whereas those who are qualified for their work, and perform it faithfully and efficiently, may live and die without receiving the slightest recognition beyond the circle, necessarily narrow, in which their labors have been performed, and in which are embraced those capable of appreciating how much they owe them. Among this class, indeed, they are regarded, in their true light, as benefactors; they are esteemed and respected in life, and their memory is gratefully cherished in death. It is true that this satisfies their ambition, because it is not for the praises of the thoughtless multitude they toil, but justly think, with Seneca,* that the approbation of a dozen persons capable of estimating the value of their labors is better than that of as many thousands, or even millions, of those utterly incapable of forming any opinion on the subject. But how are the incompetent more honored than the competent? True, the honor the former receive is a spurious honor, but its influence is all the more demoralizing all the more injurious to the great cause of education-on this very account. Do our readers require us to explain this? A few may, and for the satisfaction of this few, we ask, how many heads of colleges and universities are there who are much more politicians than educators, and who never would have been called educators, even by the most exaggerated courtesy, had they not first devoted themselves to a greater or less extent to the trade of politics? Then let us suppose that a dozen presidents and chancellors of colleges and univerities visit the national capitol to-morrow, which of them would be most likely to receive an invitation to dine with our rulers? Who will say that it is the best qualified to direct the studies of any educational institution? Is it not much more likely that it is the one that is most notoriously unqualified who would receive the invitation? In other words, those capable of transforming the human mind, as the sculptor does the block of marble, might visit our seat of government many a time, or perform his most important labors beside it, without being * Non tam bene cum rebus humanis agitur, ut meliores pluribus placeant; argumentum pessemi turba est.-De Vit. Beat., 2. noticed in any manner, while the one who can transform nothing without deforming it, but who is as powerful as a pugilist in influencing votes, is transformed, himself, into a lion ! M. de Tocqueville has justly remarked, in his "Democracy in America," that this state of things alone would be sufficient to account for the marked inferiority of our colleges and universities as compared to the corresponding institutions of Europe. But we should not need to be told any such thing; the pernicious influence of the habit alluded to is sufficiently obvious. That it should strike foreigners of the powers of observation and analysis of De Tocqueville more forcibly than it does even the most thoughtful and most intelligent of our own people, will not seem strange when it is borne in mind what different views are entertained on those subjects by the governing class in Europe. In all ages enlightened sovereigns have been the friends and protectors, not only of the heads of educational institutions, but of scholars in general. The same is eminently true of enlightened popes. The most careful student of history, from the time of Pericles to the present, could not point out a single exception to this rule. For many centuries all the great capitals of Europe have had their aristocracy of intellect and knowledge; and there is not one of them which does not retain it still. In London, Paris, Berlin; even in St. Petersburg, as well as in Rome, Florence and Naples, the proudest and most exclusive of the nobility receive and treat scholars as equals, often as superiors, whether they are engaged in education or not. And this they do without waiting to inquire whether they have sufficient money to procure them their daily bread. But where, except, to some extent, in Boston, have we any such aristocracy? Where amongst us is not the butcher, the fishmonger, nay, the fraudulent imposter, treated as a person of greater importance, and one worthy of more consideration, if he only have money, than any mere educator or mere scholar? Kings and queens, princes and princesses, popes and cardinals have not only been in the habit of treating edu cators and scholars with quite as much consideration as the highest and most powerful of their nobility; they have, also, been in the habit of giving them annuities for life.* However stubborn and arrogant George III. was, he took a pride in honoring learned men. There was not one of his wealthy dukes or lords with whom he was so anxious to converse as with Dr. Johnson, even when the latter was so poor that he was obliged to borrow a pair of boots, and even a pair of pantaloons, in order to prepare himself to be waited upon in the Queen's library by his Majesty. It is almost superfluous to remark, that the consideration and respect thus evinced throughout Europe, by those in power, for educators and scholars, while no consideration or respect is evinced to sham educators or sham scholars, but contempt and scorn, exercise no slight influence on public opinion in favor of higher education. But apart from our political presidents and chancellors of colleges, there is another class about whom a very great fuss is made, and who owe that fuss not to their learning, or to their qualifications as educators, but to causes and influences little less objectionable, or less injurious to the cause of education than the charlatanism of partisan politics. We need hardly say we allude to those clergymen of different denominations, made presidents, chancellors or rectors because they are bigots and ranters who think none not belonging to their own sect deserve anything better in this world than reproaches and revilings, or anything better in the next world than fire and brimstone. This class is much more numerous than most of our readers would believe at first sight, because each sect regards its own bigot and ranter as no bigot or ranter, but as a That this is neither a recent nor a transitory habit in England, but one that has grown with its scholarship-one that had already taken root so early as the time of Erasmus and Cardinal Woolsey-is well illustrated in the case of the celebrated Dr. Busby, who, being asked how he contrived to keep all his preferments, and the headmastership of Westminster school, through the successive, turbulent reigns of Charles I., Oliver Cromwell, Charles II., and James II., jocosely replied: "The fathers govern the nation, the mothers govern the fathers, the boys govern the mothers, and I govern the boys." pious divine and great pulpit orator. It is difficult to decide how much better this class are, if better at all, than those who owe their positions as educators to their politics, especially as those who are bigots in religion are apt to be also bigots in politics. It is certain that the press is not blameless for this state of things. Indeed it is more fostered by the newspapers than by all other means and influences. It is also the newspapers that make the ranting preachers of all denominations, who happily have no connection with any educational institution, much greater personages than the modest, unobtrusive clergymen, who teach faithfully and well both in the class-room and in the pulpit. The former have their platitudes spread out like blankets-often like blankets reeking with noxious exhalations and lest the doses of distorted religion thus administered-exactly the sort of religion denounced by the great Roman poet-philosopher as calculated to degrade rather than to elevate the human mind*—might not be sufficient to purify and reform a perverse generation, the ranters are “interviewed" ad nauseam; whereas the clergyman worthy of the name, who devotes himself to the class-room and performs those duties, without which all others are of comparatively little use, is neither reported nor "interviewed.”. Still more neglected is the layman devoted to education. But strangely enough the most neglected of all is the "monk," who is neither a priest nor a politician, but who has consecrated himself for life to teaching—that is, he whose chief object in life is the cultivation and development of the intellect. As for the latter, he need expect little more than toleration, with or without frowns, or sneers, even from some of those high ecclesiastical dignitaries who ought to be his best friends and protectors, and who do far less for the prestige of the Church, by their pompous plagarized sermons and their arrogant domi *Humana ante oculos fœde quum vita Lucretius, De Rev. Naturá, 1. 63. neering edicts to their clergy, than he does by his unostentatious, but solid and thorough, teachings, in the class-room. At commencement time there is, indeed, reporting enough, vastly more than is necessary; but even then it is those who teach or can teach least, those who most need to be taught themselves, that are most eulogized, partly because those who really deserve praise do not seek for it, and partly because those who deserve censure instead of praise for their ignorance and effrontery are determined to have the latter, and in as large doses as possible, let it cost what it may. The same remarks, but slightly modified, apply to female educators. Who needs to be told that a third or a fourth rate actress receives far more encouragement from what is called public opinion than a first-class teacher. Whatever the former says or does is chronicled as a great event, whereas the accomplished and faithful teacher who has devoted her life to the development of the mind is no more thought of or encouraged beyond the scene of her labors, or beyond the circle in which the good work she has done is known by its fruits, than the chambermaid or the sewing girl, to whom it has never occurred that knowledge is divine, and that no preacher, whether he be called minister, priest, or presbyter, can be a divine without it. Nay, is it not true that women who commit the most attrocious crimes-women who outrage public decency and disgrace their sex--obtain more sympathy, when, being unable to conceal their crimes any longer, they are placed under restraint, with more or less prospect of being punished as they deserve, than our best and most faithful female teachers do when suffering from infirmities brought on by overwork for the cause of education—that is, for the cause of humanity, the cause of religion, the cause of public and private virtue? We could easily illustrate this comparison in order to prove its truth and justice, but there are none of our readers whose memory will not furnish them with but too many illustrations of both sides of the picture. We need hardly say, then, what our feeling was when we saw the venerable Chancellor of the University of the City of New York and the amiable President of Georgetown College |