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MR. CHANCELLOR,
AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CORPORATION,
OF THE BOARD OF FELLOWS,
AND OF CONVOCATION;IT has become my office on this, the first of our Collegiate Festivals, which has occurred since the assumption of the duties to which I now stand pledged, to offer to you some thoughts and observations, which shall be connected with one or another of those important subjects which on such an occasion come naturally under review. For though I do not know that our own precedents, absolutely demand this at my hands, yet custom long sanctioned elsewhere, does; and the dictates of propriety are obviously in agreement with it. My object must be, to avoid on the one hand, all considerations of a nature so merely general, as that their direct and practical bearing could not well be [5/6] discerned: and on the other, to escape the temptation of entering into such minuteness of detail, as would perplex the mind, and prevent it from taking a wider range and grappling with great principles. And this so desirable result, I have hoped might be attained, by calling your attention to what in regard to Human Learning, our own College actually proposes to accomplish; by considering the various great divisions and departments of study, with which she concerns herself; by observing the reasons for their adoption, the ends which they are intended to subserve, and the spirit in which they should be conducted. The plan is indeed a simple one, perhaps almost too much so; and yet I see no other way in which I can bring before you the views and principles which it seems needful to set forth.
Adopting, then, the language of one of the lights of a foreign University, which fortunately with hardly a change, we can adopt, though speaking from a far humbler position, I would say in the beginning, that "The studies of this place, so far as they relate to merely human learning," and so far only at present we propose to speak of them, "divide themselves into three branches. [Professor Sedgwick, in his "Discourse on the studies of the University." I have slightly changed some portions of the quotation. Its spirit, however, remains untouched.]
I. The study of the laws of nature, comprehending all parts of inductive philosophy.
II. The study of ancient and modern languages, and literature; or in other words, of those authentic records which convey to us an account of the feelings, the sentiments and the actions, of men [6/7] prominent in the most famous empires of the ancient and the modern world. In these works we seek for examples and maxims of prudence, and models of taste.
III. The study of ourselves considered as social and intellectual beings. Under this head, are included ethics, and metaphysics, political philosophy, history, and some other kindred subjects of great complexity, which can be only briefly touched in our academic system, and are to be followed out in the more mature labors of after life."
This ancient and venerable system of instruction, comes into our hands from other times and from far distant generations, bringing with it the sanctions of old experience, and laden with accumulated honors. No one would venture so much as to assert, that it could never admit changes or modifications, or that the proportions of its combined elements must continue without alteration. To say this, would be to forget, what ought never to be forgotten, that the character of a scholar's preparations, the plan of that instruction by which his mind is to be formed and moulded, must receive modifications, and must admit changes, accordant with and regulated by the necessities of the period in which he lives, and the intellectual requirements of those, amongst whom his lot is cast. But while this is fully and freely granted, still the great fact remains, that the elements of all true instruction, continue in all time the same; their combinations may change, their proportions may vary, but they themselves do not. Such is the law of the human mind, [7/8] such is the rule of human knowledge. There are here, as every where, ultimate elements beyond which we cannot go, and from which we cannot rid ourselves. And the scheme of instruction which should endeavor to omit them, would only be marked by the presumption of the sciolist, or the fancies of the dreamer. The only question, then, involving any idea of change which can arise in reference to these elements of knowledge, is simply in regard to the proportions in which they are to be combined; and so far as this is a practical question, it will come under our consideration bye and bye. At present I must pass to another preliminary consideration of no small moment.
There are two points of view from which, in reference to these general heads of instruction, which have been laid down, and to their development, every college is to be considered. In the one, it will appear to be in advance of the age, and in the other, very far behind it. In the one, it will lead, in the other it will follow. In the one, it will eagerly urge on, in the other, it will as resolutely hold back. And most probably it will more frequently appear in the latter character, than in the former. In times of general mental depression and inactivity, when people slumber on contentedly amid old truths or old errors, as the case may be, instead of reaching on to new positions and new ideas, it is most probable that a College, if it be at all answering the ends of its establishment, will lead, and rouse, and press men onward. In fact, this is illustrated and at the same time proved, by the position of the [8/9] Universities in the earlier portion of the Middle Ages.
On the other hand, in times of general mental activity, when minds are up and doing, whether for good or ill matters not here, when all is in rapid movement, when principles are set forth on insufficient grounds, changes introduced for insufficient reasons, and in short, all intellectual movements are characterized by rash advances, hasty generalizations, and ill-considered conclusions, then the College must appear in a different attitude. Then she must restrain, then she must check and even wisely discourage, content meanwhile to bear reproach, and endure opprobium, and be pointed at in scorn, as antiquated and lagging, as timid and behind the spirit of the age. And this view also finds an illustration in the history of that period to which we have before referred. For it was doubtless in no small degree, the feeling that men of letters were rashly rushing to extremes, as indeed the event shewed they were, which later on in the Middle Ages, arrayed the Universities so strongly against the revival of classical pursuits. It is also illustrated,--and this is much more to our purpose now,--in every part of the civilized world. For what oracular declaration is more common on the lips of self-complacent superficialism, than that the Colleges are all behind the age? In one sense, they assuredly are so, and considering the tendencies of the age, it is fortunate that they are. For at this moment, with all their defects, they constitute the great, and almost the only barrier, against the flood [9/10] of crudities in science, and follies in philosophy, which sweeps the world wherever it can find its way. And when they are thrown, if so their guardians shall suffer them to be, into the stream, then it will bear its all on together to a state of intellectual barbarism: where an Encyclopedia will be the ne plus ultra of effort or of study.
We take our ground, then, in the outset, on these two principles: that in all time the elements of instruction must remain the same; that the general features of the scheme can admit no essential change: and that in reference to these elements and this scheme, the position of every well-constituted and rightly working College, be its sphere of action large or small, will be either one of urging on, or else of holding back; and that this position will be regulated and determined by the necessities of the case, and the exigencies of the times. This prepares us to approach the consideration of the elements themselves; remembering ever that in using and applying them in the Collegiate curriculum, the object is far less to store with actual knowledge, than to train up to a capacity for storing. So that the measure of a person's progress, who has passed through his undergraduateship, and is proceeding to his first degree, is by no means the amount of facts or even principles, of which he has made himself the master; but rather the condition of his mind, as to spring and saliency, and ability for grappling with great principles, and storing in orderly and useful arrangement all those "manifold knowledges," as Lord Bacon calls them, which it will be the labor of his life to gather and preserve.
[11] In coming now to speak somewhat of the threefold division of our system of instruction, the very unchangeableness of the main features of the system, do themselves present to us, that compulsory reason for their adoption from which there is no possible escape, and thus preclude the necessity of any farther words.
It might also seem that under any circustances there would be little need, in our day and in this country, of insisting upon the first division, which comprised the study of the laws of nature, accompanied as they must be, with the pure mathematics; in short, the whole of inductive philosophy. And yet I do not think, that there is no need to insist upon it. Rather I would say, that there is great need. And there are two reasons why this is so; both of which proceed from the disposition of human nature to vibrate between extremes. In the first place, the inductive method, has unquestionably been pushed much farther than its great expositor ever designed it should be. The illustrious author of the Novum Organuun, never intended that the principles laid down by him should be applied beyond the region of the physical world. However he may at times have been led into strong expressions and exaggerated statements, still it was physical science that was uppermost in his mind: and there is most abundant evidence, that he never contemplated the application of his process of induction to Morals or Theology. This application was indeed the natural result of an age, in which every question assumed a theological aspect, but it is not a result for which Bacon is accountable. The effect [11/12] however of this misapplication of his principles, of this pushing his induction from the region of the objective into that where the subjective is also found, has been to make many earnest minds suspicious of the very process itself. And we accordingly, at this moment, may find not a few persons, who confounding the use and abuse of this inductive process, hold Bacon responsible for a mistake of his narrow-minded contemporaries and successors; and who thus are led to decry that sound principle, which regulates scientific pursuits, and with it the pursuits themselves. In the next place, owing to the immense development of mechanical agencies which the last quarter of a century has witnessed, and their immediate and wonderful operations in all the intercourse, arrangements and habits of social life, working as they have done to the most brilliant results, an undue degree of importance has undoubtedly been attached to those branches of study which are occupied with their exposition. But is there no danger of a reaction? Are there not symptoms in truth that a reaction has begun? Are there not signs of a school of sickly sentimentalists, who mistake play for work, and dimness for profundity, and a shallow discursiveness for a wide grasp of things; whose favorite topic is the lamentation for these disjointed times; who are forever decrying what they are pleased to term material tendencies, and exalting what they call spiritual; using each word in an utterly perverted sense. For their materialism, is simply the every day common sense of all mankind, [12/13] and their spiritualism is that false and miserable "stuff that dreams are made of," which spends itself in theories of progress, and schemes of perfectibility.
And both these things tend towards one issue, and that issue a most disastrous one. For, leaving all other considerations out of view, is not the effect of scientific pursuits, when entered. upon and prosecuted as they should be, most healthful, not only on the mind, but also on the heart? I know indeed that shallow minds may be puffed up with them, and so they will be with any thing whatever: I know that the principles which govern in them may be transferred to other fields of knowledge and of truth to which they do not belong, and that men by attempting to reason in morals and theology, as they do in physical science, may make themselves fools, amid a show of seeming wisdom: I know that minds may linger among them in a low materialistic way, till they themselves become cramped and fettered. And to all this, there is for a reply, the trite old adage, Abusus non tollit usum; and it is reply enough. While the habits of patience, humility, and self-control, which these pursuits when rightly followed out, engender, are quite as important in a moral point of view, as they can be in an intellectual; and suggest in connection with intellectual discipline, some of the great and holy ends for which science should be pursued.
It will be observed, that I have all along gone on the supposition, that this branch of study was prosecuted in the right spirit. The very [13/14] supposition admits that there may be a wrong one. But here I trust that spirit will never find an entrance. Here I trust, there will ever be an humble reverence; a patient waiting upon God's unseen workings; an awful recognition of the solemn truths that nature every where shews forth; a feeling that she addresses the imagination as well as instructs the reason. "Science then," to use the words of our greatest living Poet,
"Science then,
Shall be a precious Visitant: and then,
And only then, be worthy of her name.
For then her Heart shall kindle: her dull Eye,
Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang
Chained to its object in brute slavery:
But taught with patient interest to watch
The processes of things, and serve the cause
Of order and distinctness, not for this,
Shall it forget that its most noble use,
Its most illustrious province must be found,
In furnishing clear guidance, and support
Not treacherous, to the mind's excursive power."And thus--
"Whate'er we see, Whate'er we feel, by agency direct
Or indirect, shall tend to feed and nurse
Our faculties, shall fix in calmer seats
Of moral strength, and raise to loftier heights,
Of love divine, our intellectual soul." [The Excursion, Book IV.]In proceeding to comment upon the second branch of our studies, the languages and literature of ancient and of modern times, I must confine myself to a few more prominent points, and leave by [14/15] far the greater portion of the field untouched. And the first question which naturally presents itself, refers to the relative position which is to be assigned respectively, to what are strangely called the dead languages on the one hand, and to those which are termed living on the other. And this question involves with it moreover, the consideration of the whole vexed subject of classical studies.
It seems to me that a great deal of apparent difficulty is removed, by simply observing how much misunderstanding has arisen from the improper use of the word "dead." Just as the word Gothic has been used at times to cast a slur upon that noblest architectural development that the world has ever seen, so has this term "dead," been the occasion and the source of numberless prejudices against the languages of Greece and Rome. For it can cause no wonder, that an age teeming with life and instinct with action, should look coldly upon things whose very appellation seems to remove them far from both. And yet under what circumstances would the term be properly applied? Shall we call a language dead simply because it has ceased to be heard in the mart or the assembly, or the ordinary intercourse of social life? Is a language dead because ledgers are not posted in it, or newspapers printed in it, or diplomatic correspondence carried on by its instrumentality? When its elements, and laws, and whole living form and spirit, enter into the language of every civilized nation under heaven? Are oaks dead when around one or two venerable parent stems, a whole green [15/16] and glorious forest has burst into existence? In the name not alone of scholarship, but even of common sense, we protest against such a perversion. "In what a condition should we be, if our connection with the past were snapped, if Greek and Latin were forgotten? What should we think of our own languages? They would appear a mere mass of incoherent caprice, and wanton lawlessness. The several nations of Europe would be in this respect at least, like those tribes of savages who occupy a vast continent, speaking a set of jargons in which scarcely a resemblance can be traced in any two, or a consistency in any one. The various European languages," and I must of course include our own among them, "appear to us obviously connected, mainly because we hold the Latin thread which runs through them; if that were broken, the pearls would soon roll asunder. And the mental connexion of present nations with each other, as well as with the past, would be destroyed. What would this be but a retrograde movement in civilization?" [The Master of Trinity, Cambridge.] For be it remembered, at the very instant when the dismembered nations of the Roman Empire, began to come out of their fragmentary states of barbarism, at that very moment, and by that very impulse, classical studies revived, the deep common bond of the foundation language was recurred to. Nor can I count it as anything but a sign of a return to old separations, and elementary nationalities, which must issue in barbarous and even savage individualism, when the use of this [16/17] common bond is denied; and men with words which they never would have used, and forms which they never would have known but for the languages of Greece and Rome, pronounce them dead!
There is no greater error than to imagine that any age can dispense with the intellectual advancement of the ages which preceded it. Least of all can this be done in language, that most delicate and wonderful of all things on which intellectual cultivation can expend itself. Nor can we possibly estimate the importance in view of this fact, that all modern civilized nations have learned the forms and processes of general grammar from common sources, and referred them to a common standard. Let these common sources he abandoned, let this common standard be thrown aside, and what becomes of all those advantages which have resulted to the nations, from a common intellectual training, in the most delicate and deep reaching of all parts of mental cultivation?
And there is another and a higher view of this matter, which should be much insisted on. There has been a philosophy in the world, which happily is rapidly passing away, that among a vast many other crude and debased notions, held that words were mere arbitrary signs of thought, possessing no real connexion with that which they represented. Far different is that stirring and noble view of language, which recognizes the intimate and intrinsic connexion of thought and speech, which, in the words of its greatest expositor, regards speech as a thinking [17/18] outwardly projected and manifested, and considers thinking to be an inward speaking, and a never ending dialogue with one's ownself. Indeed, what powers of the mind are there, which are not developed in language? The reason working in its structure, the fancy soaring in its figures, the understanding adjusting its arrangement, surely here is wide and glorious play of intellectual strength. For so it is, to use his noble words to whom I just referred, that "the growth of languages," springing from a divine original, "and shooting forth from epoch to epoch, with all the vast riches of art, does but hold before us as it were a written monument and memorial of the thinking conciousness of our race; assuming as it were a bodily shape, and presenting itself before us, as the common memory of all mankind." [Frederick Schlegel.] Now who can trace and tell, the ten thousand ways, in which this mighty memory, this history of the universal thinking consciousness, must be connected with the living thoughts of our own age and generation? What are those material changes and commixtures of the earth we tread on, wonderful as they are, and worthy of being reverently studied, what are these, compared with those changes, and shiftings, and commixtures of word-projected thought, in which there live not elements of being which spring up in forms of fair material beauty, but principles of life, which have issued in all those spoken thoughts, those thoughtful words, which adorn the world of man's intelligence? And if this [18/19] be so, if there be in language all this deep philosophy, this strong exercise of every mental power, this training of the reason, this working of the fancy, these movements of the understanding, how can a course of study, which proposes to itself to serve the ends of liberal culture and elevated scholarship, allot any other than the first place among the "humanities," to those two languages, which have thus far made all lettered nations one, and every scholar a sharer in the general civilization?
This, then, I hold to be a sufficient vindication, on deep and elemental grounds, of that position which has always been given to the ancient languages, in well tried courses of liberal studies. A position which here, I trust, will never be infringed, but guarded and kept with jealous care, a venerable depositum inherited from ilustrious sires, a safe standard and abiding point of great and lofty effort, amid present littleness, and shifting theories, the pet barbarisms of a contracted present. It may suffice here to add, the simple statement, that next in place to these, should stand the study of our mother tongue; not only because it is our mother tongue, but also because it is the youngest and the noblest of the languages, which have grown up with the growth of modern civilization.
In this brief survey, I have not attempted at all to urge the value of the Literature, which can be reached by classical studies, and by nothing else. It is not that I would be unmindful of it. It is not that I forget, how the proudest triumph of Christian Letters was its appropriation, and subjection [19/20] to the Faith's great rulership. It is not that I do not hear the voices of the whole multitude of scholars in all time, whose mighty sound overpower: the petty cavilling of a single generation. But it is simply because I have desired to dwell upon the study of the learned languages as such, and to indicate some reasons, few indeed, but I hope solid and convincing, why, irrespective of their literature, and all its treasures, they should still occupy that high position which thus far they have sustained, in every liberal course of study.
The third division of our academical studies, is one which covers so wide a field, that it must be touched upon in even a more cursory manner, than those which have preceded it. I do not know indeed that more can or need be accomplished here, than to indicate the leading principles which must guide and govern in its subdivisions, and then to say a few words of the modes of instruction in them. History, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics, using the latter word in its original and proper sense, and not in its debased and improper one, these are the principal subdivisions, which cover the consideration of man in all his possible conditions and situations, as well as in his actual doings.
Beginning then here, with the actual, that is with History, if it be taught to any real purpose, it must be taught philosophically; and if it be taught philosophically, it must be, taught with a constant reference to the Holy Scriptures. Without the key, which they alone afford, History is but a mass of disconnected filets, and purposeless events, the blind [20/21] chance medley which admits no explanation, and gives no deep and solemn teaching. In history also, rightly taught on the sound principles set forth by the illustrious Bossuet, and the no less illustrious Frederick Schlegel, must be found the chief, I had almost said the only antidote to some of the most pestilent and intolerant speculations of the day. For he who would meet the dreams of unbroken progress which are floating all around us, he who would contend against that optimism at once pantheistic and atheistic, which finds votaries on every side, he who would expound the true idea of real progress, and vindicate the ways of God in his dealings with our race, where can he take his stand, but amongst the mighty lessons of the past 1 And here, and only here, as starting from the sad commencement in human history in the fall of man, he sees the nations each with a nation's life, issuing from the troubled elements, and empire after empire, dim expressions of man's deep longings for that which God alone could give, following in rapid and awful march, till the fifth great empire, filling man's need and reforming the world, descends from heaven, and rises amid the ancient wrecks, as the earth itself sprang forth from chaos, here, I say, and only here, can he make successful issue for those mighty truths, which are linked with all our highest destinies, our noblest efforts, our holiest aspirations. Away with that low, unworthy view, which looks upon this study, as the amusement of a vacant hour, or at best the solace of learned leisure. It may be made [21/22] no more, but it is a hazardous and a wretched thing to make it so.
And the same general remark must of course apply to the three other subdivisions which have been noted. The object is not here to amuse with fine spun theories, to sharpen with dialetical niceties, or in short, to trifle in any manner or to any degree. But in a true and earnest spirit, as knowing what deep and living things are dealt with, to give in each case the sound and guiding principles, the safe and fixed stand points, which shall furnish beacon lights in the darkness of human doubts, and secure footholds in the deluge of human speculations.
Avoiding in Metaphysics the mere sensualism of the school of Locke, and the wild idealism of Kant, and Fichte, and Schelling, and Hegel, the extremes of utter empiricism and as utter speculation, of the denial of imagination, and its unbridled license, we are to recognize the great fact that the soul does not come into the world a blank, even in the mere matter of acquired knowledge: "that it has been touched by a celestial hand, and when plunged into the colors which surround it, takes not its tinge by accident but by design, and comes forth covered with a glorious pattern." That having thus entered on its earthly being, it is not by the senses alone and their experience, that knowledge is acquired; but that the affections, the moral faculties, the imagination, the reason, the understanding, all have their place; while some of the very highest truths he ever learns, are reached by an intuition higher [22/23] than any reasoning, or received by an exercise of a rational but an undoubting faith.
Avoiding in morals the miserable expediency of the Paleyan school, with all its lessons of time serving selfishness, and its denial of disinterested labor and heroic effort, and avoiding too their impracticable schemes, who from the Christian Revelation with its manifold motives and inducements, would turn back to the heathen idea of the abstract love of virtue, we are to teach the supremacy of well-instructed conscience, the ruling guidance of amoral sense implanted by God himself to "accuse or excuse us," in foreshadowing of his judgment. We are to teach too that it works by manifold motives, in the threefold relation which each man sustains, and cannot work by any one alone: while fear and love, and even self-love in its highest forms, are all admitted as lawful springs of action. No more here than in metaphysics, can we admit the doctrine of the tabula rasa, which not only denies innate ideas, but also refuses to acknowledge a moral sense. While the only true starting point for any effective scheme of ethics, must be from the great fact of the fall of man; the only effective line of statement and of teaching must be one, which recognizes the truth that natural religion is completed in the Gospel, in which the earthly things of human ethics are crowned and glorified, with the heavenly things of God's great Revelation. And yet while these divine truths are taken as the substance, the human arrangements, classifications, and skeleton work of the Greek philosophy, may advantageously [23/24] be used, in teaching the adjustment of the parts, and the allotments of the frame work. [See Sewell's Christian Ethics.] Not that Aristotle or Plato are to be blindly followed, or parts adopted from them by a rule of individual eclecticism; but that they are to be used and chosen from, in the light of those very principles and truths, and all that knowledge, which they still may help to arrange and systematize.
Avoiding in politics,--still using the word in its abstract and proper sense,--the notion of an original compact made for convenience and safety by a horde of savages, and the idea of a divine right vested in a personal descent, we are to teach that government is just
as natural and as necessary a state for man, as the family. That on the self same grounds, it is divine. That it is God's commissioned vicegerent, to execute vengeance, as well as to strive for the reformation of the offender. That it is invested with the most awful prerogatives and guarded by the most fearful sanctions. That under whatever form it may appear, it is that in which the abstract State, works and lives, claiming on every ground, our reverence and our obedience. That its universal principles and laws, are based on the eternal rules of right and truth, and are not subject to the changes and the chances of mens' shifting wills, and varying caprices. In short, by History we strive to form the man of grasp, and foresight, and wide-reaching view: by Metaphysics, the man prepared under a higher guidance to know himself in all his [24/25] complex unity, his oneness of complexity; by Ethics, the man prepared by the same aid and guidance, to discharge his ditties, to himself, his fellows and his God; and by Politics, the man prepared to play his part as the good and the patriotic citizen, loving liberty, and hating license, and knowing that the truest independence is to be found in dignified obedience to a superior law.
And now to sum up this brief and meagre sketch let me add, that all parts of this course of human learning and liberal study, are to be taught as intimately connected with the whole of future life. It will not do to give the young man the impression, that his college life is as it were, but a parenthesis in his existence, isolated and separated, unconnected with either what precedes or follows it. Not so. It gathers up the acquirements, the powers, the faculties of earlier days, it directs and gives a tone to, these same things, as they stretch onward to maturer life. It gives the keys of knowledge, it teaches how to use them; and if they who hold them, will not then unlock the vast and glorious treasure-house, the fault is all their own.
One word more, and I have done. In the inspired and beautiful narrative of the Redeemer's birth, we read how there came to worship at His sacred feet, two very different sets of persons, the humble shepherds of Judea, the learned philosophers of eastern lands. They then presented in a touching type, the twofold worship which in all time since, has clustered around the personal Wisdom, who was made for us not sanctification only, but knowledge [25/26] also, and who was then a lone and feeble child. That twofold worship was then, and has been since, the adoring submission of cultivated intellects, the simple homage of untaught, trusting souls. Happy he who can offer both! Happy he who gaining human knowledge, still loses not the simplicity of childlike, trusting faith! Behold in this,--and here let me especially speak to those who are ever nearest to my heart, the younger sons of our honored Mother,--behold in this, the spirit, in which all these branches of human learning that I have laid before you, are to be pursued. Let them ever bring us where they brought those wise men of the east, to the feet of Him who is the head of all things, the second person in that glorious Godhead, whose thrice Holy Name adorns and consecrates our home. And when it thus shall bring us, let our hearts still be as trusting and as humble, as those of the meek shepherds who knew not and yet believed. Unless this is so, we shall have learned to little purpose, nay, to none at all. But if it be so, then we shall have found that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom. And then when wisdom thus begun on earth, shall be perfected above; when the slow processes of human science shall give place to angelic intuition; when the many languages of earth with their painfully learned combinations, shall be replaced by the one glorious speech of heaven; when the risen body, and the perfected spirit, shall need no wearisome searchings to be understood; when the progressive history of time shall have issued in the ever present [26/27] and unchanging eternity; when moral rules and laws, shall be forgotten by the soul whose very life is untempted unthought of obedience; when the governments and the rulerships of earth shall be lost in the unending kingdom of our God; then shall that fear of Him which lay at the foundation of our earthly knowledge, be changed to that unutterable love, which shall crown and complete our heavenly. Our work shall then be done; our training shall then be completed. Children here however long we live, then at last, then only, shall we be truly men.
FRESHMAN YEAR. ADVENT TERM. Xenophon's Anabasis.
Livy, with writing Latin.
Algebra.
English Translations and Readings.
LENT TERM. Xenophon's Anabasis, with writing of Greek.
The Odes of Horace, with Latin Prosody and writing Latin.
Plane Geometry.
English Translations and Readings.
TRINITY TERM. Herodotus, with writing of Greek.
The Epistles and Satires of Horace, with writing of Latin.
Solid Geometry.
Lowth's English Grammar; English Composition, and Declamation.
On Monday mornings throughout the year, a lesson in the Greek Testament from the Gospels
SOPHOMORE YEAR. ADVENT TERM. Xenophon's Memorabilia.
Cicero de Senectute, de Amicitia, &c. Trigonometry.
LENT TERM. Homer, with Greek Prosody. Conic Sections. Juvenal; Terence.
TRINITY TERM. Homer; Aristophanes.
Tacitus.
Natural Philosophy.
Elements of Rhetoric and Logic.
Writing of Greek and Latin; English Composition; Reading and Declamation, throughout the year. Also, on Monday mornings recitations in the Greek Testament; Acts of the Apostles.
JUNIOR YEAR. ADVENT TERM. French.
Natural Philosophy.
Tacitus continued. Thucydides. Lectures on Literature.
LENT TERM. Greek Tragedies.
Rhetoric, with Lectures on Literature and on the English Language.
Optics.
TRINITY TERM. Logic and Intellectual Philosophy.
Portions of Aristotle's Ethics, and of Plato.
Astronomy begun.
French is continued at the option of the student, throughout the year, as a voluntary study. On Monday mornings, recitations in the Greek Testament, the Epistles to the Romans and Colossians. Exercises in writing French; English Compositions; Forensic Debates and Declamations through the year; and exercises in writing Greek and Latin.