CHAPTER II.

THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF COLLEGIATE INSTRUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES.

IN any combination whatever for the accomplishment of a specific purpose, there must of necessity be some arrangement of parts co-operating together so as to bring about the intended result. There must have been an original conception comprehending all the parts and the manner of their working. Thus when we speak of a system of government we refer to the general conception of its executive, judicial, and legislative functions, their powers and limitations, and the modes in which they accomplish their purpose. And it is evident that we can never judge correctly of the value of such a system, unless we are enabled to form a clear conception of its several parts and to observe their adaptation to the end for which they were designed.

The arrangements for public professional education, from the nature of the case, comprize a system in the manner above specified. They involve several varieties of official station, having

different and dissimilar functions, and each responsible to a different authority. Thus, for instance, a college is an endowed or eleemosynary institution, this endowment is vested in corporators who are under obligation to see that it is appropriated according to the will of the donor. The college has the power of conferring degrees, a power with which it is intrusted by the public and it is the business of these corporators in behalf of the public to inquire into the manner in which this power is exercised. There is, again, the faculty or executive officers of the college whose duty it is to instruct according to the statutes, and who are appointed by, and are responsible to, the corporators, or those officers who are intrusted with the

visitorial power. Suppose all these powers to have been defined, and the system ready to go into effect, it may then be inquired what is it that is intended to be done, how is it to be done, and what are the means for carrying it into effect. In examining any collegiate system all these subjects of inquiry will naturally arise. They are manifestly of importance, and they may be treated of with the greater freedom because they have nothing whatever to do with individuals. They are abstract questions having simply to do with a system, and that system may be considered good or bad, wise or unwise, perfect or imperfect, without calling in question in the slightest degree the wisdom or the learning or the ability of those by whom the system is carried into effect. The question is not whether one man or another is or

is not able and judicious, and praiseworthy, but, granting him to be all these, whether or not he might under another system accomplish more successfully the objects to the advancement of which he has devoted his talents.

It is very evident that our present collegiate system was derived immediately from that of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Both involved the same points in every thing material. Both adopt the principles of established classes, to each of which a whole year of study is allotted; of a fixed course of study for every pupil; of considering every pupil a candidate for a degree; of residence within the college premises; and, of course of responsibility in the officers for the moral conduct of the pupil, and connected with this a provision for the students' board. In other words, every college is a large boarding school for pupils of an advanced age, providing for each student, board, lodging and oversight, and obliging every one to go through the same course of studies within the same time, and terminating, unless for some special cause, in the degree of Batchelor of Arts. In all these essential points of the system the English and American colleges exactly coincide.

The points of difference are few, and so far as the present discussion is concerned, unimportant. An English College does not confer degrees; these are conferred only by the University, a corporation at present constituted from the members of the several colleges collectively. The University gives no instruction, or next to none, but confers

degrees on those whom the colleges have instructed. Our colleges both furnish instruction and also confer degrees. If we were to isolate

Trinity or St John's College, Cambridge, from the University, and grant to it the power of conferring degrees, we should have at once the model on which all our early New England colleges were constructed. Like the English colleges they were also originally established with only a President and Tutors. To these subsequently Professors were added; but this addition, though a material improvement, in no manner changed the system. It has greatly added to our means of instruction, but it has, in no respect, altered the relations which the various parts of a university sustain to each other.

The first colleges in this country were established by graduates from Cambridge and Oxford, and principally from the former. The more recent American colleges, were again established by graduates from the older ones, and thus, without reflection as to the adaptedness of this form to promote the purposes of education, it became the invariable model to which all our institutions have from time to time been conformed. With this brief notice of the history of our collegiate establishments, I shall proceed to examine the several parts of which they are composed, and the manner in which they attempt to accomplish their design.

1. Of the Visitorial Power.

It is obvious that if a large amount of public property, or of property which has been contributed or bequeathed by private charity for a public purpose be intrusted to special agents for the accomplishment of that purpose, some individual or corporation must exist, to whom these agents must be held responsible for the due discharge of their duties. In the case of a College, to this visitorial power properly belongs the oversight of the property of the institution, the appointment and removal of officers of instruction, the establishment of laws for the government of the society, and the general duty of ascertaining from time to time whether the ends desired by the founder or the State are accomplished. Sometimes a part of these duties are, by the terms of the foundation, differently appropriated, and the members of the college exercise, or are supposed to exercise, visitorial powers over themselves. This is evidently an abuse and is inconsistent with the well being of the institution. In this case, the visitorial power proper is more limited in its authority. It cannot then originate statutes and can do nothing more than see that the statutes, whatever they may be, are enforced. This is commonly the case with the English colleges. Every college has its visitor appointed by the statutes of the foundation, commonly the King, a Nobleman or Bishop, and his duty, if he really have any, is merely to see that the injunctions of the founder