|
The Independent Reflector THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1753 Remarks on Our Intended COLLEGE Nullum nos posse majus meliusve
Reipublicĉ afferre munus, Quam docendo et erudiendo Juventutem. THE Design of erecting a College in this Province, is a Matter of such grand and general Importance, that I have frequently made it the Topic of my serious Meditation. Nor can I better employ my Time than by devoting a Course of Papers to so interesting a Subject. A Subject of universal Concernment, and in a peculiar Manner involving in it, the Happiness and Well-being of our Posterity! The most convenient Situation for fixing the Fabric, tho’ obvious on the least Reflection, has been made [a] Matter of laborious Enquiry, as well as afforded a copious Fund for private Conversation. That the College ought to be placed in or near this City, appears evident from numberless Arguments, that naturally occur to the most superficial Thinker. But while we have been amusing ourselves with Disputations concerning the Situation of the Building, we have been strangely indolent about its Constitution and Government, in Comparison of which, the other is a Trifle that scarce deserves Attention. To expatiate on the Advantages of Learning in general, or a liberal Education in particular, would be equally impossible and useless. Impossible from the narrow Limits of my Paper: And useless, because no Arguments that can be urged, are capable of rendering the Assertion more evident, than the irresistible Demonstrations of Experience. That the College ought therefore to be situated near our Metropolis, and that it will be productive, if properly regulated, of unspeakable Benefit to this Province, I shall lay down as two postulata not to be questioned. Before we engage in any Undertaking, common Prudence requires us maturely to consider the End we propose, and the Means most conducive to its Attainment. To imagine that our Legislature, by raising the present Fund for the College, intended barely to have our Children instructed in Greek and Latin, or the Art of making Exercises and Verses, or disputing in Mood and Figure, were a Supposition absurd and defamatory. For these Branches of Literature, however useful as preparatory to real and substantial Knowledge, are in themselves perfectly idle and insignificant. The true Use of Education, is to qualify Men for the different Employments of Life, to which it may please God to call them. ‘Tis to improve their Hearts and Understandings, to infuse a public Spirit and Love of their Country; to inspire them with the Principles of Honour and Probity; with a fervent Zeal for Liberty, and a diffusive Benevolence for Mankind; and in a Word, to make them the more extensively serviceable to the Commonwealth. Hence the Education of Youth hath been the peculiar Care of all the wise Legislators of Antiquity, who thought it impossible to aggrandize the State, without imbuing the Minds of its Members with Virtue and Knowledge. Nay, so sensible of this fundamental Maxim in Policy, were PLATO, ARISTOTLE, and LYCURGUS, and in short all the ancient Politicians who have delivered their Sentiments on Government, that they make the Education of Youth, the principal and most essential Duty of the Magistrate. And, indeed, whatever literary Acquirement cannot be reduced to Practice, or exerted to the Benefit of Mankind, may perhaps procure its Possessor the Name of a Scholar, but is in Reality no more than a specious Kind of Ignorance. This, therefore, I will venture to lay down for a capital Maxim, that unless the Education we propose, be calculated to render our Youth better Members of Society, and useful to the Public in Proportion to its Expence, we had better be without it. As the natural Consequence of this Proposition, it follows, that the Plan of Education the most conducive to that End is to be chosen, and whatever has a Tendency to obstruct or impede it, ought carefully to be avoided. The Nature, End and Design of such Seminaries, is to teach the Students particular Arts and Sciences, for the Conduct of Life, and to render them useful Members of the Community. “Science in Propriety of Language signifies, a clear and certain Knowledge of any Thing, founded on self-evident Principles or Demonstration: Tho’ in a more particular and imperfect Sense, it is used for a System of any Branch of Knowledge, comprehending its Doctrine, Reason and Theory, without an immediate Application thereof to any Uses or Offices of Life.” This twofold Definition of the Word Science, I may probably have Occasion to make use of hereafter. The vast Influence of any Education upon the Lives and Actions of Men, and thence by a kind of political Expansion, on the whole Community, is verified by constant Experience. Nay, it discriminates Man from Man, more than by Nature he is differenced from the Brutes: And beyond all doubt much greater was the Disparity between the renowned Mr. LOCKE, and a common Hottentot, than between the latter and some of the most sagacious of the irrational Kingdom. But the Influence of a Collegiate Education, must spread a wider Circle proportionate to the Number of the Students, and their greater Progress in Knowledge. The Consequences of a liberal Education will soon be visible throughout the whole Province. They will appear on the Bench, at the Bar, in the Pulpit, and in the Senate, and unavoidably affect our civil and religious Principles. Let us adduce, a few Arguments from Reason, Experience and History. A youthful Mind is susceptible of almost any Impression. Like the ductile Wax, it receives the Image of the Seal without the least Resistance. “What is learned at that tender Age,” says QUINTILIAN, “is easily imprinted on the Mind, and leaves deep Marks behind it, which are not easily to be effaced. As in the Case of a new Vessel, which long preserves a Tincture of the first Liquor poured into it: And like Wool which can never recover its primitive Whiteness after it has once been dyed; and the Misfortune is, that bad Habits last longer than good Ones.” The Poet HORACE, to whom it must have been very natural to draw Similes from Liquor, makes use of the same Comparison.
The Principles or Doctrines implanted in the Minds of Youth, grow up and gather Strength with them. In Time they take deep Root, pass from the Memory and Understanding to the Heart, and at length become a second Nature, which it is almost impossible to change. While the Mind is tender and flexible, it may be moulded and managed at Pleasure: But when once the Impressions are by Practice and Habit, as it were incorporated with the intellectual Substance, they are obliterated with the greatest Difficulty. Frangas enim citius quam corrigas, quĉ in pravum induerunt ["Evil Habits, once settled, are more easily broken than mended"], said an Author, alike celebrated for his Skill in Rhetoric, and his Knowledge of Mankind. From these Premises, the natural Inference is, that we cannot be too cautious in forming the human Mind, so capable of good, and so passive to evil Impressions. There is no Place where we receive a greater Variety of Impressions, than at Colleges. Nor do any Instructions sink so deep in the Mind as those that are there received. The Reason is, because they are not barely imprinted by the Preceptor, as at inferior Schools; but perpetually confirmed and invigorated by the Suscipients themselves. Tho’ Academies are generally Scenes of Endless Disputations, they are seldom Places of candid Inquiry. The Students not only receive the Dogmata of their Teachers with an implicit Faith, but are also constantly studying how to support them against every Objection. The System of the College is generally taken for true, and the sole Business is to defend it. Freedom of Thought rarely penetrates those contracted Mansions of systematical Learning. But to teach the establish’d Notions, and maintain certain Hypotheses, hic Labor hoc opus est ["This is a toil, this is a task"]. Every Deviation from the beaten Tract, is a kind of literary Heresy; and if the Professor be given to Excommunication, can scarce escape an Anathema. Hence that dogmatical Turn and Impatience of Contradiction, so observable in the Generality of Academics. To this also is to be referred, those voluminous Compositions, and that learned Lumber of gloomy Pedants, which hath so long infested and corrupted the World. In a Word, all those visionary Whims, idle Speculations, fairy Dreams, and party Distinctions, which contract and embitter the Mind, and have so often turn’d the World topsy-turvy. I mention not this to disparage an academical Education, from which I hope I have myself received some Benefit, especially after having worn off some of its rough Corners, by a freer Conversation with Mankind. The Purpose for which I urge it, is to shew the narrow Turn usually prevailing at Colleges, and the absolute Necessity of teaching Nothing that will afterwards require the melancholy Retrogradation of being unlearned. From this Susceptibility of tender Minds, and the extreme Difficulty of erasing original Impressions, it is easy to conceive, that whatever Principles are imbibed at a College, will run thro’ a Man’s whole future Conduct, and affect the Society of which he is a Member, in Proportion to his Sphere of Activity; especially if it be considered, that even after we arrive to Years of Maturity, instead of entering upon the difficult and disagreable Work of examining the Principles we have formerly entertained, we rather exert ourselves in searching for Arguments to maintain and support them. Tho’ I have sufficiently shewn the prodigious Influence of a College upon the Community, from the Nature and Reason of the Thing, it may not be improper, for its farther Corroboration, to draw some Proofs from Experience and History. At Harvard College in the Massachusetts-Bay, and at Yale College in Connecticut, the Presbyterian Profession is in some sort established. It is in these Colonies the commendable Practice of all who can afford it, to give their Sons an Education at their respective Seminaries of Learning. while they are in the Course of their Education, they are sure to be instructed in the Arts of maintaining the Religion of the College, which is always that of their immediate Instructors; and of combating the Principles of all other Christians whatever. When the young Gentlemen, have run thro’ the Course of their Education, they enter into the Ministry, or some Offices of the Government, and acting in them under the Influence of the Doctrines espoused in the Morning of Life, the Spirit of the College is transfused thro’ the Colony, and tinctures the Genius and Policy of the public Administration, from the Governor down to the Constable. Hence the Episcopalians cannot acquire an equal Strength among them, till some new Regulations, in Matters of Religion, prevail in their Colleges, which perpetually produce Adversaries to the hierarchical System. Nor is it to be question’d, that the Universities in North and South-Britain, greatly support the different Professions that are establish’d in their respective Divisions. Sensible of the vast Influence which the Positions and Principles of Colleges have upon the Public, was that politic Prince King HENRY the Eighth. No sooner had he determined to repudiate his Queen, thro’ his Love for ANNE BOLEYN, than, the better to justify his Divorce, or rather to guard himself against the popular Resentment, by the Advice of CRANMER, the State of his Case was laid before all the Universities, who, agreeable to his Wishes, determined his Marriage with CATHERINE, to be repugnant to the divine Law, and therefore invalid. In the Reign of King JAMES II. of arbitrary and papistical Memory, a Project jesuitically artful, was concerted to poison the Nation, by filling the Universities with popish and popishly-affected Tutors; and but for our glorious Deliverance, by the immortal WILLIAM, the Scheme had been sufficient, in Process of Time, to have introduc’d and establish’d, the sanguinary and antichristian Church of Rome. Since then, the extensive Influence of a College so manifestly appears, it is of the last Importance, that ours be so constituted, that the Fountain being pure, the Streams (to use the Language of Scripture) may make glad the City of our GOD. Z. I hope my Correspondents will not be displeased, at seeing the Publication of their Letters thus long deferred, after assuring them, that tho’ they have, contrary to my Inclination, been unavoidably postponed, they will by no means be forgotten; but receive due Honour, as soon as possible, after I have finished my Remarks on the College; which, for its great Importance, will probably engross four or five of my succeeding Numbers. Source: Klein, Milton, ed., The Independent Reflector...by William Livingston. (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1963), pp. 171-177. |