin.
Of the two the Greek is the more
valuable, for it enshrines a nobler
literature and the soul of a nobler
people. A small College, training
every student in Greek as we'll as
Latin, specializing in literature, his
tory, and philosophy, would have
indeed high calling. But it should
first be secure of large endowment,
since the support of the classics can
not to-day be made a popular appeal /;
and should also resign itself to the
care of very small number of STU
dents, deliberately sending elsewhere
those whom God never made for
linguistic skill. We have not the
endowment, and with good conscience
we have not the privilege of serving
only certain type of mind. Students
do not seek College because they
feel that they are peculiarly gifted for
its particular work, but because of per-
sonal influence, and, in our own case,
often for reasons of location and
economy. Therefore we must not
rest content until there is work here
that will interest and enthuse students
of varied types of mind, not merely
the classical and the literary, but also
the practical and the scientific. We
must not ease our conscience until
every boy who has pursued in good
faith and industry four years of study
in a good secondary school is entitled
to continue his work with US, on the
same terms on which he might enter
other colleges of equal rank. A
preparation that is good enough for
the first Universities of America ought
to be good enough for US.
We can not make this advance with
out large increase OF endowment. We
need more Professors in Modern Lam
guages, in History and Political Sci
ence, and in the Natural and Physical
Sciences. With 100000 more we
could double our efficiency, increasing
both the number of students, particu-
larly of men, and the income from
tuition. l am convinced that this is
the first need of our College to-day.
Owing to the generosity OF Mr.. Ezra
]. Warner, we have Laboratories in the
natural sciences scarcely surpassed by
those of any American small College.
But no science remains stationary !;
continual additions of apparatus are
needed for the best results. We must
not send students out familiar only
with the methods of past decades, and
in the natural sciences it costs to
keep up-to-date. We should have
special endowment for the perpetual
care of our scientific laboratories.
Our beautiful Library, bearing a
name no Middlebury man can too
greatly honor, is inadequately sus-
tanned out of the general funds of the
College. The care of books, and the
guidance of students in the use of
books, is in our time becoming a pro-