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Dr. Webster and the Free Academy
page 444 [1 of 3]

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DR. WEBSTER, PRESIDENT OF THE NEW-YORK FREE ACADEMY. page 444 [1 of 3]

THROUGHOUT the world an extraordinary degree of attention has recently been directed to systems and means of Education, and the truth has at length been generally recognized that the stability and glory of nations must depend upon the intelligence and virtue of their inhabitants. In our own country, which is most of all interested in the diffusion of knowledge, unexampled efforts are being made not only for the general improvement of the culture offered in the seminaries, but for that elevation of the laboring classes which, whatever may be said by ambitious feeble-minds, seeking for reputation as reformers of the social system, is really to be found only in a wise development of individual capacities for the strife that has been and must be waged for individual well-being.

There have been many improvements suggested or realized lately in collegiate education. We have been gratified with Professor Sedgwick's admirable treatise on the subject, which, at this time, is receiving in England that consideration to which any thing from the mind of one so distinguished is entitled. In this country we think no one, upon the whole, has written more wisely than Dr. Wayland, whose views are to be illustrated in the future government of the university over which he has so long presided. But we shall not be satisfied until we have a great institution, as much above the existing colleges as they are above the common schools in the wards of the city, to which bachelors of arts only shall be admitted, and to which they, whether coming from Harvard, Oberlin, or Virginia, shall be admitted without charge.

The establishment of the New-York Free Academy is suggestive of many things, and of this among them. We suppose a discussion whether our colleges supply the degree of education suitable to our general condition, could be entertained only by dunces; the point whether they furnish the kind and quality of culture to fit men for efficient and just action, in much public affairs and private occupations as the humblest may be called to in a free state, has been amply discussed, and it is decided against the colleges.

Our schools, called colleges, have for the most part been fashioned after the universities of Europe, but they have in all cases been inadequately endowed, and without the internal police which to necessary to their vigorous administration. Nine-tenths of the professors are incompetent, and quite one half of them, in any thing worthy the name of university could claim admission only to the class of freshmen; while those who are capable of a reputable performance of their duties --so uncertain are the revenues of the institutions to which they are attached-- are very frequently compelled to mollify regulations and relax discipline to such a degree that the colleges become only schools of vice or nurseries of indolence.

The deficiency is of authority. It in useless to talk about courses of study, or any thing else, until the discipline of the schools in as

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