From: The Dial, Vol. III, No. I (July 1842)
Author:
Published: E. P. Peabody 1842 Boston
Harvard University. The Chair of Natural History, vacant since the resignation of Mr. Nuttall, is filled by the appointment of Asa Gray, M. D., known to the botanists as the associate of Mr. Torrey of New York. In the Divinity College, the Chair of Pulpit Eloquence and Pastoral Care, vacant by the resignation of Henry Ware, Jr., is to be filled by Dr. Convers Francis. A generous subscription by several friends of the College has resulted in a fund of more than 20,000 dollars for the purchase of books for the College Library. The College has also received a bequest which promises at a future day to be a valuable foundation. Benjamin Bussey, Esq. has provided in his will for the application of the income of his property to the benefit of certain heirs therein named. At the decease of the survivor of them, and subject to the payment of any annuities then existing, he gives all his property to Harvard University for the following purpm1es. His Estate in Roxbury is to he held forever as a Seminary for “ instruction in practical agriculture, in useful and ornamental gardening, in botany, and in such other branches of natural science, as may tend to promote a knowledge of practical agriculture, and the various arts subservient thereto, and connected therewith.” The government of the University is also “to cause such courses of lectures to be delivered there, at such seasons of the year and under such regulations as they may think best adapted to promote the ends designed; and also to furnish gratuitous aid, if they shall think it expedient, to such meritorious persons as may resort there for instruction.” One half of the net income of his property is to be appropriated to maintain that institution; and the residue of the income is to be divided equally between the Divinity School and the Law School of the University. Mr. Bussey’s property is estimated at not less than three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
On the subject of the University we cannot help wishing that a change will one day be adopted which will put an end to the foolish bickering between the government and the students, which almost every year breaks out into those uncomfortable fracases which are called ‘Rebellions.’ Cambridge is so well endowed, and offers such large means of education, that it can easily assume the position of an University, and leave to the numerous younger Colleges the charge of pupils too young to be trusted from home. This is instantly effected by the Faculty’s confining itself to the office of Instruction, and omitting to assume the office of Parietal Government. Let the College provide the best teachers in each department, and for a stipulated price receive the pupil to its lecture-rooms and libraries; but in the matter of morals and manners, leave the student to his own conscience, and if he is a bad subject to the ordinary police. This course would have the effect of keeping hack pupils from College, a year or two, or, in some cases, of bringing the parents or guardians of the pupil to reside in Cambridge; but it would instantly destroy the root of endless grievances between the student and teacher, put both parties on the best footing,—indispensable, one would say, to good teaching,—relieve the professors of an odious guardianship, always degenerating into espionage, which must naturally indispose men of genius and honorable mind from accepting the professor’s chair.
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