University Reform.
My idea rests on four points;
1st. What if the Colleges were divided into faculties according to the professions for which they prepare?
2nd. What if students of similar age, who were studying for the same profession, were all bestowed in one house?
3d. What if the College livings were made more valuable by combination, and the Colleges strengthened by being lessened in number?
4th. What if in every house there were valuable fellowships for learned scholars who would remain their whole lives in the position?
Would not the country benefit by these measures? And hath not the State authority to carry them out, seeing that it hath already given its sanction to the making of foundations, with a reservation of the right to alter them if sufficient cause should be shown? Is it not as admissible to discuss the improvement of the Universities by planting sound learning, as to decide upon taking away lands from colleges, and boarding out the students, because they cannot agree among themselves about the use of the endowments? Would there be any better means of giving a new and fairer aspect to the work of the Universities, and of bringing them into greater favour with the public? In the first erection of schools and colleges, private zeal inflamed good founders; in altering these for the better, the State, for considerations of public interest, may increase the advantage, without departing from the intention of the founders, who would have gladly welcomed any improvement. It is for each age under the spur of necessity to point out what is best for its own circumstances, and the State must exercise its wisdom and policy in bringing this about. I will now take up more fully the four points I have named, in the hope of offering reasons that may prove convincing.