in practice, we might easily fall back on that tough and gritty hypothesis of the theologians-perhaps these evils are incidental to the best system!

It may not be worth while to attempt to refute certain merry phrases which we have heard applied to this business. cording to our memory, few have ever succeeded in arguing against a joke. It is not very difficult for any one to lift his hands and brows, exclaiming "would it be well to have young ladies brought together in such herds and caravansaries ?" The answer which the learned pastor of Kempten gave to Montaigne's question concerning the allowability of dancing, would be logically pertinent to this:-"Why not?" Moreover there are many who find considerable amusement in setting forth this institution as "a great protestant nunnery," as "an anabaptistical convent," et cetera. If, however, it can be truly shown that this home principle-which, if not witty itself, seems the cause of considerable wit-does involve the largest advantage with the least disadvantage, it should by all means be adopted; and if at this the cheerful world must laugh-why, it must e'en do so!

But in passing to the objections which may be seriously urged against the plan in question, we find them comprehensively stated in "The Massachusetts Teacher,"* by the pen of Prof. Alpheus Crosby.

We must confess that we regret that it is contemplated to provide a home for the students in the college edifice, and thus make of the institution a great boarding school or convent, involving in it the multitude of cares, expenses, annoyances, restraints, vexatious regulations, and evil influences, which are incident to the amassing of so many persons in one community under a single roof. On account of this provision, which, in such an institution, judging from the university experience of England, Scotland, Germany, and this country, we deem to be usually worse than needless, the building and grounds at Poughkeepsie will cost, according to the statement of the trustees, about $247,000, or more than one-half of its magnificent endowment, leaving only about $161,000 for all other purposes. If it is not now too late to make a change, we beg leave to suggest, most respectfully but earnestly, to the founder, president, and other trustees, whether it would not be better to erect, at a fourth part of the expense, a building, in some convenient situation, for the public rooms required: leaving the teachers and pupils to

*September, 1861.

obtain houses and board for themselves, according to their own preferences, and thus doubling the sum appropriated for the intellectual endowment of the institution,-its library, apparatus, cabinets of natural history, art gallery, and other collections, and the foundation of professorships and scholarships."

Prof. Crosby appears to have made out a strong case, espe-' cially on economic grounds. We think, however, that there are opposing considerations which quite outweigh those so ably presented by him. There seems, also, to have been one impression on his mind, the removal of which would undoubtedly have modified his conclusion, the impression that the present endowment of Vassar College is all that it is to receive at the hands of Mr. Vassar.

To our view, this subject takes some such shape as this. If the young women of this country are to have the privilege of a liberal education, colleges must be established for them-colleges so capaciously endowed as to bring together all the apparatus and appliances and facilities necessary to the most advanced and complete instruction. It is utterly vain to imagine that these can be collected by the proprietors of private boarding schools. They require an immense endowment; and there is no disguise over the fact, that persons who establish private boarding schools, usually do so as a means of livelihood and with a limited capital. Their establishments, when all that they profess to be, do no more than correspond, in the curriculum of a liberal education, to the position filled by our academies and preparatory schools for boys. The entire course of collegiate study laid down in the college catalogue could be prosecuted by an enterprising youth at the county academy: yet under what tremendous disadvantages! All the benefit to be derived from the law of division of labor applied to teaching, from the best talent intensified and enlarged by the consecration of the whole life, from an elaborate system of lectures, with ocular demonstrations and illustrations, from grand collections of books, diagrams and specimens, from remorseless drill, from unrelaxing reviews, from stated and stately examinations, and finally from that vast unconscious incessant process of culture to body, mind and heart, which streams from the quickened mass of so many minds gathered together and

inter-operating, and which constitutes the nameless esprit de corps of the university world, will be lost to him who attempts to get through the college text-books in the solitude of the academy. Away with the mouldy nonsense of conventionalism! If the college is of such value to your son, it would be of similar value to your daughter.

We must then have colleges for women. But if so, then we must have, also, the large masses, nay even (pessima verba !) "the herds," "the caravansaries ;" simply because we cannot afford to build a costly university for a small number of pupils. A Matthew Vassar will not appear in every township. Would it be economical, would it be fair, even though for other reasons it should be desirable, to limit the benefits of the immense endowment of Yale to the persons of two dozen favored young men? Taking into account the immense number of applicants, among the young women of America, for the high privileges of a university education, together with the small number of universities that can ever be established, it becomes a thing of absolute necessity that each of these gift-containing institutions should receive the largest number possible.

Thus the chain lengthens. Young women must have their universities: universities must admit large numbers. Add this other link-these large numbers must be entertained on the home system. Here is a woman's college, opulent in revenue, opulent in facilities. Three hundred young ladies from Maine and from Michigan, from New York and Nebraska, at ages ranging from sixteen to twenty-two, apply for admission. They are received. How shall they be provided for? Will it do to leave these girls to look up boarding houses and lodging places throughout the city, "according to their own preferences?" Or should the college faculty do its utmost and arrange these items for them, the case is but slightly improved. This great fact stands out. These three hundred young girls, many of them utterly ignorant of the world, and away from parental care now for the first time, the faculty can have under its immediate observation only during the few hours of lectures and recitations. Before and after, they are scattered here and there over the city, as choice or chance directed, entirely be

yond the lens of a responsible watchfulness; and while passing to and fro through the streets, and at their boarding tables, and even in their rooms, the opportunities will be abundant for them to make all kinds of acquaintances, some of which will expose them to the most disastrous perils. How would judicious papa and mama, away in Minnesota, enjoy the thought of sending pretty Susy (Et. 16 summers) to recite lessons and hear lectures under President Jewett for three or four years, eating and sleeping meanwhile at some boarding house in town, selected "according to her own preferences?" You might, indeed, establish an elaborate system of espionage; but to say nothing of the odious, irritating, and demoralizing influences of such a system, it could not succeed. Its victims, thus situated, would have every advantage over the spies; and those who willed it could contrive a hundred devices a day to discomfit your most cerberean police officers. And in Heaven's name, give us ignorance, give us barbarism, and that forever, rather than an education wrought amid a ritual of eaves-dropping and tattling!

And among the embarrassments attending the system, of voluntary and scattered residence, let this be considered: the difficulty to be encountered by young ladies, boarding in different parts of the city, in getting to the college buildings to attend recitations, under all conditions of weather, tramping through rain and snow and mud. And how could they go from all quarters of the town to be present at lectures, concerts, and soirees, in the evening,-returning to their boarding houses at ten or eleven o'clock at night?

Moreover, concerning the economic argument there is a word to be said. Professor Crosby has contemplated the question merely with reference to one of the parties, and that the party who least needs the benefit of such solicitude: he has left quite out of sight the question of economy as relating to the pupils. Surely wholesale is cheaper than retail. The pupils of Vassar College can be better kept and at lower rates, in one large establishment, than if divided between and expected to sustain, fifty petty and indigent ones. If Mr. Vassar is willing to provide a home for two or three hundred young

ladies, he is doing what he is abundantly able to do; and he is saving multitudes from an expense which many of them will be poorly able to suffer. We think true economy means to save when there is most need of saving. We prefer that this opulent and generous benefactor should spend somewhat more, that thousands of girls, through all the future, may be enabled to spend somewhat less.

And great as will be the expense of providing a home for so many young ladies, giving to each her own separate sleeping apartment, and furnishing every convenience of an abode of affluence, taste, and refinement, we fully believe it will be an expense well bestowed. In the superior intellectual, social, and moral advantages which result from this arrangement, the return will be absolutely commensurate with the outgo. On the plan adopted, the students and teachers constitute one great family, the members of which are united by a common object of pursuit-self-culture and progress in whatever is high and worthy; each individual of the circle reciprocating genial and ennobling influences, bound together by kindred tastes, sympa thies, and aims; the inner life being the object of study even more than the outward, and all external hostile influences being effectually excluded. Those influences which are brought to bear on the students out of the regular scholastic hours, through the arrangements of the family, exert a greater power over the tastes, manners, habits, and principles of the pupils than all that can be done for them in the recitation and lecture rooms. In short, the plan which has been chosen secures all the benefits which young men derive from the college with the most elevated and refined home culture.

It seems to us, therefore, that the plan so earnestly suggested by Professor Crosby fails under the test; and we believe that experience as well as theory demonstrates the wisdom of the system on which Vassar College is founded. Professor Crosby refers to the home system as "involving in it a multitude of cares, expenses, annoyances, restraints, vexatious regulations, and evil influences." Undoubtedly: for Paradise is lost; and Vassar College does not pretend to be the synonym for Paradise regained. These evils must exist among any three hun