REMARKS

ON

CHANGES LATELY PROPOSED OR ADOPTED,

IN

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

BY GEORGE TICKNOR,

SMITH PROFESSOR, &c.

PUBLISHED BY CUMMINGS, HILLIARD & CO.

True and Greene, Printers, Merchants' Hall;

1825.

LD 2120
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To prevent any misapprehension of the object of the following Remarks, it may be necessary to premise, that they were originally prepared for a different mode of publication, and that they are now printed without alteration, except the change of the first person plural to the first person singular; and the addition of the notes marked A. and B., which are placed by themselves, at the end.

The Author hopes, also, that he may be indulged in the further observation, that the changes which he has here endeavoured to explain and defend, no otherwise affect his own relations to Harvard College, than as they increase his own labours.

September 23, 1825.

REMARKS.

THE age in which we live has been appropriately called the age of improvement; and certainly, among the demands made by its peculiar spirit, none has been more constant, more extensive, or more earnest, than the demand, in this country, for an improved state of education. It has been felt among us on every side, and in almost every form; in the humblest primary instruction given by charity; in the large public resorts, where our youth are fitted for the more laborious occupations of life; in our colleges; and in the schools through which the professions are to be entered by those, who hope to attain to much eminence in them. In all, the standard has been greatly raised, and is still rapidly rising, without, perhaps, in any, meeting entirely the wants and hopes of the community. For the generation, on whom now rest the cares of life among us, feel very sensibly, how much more lightly their burthen could be borne, if they had more of that knowledge, which is, indeed, power everywhere, but nowhere so truly and entirely, as in the midst of free institutions; so that there is, at this moment, hardly a father in our country, who does not count among his chief anxieties, and most earnest hopes, the desire to give his children a better education, than he has been able to obtain for himself.

It is natural, and indeed wise, that this stirring spirit should have made very plain and loud demands, on what may be considered the high places of knowledge among us; and it was, perhaps, inevitable, that these demands should first be made in a distinct and definite shape on Harvard College. For Harvard College is one of a very few institutions in our land, that are beginning to be venerable for age and respectable in resources. It is, indeed, the oldest of