Without doubt some proportion of the three hundred and eighty-one leave the College because of the necessity they are under of obtaining, by their labor, the means of subsistence; but when it is remembered that these three hundred and eighty-one are the _picked youth from the many thousands attending the public schools_, and when the sacrifices and privations which men and youth imbued with a love of learning will make and undergo for the acquirement of knowledge are borne in mind, we must look to something in the constitution of the College itself to account for this result. In short, we can but come to the conclusion that the main cause of this falling off is to be found in the feeling which grows upon the pupils and their guardians, of the comparative uselessness of the studies to which they are consigned.
Let us examine the course of studies, as given from pages 8 to 14 of the Report of the Board of Trustees for the year 1866, or from pages 24 to 28 of the Manual of the College.
The first observation which must strike the mind of every thinker is the fact that the primary analysis--the main classification which has been adopted of studies which ought to be framed to fit the students for "complete living"--is one of "words," _i. e._, the tools of knowledge, instead of knowledge itself. Or in the words of the Report: "There are two courses of studies--ancient and modern--differing only in the languages studied."
On examining the course for the introductory and freshman classes, a feeling of astonishment must fill the mind at the marked want of wisdom by which it was dictated, but which at the same time affords a sufficient explanation for the abandonment of the College by its students.
Even if "_words_" ought to be the real object of education, it would be supposed that English words would be more useful to a people whose mother-tongue is English, than the words of any other language; yet the students of the introductory and freshman classes of the ancient course receive instruction _five hours a week through both terms in Latin and Greek_, and _one lesson per week during one term in the English language_. The students of the modern course substitute for Latin and Greek the French and Spanish languages.