-- long as schools of scarcely the dignity of our higher academies, and with no pretence to any department except the collegiate, and with not even students enough for a respectable class, are calling themselves universities, it is pleasant to think that a great institution like Yale has always kept its old unpretend ing name. But if we look at the facts of the case, the time has passed for the appropriateness of this title. It no longer describes what the institution really is. It creates endless confusion, because the word college must be used in two senses,at one time, referring to the academical department only, and, at another, to all the departments as united together. A man may thus be a professor or a student in the college and not in the college at the same time, and what the college is becomes a matter of uncertainty to the outside world. It tends, also, to give the collegiate branch the preeminence above all others and to perpetuate the want of coöordination among the various schools. Names are very important, oftentimes. They represent things. They are, as it were, the things t ́emselves. They ought, therefore, to be given according to the nature of the things. Yale College, as a mere college, is only a partit is only one of five branches of the institution which is known by that name. There is a university at New Haven, which includes the college, which has grown out of, indeed, but far beyond the limits of the college. Why should it not designate itself by a name which is suited to distinguish its peculiar character? It is a university-why should it not be called one? But, whatever may be the desirableness or undesirableness of adopting this name on other grounds, it appears to us that its adoption must tend to the accomplishment of the object of uniting the departments by a common bond. These various departments would, at once, become, to their own apprehension and the apprehension of the world, members of the one body-members with equal privileges and an equal rank. The constant use of the new title would be a continual reminder to all of their relations to one another, and would be a sort of outward manifestation and declaration of the true idea of the university. These last mentioned suggestions, as we have intimated, may be considered of minor importance, as compared with those which were previously presented. They are not, however, without weight. The institution is not beginning now, without any old traditions. It is bearing in its life the influ ences of a history of nearly two hundred years. These influences, so far as the point now before us is concerned, have been largely in a direction opposite to the university idea. They must, therefore, be counteracted, if that idea is to gain its proper place. Everything may well be done, under such circumstances, which, by any means, can remove the wrong notions and establish the right one. Even names, and things of inferior consequence, if they will prove helpful to the end, may wisely be cared for, and, as it appears to us, those who may have in charge the great and special work of the coming era should thoughtfully consider every measure which may bear upon this work; and if, after such consideration, any means, even the least, shall seem adapted to bring the end in view, they should promptly decide to use them. The American University-in the highest sense of that word-is a thing of the future. But it is not to be originated in the future. It is not to be established by the resolutions of a mass convention, or by the efforts of a few reformers in education, whose only aim is to overthrow established systems, and all whose ideas are the outgrowth of modern American society. It will have its life rooted in the past. It will have a historic character. Where it will be located, or whether there will be one institution, or more than one, which will deserve and bear the name, it may be presumptuous, at this period of the country's progress, to attempt to determine. But it is not too much to say, that those great institutions which have been growing in strength and solidity and numbers for two centuries have great advantages over all others in respect to the coming time. They have a past history, which is secure. They have the traditions of the past to hold them to a true conservatism. As they are not the creatures of the present, they need not succumb to the passing notions of the hour. They can pass, in their life, from all the sound thoughts of former generations to the still higher ideals of scholarship of a coming age-and can take from the present, as they pass onward, only that measure of its influence which is good. Their growth is the only healthy growth-that which starts from the beginning of the nation's life and keeps steadily on into the indefinite future. So far as the possibilities of human vision go, therefore, we may predict for them-if their course is directed by wisdom-more safely than for any others, the realization of this high idea. Surely, every friend of theirs and every well-wisher of his country ought to desire for them this honorable future, for it will be a glory to the nation if its noblest and highest universities are, in all time, those which have grown with its growth and strengthened with its strength. But, if they are to attain this end, they cannot linger in the sphere of mere colleges. They cannot neglect the development of any of their parts, but must see that all the parts increase together in the unity and harmony of a common life. A grave responsibility will rest upon those who have the positions of authority in them in the coming years. It will be, however, as in all great works, a responsibility only commensurate with the good to be accomplished and the reward to be attained. We believe that the time is close at hand when the University idea must be taken as the true guiding thought of all the future-when the old notion of a college with minor schools attached to it must be abandoned forever, and the several departments must be regarded as altogether coequal-when all portions of the institution must be pressed forward with the same energy, and watched over with the same minute and constant care-or the hope of the future will be lost. Other institutions of later origin and less noble past history will take the honor which is ready and waiting now for these. We have spoken of Yale College because we are deeply interested in it. Much of what we have said would apply elsewhere, but our thoughts and those of our associates are naturally upon the future of our own University. We hope that future may be marked by wisdom as great as has characterized the past. Through the wisdom of the past, the institution. has grown from its small beginnings, in the times of the early fathers, to the greatness of its present numbers and the wideness of its present fame. It has developed itself outward from its original center into new departments as they were needed, until now it is a complete University in its plan and form. It needs only that continual growth, which is the necessity of all life, and that more perfect unity of all its parts which shall impart to it still greater strength and vigor for its future course, in order to make it all that its most ardent friends could desire it to become-a complete University in the highest sense. And now is the time to move forward. To-day, in the advantages which it affords, Yale College is unsurpassed. In the plan by which it has determined the question between classical and scientific education most favorably to both, it has been wiser than any of its sister institutions. In the number of its students, it stands in the front rank. The incentives which come from past success, and those which arise from dangers in the future, all point to earnest action. We have attempted to show one of the lines in which such action is needed and the ways in which its energy may be directed. There are other lines which might be traced out-there are other works which, as we think, ought to characterize the new era; but we have trespassed upon the patience of our readers in this article so long that we pass them by unnoticed. ARTICLE VI.-HOW THE REV. DR. STONE BETTERED HIS SITUATION. By Leonard Woolsey Bacon. The Invitation Heeded: Reasons for a Return to Catholic 1870. WE remit to a future opportunity the exposure of the latest statistical vagaries of the Catholic World, beguiled from that duty by the attractions of the latest issue of the Catholic Publication Society. This is one of the most interesting specimens of a very interesting class of books-those written by converts to or from Romanism in vindication of their change of views; and when that good day comes when we all have time for every thing, we shall count it well worth while to criticize it in detail. At present, we undertake no more than rapidly to state the upshot of the Rev. Dr. Stone's religious change, as it appears to us, and to foot up the balance of spiritual advantage which he seems to have gained by it. A year ago last October, the Rev. James Kent Stone, D. D., a minister of excellent standing in the Protestant Episcopal Church, received, in common with the rest of us, a copy of a letter from the pope of Rome, in which he was affectionately invited to "rescue himself from a state in which he could not be assured of his own salvation," by becoming a member of the Roman Catholic Church,-which teaches, by the way, that as soon as a man becomes "assured of his own salvation" it is a dead certainty that he will be damned.* Accordingly, the Rev. Dr. Stone, deeply conscious how uncertain and perilous is the position of those who merely commit themselves in well doing, with simplicity and sincerity, to the keeping of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to his promises, "hastens to rescue himself from that state, in which he * Act. Conc. Trid., Sess. VI., Capp. IX., XII., XIII. |