Journal of the Proceedings of a Convention of Literary and Scientific Gentlemen; Held in the Common Council Chamber of the City of New York, October,

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1831. Excerpt: ... liasiums, or academies of reputation, which, having no foreign or adventitious support from the power of operating on the imaginations of the public, and more particularly of the younger portion of it, by the magic of degrees and diplomas, are dependent for patronage on merit alone. So, no doubt, would this continue to be the case under the system of which I am an advocate. Some institutions would still think it for their interest to teach more superficially than others, or would not have it in their power to furnish as extensive and thorough an education as others; but I do not hesitate to assert, for reasons to be presently stated, that the fact would be found to be, that the changes proposed would have a tendency to elevate rather than to lower the scale of education. This is, indeed, implied in the next objection to be considered, and which is in direct contradiction with the one of which we have been speaking. 3. The remark, so often made, that the object of that education which is communicated by one mind to another, is not intended to make men masters of any one science, but rather, in addition to the expanding and invigorating of their faculties, to give them an encyclopedic outline of human knowledge, to be afterwards filled up, by their own unassisted efforts, in such parts as they may then select for their particular provinces of intellectual labor, is one which I am not disposed to controvert; but I cannot but think its application to the case under consideration to be somewhat strained, and out of place. I presume it can hardly be intended by the friends of the new University scheme, to undertake to produce annually a number of finished scholars, and accomplished men of science. They will still leave the eminences of knowledge to be slowly a...