ence,
that it is not an easy task to transplant a tree which is deeply
rooted. It is especially hard to do so in our soil and climate. Though
a migratory people, our college professors are fixtures. Such local
college attachments are not known in Germany; and the promotions which
are frequent in Germany are less thought of here. When we think of
calling foreign teachers, we encounter other difficulties. Many are
reluctant to cross the sea; and others are, by reason of their lack of
acquaintance with our language and ways, unavailable. Besides we may as
well admit that London, Paris, Leipsic, Berlin, and Vienna afford
facilities for literary and scientific growth and influence, far beyond
what our country affords. Hence, it is probable that among our own
countrymen, our faculty will be chiefly found.

I wrote, not long ago, to an eminent physicist, presenting this problem
in social mechanics, for which I asked his solution, "We cannot have a
great university without great professors; we cannot get great
professors till we have a great university: help us from the dilemma."
Let me tell his answer: "Your difficulty," he says, "applies only to old
men who are great; these you can rarely move; but the young men of
genius, talent, learning and promise, you can draw. They should be your
strength."

The young Americans of talent and promise--there is our strength, and a
noble company they are! We do not ask from what college, or what state,
or what church they come; but what do they know, and what can they do,
and what do they want to find out.

In the biographies of eminent scholars, it is curious to observe how
many indicated in youth preeminent ability. Isaac Casaubon, whose name
in the sixteenth century shed lustre on the learned circles of Geneva,
Montpellier, Paris, London and Oxford, began as professor of Greek, at
the age of twenty-two; and Heinsius, his Leyden contemporary, at
eighteen. It was at the age of twenty-eight, that Linnaeus first
published his _Systema Naturae_. Cuvier was appointed a professor in
Paris at twenty-six, and, a few months later, a member of the
Institute. James Kent, the great commentator on American law, began his
lectures in Columbia College at the age of thirty-one. Henry was not far
from thirty years of age when he made his world-renowned researches in
electro-magnetism; and Dana's great work on mineralogy was first
published before he was twenty-five years old, and about four years
aft