Nor does he attach less importance to the study of the Greek and Roman languages. In the opinion of President Olin they "give useful employment to the intellectual faculties at a period when they are incompetent to more abstract and severe occupations. They call up the attention to such short and easy, but repeated efforts, as are best calculated to correct its wanderings and increase its energies. The mind is accustomed to analysis and comparison, and its powers of discrimination are improved by frequent exercises in declension, inflexion and derivation, and by the constant necessity that is imposed upon it, of deciding between the claims of rival definitions. The memory is engaged in the performance of such tasks as are precisely fitted for its development, and the judgment and other reasoning faculties find ample and invigorating employment in the application of grammatical rules, and the investigation of philological principles." We wish we had space for the whole of Mr. Olin's remarks upon classical learning. He considers the growing scepticism in reference to its utility and importance as an evil omen.
Next to pure and mixed mathematics and the learned languages, the President is inclined to give a place to intellectual philosophy. "It familiarises the student with the laws and the phenomena of mind, and with such efforts of subtle analysis and difficult combination as are best fitted to enlarge and fill the grasp of the highest intellectual capacities." He also recommends as subordinate, but highly important studies—composition and eloquence—moral and natural philosophy—chemistry—the French language—and geology and mineralogy.
Mr. Olin opposes with much force the excessive multiplication of studies without a correspondent prolongation of the collegiate term. "The industry which was profitably directed to a few, may be divided amongst a multitude of objects; but it will incur the inevitable penalty of fitful and dissipated intellectual exertion—superficial attainments and vicious intellectual habits." In what is denominated the art of education, the President is not inclined to set as high a value upon the lecture system as upon the mode of frequent recitations from well digested text books. From the history of the two universities, and of the literature of Scotland and England for the last century, he is led to draw the conclusion that the "lecture system is more favorable to the improvement of the professor, and the reputation of the university—whilst the opposite method has been more productive of thorough and accomplished scholars."
Upon the subject of moral restraint and college discipline, Mr. Olin is forcible and interesting. With a mind well organized for the clear perception of truth, we take the President to be fearless in proclaiming his convictions, without stopping to calculate the strength of opposing prejudices and opinions. He does not hesitate to come up boldly to the mark, and to advocate the only rational system by which our erring nature, and especially our youthful nature, can be brought to a just sense of what is due to its own interests, as well as to the requirements of society. Upon this subject, however, we prefer that the President should speak for himself.
"In proportion as virtue is more valuable than knowledge, pure and enlightened morality will be regarded by every considerate father the highest recommendation of a literary institution. The youth is withdrawn from the salutary restraints of parental influence and authority, and committed to other guardians, at a time of life most decisive of his prospects and destinies. The period devoted to education usually impresses its own character upon all his future history. Vigilant supervision, employment, and seclusion from all facilities and temptations to vice, are the ordinary and essential securities which every institution of learning is bound to provide for the sacred interests which are committed to its charge. But safeguards and negative provisions are not sufficient. The tendencies of our nature are retrograde, and they call for the interposition of positive remedial influences. The most perfect human society speedily degenerates, if the active agencies which were employed in its elevation are once withdrawn or suspended. What then can be expected of inexperienced youth, sent forth from the pure atmosphere of domestic piety, and left to the single support of its own untested and unsettled principles, in the midst of circumstances which often prove fatal to the most practised virtue! I frankly confess that I see no safety but in the preaching of the cross, and in a clear and unfaltering exhibition of the doctrines and sanctions of christianity. The beauty and excellence of virtue are excusable topics, though they must ever be inefficient motives, with those who reject the authority of revelation; but in a christian land, morality divorced from religion, is the emptiest of all the empty names by which a deceitful philosophy has blinded and corrupted the world. I venture to affirm, that this generation has not given birth to another absurdity so monstrous, as that which would exclude from our seminaries of learning the open and vigorous inculcation of the religious faith which is acknowledged by our whole population, and which pervades every one of our free institutions. Our governors and legislators, and all the depositaries of honor and trust, are prohibited from exercising their humblest functions till they have pledged their fidelity to the country upon the holy gospels. The most inconsiderable pecuniary interest is regarded too sacred to be entrusted to the most upright judge or juror, or to the most unsuspected witness, till their integrity has been fortified by an appeal to the high sanctions of christianity. Even the exercise of the elective franchise is usually suspended upon the same condition. The interesting moralities of the domestic relations—the laws of marriage and divorce—the mutual obligations of parents and children—are all borrowed from the christian scriptures. The fears of the vicious and the hopes of the upright—the profane ribaldry of the profligate, no less than the humble thanksgiving of the morning and evening sacrifice, do homage to the gospel as the religion of the American people. Our eloquence and our poetry—our periodical and popular literature in all their varieties—the novel, the tale, the ballad, the play, all make their appeal to the deep sentiments of religion that pervade the popular bosom. Christianity is our birthright. It is the richest inheritance bequeathed us by our noble fathers. It is mingled in our hearts with all the fountains of sentiment and of faith. And are the guardians of public education alone 'halting between two opinions?' Do they think that in fact, and for practical purposes, the truth of christianity is still a debateable question? Is it still a question whether the generations yet to rise up and occupy the wide domains of this great empire—to be the representatives of our name, our freedom and our glory, before the nations of the earth, shall be a christian or an infidel people? Can wise and practical men who are engaged in rearing up a temple of learning to form the character and destinies of their posterity, for a moment hesitate to make 'Jesus Christ the chief corner stone?"
It is not to be supposed, however, that Mr. Olin is in favor of subjecting our public seminaries to the control of any particular religious denomination, or that the faith of the student is either to be influenced or regulated by sectarian views. On the contrary, he considers that such a course would be a manifest violation of the principles of free government. His remarks upon the internal discipline of a college are sound and excellent. He is decidedly opposed to that "multitude of vexatious enactments," and those frivolous and arbitrary regulations which too often disgrace our seats of learning. In the administration of such wise and salutary laws, however, as experience has proved to be necessary, President Olin refers to the co-operation of parents and guardians as absolutely essential. We wish that conviction on this subject was more general than it is, and that all who are in any wise responsible for the intellectual and moral training of youth, whether at colleges, academies, or private schools, would consider the importance of sustaining, by parental authority, the just and wholesome government of the teacher. A weak or capricious parent, who from false tenderness, countenances the wayward inclinations of a child in opposition to school authority, is not only inflicting upon it irreparable mischief, but is doing equal injury to others by the encouragement of a bad example.
A DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF WM. WIRT, late Attorney General of the United States; pronounced at the request of the Baltimore Bar before the Citizens of Baltimore, on the 20th of May, 1834, by John P. Kennedy. Baltimore: Wm. & Joseph Neal. 1834.
Mr. Kennedy is favorably known as an eloquent lawyer and literary writer of distinction. The task therefore of delineating the character and genius of Mr. Wirt, could not have been confided to abler hands. We have read his oration with great pleasure; a pleasure it is true, alloyed by the reflection that the country has sustained a bereavement so afflicting and irreparable. There is a mournful satisfaction in recalling the eminent virtues, and matchless accomplishments of the deceased,—in dwelling upon his bright example, and retracing the incomparable graces and excellencies which adorned his public and private character. Mr. Kennedy has touched with the hand of a master, the sad but brilliant theme, and has poured forth in "thoughts that breathe and words that burn"—a most eloquent tribute to the memory of one of the brightest and purest spirits of the age. Mr. Wirt, though a native of Maryland, was in truth a Virginian, by all the endearing ties of social and domestic life. He spent the prime of his youth and manhood among us, and it was here in the Metropolis of the Old Dominion, that he reared that enduring fabric of illustrious talent and virtue which placed him first among his equals—and which will long be embalmed in the recollection of his contemporaries. Hundreds in this city, still remember those surpassing triumphs of his genius as an orator and advocate, achieved in the celebrated trial of Burr;—how he depicted in colors glowing and beautiful the enchanting island of Blennerhassett—the misery of his disconsolate wife—and the wiles of that evil genius who entered the Paradise of the Ohio, and withered forever its enjoyments. Hundreds here and elsewhere have hung with ecstasy over the rich pages of the "British Spy" and "Old Batchelor"—have listened to the magic of his voice both in public and colloquial discourse—and have been constant eyewitnesses of the "daily beauty" and sublime morality of his life. Proudly and sacredly however as his native and adopted states ought to cherish his memory—the fame of such a man as Wirt, must be regarded as the property of the whole nation. His great and commanding genius illustrated and adorned the age and country in which he lived, and thousands and tens of thousands of American bosoms have exulted at the thought that he was their countryman.
In one respect especially, Mr. Wirt was an uncommon man. Most persons distinguished for their moral and intellectual qualities, have at some time or other, been the objects of illiberal censure. Greatness is almost invariably the mark of envy, and envy gives birth to detraction. The deceased however, it is believed, lived and died without an enemy. His manners were so bland and gentle—his purposes so pure—and his life so blameless—that even malice had no nourishment left whereon to feed. In the language of Mr. Kennedy "he possessed, in a remarkable degree, that trait which has been called simplicity of heart—it was single mindedness, straight forward candor. His manners had the wayward playfulness of a boy, that won upon, and infected with their own buoyancy every class of his associates, from the youngest to the oldest—from the humblest retainer about his person, or casual stranger, to the most eminent and most intimate."