vented. He who has sat at the feet of the great masters of English literature need have no fear but their spirit will inform the life, and touch, as with fire, the lips of their disciple. But just in proportion as such an influence in the development of expression is more important than any other, in just the same proportion is it likely to be overlooked and despised, because its effects are not apparent upon the surface, and often do not manifest themselves until after long intervals of time. Not unfrequently, in consequence, are these effects referred by the common mind to causes with which they have no real connection. But great writers have never failed to arrive at correct results in their own case. Spenser acknowledges his obligation to Chaucer, Milton to Spenser. Pope called Dryden his master. None of these ever thought of attributing his superiority to the study of rhetorical rules.

And here it is, and on this account it is, that we make our final appeal for the fuller study of the language and literature we have inherited but have too much neglected and despised. It may be said that this end is already provided for; that the works of the greatest authors are read in every school, the men whose productions exhibit graces of style which modern. writers do not pretend to surpass or even to rival. The argument is a fallacious one. No foreign author can do the work here demanded or have the effect here required. Their superiority will not be imitated, because, though it may be seen, it is not felt. If a student understood Latin, for instance, as he does English; if its words were as familiar, and came to him as spontaneously as the words in which are recounted the thoughts of his mind, the feelings of his heart, and the acts of his life, then the assertion would have a force not now belonging to it. But no such thing does take place or can take place, except in exceedingly rare instances. The ordinary student has no conception whatever of the beauty of the Latin arrangement and style. The same thing is frequently true of even an accomplished scholar, not because he does not have an intellectual comprehension of it, but because he does not feel it; and so long as the mind is absorbed in the intricacies of construction, it is little apt to be influenced by beauties of expression.

The highest culture must, therefore, be based upon the study of our own literature. Any other foundation is too narrow for us to think to build upon it lofty and enduring achievement. For the culture derived from any other source reaches its culminating point speedily. It has no healing waters in which to renew its vitality; it knows no fountain of youth, whose life-giving properties enable it to go on from strength to strength. The power of expression does not keep pace with the expansion of the other powers. The results of ripest study, of widest observation, of profoundest thought, are stated in the language of the school-boy. Nor can such a state of things be changed, except by the introduction of agencies that operate upon the mind in early years. The institution of learning which neglects literature may turn out in abundance great scholars, lawyers, metaphysicians, and statesmen; but it will never, save by accident, turn out men of letters. The atmosphere in which they flourish is not created; the stimulus that springs from association and sympathy is denied. And the policy of disregarding, not to say despising, this study produces its legitimate results. The culture created, such as it is, is shorn of its due influence both on the present and on future times. For the achievements of scholars, however great, fade in splendor with every new achievement of those who follow them. The fame of lawyers is confined to their own profession, and is as transitory as it is limited. Systems of philosophy wax and wane. The idol of the people to-day is but the shadow of a name to-morrow. The audience of all these is few, for they appeal but to a class or to a time. But literature appeals to all classes and to all times; and that oblivion, which sooner or later overtakes nearly all mortal achievement, reaches it last of all.

It has not been asserted, nor is it meant to be asserted, that the criticism here made of existing methods is true of all institutions of learning. It is by no means impossible that there are some schools in which far better methods than the one here proposed have been long in operation. But if such exist, they are confined to particular places and are practised by particular teachers. No satisfactory system of

instruction in our literature has yet been adopted generally, though culture everywhere languishes under the neglect. In this, as in other things, our words and works display their usual inconsistency. We complain, and complain justly, that with us artistic taste remains either undeveloped or is developed imperfectly, because the masterpieces of painting and sculpture are not here to be seen and studied. Yet, what right have we to make such a complaint, when a kindred culture and taste suffers from the neglect of master-pieces that are accessible to all, and whose very accessibility causes them to be disregarded and despised? We now go through English literature like the night-traveler on a great railway line, who whirled rapidly through hamlet and village, and city, reaches his destination at last with no knowledge of the country he has been through; nothing indeed, left upon his mind but a vivid consciousness of the weariness of his journey, and a confused remembrance of names and stations. We ask that this shall not simply be reformed indifferently, but shall be reformed altogether; that the chief agency in the refinement of mind, the cultivation of taste, and the development of expression, shall no longer be left to random study or individual caprice; and if Milton, in a less enlightened age, could avow his conviction that Spenser was a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas, we may be pardoned for the belief that such seed, sown in youth, will in later years flower out into a broad and generous culture and a manly life.

ARTICLE III-YALE COLLEGE-SOME THOUGHTS RESPECTING ITS FUTURE.

SECOND ARTICLE.

In the last number of the New Englander, we made some suggestions in respect to the peculiar and distinctive work of the new era, on which the friends of Yale College believe it to be about to enter. The limits of the Article, which was then published, allowed us only to consider this work in a single line, or in one of its departments,-namely, that of unifying the institution, so as to make it no longer a Collegiate school, with certain "outside" departments loosely attached to the central body, but a University of coördinate and coequal branches. Unless this end is accomplished—we believe we express the sentiment of every friend of the College, whose mind is not unduly under the influence of erroneous ideas derived from the past-a University, in the best sense of that word, cannot exist in New Haven. The time has come when a step forward in this direction must be taken, or the inevitable result will be, that the institution will fall backward, sooner or later, into an inferior place. It will belong rather to the class of mere colleges, than to that higher class which will, in the future, deservedly have the higher name. This work of unification is, also, the first work that should be undertaken and carried out. It is essential to the noblest growth of the institution, and it is essential that it be done at once. It is, therefore, most proper that, in any discussion respecting the coming era, this subject should hold the first and most prominent place. But it is-as we intimated at the close of of our previous Article, and as all are aware-only one among a number of important things which need to be accomplished. We trust it will not be deemed out of place, therefore, if we ask the attention of our readers, at the present time, to another point connected with this most interesting subject-the work to be done in the future.

The suggestion which we would now make is with reference

to suitable provisions and arrangements for those "gradnated" students, who are pursuing a general and non-professional course of study. This class of persons have peculiar claims on the care and interest of the governing powers of the institution, whatever may be the light in which we look at them. To those who think only of the collegiate or academical department, and believe the other schools to be of little or no importance, the young men, who, having just taken their first degree in arts, propose to continue their past studies, can hardly fail to be objects of regard. The existence of such a body of young men residing at the college is an honor to their instructors, as well as a continual inspiration to the under graduates who are following them. To those, on the other hand, who have larger views and who wish for a university, such graduates are of still greater consequence. They form one of the essential parts of the university, without which its life cannot, by any means, be complete. And even to those-if any such there can be-who have no care for the character and form of our higher institutions of learning, but yet desire the progress of literature and scholarly refinement in the country, it will be a matter of no slight moment to give this class of students the greatest advantages, since on them must largely depend all hopes which go out toward this end. And yet it is not strange that they have been the latest class even of graduate students to be provided for. Our country has made. but slow progress, in the past, toward the higher regions of literary refinement. Another and more fundamental work has been essential to its earlier life. The various learned professions have, indeed, long since become necessary, and, accordingly, provision has been made at our educational institutions for those who would enter them. But scholarship, in those other fields which are less immediately connected with the every-day work of life, has been left to the older nations. Its importance has not been appreciated as if it were a thing of present need. There has, consequently, been little demand for it in the public mind, and little or no facilities for attaining it have been offered, even in those colleges which have begun to develop themselves outward toward the university idea. Within the last few years, however, there has been a great