hey shall be conversant with books, who require
to be learned men, and they whose concern lies principally in the
active business of life, in skill or labor, should have in some
respects a different course of study, but be subjected to the
influence of different minds, and examples, and rules, and scenes, and
associations, corresponding to the different relations which they will
sustain. 'Non omnia possumus omnes,' is a proverb applicable both to
teachers and to pupils, and it would forbid the supposition, that
minds which act upon others for widely different purposes, should do
it always with the best effect, or that they who are so acted upon,
should not sometimes suffer injury from the inadequate or ill
appropriated influence that is exerted over them.

"But the evils of commingling within the walls of college, and
subjecting to the same general influence, persons or classes,
requiring a different preparatory training, would not, probably, be
greater than those which would result from an attempt to carry
collegial instruction above the simple groundwork of the professions,
and to accommodate the course of study and discipline to the future
intended course of life. To whatever extent improvement should be
carried in the preparatory schools, of whatever qualifications young
men should be possessed, at the usual time of admission to college,
their term of residence here cannot reasonably be thought too long,
nor their facilities too ample, for general elementary cultivation. It
were not the worst of the evil of providing for professional education
at college, that the time which should be devoted to mental
preparation would be lost, and young men would go forth into life
unfurnished; but many minds uncertain and vacillating soon wearied
with the dry elements of one department, would presently attempt
another and a third, and disgusted, at length, with all, would resign
themselves to a stupefying indolence, or a consuming licentiousness.
The examples of other times, when the learning of universities all had
respect to the future political and ecclesiastical relations of the
student, and these institutions became little better than panders to
allied despotism and superstition, may teach us to cultivate our youth
in the elements of general knowledge, and impart vigor and force and
freeness to their minds, in the course of sound fundamental study,
before they are permitted to engage in any merely professional
acquisitions;