APPENDIX. say, I. A. FRAGMENT ON ACADEMICAL HONORS.—(1836.) (See p. 13.) BEFORE Commencing the Lecture of to-day, I would occupy a few minutes with a matter in which I am confident you generally feel an interest; - I refer to the Academical Honors to be awarded to those who approve their zeal and ability in the business of the Class. After what I formerly had occasion to I conceive it wholly unnecessary now to attempt any proof of the fact, — that it is not by anything done by others for you, but by what alone you do for yourselves, that your intellectual improvement must be determined. Reading and listening to lectures are only profitable, inasmuch as they afford you the means and the occasions of exerting your faculties; - for these faculties are only developed in proportion as they are exercised. This is a principle I take for granted. A second fact, I am assured you will also allow me to assume, is, that although strenuous energy is the one condition of all improvement, yet this energy is, at first and for a long time, comparatively painful. It is painful, because it is imperfect. But as it is gradually perfected, it becomes gradually more pleasing, and when finally perfect, that is, when its power is fully developed, it is purely pleasurable; for pleasure is nothing but the concomitant or reflex of the unforced and unimpeded energy of a faculty or habit,—the degree of pleasure being always in proportion to the degree of such energy. The great problem in education is, therefore, how to induce the pupil to undertake and go through with a course of exertion, in its result good and even agreeable, but immediately and in itself, irksome. There is no royal road to learning. "The gods," says Epicharmus,1 "sell us everything for toil;" and the curse inherited from Adam; — that in the sweat of his face man should eat his bread,is true of every human acquisition. Hesiod, not less beautifully than philosophically, sings of the painful commencement, and the pleasant consummation, of virtue, in the passage of which the following is the commencement: Τῆς δ ̓ Ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προράροιθεν έθηκαν 1 Xenophon, Memorabilia, ii. 1, 20.- ED. 2 Opera et Dies, 287.- ED. (a passage which, it will be recollected, Milton has not less beautifully imitated); and the Latin poet has, likewise, well expressed the principle, touching literary excellence in particular: "Gaudent sudoribus artes Et sua difficilem reddunt ad limina cursum." 2 But as the pain is immediate, while the profit and the pleasure are remote, you will grant, I presume, without difficulty, a third fact, that the requisite degree and continuance of effort can only be insured, by applying a stimulus to counteract and overcome the repressive effect of the feeling with which the exertion is for a season accompanied. A fourth fact will not be denied, that emulation and the love of honor constitute the appropriate stimulus in education. These affections are of course implanted in man for the wisest purposes; and, though they may be misdirected, the inference from the possibility of their abuse to the absolute inexpediency of their employment, is invalid. However disguised, their influence is universal : "Ad has se Romanus, Graiusque, et Barbarus induperator Erexit: causas discriminis atque laboris Inde habuit; "3 and Cicero shrewdly remarks, that the philosophers themselves prefix their names to the very books they write on the contempt of glory. These passions actuate most powerfully the noblest minds. "Optimos mortalium," 5 says the father of the Senate to Tiberius, -"Optimos mortalium altissima cupere : contemptu famæ contemni virtutes." "Naturâ," says Seneca, "gloriosa est virtus, et anteire priores cupit;" and Cicero, in more proximate reference to our immediate object, - "Honor alit artes omnesque incenduntur ad studia gloriâ." But, though their influence be universal, it is most powerfully conspicuous in the young, of whom Aristotle has noted it as one of the most discriminating characteristics, that they are lovers of honor, but still more lovers of victory.8 If, therefore, it could be but too justly proclaimed of man in general: "Quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam, Præmia si tollas? "9 "In learning," says it was least of all to be expected that youth should do so. the wisdom of Bacon, "the flight will be [low and] slow without some feathers of ostentation." 10 Nothing, therefore, could betray a greater ignorance of human nature, or a greater negligence in employing the most efficient mean within its grasp, than for any seminary of education to leave unapplied these great promoting principles of activity, and to take for granted that its pupils would act precisely as they ought, though left with every inducement strong against, and without any sufficient motive in favor of, exertion. Now, I express, I believe, the universal sentiment, both within and without these walls, in saying, that this University has been unhappily all too remiss, in leaving the most powerful mean of academical education nearly, if not altogether, unemployed. You will observe I use the term University in contradiction to individual Professors, for many of these have done much in this respect, and all of them, I believe, are satisfied that a great deal more ought to be done. But it is not in the power of individual instructors to accomplish what can be only accomplished by the public institution. The rewards proposed to meritorious effort are not sufficiently honorable; and the efforts to which they are frequently accorded, not of the kind or degree to be of any great or general advantage. I shall explain myself. A distinction is sought after with a zeal proportioned to its value; and its value is measured by the estimation which it holds in public opinion. Now, though there are prizes given in many of our classes, nothing has been done to give them proper value by raising them in public estimation. They are not conferred as matters of importance by any external solemnity; they are not conferred in any general meeting of the University; far less under circumstances which make their distribution a matter of public curiosity and interest. Compared to the publicity that might easily have been secured, they are left, so to speak, to be given in holes and corners; and while little thought of today, are wholly forgotten to-morrow; so that the wonder only is, that what the University has thus treated with such apparent contempt, should have awakened even the inadequate emulation that has been so laudably displayed. Of this great defect in our discipline, I may safely say that every Professor is aware, and it is now actually under the consideration of the Senatus, what are the most expedient measures to obtain a system of means of full efficiency for the encouragement and reward of academical merit. It will, of course, form the foundation of any such improvement, that the distribution of prizes be made an act of the University at large; and one of the most public and imposing character. By this means a far more powerful emulation will be roused; a spirit which will not be limited to a certain proportion of the students, but will more or less pervade the whole; nay, not merely the students themselves, but their families; so that when this system is brought to its adequate perfection, it will be next to impossible for a young man of generous disposition not to put forth every energy to raise himself as high as possible in the scale of so honorable a competition. But, besides those who can only be affected by an act of the whole University, important improvement may, I think, be accomplished in this respect in the several classes. In what I now say, I would not be supposed to express any opinion in regard to other classes; but confine my observations to one under the circumstances of our own. In the first place, then, I am convinced that excitement and rewards are principally required to promote a general and continued diligence in the ordinary business of the class. I mean, therefore, that the prizes should with us be awarded for general eminence, as shown in the Examinations and Exercises; and I am averse on principle from proposing any premium during the course of the sessional labors for single and detached efforts. The effect of this would naturally be to distract attention from what ought to be the principal and constant object of occupation; and if honor is to be gained by an irregular and transient spirit of activity, less encouragement will necessarily be afforded to regular and sedulous application. Prizes for individual Essays, for Written Analyses of important books, and for Oral Examination on their contents, may, however, with great advantage, be proposed as occupation during the summer vacation; and this I shall do. But the honors of the Winter Session must belong to those who have regularly gone through its toils. In the second place, the value of the prizes may be greatly enhanced by giving them greater and more permanent publicity. A very simple mode, and one which I mean to adopt, is to record upon a tablet each year, the names of the successful competitors; this tablet to be permanently affixed to the walls of the class-room, while a duplicate may, in like manner, be placed in the Common Reading-Room of the Library. In the third place, the importance of the prizes for general eminence in the business of the class may be considerably raised, by making the competitors the judges of merit among themselves. This I am persuaded is a measure of the very highest efficiency. On theory I would argue this, and in practice it has been fully verified. On this head, I shall quote to you the experience of my venerated preceptor, the late Professor Jardine of Glasgow, a man, I will make bold to say, who, in the chair of Logic of that University, did more for the intellectual improvement of his pupils than any other public instructor in this country within the memory of man. This he did not accomplish either by great erudition or great philosophical talent, though he was both a learned and an able thinker,—but by the application of that primary principle of education, which, wherever employed, has been employed with sucI mean the determination of the pupil to self-activity, - doing nothing for him which he is able to do for himself. This principle, which has been always inculcated by theorists on education, has, however, by few been carried fully into effect. cess, "One difficult and very important part," says Mr. Jardine,1 "in administering the system of prizes, still remains to be stated; and this is the method by which the different degrees of merit are determined; a point in which any error with regard to principle, or suspicion of practical mistake, would completely destroy all the good effects aimed at by the establishment in question. It has been already mentioned, that the qualifications which form the ground of competition for the class prizes, as they are sometimes called, and which are to be distinguished from the university prizes, are diligence, regularity of attendance, general eminence at the daily examinations, and in the execution of themes, propriety of academical conduct, and habitual good manners; and, on these heads, it is very obvious, a judgment must be pronounced either by the professor, or by the students themselves, as no others have access to the requisite information. "It may be imagined, at first view, that the office of judge would be best performed by the professor; but after long experience, and much attention to the subject in all its bearings, I am inclined to give a decided preference to the exercise of this right as vested in the students. Were the professor to take this duty upon himself, it would be impos 1 Outlines of Philosophical Education, etc., pp. 384, 385; 387, 389. |