The first Number of this Work was issued as "THE UNDERGRADUATE." Nothing CONTENTS. ESSAYS. JULY, 1861. ARTICLE I-CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY, ENGLAND. No. II. DEUM TIMETO: REGEM HONORATO: VIRTUTEM COLITO: DISCIPLINIS BONIS OPERAM DATO. Stat. Acad. Cantab. 'WHY it is that Germany has hitherto attracted more American Students to her Universities than England, the Mother of us all,' would, no doubt, be an excellent subject for some one of our contributors, whose genius leads him to look with critical and discriminating eyes upon the tendencies of American thought in the various spheres of Science, Literature and Theology. The 'family quarrel' of 1775, which, until most recent days, has been perpetuated in social and commercial jealousies, may have had its influence. The sympathy and aid which our fathers received from France and Central Europe generally, have also had their weight. The reaction, however, thank God, has commenced. Every American of sense should feel, as does every intelligent Englishman, that it is high time that good feeling should prevail. American literature is not Germanic, but Anglican development. American Science owes more to Barrow, Newton and Faraday, than it does to German mathematicians, (who knows their names?) Bunsen, or even Humboldt. Our philosophy and logic are based rather on the solid English substratum of Bacon, 2 Cambridge University, England. [July, and Locke, than on the dreams of Fichte, or even the more permanent Kritik of Kant. In theology, most Americans are learning that Strauss is not so high authority as the conservative English school, and theritings of our New England Dwights and Edwards. Granting the sublimity and grasp of Goethe, and the genial enthusiasm of Schiller, yet who will deny that America sentiment is more deeply penetrated by the High Priests on Literature in England? Our publishers will tell us that "Soll and Haben" do not find so ready a sale as the countless works of English novelists and satirists. Compare, too, the standing of the German Universities with Cambridge and Oxford. Five German Universities have a London commercial agent for the sale of degrees in absentiâ. Be sure, Ph. D. does not carry with it much renown in England, and ought not, per se, in America. Meissner, to whom the Faculty of Heidelberg has entrusted the late crusade against degree-selling, says there are but three institutions in all Germany which do not prostitute their high literary privilege of affixing a distinguishing mark to the man of education and literary culture. It is far otherwise in Cambridge and Oxford-those "eyes of England." Even the Prince of Wales, now at Trinty College in this University, cannot obtain his degree in absentiâ. These institutions, the wealthiest foundations of a scholastic nature in the world, are forever placed above the necessity of selling their diplomas from behind a tradesman's counter. It is notorious that £3 17s. 6d., applied judiciously through the London Agency, will make any man "primo gradu Philosophical Doctor" of Giessen, and equally well known, that only three years actual study at Cambridge, will make him Bachelor of this University. There needs, alas! no ghost to tell us, that even Intellectual Discipline, in these later days, is what mathematicians would call, a function of that exceeding variable, the amount of money in the purse. 'Tis true, that as the price of corn increases, the number of Students diminishes; and, ceteris paribus, * Vide advertisement of one Herr Mueller, Ph. D., Gt. Pulteney street, London, daily in the London Times. |