neither
that momentum of years heavy with mighty names and weighty memories, nor
of wealth heaping massive piles and drawing within their cloistered
walls the learning of successive centuries which carries the European
universities crashing down the ages, though often heavy laden with the
dead forms of mediaeval preciseness. No established church makes with
them common cause, no favoring and influential aristocracy gives them
the careless security of a complete protection. Their development thus
far has been under very different influences. Founded in the wilderness
by our English ancestors, they were, at first, it is true, in their
course of study and in foolish formula of ceremony an imperfect copy of
trans-Atlantic originals. Starting from this point, their course has
been shaped according to the peculiar genius of our institutions and
people. Republican feeling has dispensed with the monastic dress, the
servile demeanor toward superiors, and the ceremonious forms which had
lost their significance. The peculiar wants of a new country have
required not high scholarship, but more practical learning to meet
pressing physical wants. Again, our numerous religious sects requiring
each a nursery of its own children, and the great extent of our country,
have called, or seemed to call (in spite of continually increasing
facility of intercourse) for some one hundred and twenty colleges within
our borders. Add to this a demand not peculiar but general--the
increased claim of the sciences and of modern languages upon our
regard--and the accompanying fallacy of supposing Latin and Greek
heathenish and useless, and we have a summary view of the influences
bearing upon our literary institutions. Hence both good and evil have
arisen. Our colleges easily conforming in their youthful and supple
energy, have met the demands of the age. They have thrown aside their
monastic gowns and quadrangular caps. They have in good degree given up
the pedantic follies of Latin versification and Hebrew orations. Their
walls have arisen alike in populous city and lonely hamlet, and in
poverty and insignificance they have been content could they give depth
and breadth to any small portion of the national mind. They have
conceded to Science the place which her rapid and brilliant progress
demanded. On the other hand, however, we see long and well-proven
systems of education profaned by the ignorant hands of superficial
reformers. We see the colleges th